TALE OF TWO VERY MODERN DADS BOTH claiming to be first man in UK to give birth
Scott, 23, lived as a girl until 2015. He got pregnant after a drunken one night stand with a friend
THE first British man to give birth became pregnant after a onenight stand.
Scott Parker was already living as a man when he conceived daughter Sara last August. He was on a gender transition programme but had not started hormone treatment.
He gave birth on April 29, seven weeks before Hayden Cross who had been thought to be the first British man to do so.
The 23-year- old graphic designer said the unplanned pregnancy following a drunken fling with a male friend was his lucky, last chance to have a child normally.
He said: ‘I did want to have my own children, and I had thought about how it might be possible with fertility treatment, but in the end I just wrote it off as something that is not going to happen. I thought I’m a man now – I can’t have children. Now I have everything. I am the man I am meant to be and a parent. I want others to know they can do it too. It is wonderful that attitudes are changing and people like me can celebrate being a parent.’
Mr Parker, whose maternity card used the gender-neutral title ‘Mx’ rather than ‘Mr’, said he had spent five weeks ‘ chest-feeding’ his beloved daughter.
He added: ‘She is beautiful and I feel so fortunate, and I think I am doing pretty well as a parent.’
He hopes that when Sara and Mr Cross’s daughter grow up it will be more normal for children to have been born to men.
Mr Parker, who asked to have his surname changed for media reports, said he knew as a child he was born the wrong sex.
He began living full time as a man in May 2015, switching his first name by deed poll to Scott.
His partner, who asked not to be named, intends to adopt Sara and become her legal parent. He also was born female and is transitioning to become a man.
Sara’s biological father does not want to be involved in the baby’s life.
Mr Parker was placed on the NHS transition programme in June 2016, two months before he became pregnant, and is a patient at the gender identity clinic at Charing Cross Hospital in West London.
He is due to be given a testosterone injection this October which will set in motion irreversible physical changes. He is also planning
‘It was the perfect chance’
to have an operation to remove his breasts next year and surgery to transform other organs.
‘I knew that my chest would get bigger [in pregnancy], but that I was going to have surgery one day and they’ll be gone,’ he said.
‘And I might be having a lot of oestrogen now, but I’m going to have testosterone eventually and that will be fine. There were days when I felt uncomfortable with my body. I tried to cover my chest as much as possible and wear baggier clothes.’
He added: ‘This was pretty much the only opportunity I’ll have to have a child free of medical intervention. It was the perfect chance.’
He said being a pregnant man caused some confusion and a hospital clerk at his 12-week scan assumed he was in the wrong place.
But he added: ‘everyone in the medical field has referred to me as dad since we moved to Brighton.
‘ They were wonderful about me being a pregnant man and giving birth. I was the first they had come across so they were keen to learn and accommodate me. When I didn’t want to go to the antenatal classes with women, my midwife discussed everything that I needed to know on a one- on- one basis. She was amazing.’ Mr Parker was induced on April 28 – ten days overdue. Sara was delivered the following morning in a birthing pool after a six-hour overnight labour.
Mr Parker said his mental health nurse mother, bricklayer father and three sisters all supported his transition and his pregnancy.
Older relatives were also supportive, but would accidentally use his birth name or say things like ‘ Go back to mummy’ to his daughter.
Mr Parker said he would tell Sara the story of her conception when she was older, explaining that he gave birth to her.
He said: ‘I’ll tell her that I was born exactly the same way you are now but I’m a boy. I’m a girl who grew up to be a big boy.’