(No, this is not me or my baby. But what a beautiful shot)

SURPRISE! I'm actually a girl and I gave birth to a baby! 😬😝

Ok I'm being rubbish. No I'm not a woman, but I did have a new addition to the family not too long ago. 

Being parent to a baby is tiring business. Your time is no longer truly yours, you can't remember when you slept 8 hours in a row without waking up between 1 to 3 times, and honestly when there's some free time you're usually so tired you just want to lie down and vegetate to Youtube or take a nap (not epilate hairy legs, shave, apply makeup for 1 hour just to put on a dress to take some photos and revert back to male-self after). The wife and I have had to make adjustments to our lives to make space and time for the baby. That said, it has been a very rewarding journey so far. Who knew a tiny human being could bring so much joy to not only me, but everyone else around.

So how has a new baby changed my ability to dress up as Isabelle? Well prior to delivery, we knew that the confinement nanny would be living in with us for the first month and my MIL would come to help regularly from the second month onwards. Which meant all of my female stuff that I took out and kept in the open after coming out to my wife had to be squirreled away again. I used to have a section of the study room cabinet dedicated for my girl clothes. Even my wigs were placed on stands to reduce tangling. The clothes were cold stored in vacuum bags to save space (yes I do have a ton of female clothes) and the wigs went back into their original packaging.

(Left: My girl clothes hug up. Right: Vacuum packed my clothes)

I also knew that I had to go cold turkey for at least 4 months after the baby was delivered, so I went on a crossdressing binge in the lead up to the estimated delivery date. Outing with other fellow sisters? Check. Bikini by the pool? Check. Photo of Isabelle in front of the waterfall at the newly opened Changi Jewel? Check. My final outing at Jewel sated the woman in me quite a bit, and I hoped that between work, caring for a newborn and new experiences meant that I had no time and energy to think about crossdressing.

Man was I wrong.

During the 4 months after my final outing, I suffered from a severe urge to dress, something that I had never felt so strongly before. It was actually the first time in my life that I was truly unable to create the opportunity to let Isabelle out. In addition, slipping on a dress or feeling soft fabrics no longer did anything for me. It was all the way or no way. Without epilating, proper plucking of facial hair and a full face of makeup, I felt manly and incomplete, so in order to let Isabelle loose, I needed at least to prep 1 day before and 2 hours on the chosen date to doll up and de-drag. Impossible when the confinement nanny or my MIL was in the house. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Isabelle screamed to be let out. Finally, I did get my chance around Christmas, and boy was it liberating 😁

From the fifth month on, my child care plan  change a bit, which allowed me to have my private space at home during weekends. However, dressing on weekends meant that 100% of the baby caring load fell on my wife  As I didn't want to let the wife shoulder baby caring alone while Isabelle went out shopping, it meant that the only real window was to apply for leave on weekdays to allow for sufficiently long guilt free crossdressing time. Which was fine really, since all leave reserved for holidays have been shelved (I can't imagine dragging my kid all around for a week overseas). This was the new normal for catering time for Isabelle to get out.

Some of you may ask if I will ever reveal Isabelle to my kid. I've thought about this question before and the answer is not until she is mature enough to understand the variations in the gender spectrum and what gender dysphoria is all about. It wouldn't make sense to confuse my kid when she is still young and couldn't possibly understand. Also, I really couldn't risk having my kid accidentally outing me to my own parents. Imagine my kid going up to her grandparents and say, "Last weekend Daddy dress like a pretty girl" (oh that would be catastrophic).