So, who is left holding the baby – and why? In this chapter the themes which have arisen across the earlier empirical chapters will be explored further through a juxtaposition of data from the two companion studies on transition to fatherhood and motherhood. Conceptual and theoretical considerations specifically in relation to practices of gender are revisited and reflected upon as the chronological unfolding of transition to fatherhood and motherhood is compared. The data from the two studies will show how men and women make sense of their transitions in different, similar and complex ways which simplistic, categorical explanations, traditional discourses and dualist language does not, and cannot, sufficiently capture. The longitudinal approach taken in both studies has enabled the capturing of shifting experiences and their framing within and between an array of discourses in which temporal, intricate shifts in selfhood and agency are revealed. Threads of discourses which are premised on assumptions around biology and nature, preferences and choice, and social contexts and obligations (Dermott, 2008) feature in the narratives produced as participants make visible their engagement in, and between, care and paid work. Practices of agency, self-surveillance, re-editing of individual narratives and what can be risked voicing – and when – all illuminate the differently configured, gendered and morally underpinned contexts in which fathering and mothering experiences are framed and unfold.