Our Baby: A Modern Miracle, review: a tender portrait of the UK's first transgender parents
Like the crackling sound of an ultrasound scan or the smell of stretch mark oil, Our Baby: A Modern Miracle (Channel 4) propelled me right back to expectant parenthood. The Swiss balls and U-shaped pillows. The heady mix of excitement and terror. The feeling of being meticulously prepared (bag packed, nappies bought, muslin squares neatly folded) and yet not prepared at all.
The protagonists of this documentary were just like any other parents-to-be. Well, except that the baby’s mother used to be male, its father used to be female and they were using a surrogate in a different country during a global pandemic. Nobody ever said parenthood was easy but this was like an SAS obstacle course.
This intimate and illuminating one-off film, sensitively shot over the course of a year by producer/director Gussy Sakula-Barry, followed Britain's most prominent transgender couple – the happily married Hannah and Jake Graf – as they sought to start a family. It followed their story from the first meeting with surrogate Laura, an endearingly no-nonsense mother-of-two from Belfast, through to their race to attend their baby’s birth as Britain went into lockdown.
Hannah, a former captain in the Royal Engineers, transitioned during her 20s with the support of her parents and a surprisingly enlightened commanding officer. She became the highest-ranking transgender officer in the British Army and was awarded an MBE for her work with LGBT military personnel.
Actor Jake’s transition was more of a struggle. He began gender reassignment in his late 20s, having known with absolute certainty that he was “a boy inside” by age three. His family relationships broke down, he turned to alcohol and nearly drank himself to death. “I became a little ball of rage,” he admitted. “I knew I was a boy even when everyone else was saying ‘you’re a girl’.”
He temporarily stopped taking testosterone for six months, so he could have eggs harvested in case one day he wanted children. When Laura, 32, agreed to carry their baby, she had Jake’s fertilised embryo implanted. Isn’t love strange? Isn’t 21st century science extraordinary? Even Jake didn’t believe it and had to be shown the positive pregnancy test twice over Skype.
The film didn’t flinch from probing the pair’s often painful experiences of transitioning, their attitude towards gender stereotypes and the prejudice they've faced as they strove to realise their dream of becoming parents. “Everything in society, from the mainstream media to films, tells you that as a young trans person, you’re ugly and unworthy of love,” explained Hannah. “From a very young age, I resigned myself to being single for the rest of my life.”
Her father Brian, 64, tearfully admitted that when she first came out as trans, he initially felt “a little bit ashamed but my sense of shame has now been replaced by absolute pride”. Hannah was highly articulate and truly inspiring. However, having no biological link to the baby, she often felt left out. It comforted her that Jake had unwittingly chosen a sperm donor who shared many of her qualities.
The couple became regulars on Lorraine Kelly’s daytime show and she came across like a wise auntie. “It’s about showing that families are all totally different,” Kelly said sagely. “It doesn’t matter as long as you love each other and have love to give a child.”
The entire process, including surrogate expenses and private fertility treatment, was costing them £45,000. Their tangled tale took various twists – the biggest of which turned out to be the arrival of Covid-19. Jeopardy was cranked up as the couple raced to Northern Ireland so they could self-isolate there and be on hand for the birth.
With birth partners not permitted in the maternity unit, they faced an agonising wait in the hospital car park. At 5.30am on 14 April, baby Milly was born. At 9am, her new parents were allowed in to see her. As they held her for the first time and Laura looked on proudly, even the most sceptical viewer surely found something in their eye.
You couldn’t help warming to this courageous couple. I found Jake a little irritating – prone to verbal diarrhoea, jibbering away about all the things that could go wrong and talking over Hannah. But when I found myself shouting aloud at him to let her hold the baby, I realised how emotionally invested I’d become.
Transgender issues are plagued by ignorance and fear. As Jake said: “There’s a massive lack of understanding around trans people. We’re painted as predatory, deviant and mentally ill.” A remarkably raw scene where Hannah read the hate-filled comments beneath a newspaper article demonstrated how much they’re judged and vilified.
Both sides could have done a lot worse than watch this film, which humanised the issue with real heart. It was just two people, trying to build a family together. A reminder that behind the lurid headlines and Twitter storms are real lives. Made even more timely and urgent by the pandemic, this documentary was involving and important viewing.
