Everything to be (oneself) | Cuyo’s diary

Sometimes starting a journey with another person can be a real battle against the traditional and conventional system. Those who go through it are those who, despite everything, make decisions and don’t stop until they reach their life goals. So (and much more) is the story starring Romina Castro and Emmanuel Bamba, who met about 8 years ago on Facebook, fell in love, got married 5 years ago and are now Benicio’s parents. Both were clear that they wanted to start a family, and they did. Beni (6 months), came after a fertilization treatment that was neither easy nor cheap, much less for two Argentine workers these days. The next step will be adoption.

When they met Emma it was Cintia, only that over the years she decided to change, always accompanied by her partner who at first did not know what could have happened to the relationship since she had fallen in love with a girl. This is not counting the ups and downs of dealing with her family and society as she confesses that she is homosexual with her. They handled all of this and more.

“From the beginning we had to live in difficult situations. In my case I decided to leave the house due to some problems that arose. I had to sleep three weeks in the car because I didn’t have to rent. Romina at that moment told her family that he was homosexual and the they kicked out of the house. That’s why we decided to look for something very small to rent even though we had only known each other for six months. In the middle, on February 14, I promised her that if everything went well, after three years I would ask her to marry me., and so it was. We got married in 2017, we had already thought about having a child, as long as we had a home and what was needed to be well, because up until then we switched from one rental to another. At that point I had already told him that I had declared that I wanted to change sex and she reconsidered the situation because she thought it would not work. I did not expect that reaction. I explained to her that they would not change my genitals because not They neither bothered me nor bothered me, what I wanted was my identity “, says Emmanuel, an employee of the Ministry of Human Development, who managed to insert the first agreed trans quota.

For his then fiancée, it was not easy to think about that transformation. Romi thought “why bother if I’m with a man now?

In the meantime, they had sold a motorcycle and other valuables to purchase a lot in the David Chávez settlement located at Calle 9-13 in Pocito. When everything seemed to be in place, the eviction came to relocate these people to a neighborhood in the area, except them. Not only had they been deceived in their goodwill, but they hadn’t even appeared in the census carried out to receive a house from the IPV.

Those were days in which to wander around the public offices trying not to lose what little they had. “It was so much suffering, hours of crying, so much fear for the violence of the eviction. In the end we had to go and live with a friend who made room for us at her house, and after a while we had to leave” In the meantime we kept knocking on doors for someone to understand that we lived there. After a year we did it and the house arrived in the Cruce de los Andes neighborhood on Calle Mendoza between 1pm and 2pm “, says Romina, a municipal worker from Rawson.

The process

Actually, we have to talk about processes because they both had to go through complex situations to make their dreams come true. In Emma’s case, when she decided to change her identity, she received psychological and medical treatment because she also underwent a bilateral vasectomy. “Taking off my breasts and changing my identity was all I wanted. Nothing else bothered me. I got help at the Diversity Clinic that worked at Rawson Hospital,” she recalls.

The truth is that love was stronger, the change did not cost Romina, or even their families, who by now had already found their bond.

“With the boys it was the simplest thing. Emmanuel sat everyone down and told them that from that moment on he would be called that and gave his reasons. The children understood it immediately, so much so that when someone called him fat or because of him a woman’s name, they said: he is Emma “, says Romina.

There were long talks with her parents and explanations on why she did not accept her identity as a woman. “I have never been selfish and put myself in their shoes, it was logical that it would be difficult for them to understand. I never thought it was my decision and whether they wanted to accept it or not, I always wanted things to go well. good for both sides because I feel that arguing with the mother is more harmful than anything else. I needed her support, her understanding and I finally got it, thank God. So we put aside the bad things that we went through and rebuilt our bond. That was the difficult thing because the change itself cost me nothing. It was what I wanted, “he says.

road to motherhood

Romi also had to go through hers. She had started fertility treatment, but so many problems with eviction and survival put her to the test and she decided to stop it. Let’s not forget that this requires, in addition to money, to be very well prepared since to become a mother with artificial insemination the percentages of chances of getting pregnant in the first place are not very high, and repeating the treatment is very expensive, even if they recognize and they appreciate the unconditional help of doctors and professionals who have paved the way for them.

With her home, work, family reconciliation, she decided to resume the dream of being a mother.

“I always wanted to be a mother, but I admit that at the beginning I had a lot of fears. We talked about the options to get pregnant, one was to do the treatment with a sperm donor, that is, artificial insemination, and another to do it. in vitro, but we preferred the simpler one even if the pregnancy percentage was lower.When we decided to do the insemination we started with the treatment at the Argentine Sanatorium where they asked us for all the physical data to choose a donor with characteristics similar to those of Emmanuel, because my egg would be the fertilized one “, says Romano.

Logically, this required a lot of money that they had put together for that purpose. Any weight gained was saved to make his dream come true.

Emmanuel never questioned which egg to fertilize because it could have been his, but it was clear that this was not an obstacle. “I didn’t care because one is a father when he gives love and raises someone,” he adds.

Both confess themselves Christians and as such they thank God that everything went well in the beginning, and their doctor, Victoria Carcelero, who helped them a lot so that Romina could be a mother. “The resistance made us a lot because it was all very expensive, from the vials I had to put to stimulate my ovulation to the studies I had to do. He advised me if that month was the right one to do it or not, depending on the results of the studies, to don’t waste the sample we bought, “he says.

The treatment was so good that Romina became pregnant at first, and not with a child but with two, even though only Benicio was able to be born alive.

“The other baby died in my belly at 28 weeks and I spent two months with one alive and the other not. It was very difficult. It happened that he was conceived a week later and we found out when I started with the loss. . Here it was seen on the ultrasound that there was another baby. At that moment the doctor told us not to have our hopes because it was likely that it would not come to term. We still believed in a miracle and we prayed because everything went on. We did the checks every week until León – that was the name we had chosen -, he could no longer live. Everyone was surprised how long it lasted since from the first moment they told us that he would not live long “, He adds.

Benicio was born with a weight of almost 3 kilos (2,675), which against all odds, and despite being born at week 36, did not need to stay in Neonatology. He had an ideal weight and was in perfect condition.

“Now we are very happy, even if there are days when it is difficult for us because at the same time we received a child and we greeted another who had allowed him to live without causing contagion or anything else. On the contrary, in the ultrasound they saw each other with their faces stuck together. It was very hard, and I in particular did not fight the duel, I had to feel good for Beni. “

The desire to be a mother did not end there. Both are willing to expand the family by adopting boys. Without a doubt, they are two beings full of love to give.

By Myriam Perez
Photo: Massimiliano Huyema