platypuss

068 - Eviction Notice

well, today is my due date.  little cricket is not interested in coming any time soon, it seems, but i am more than ready.

this is going to be a placeholder for a while because i anticipate my life is about to become very, very busy.  your support has been an incredible force throughout this experience so far and i am excited to be taking the next step from genderqueer pregnancy to genderqueer parenting.  i will keep you updated when i am able but it’ll be a bit before i make a new comic.

-jaybird

ps - that paint is actually paint from what we’re doing our living room in.  we just bought our first house and it’s going to be amazing. <3

065 - Spider

i have wanted to introduce spider for a while now but had to figure out a way to have him come crashing into this comic slightly more gracefully than the way he entered our lives some months ago.

i mentioned a long time ago that this might happen, even though we don’t really devote any time or energy into looking for it.  and, although he came along at one of the busiest and stressful periods of my life, his timing could not be better.  at a point where i was spending most of my time trying to rationalize with my panic disorder [in a rather furtive attempt to shield our baby from my anxiety], he patiently waited for me to realize that the curious excitement of NRE and the comfort of being loved is a far better alternative than stress to show our child the marvelous potential that limitless love can bring.

spider is a fantastic person and we have plenty of things in common with him, both individually and as a group.  we are all looking forward to whatever adventures come next.

i don’t want or need to explain or defend our dynamic further, really.  it’s okay if it’s a new concept to you and it’s okay if it is a dynamic that wouldn’t work for you personally.  sweet p and i approach all of our relationships ethically and with the highest priority given to each other and our child. we have learned that our commitment to each other and being open to sharing a love that we believe to be limitless are not mutually exclusive.  it makes sense to us, and we feel happy, loved, and safe, and those are the most important things.

-jaybird

062 - Full Plate

i can’t really even think of anything else to say.  i am so burned out, so emotionally drained, and all i want to do is bury myself under blankets with a teddy bear until i go into labor.

although we may have underestimated the stress it would cause, we had planned to be looking for a house at about this time.  there have also been a few energy-draining curveballs in our lives besides that [which haven’t fully played out for me to decide if they’ll even make an appearance in the comic]. 

i might have to take a break for a few weeks to catch my breath.  the baby shower is sunday and there is apparently still a lot to do to prepare for it, so there won’t be anything next week for sure.

-jaybird

061 - Shower Bowl Sunday

shows how much we know about the most-watched event every year.  despite that, and despite getting the majority of RSVPs back before we figured it out, we have a huge estimated turnout!  i am blown away by the support of our family and friends.

and yes, tie-dying onesies is definitely going to be a thing.

-jaybird

060 - Sixth Sense

you know what’s harder to do than teach an old dog new tricks?  teaching an old, spoiled-rotten dog to have manners.

on another note, if you’re ever having a bad day, watch videos of boxers interacting with babies on youtube.

-jaybird

059 - Pre-Natal Classes

this, sadly, is no exaggeration.  with the exception of one strained utterance of “significant other” at the end of the two-hour class, the partner of the pregnant person was referred to as “daddy” the entire evening.  this is despite the fact that we introduced ourselves as a couple, and that you could bring anyone you wanted to the class anyway [the other couples, all opposite-sex except for us, did not… at least for this first session].

at this point, i don’t expect to receive respect regarding my gender.  but we have pre-paid for these classes and i really don’t appreciate having my female partner referred to as “daddy” and only spoken to in needlessly hyper-masculine ways.

the instructor seemed to sort-of get it after we stayed away from the exercise, but we’ll see what happens over the next six weeks.  at the very least, i won’t be able to say i don’t have any material for the comic for a while…

-jaybird

058 - Extended Holiday Hours

today is also the day where my manager lets me know if they went ahead and scheduled me to work on christmas eve, despite telling them that doing so would prevent me from seeing any of my family save one party on sunday and, you know, this is one year that people really want to see us for the holidays.

i know i’m not expected to have a life outside of retail during the holiday season, but it baffles me that the people who have the most sympathy for me and my coworkers are the ones that are enabling this behavior by shopping at such extreme hours.  this is a busy/stressful time, and if you can only shop three hours past my bedtime, that’s your prerogative.  just stop patronizing me by pretending you feel bad for me.

-jaybird

057 - Grocery Shopping

totally not inspired by our last trip to meijer.

-jaybird

056 - Holiday Shopping

names not changed because seriously, their website is the worst.  

i sent a couple of emails about how their online shopping experience had seriously turned me off to their company, and the only response denied that their website worked that way, and the gender requirement at the front of the page was only a “filter” to help my search.

filters can definitely help a search, and i can see how it would be popular to search for “boy” and “girl” stuff for some people. it isn’t a filter if you’re forced to do it to enter their site, and i am not comfortable giving them my money now.  this sucks, because this particular company is pretty much everywhere in the baby shopping circuit.

pro-tip:  if you’re holiday shopping at major corporations this year, i highly recommend the HRC buyer’s guide as a resource for how lgbt-friendly a company is.  you can search at the site, or text “shop -business or product name” to 30644.  unfortunately, they did not have a score for either carter’s or their sister company, oshkosh b’gosh, but i’ve been pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised at how some of my regular shopping locations have scored in how they treat their lgbt employees and the community at large and it’s an easy thing to look up if you’re concerned about where your money goes.

-jaybird

055 - Black Friday

i also slept for fifteen hours that night.  also, my pregnancy pillow is the shit, even though it takes up most of our king-sized bed and sweet p no longer has any room.

as a side note, i’m going to be posting comics on mondays for now.  if you’ve ever worked retail during the holiday season, you have an idea of how stressful things are for me right now.  my current circumstances do not help that, but i need the outlet that making this comic brings and i want to be able to continue to provide for the people that follow it [thank you!].

i hope you ‘murricans had a happy thanksgiving and if you went shopping the weekend after, i hope you were nice to the people that were working.  i’m certain you didn’t start a screaming match with a little old lady over a non-existent cashier line, which was just a taste of the sights i’ve seen the past few days.

-jaybird

054 - Thanksgiving

some people have been sharing the things they are thankful for every day this month.  there are a lot of things i am glad to have and a lot of my life is truly awesome… but when it comes down to it, all of those things are possible because i have such a supportive partner.  she is the first person to really show me what it means to love someone without any conditions or strings, and she works harder than anyone should ever have to so that our family can have everything we could need or want.  she is incredible and our child is going to be so lucky to have her as a mother.

i love you, sweet p!

-jaybird

053 - Ultrasound

it actually seems like it’s the medical community that has the hardest time reliably discerning between the terms “sex” and gender”.  

the people that write parenting magazines make a close second, however.

-jaybird

052 - Catch-22

if you are more fashion-minded than i am, it might be worth looking into creating a line of pregnancy clothing for people who may be a little more fluid in their gender beyond “woman”.  it wouldn’t be the biggest market but trust me, it’s needed.

-jaybird

ps - glad to know it took me this long to realize i meant to say “dysphoria” instead of “dysmorphia”.  while the latter still kind of applies, i’m really not sure how it ended up there instead.  oh, well.

051 - WON’T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE SOCIAL NEEDS OF OUTDATED CABLES?!

my compassion for inanimate objects has increased tenfold, thanks to all the hormones in my body at the moment.

-jaybird

ps - Pregnant Ron Swanson won the costume contest at work.  i celebrated with a BLT made out of a pound of bacon. 

050 - All of the Bacon and Eggs You Have

the good news is that i learned that i am able to comfortably wear my binder at this time if i fold it over so that it only covers my chest.

the unfortunate news is that my flattened chest only serves to accentuate the belly i had before a baby started growing in it.

the best-and-slightly-scary news is how effortless it was for me to pull off this costume.

as for sweet p’s costume…

-jaybird

ps- i am not a medical professional and do not know if it is safe to bind your chest if you are pregnant or lactating.  my body is not capable of producing milk any longer so i don’t have that to worry about, and my comfort and ability to breathe was a top concern the whole time i was wearing it.