The Natural Mother of the Child: A Memoir of Nonbinary Parenthood explores topics of gender identity and parenthood in a poetic and moving memoir-in-essays. As Krys Malcolm Belc explores the intimate and mundane details of pregnancy and parenthood, he reflects on his role as a transmasculine gestational parent who carried, birthed and breastfed one of his three children. In so doing, he moves from the universal to the unique and back again: what it is to be sleep-deprived and exhausted with two very young children at home; the experience of a neighbor whispering, "I think the man is pregnant"; how it feels to grow increasingly large with the weight of a child--"becoming more woman where a woman was never supposed to be."
The Natural Mother of the Child takes its name from a line on one of the many legal forms that Belc and his partner, Anna, have had to complete over the course of creating their family, which are peppered throughout the text of Belc's memoir, along with family photographs. Every aspect of The Natural Mother of the Child, including this documentation, is heavy with emotion on its own. Combined, they result in a powerful and heartfelt reflection on the birth of a child and the birth of a parent; the way Belc's experience of a "masculine pregnancy" ultimately clarified his own understanding of his gender identity and an examination of family, both inside and outside the confines of a family home. The Natural Mother of the Child is a gift to readers interested in concepts of family, gender and identity--and how the three are inextricably linked. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm