Open or stealth with kids?

[kaidenhendricks89]

Ok so I'm just in the beginning of my transition (two months post top surgery and two weeks on T) and in the next few months my wife and I are wanting to start trying for our first baby ... we will be using a sperm donor and only my wife will carry,  I have no desire to carry a child and we cannot afford to freeze my eggs and implant them in my wife later. So my wife has made it very clear that she wants our kids to know that I am trans and I know they will probably find out eventually anyway (ie other family members slipping up or coming across old pictures of me) however I'm struggling with this. I have this huge part of me that is really struggling with the fact that I will never have biological children (and I'm coming to terms with that) but I have this thought that if I remain stealth to my kids it will make it easier to "believe in my head" (if that makes sense) that they are my kids through and through ... now I know regardless that they will be MY kids and I will be their dad but I fear that if I do let them know (at an appropriate age) that I'm trans and that they are not biologically mine it will do two things potentiality... 1. it might have them view me differently and possibly no longer truly see me as their dad and 2.  It might shatter my "fantasy", for lack of a better word,  that they are truly my kids and make feel like only like a "father figure" ... sorry I hope that all made sense ... can anyone speak to this or relate at all? 

[Alexthecat]

I imagine they would feel the same that a kid does when it is adopted as a baby. I don't know how that feels though.

[FTMax]

I followed Ethan's blog for years before I was ready to transition, and he has a trans parenting blog that was active up until a few years ago. I haven't read through it, as it isn't something I'm considering yet, but there may be something there that resonates with you:

https://daddyhoodtranscribed.wordpress.com/

My partner really wants kids in the future and has been giving it some thought. She figures as soon as they have a rough idea of where babies come from, we can drop the "Max is your dad but not your father" bomb. I view being trans as having a birth defect that I'm correcting with hormones and surgery. That is how I would explain it to my kids when I felt they could understand it. I honestly don't think there will be any issues with it.

The only struggle I have with it isn't knowing that the kids won't biologically be mine, it's that they can't biologically be mine in the way I would like. And unfortunately, I doubt the medical technology will get there in my lifetime.