Is This A "Dad" Thing?

I breastfed my child.

I induced lactation, produced milk and nursed my newborn. I'm male, or at least AMAB. It was one of the most beautiful and profound experiences of my life. And, I pointed a camera at myself and filmed it. Later, with a great team, we've edited it into a beautiful short documentary.

I really like to start off this story just saying that. I could bury the lead in a longer essay, a writeup of how I came to it - but this core piece is the whole point, so you need to know up front what this is about. Men can breastfeed — I've done it and it was great.

Here's a teaser for the documentary.

Care Work

I became a parent a few years ago, and during my partner's pregnancy, we were discussing the questions of physical labor and care work in parenting. As the gestational parent, the birthing mother, she was signing up to do everything in the early days — carrying to term, the labor and the care after that, while her body recovered and she tried to get back to life.

She asked me almost as a joke if I could breastfeed too, and I kind of took it to heart as a challenge, because as I started researching it the answers were teasingly inconclusive. Yes, there were medical instances of men lactating under certain conditions or mal-nourished prisoners of war producing milk, or certain indigenous tribes where the men contributed by letting babies suckle and perhaps also breastfeeding. But there was no statement that this was actually possible.

And then I looked into whether or not trans women could breastfeed, and the answer is a resounding and powerful "YES."

They use a modification of what's known as the Newman-Goldfarb protocol, which was developed for adoptive mothers of newborns, and then taken up by the lesbian community and eventually by trans women. Most of the examples I'd seen were women who had years of hormones to reshape their bodies and I was starting from nothing, and wondered, could it even work?

Male Breastfeeding

The subject of care work is really important and political. It's pretty clear that women sacrifice a lot of personal self determination in the early years of a child's life, and this is in large part stemming from cultural expectations and practices of care work. Friends of mine told me that they almost lost their own identities during the early years of raising their children. I simply didn't want that for my partner.

There's a lot of different ways to care for an infant that are all legitimate. Some people breastfeed, some use formula. Some mothers pump and the father uses the bottle, and they do this with one or another schedule. There are even appliances that allow you to tape a straw to your nipple that's connected to a reservoir of milk, or formula. All of these approaches are legitimate and the child will grow up most likely fine and healthy.

Breastfeeding, the way I did it, is messing around with hormones at a delicate time in the family life. I did several months of HRT, taking testosterone blocker and estrogen to grow some breast tissue, and then I pumped a lot and took a medication, the side effect of which is heightened prolactin, and milk came. I had a lot of support from midwives, a trans-medicine doctor and a very knowledgeable lactation consultant. When the baby was born at the birth house, they latched to my partner first – because she was going to be the main source – and then they latched to me righter after.

I breastfed for fifteen months. I didn't have a whole meal for our child, but I could provide a snack, and I brought them to naps and to bed very often. My partner was able to, for example, take a shower. Sleep. Read a book. Work. It was liberating. It was a lot of work and coordination as well – we were co-nursing and our respective milk supplies depended on each other, so we had to show up day in and day out.

It's obviously not for everyone! There's hormones, struggle, physical discomfort and emotional and mental discomfort. But, so few people know they can even ask the question – that's what this is about. I want to increase the possibility in the world. If you're male and you want to ask the question about breastfeeding, you can! It's possible! Even if you come up with a 'no' for yourself, you're beginning to ask important questions about division of care work in parenting. I think that's also important.

Questions of Gender

Throughout this process, I frame this as male breastfeeding. In truth, this process touched on some gender questions I have for myself that are still ambiguous. That process of self-discovery is long and involved, and personal. What is a man? What is a father as opposed to a parent, do I hold different social expectations in the space between those concepts? This is a different study. To know me personally means to know that I'm not only or not just or even not necessarily any bit a 'man', but my experience coming into this process is from a masculine reference. For any purpose of talking about it, I'm speaking to a male experience, because that's closer to my own.

Questions of Art

When I started this project there was very little prior art to look at. I found a few images that kind of stuck with me. This very first one was posted on the Facebook page of a queer midwife from the UK, just around the time I was starting to think of it. I see a very masculine person with breasts holding a baby, staring out at the camera. Their eyes caught mine and I wanted that. Unfortunately this photo seems to be anonymous and I have no way to know where and when it was taken.

The second is Adam Rzepecki, a Polish artist, who did a photo series on the concept of a man breastfeeding a baby. It was to counter some sort of Motherhood propaganda spread by the late communist regime.

These are very striking images! I'm happy to add my own to the world as well.

The documentary needs you!

I need your help! This documentary is a lot of work from many hands. We're in the last steps of this process – we have what we call "picture lock," which means we're happy with the edit. We're working with the fantastic sound designer, Gabriel Reyna, who is helping make it sound right, the composer Lucie Wilke who is adding subtle and gentle music to carry the narrative. We have a brilliant colorist, Stephen Derluguian, who's worked on Oscar-winning short films, and a graphic designer for the poster. We're looking for the right film festival to premiere at, and festival submissions add up quickly. And ultimately, I hope to finish paying the tiny crew, my co-director Dasha Altukhova and our producer Selena Leoni. If I can cover some of my costs as well, that would be amazing.

All of these costs are coming out of my pocket right now. It's actually a real burden! I simply don't have that kind of money. If this story sounds like something you want to see out in the world, please consider helping us out with a donation.

Subscribe if you're not already on board and you'll get updates about the progress of the film and when and where you can eventually see it. I'm happy to try to answer any questions you have about this process.

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The other monthly newsletter stuff

This is technically the monthly newsletter! I'm sorry I haven't written much this month. I had big plans and then got very busy with the Berlinale film festival and have been knocked out by the flu for about a week now.

I have so many things going on - please consider checking out Games for an Ordinary Life, my poetic art zine of tiny tabletop roleplaying games, ending in one week on March 8! It's just over 50% funded! I would love love love to do this project, and you could help make it happen!

If you're not following it already, check out The Witches of Wederra Keep, an actual play and improvised audio novel about witches trying to balance the mortal kingdom and the underworld and not lose their coven in the process.

If you like silly sketch comedy, check out the newest shorts from Tales Held Dear (also on Instagram), my fantasy roleplaying comedy improv and sketch team. Tales Held Dear also has a live performance at the Comedy Cafe Berlin on March 21!

On March 17, I'll perform in Love's Labor's Lost as part of the Shakespeariment. We learn the lines, rehearse once and go! Thrilling :) If you're in Berlin, get tickets now, they're going fast!

On March 28, I'm performing two-prov with Kevin Napier in The Hedge, which is a free show but I still recommend booking tickets!

That's a lot, huh? Thanks so much for reading this far. I deeply appreciate your time and attention.

— Jacob