Meet the First Person in the World to Give Birth as Both a Man and a Woman

They say no two pregnancies are the same and that’s certainly true for Kaci Sullivan.

Kaci, 30, is the first person in the world to give birth as both a man and a woman. He just had a baby as a transgender man, five years after experiencing labour as a woman.

Kaci’s second child, baby Phoenix, arrived via c-section in November 2017 after he spent seven long days in labour. But the transgender parent from Wisconsin in the US is keeping mum on whether the new bub is a boy or girl, choosing instead to raise his second child free of gender until they are old enough to decide for themselves.

New Arrival

Kaci is believed to have sold the photos of Phoenix’s unusual birth to international media organisations.

“After 26 weeks of morning sickness and seven days in labor it was such a beautiful moment,” Kaci tells The Daily Mail.

“We are just so happy and grateful and enjoying spending time together as a family. The baby is delightful, loving and sweet.”

Phoenix is Kaci’s first child with partner, Steven. The pair met online one year after Kaci began transitioning from female to male. They decided to try for a baby in 2016 when Kaci stopped taking testosterone for health reasons. He documented his pregnancy on his YouTube channel, My Trans Pregnancy.

First time around

Kaci already has one child, five-year-old Grayson, who he conceived with his then-husband while still living as a woman. He told The Daily Mail that he had hoped the pregnancy would make him feel more feminine, but instead he grew depressed. Three months after the birth, Kaci told his now ex-husband he was transgender.

“Throughout the experience, I prayed to connect with womanhood, to identify with what was happening to my body, but I couldn’t,” Kaci says.

“I felt so hopeless and lost. I wanted to die. I fell into such a dark place and I was terrified to bring a baby into that darkness with me. But the moment they put him in my arms it was bliss. Immediately I loved him like I had never loved anything or anyone and I felt such a surge of duty to him.”

A Different Experience

Kaci says his last pregnancy felt completely different. Baby Phoenix is being fed with donated breast milk because Kaci had a double masectomy as part of his transition to being a man.

“Because I don’t see pregnancy as inherently feminine, and because I don’t subscribe to make-believe gender roles, I wasn’t threatened by the idea of pregnancy. It didn’t make me feel any less masculine,” he says.

“The moment the baby came out and I got to hear them cry was indescribable. It’s incredible to think that I had made this little human. After 26 weeks of morning sickness and seven days in labor it was such a beautiful moment.”

Kaci and his partner will raise their baby as gender neutral until the child is old enough to decide whether they prefer to be a girl or a boy.

For more amazing birth stories, check out this mum who unexpectedly gave birth in the shower – while Dad slept through and our previous article about another transgender family breaking pregnancy barriers.