Wednesday afternoon; Golding Memorial Trust Hospital, Sasha, Manny, and Morgan Temminck
The next afternoon, Sasha and Manny anxiously awaited the results of the tests. Manny, of course, was convinced that nothing was wrong. Sasha was not so sure - she wanted their baby to be perfectly fine - but something (she knew all too well what) told her that was not to be.
Manny was chatting, talking about people, and how happy his mother was, utterly denying the possibility that anything could be wrong, when the door opened, and a nurse pushed in the baby. Dr. Sandberg followed, with a clipboard, and the nurse left.
"Good afternoon," the doctor said, apprehension in her voice.
Sasha's face fell, and she cradled the baby close to her chest. She hadn't been able to let go since they'd finished the tests - because she just knew that after today, everything was going to be different.
"It's not good news, is it?" She asked - or rather, stated - quietly.
"It depends," Dr. Sandberg said. "It's not a crippling illness or anything. Your daughter will grow up fine -- it's just that she'll never have kids of her own. You know how they say that the female is the default, and the male is an addition? That's basically true. Fetuses develop male characteristics if special hormones -- androgens -- are present, and if they're not, they stay female. But sometimes, there is some complete or partial androgen insensitivity -- the fetus is male, but doesn't respond to the androgens, or not enough. So the kid comes out female, even though its genes are male. That's the case with your daughter. Of course, the amniocentesis said it would be a boy -- we looked at the genes, and they were male."
Sasha sighed, and clutched the baby even closer - the newborn gave a slight squeak, but otherwise seemed resigned.
"I've heard of it," she said. "There've been a few tv programs recently about intersex children. I. . . never thought it would happen to my own baby, though."
"Do we need any operations for her?" Manny said, anxious. "That's got to happen immediately, right?"
"That depends," the doctor said. "People used to do gender reassignment surgery early. But she doesn't need much of that; she has gonads in her abdomen which can be taken out. Her genitals look normal, within the range that's female. You could decide to have her gonads taken out right away, and might wish to reduce the size of he clitoris so it looks less like a tiny penis, but honestly? I'd advise against it. In the 1950s and 1960s, people did that as a matter of course if the condition was discovered; but many of those children felt crippled when they grew up. Especially with partial androgen insensitivity, rather than complete, your daughter might want to take her own decisions when she grows up, or might decide she's male rather than female, in puberty."
Manny gave a strange little noise of protest.
Sasha simply nodded - that was what she had expected. And she was grateful to the doctor for presenting it as she had - even with so little time to think about it, she had no intention of forcing any decisions on the baby. Those were her (or his, of course) own choices to make - even if it might make their life as parents easier, it was just. . . wrong. She put her free hand in Manny's, and squeezed it.
"I think we need to have some time to come to terms with this," she said, looking at her husband rather than the doctor, pleading with her eyes for him to be open to alternative ways of doing things - not to simply jump for what might seem the simplest option.
"Yes -- no reason to hurry a decision!" Dr. Sandberg said, gratefully, and left.
"Sasha," Manny said, when they had gone. "We can't put that burden on her! She needs to know who she is when she grows up -- our daughter! Not a kid that can be whatever it wants when it grows up. That's just disorienting. She's our Nastasia -- I want to give her stability in life!"
Sasha shook her head decidedly.
"No. Of course she's not an it - but she needs to know, right from the beginning, that she's different. Because she'll have to know one day - and think about how hard it would be, if we'd been lying to her for years."
There weren't quite tears in her eyes, but it was important - they couldn't let her think she was something she wasn't.
"But remember -- kindergarten, school! Everywhere it's boys and girls. Wouldn't it be horrible if she felt she doesn't belong, because she's not really either?" Manny argued. "We can solve the problem once and for all, and then forget all about it, until puberty, when we have to tell her she won't get menses, and can't have children when she's older."
"When we have to tell her that she has testicles, that her body produces male hormones, not female hormones - that she might get testicular cancer if she doesn't have her balls cut out!" Sasha burst out, startling the baby into a yell that subsided as soon as it started. She took a deep breath.
"Sorry, Manny. I don't. . . not that we should make it a big thing. But I think she should know. Have the choice."
"We could have them cut out now, when she's too young to remember," Manny said. "So she'll never have to worry about who or what she is. She is Nastasia Temminck and will grow up to be a woman that we can be proud of!"
"Her genes will still be the same," Sasha told him, sighing. "And she'll have to take HRT for the rest of her life. And. . . we can't say who she is. Only she can do that."
Manny sighed, deeply. "What shall we tell people? Who should we tell and who not? And we raise her as a daughter anyway -- so why not go the whole way? Even her name is female!"
"Just family, and very close friends?" She asked, hopeful that he was beginning to see what she was trying to say. "I wouldn't have raised her differently if she was a boy, though. And. . . maybe we should think about a different name? One that she could keep even if she does feel more like a boy than a girl?"
"I'm not calling her Robin!" Manny said. "Or Marion! Those names are silly!"
Beat.
"I hope my mother won't be heartbroken -- she was so overjoyed. After the death of poor Marvin, and my dad..."
Those deaths had been unavoidable, but now it was all in the past, Manny certainly could see how painful they had been for his mother.
Sasha smiled sadly. Poor Maude. . . and her own parents, and her grandmother would be devastated!
"There's. . . well, Sasha is for boys as well but that would be cruel. Rowan, maybe?"
"That's a nice name, but so tree-like," Manny said. "A name that my father might have picked when he was getting old and weird. There's more names like that!"
"Something. . . a bit old-fashioned? But most of those are like Marion - or Shirley or Vivian. . ."
"Shirley!" Manny burst out laughing. "Surely not!"
"That was my point," Sasha giggled. "Oh. . . How about Morgan? It's pretty, but it's not all new-age and hippy."
"You know," Manny said, "that might just work. It's a lovely name! And none of the more distant friends or family will suspect anything. Morgan -- hello, little Morgan! Nice to meet you!" he added, softly, to his child.
It had only been another suggestion - but Sasha was taken by it as well - and after hearing Manny addressing their baby so lovingly - well. It was her name, now, wasn't it?
"Thank you, Manny," she said, leaning on him. "I love you."
"I love you too," he said. "We'll deal with this together. All three of us!"