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@gonkey
Hey, nice to meet you! It's.... us!
This is, as I've mentioned, a biographical little diary comic that I (Monkey) am running. If you plan to shoot me an ask, please keep in mind that we're real people, not only cartoon characters.
Hi!! I just wanted to reach out and say thank you for sharing the queertility stuff plus your/gonkey’s experience as a queer parent. It helped me kinda realize some stuff about myself I’ve never had an answer to for the longest time as an asexual who’s still interested in pregnancy and whatnot (also afab). I’m really sex averse, but even though I’m relatively young, I’m surrounded by people who are starting to decide what they’re doing with their futures and I’d enjoy having a family when that time comes.
I’m open to adoption as well, but was always so nervous about the idea of being pregnant myself, and thought I’d just have to… endure having sex at some point. Hearing methods like IVF and whatnot gave me comfort, and I wanted to thank you in advance for when I decide to have a family of my own.
You really gave me inspiration and hope that my future can go a way where I can be happy, and I really thank you for that. I hope you and your family rest well, especially now with the young’n tramping about! <33
This is really great to hear!
While not at all a simple decision to make, I am glad that the infographics and comics could make at least one positive difference, and give you extra resources to make that decision.
Please feel free to ignore if this question is too personal—did you breastfeed? If you did, what was that experience like as an agender person? I know not all people experience gender/body dysphoria in the same way (speaking as an agender person who loves their boobs), but did it affect you at all?
HEy, so, I actually am glad you asked, because I'm glad to know there's interest in this topic!
If I'm being honest, I WANT to do a series of comics about my pregnancy as a nonbinary person. And hopefully, EVENTUALLY I want to cover the postpartum stuff as well. I'm obviously still in the thick of it, so we'll see but--that's the goal!
To answer your question very briefly (and I apologize in advance to not do it justice)
I AM breastfeeding and I do not experience dysphoria from my own body very much at all. I'm overall just a person who is very disconnected from my own body, in a sense. I think I have literally gone a whole week without looking in the mirror once - not because I hate how I look or anything, but because I simply don't think about it.
I don't know if this experience is unique or if it's the reason for my lack of dysphoria, but it seems relevant.
Anyway, for me the decision to breastfeed was entirely utilitarian. It's easier than making bottles, and it's nutritionally complete, so I don't have to worry about anything like choosing the 'right' formula. I was also comfortable with continuing to abstain from alcohol, etc, so I feel like it was just the simplest choice.
That's basically it! But maybe I'll do a more in depth comic about it later.
I just wanted to thank you for such a lovely comic and blog about being a queer couple on a journey to having a family. Being a non-binary bisexual myself with a bigender bisexual partner and having two kids, its nice to see. Also I really appreciated to queer-fertility comic, especially mentioning about fertility rate with age. I thought I was infertile for a long time till a surprise at 31. Then a more planned surprise at 37. I am so thankful for you spreading such helpful information to the community. Keep up the excellent work!
Hey, that's awesome! :D Congrats on your surprises. I'm really glad to hear that other queer families are out here and able to find my work.
thank you for making all this info accessible, and for sharing your experience! hope you and your baby are doing well.
also your designs for animal characters are so cute! i assume dragon is a reference to the expression "seahorse dad", but is there a deeper meaning behind the choice for monkey?
Thanks for your message!
Actually, the seahorse-dad reference is completely incidental.
All the animals, including us, are meant to just be animals from the various styles of the chinese zodiac! I'm year of the monkey, hence the monkey.
My husband is year of the dragon - and when I asked how he wanted to be drawn, he said he wanted to be a seahorse! So that's what we went with. :)
Did you make the snake protesting IVF the colors of the don't tread on me flag on purpose bc if you did it's genius and if not it's a beautiful coincidence
That was 100% on purpose. 👍😎
A year ago, I lived this. Today, I post the comic.
In this case, the ending was happy - but obviously, there was a lot more that happened before we got to that part.
I'm hoping to eventually do more comics regarding my experience with pregnancy (as a nonbinary person, and just in general...)
But for now - thanks for following along!
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IVF is one of those very personal and raw and at the same time very debated things. It makes it Not At All Easy to talk about - but I hope that by opening up and offering a real-life story it makes the process more digestible.
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So, this is the longest comic in the entire series, I believe! It's quite... personal. And yet, there is a lot that I still left out for the sake of making this flow smoothly.
One of those things I'd like to revisit again later - such as the tests I had asked our doctor to do to rule out various issues (blocked fallopian tubes).
Other things - such as the emotional toll that year of trying took on me - will probably never be explored in full depth. I've dedicated a mere page to it here. It was...more complex. But I think there is plenty of other media depictions of infertility that do it more justice.
I still hope this will be of some aid to someone, or that it is at least interesting to learn about.
Next up - IVF!
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This is a bit out of order chronologically - we initially did this stuff before actually choosing a sperm donor. I know in the US it's also typical to do genetic testing as well, but we didn't have much access to that where we live, so we decided to forgo this part of the process.
Sidenote: The doctor is depicted as a Kamoshika - a Japanese serow - which is a local animal that's quite famous where we live! :)
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A lot of details were left out of this comic, because it's already long enough. But I thought it was important to start here, since WE started here.
I elected not to discuss the details of our chosen donor, because ultimately I feel this is a private matter that affects our child. The important thing isn't that - it's the various things we had to consider when choosing them, as well as the complications of getting the actual vials to a different country.......and getting to actually use them.
This will be a series so - we've got more of these types of comics coming!
This comic was made back in 2022. Before we even bought a house, actually!
There's a lot that's happened since then. And I have a chance to do something here, so we're going to break the normal comics format a bit and do something different...something a bit more...info-graphic-y!
I hope you will appreciate it. :)
If society let me go barefoot all the time, I'd probably do it.
In a hilarious twist of fate, my Permanent Residency visa was granted... 3 months ahead of the promised timeline.... but AFTER we had already closed on the loan in Gon's name.
I'm not angry at all, the deal we got was good! But looking back, the timing was hilarious.
Disclaimer to those of you living in the Housing Hellscape That Is The USA: Keep in mind that the numbers above are converted into USD but locally they are... pretty standard. My salary in Japan is not comparable to what it would be in the states.
If you're shocked, then join my ranks. I was picking my jaw up off the floor when I first heard about this.
I don't know exactly how any loan agency would get their hands on someone's medical records - those are still private. But according to Gon, if you decided to lie and it later got out... that's grounds for kicking you off the loan and suing you for breach of contract. He was not about to risk that.
It was his loan process, and his decision in the long run. I still think the system is extremely biased... but this part of the rollercoaster is now behind us, so I'm a bit less angry.
