Solo parenting wasn't for me, so I'm co-parenting with my sister

perspective Why I chose to co-parent with my sister Tue 4 Aug 2026 at 12:05pm As the hospital hummed with antiseptic quiet and Kathy's fingers gripped mine, I thought about how strange it was to be there at the very beginning of someone's life — a baby who was both mine and not mine. But let's start back in 2019, when I was faced with a decision to have a baby of my own with one of my partners, and I decided not to. I've always loved babies and kids — I had lots of younger cousins growing up, and my first job as a teenager was babysitting the kids down the road. Yet having a kid of my own at the time didn't feel right for me. And that realisation sank me to the bottom of the sea. Could I parent alone? Fast forward to 2021, and I was hyper focused on the prospect of solo parenting instead. I spent countless hours researching pregnancy and parenthood, intra-uterine insemination (IUI) and in vitro fertilisation (IVF), hospitals and home births, lactation cookies and swaddling techniques. It was the perfect solution — everything on my own terms and timeline. I spent $15,000 and submitted to a handful of painful tests, got the sperm delivered, and had the procedure. As soon as it went ahead, though, I knew it didn't feel right. I didn't want to have biological children in that way, by myself, at that time. The procedure didn't take. Solo parenting, it turns out, wasn't for me. But the process of discovering that also came with weekly phone calls with my sister, Kathy. "I realised something," she said one day. "It's funny how you're younger than me, but sometimes you lead me to realisations. I want to be a mum. I think I want to do IVF." Do you have a unique co-parenting story to share with us? We'd love to hear from you. Kathy came out as asexual and aromantic a few years ago and had maintained a stance of child-free-by-choice for years before that. Partly because babies meant a partner and sex (nope!) and partly because she's a primary school teacher, and that's enough kids to deal with on the daily. But accompanying me on my reproductive journey flicked a switch for Kathy — what became visible, became possible. So we embarked on our own adventure I'd been thinking about what it might mean to hold a child who isn't mine. As a non-binary person, the label "maternal" fit me like a left shoe on a right foot, while "paternal" made me seasick. Still, the pull was undeniable. Kathy and I spent months planning what it would look like for me to move back to Perth/Boorloo from Melbourne/Naarm for the first six months of my nibling's life (for those who haven't heard of this term, nibling is a non-gendered combination of niece or nephew with sibling, i.e. a child of one's sibling). We also had some gentle (and sometimes less than gentle) conversations with people about our decision. We explained, time and again, that: "No, we're not a lesbian couple, we're siblings." "I won't get paid parental leave, but I'm still taking six months off work to be the secondary co-parent." "They'll have plenty of positive masculine role models, thanks." "All this for a child that's not my own? Yes, I'm sure." Sign up to the ABC Lifestyle newsletter It was sometimes exhausting having to justify why our family looked different to others — a pregnant asexual woman, accompanied through birth and the newborn phase by a non-binary queer sibling. But mostly it was wonderful to have conversations with people about what family means to them, and how that differs (and aligns) with what it means to us. The moment that changed me By August 2022, my sister and I were gowned in matching blue hospital attire, face masks and hairnets. The gurney wheeled Kathy down the fluorescent-lit hallway towards the delivery room, her stomach stretched as far as it would go, holding a tiny human safe inside. And what a privilege it was to be in that delivery room. To be the first person to see, to hold, to kiss my nibling. When she was finally placed on Kathy's chest, I felt something shift inside me. Maybe that feeling is what parentalism means: a continual rebirth of the self, the family, the love we offer and lose. Storm-grey seas revived to deepest blue. In the years since, we've had four Christmases, dozens of trips to the beach, countless bubbles, and a whole lot of Bluey. Add to that the sleepless nights and bottle feeds, trips back and forth between cities, a few more IVF rounds, and now a baby brother heavyweight champion of chubby cheeks. Kathy will always be Mum to these two gorgeous kiddos, and I'll be something flowing in-between. Mostly I'm "Unty" (a gender-neutral mix of uncle and aunty), and sometimes just Eli. But maybe the word isn't what's important. Maybe what's important is just that I'll always be there with them. Eli Sutherland (they/them) is an award-winning poet and writer living on Wurundjeri Country, and is the festival director of Trans Book Festival. Loading...