A Prophecy Fulfilled

Earlier this month I celebrated a milestone birthday: I turned 38. I realize that most of you probably think that I’m two years early in making this proclamation, but let me explain why the age 38 has such significance to me. I mentioned in a post I wrote last March about the 10 year anniversary of my first date with Stewart that ever since I came out as gay at age 22, I envisioned for my future not only a kid in my life, but even the exact age I wanted to be when the kid was born: age 38. Because I felt like a late bloomer at the time, I rationalized that the intervening years would give me enough time to mature and get my shit together, which included plenty of time to experience being a single guy, and then plenty of time after that to find Mr. Right and settle down in a serious relationship. I knew I would need that stability and security before I could ever tackle parenting.

Still, picking age 38 to have a kid instead of, say, age 35 or 40, still sounds pretty arbitrary. But actually -- and perhaps this was purely subconscious -- the age 38 has numerical significance for me. Thirty-eight years old is the mid-point age between when my dad had his first child (at age 30) and when my dad had his fifth and last child, me (at age 46). At age 22, I knew that I would not even be close to being ready to have a child by 30. My goal for 30 was to be in a serious relationship, hopefully, or at least to have had a meaningful relationship by that point. On the other hand, I knew that I didn’t want to wait to start having kids until I was 46. While I am very lucky that my dad always had lot of energy raising me and is still spritely for his age, I can’t count on those wonderful genetic qualities being passed along to me.

Over the years after I came out, my age-specific goals somehow never left my mind. First I met my goal of being in a serious relationship by age 30, having started dating Stewart a few years earlier. By the time I was 35, Stewart and I knew that we wanted to start a family together, and my target age of 38 was looking good. But I decided that it made no sense to wait to try to get the age perfect, for several reasons. First, although I had reached a comfortable place in my life, I realized that even so there was never going to be a day that I would simply wake up and say: “Now I am ready to have a kid!” I don’t think anyone ever feels completely ready for such a major life change. So I thought Stewart and I should just take the bull by the horns and go for it instead of letting my goal of age 38 turn into an excuse to put off such an intimidating undertaking. Second, as I have discussed before, having a child through surrogacy involves a lot of factors, and you can’t pinpoint how long it is going to take before you are successful. We were very lucky to find the surrogate of our dreams almost right off the bat, and that she was as motivated as we were to get the process going and to get pregnant. So while Max arrived during my 36th year on this planet, becoming parents could have easily taken until I was 38, even starting the process as early as we did (see my last post about how surrogacy can take years for some couples).

There have been many birthdays past where I have lamented to myself: “Oh my god, I am now such and such an age and look where I’m at in life. I haven’t achieved x, y or z yet,” perhaps in relation to my career or something else. But now at age 38 I look around and I can’t believe the wonderful place my life has taken me. I am a stay-at-home dad, married to an amazing husband, and we are raising an amazing 15 month old son. Also, we have such a great support system from our families and friends. Despite the proclamation I made at 22 years of age about my life goals, in my wildest dreams I did not dare to imagine that I would be sitting where I’m sitting now. I’m more than lucky.

A Star is Born

Following up my previous post, last week Stewart and I spoke to prospective dads at the city’s LGBT Center about traditional surrogacy, just as we did in 2010. The meeting had an excellent turnout – doubling last year’s total – which is particularly impressive given that it took place in July when a lot of people are away. I’d like to attribute this bump-up to more people being open to traditional surrogacy, but it’s more likely due to the increasing popularity of surrogacy in general amongst gay couples in town. Now that we all can officially get married, pleas from our parents for grandkids inevitably follow!

As much as I’d like to report that Stewart and I were the stars of the meeting, that distinction must go to our traveling companion: Max. While bringing him allowed us to both attend, while avoiding the hassle and cost of a babysitter, our main reason for having Max attend was not for our own sake, but for the sake of the other members of the group. We wanted to show them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

As many of you know, Stewart and I were very fortunate when it came to our surrogacy journey. We matched with our surrogate, Christie, a little over a month after we first posted our ad on the Surromoms Online website, began the fertility process a few months after that, and Max was born less than a year later. Believe me, this is a very quick journey to parenthood compared to most of the guys in our group. Sadly, there are couples who attend the meetings who we first met when we began attending them in early 2009 who are still trying to conceive a child through surrogacy. It is only natural for these couples to feel some frustration and despondency at the long wait for their time to come. Perhaps the child that they thought would be right around the corner has turned into a hazy abstraction for them, leading them to wonder if the long slog to parenthood is even worth it.

We brought Max to the meeting to remind them of why they have invested so much time, effort, money and heart into the surrogacy process. As they could see embodied in our Max, wobbling in front of them at the start and end of the meeting, there is a wonderful living, breathing, adorable, playful, maddening child in their future that is worth all of the struggles they have faced in their quest for parenthood. The best part for us: we could even see it in their faces as Max fearlessly worked the room with his chirps and babbles, stumblings and bumblings, and his big smiles when the group was forced to concede to him that he was, indeed, the star of the show. Not bad for a kid who can’t even talk yet!

Tonight's Message: Be Open to Openness

This evening Stewart and I have been invited back to discuss our surrogacy experience at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center’s monthly “Planning Biological Parenthood for Men” meeting. We attended these meetings in the months leading up to, and during, our surrogate’s pregnancy with Max, and learned an amazing amount about the surrogacy process from those who had been through it. Once Max was born, we were asked to return to the group, this time as the speakers instead of as the listeners. I blogged about that meeting here. I can’t believe that it has been almost a year since we first spoke to the group. So much has transpired!

As some of you might recall from that post, when we were asked to talk to the group last year I was very concerned about what Max was going to wear. We were introducing Max to a room full of very discerning gay men, so I wanted Max to wear a hip outfit; but, at the same time they were the wannabe dad kind of gay men, so I didn’t want Max to look too hip. In short, it was complicated! A year later, though, the only criteria I have for his outfit is that it be clean and have minimal stains. Actually, that’s not as easy as it sounds since we’re talking about a 14 month old here!

On a more serious note, Stewart and I are thrilled to have the opportunity again to discuss our experiences because we are big advocates of the method we chose to create our family: independent traditional surrogacy. Plus, our enthusiasm for this choice has grown even greater over the past year due to the amazing relationship we’ve maintained with our surrogate, Christie, and her family, as well as the other family that Christie conceived and carried a child for via traditional surrogacy (a beautiful little girl named Georgia who you can read more about here). Last year we could only tell the group about the type of relationships that we hoped to keep with these families. This year we can tell them about our actual experiences, which I think is the best evidence possible for why couples looking to start a family via surrogacy should at least seriously consider taking the independent, traditional route.

Stewart and I pursued independent traditional surrogacy (where the surrogate is both the egg donor and carrier, who you find yourself) rather than gestational surrogacy (where you find a separate egg donor and carrier through a process usually arranged via a professional agency) for several reasons. We wanted to conceive with as few people involved as possible, to make an already complicated method of creating a family as uncomplicated as possible. We also wanted to develop a natural relationship with Max’s biological mother -- as opposed to choosing her from donor stat sheets -- and really get to know her. And it was important to us that Max not only know the identity of his surro-mom, but also that he grow up knowing her as a person.

Call me a crazy pessimist, but I believe that no matter how you raised, or raise, your kids, they are going to be angry at you for something. For Max, I much prefer that anger to be about mundane things like why he isn’t allowed to ride his bicycle without a helmet than about something as deeply felt and personal as his identity. Besides, Max should know the woman who has given our family the tremendous gift of its very being. So one of the main reasons we matched with Christie is because she was on the same page as us in this important regard. But while we all agreed on open, ongoing contact, we left unanswered what that meant. I don’t think any of us were really sure. We choose instead to let our new lives -- with Max suddenly a part of them -- tell us organically what felt right.

A while back Christie wrote a moving guest post about her experience as our surrogate, and in that post she described our relationship as an extended family. That truly is the best way to describe it, and is a term that not only describes the relationship that we have with her and her family, but also the one that we have with Georgia and her parents as well. Since Max was born, we have seen Christie and her family multiple times in multiple locales, including most recently on a beach vacation to Florida that also included Georgia’s family. Seeing the kids all together, happily playing, alone made it a wonderful trip.

with half-sis Georgia

And that is what strikes me most about our relationship with Christie and her family -- not the number of times that we have seen them, but that we are part of each other’s lives in such a natural, unforced way. During our regular workaday lives apart, if anyone in our families does something fun or interesting, we don’t hesitate to email or text each other about it on the spot, and maybe snap a photo to go along with it. And when we hang out together, we are all equally happy running around town with the kids or just sitting on the couch enjoying idle chit-chat while the kids romp around. In other words: normal family stuff. Normal, but incredibly special and extraordinary at the same time.

with half-bros Drew & Dean

If tonight Stewart and I can convey even a fraction of this wonderment to our surrogacy group, we just might convince some hopeful couples to see the potential that independent traditional surrogacy has to be a truly magical way to create a family.

Talking Q-Talk

A couple of Saturdays ago, my friend Frank, who is trying to have a baby via surrogacy, told me that he was going to Q-Talk. It’s a monthly late-night gay-centered talk show at The Metropolitan Room, a small cabaret spot on West 22nd Street in Manhattan. This month’s topic was perfect for Frank: LGBT Parenting through surrogacy. Of course it was also of interest for me, but to be honest, my main motivation in wanting to go was simply getting out of the house Stewart worked that Saturday, and after being with Max all day I was ready for a change of pace. Before Frank could even extend me an offer, I invited myself to join him!

I was new to Q-Talk and didn’t know what to expect. It turns out I was in the minority about that. A good-sized crowd of 40 to 50 people showed up, and when they were asked if they had attended Q-Talk before, an overwhelming majority raised their hands. The crowd seemed to be made up of mostly gay men and a sprinkling of women. The other thing I immediately noticed is that there didn’t seem to be many parents in the audience. This should be quite interesting, I thought!

The show’s guests were John Weltman, a gay dad and president and founder of Circle Surrogacy (an agency that helps infertile and gay couples have kids via gestational surrogacy), and Tony Brown, a gay dad featured in the CNN documentary Gary And Tony Have A Baby, about the journey he and his husband Gary took towards having their baby via gestational surrogacy. Since Frank and I are both fairly educated on the topic of surrogacy, and have met John and Tony before, their ensuing discussion that night wasn’t very illuminating for us, at least as far as surrogacy is concerned. We did, however, both find it amusing when John mentioned how, while he enjoyed very much the documentary and how it portrayed Tony and Gary’s journey to parenthood, he did have one serious beef with it. The show mentions at least ten times throughout that Tony and Gary used an agency to help them with the surrogacy process, but never once mentions the name of the agency. Why did John care? Of course because the agency Tony and Gary used was none other than John’s own agency, Circle Surrogacy!

While we didn’t learn much new about surrogacy that night, the show was hardly a disappointment, in large part due to a surprise guest. John brought his 15 year old son with him to the show. I don’t know many gay parents to begin with, but none of the ones that I do know has teenagers already. Because we all know that those can be difficult years for any parents, I am very interested in hearing what teens of gay parents have to say about their experiences growing up in that household, and also in seeing how they interact with their parents. John’s son spoke to the Q-Talk audience that night, and I was very impressed with how articulate and open he was about his family life. Just as I had hoped and expected, he was a typical 15 year old – a kid who liked to give his dad a hard time, but in a fun-loving way. He seemed content and comfortable in his own skin, which can’t be easy for someone his age in a room full of strangers who are prying into his family life. Most importantly, I could tell that he was proud of his dad and that they enjoyed a strong, loving bond. Oh, and to top it off, the kid was funny too. When an audience member asked him what it was like having two dads, he replied that it was pretty awesome. Why? Because he can leave the toilet seat up without anyone in the household getting mad at him!

Thankfully Max is a long way away from being a teenager, and since the country is continually improving in how it treats its gay citizens, hopefully by the time Max hits those years the environment for gay-lead families will be more welcoming than it is today. But it was certainly nice to see from John’s son at Q-Talk that even now, what there is still a lot of work to be done in this area, there are teenagers out there being raised by gay parents who are just what any parents would wish their children to be: happy, loving and well-adjusted, with just enough back-talk and humor thrown in to keep things interesting!

How Mothers Are Made

This is a guest post from Laurie, an amazing woman, mother and friend who, with her husband, is raising their bright and gorgeous three year old daughter, Georgia.  Like her half-brother Max, Georgia was conceived and brought into this world by our selfless hero, Christie, through the incredible gift of traditional surrogacy.  Thank you so much Laurie for sharing your story with my readers! 

For the first nine years of my marriage, I insisted that becoming a mother was as much about the journey as the destination. In other words, I thought that unless my body was involved in the process, I could not be a mother. When telling our story, I often say we tried everything but voodoo, and that was next on the list. The list of acronyms for the various medical procedures I endured is a long one.

Four pregnancies, along with four miscarriages, made me think I'd never experience motherhood. After my final miscarriage, I was ready to try voodoo! When I was grieving over the loss of another baby, I was still making plans to continue treatment. I wanted to try a controversial medical procedure to try to increase my chance of carrying a baby to term. My family, my husband, and finally, my doctor, told me “enough.” My doctor was totally against me trying the procedure, called IVIg.

I was gently, but firmly, told it was time to make a decision: stop treatment and accept living my life without becoming a mother; adopt; or find a surrogate mother.

After many long talks, lots of research and soul-searching, my husband and I decided to continue our quest to become parents through surrogacy. A few missteps in the beginning eventually led us to Christie, the woman who changed our lives forever just four years ago. She said, “trust me” and I did. She showed me that being a mother is about so much more than carrying a baby in your body. With her help, I did get to experience both the journey and the destination.

Laurie, her husband, and Christie pregnant with Georgia 

This month, we celebrate our daughter's third birthday. A very girly, very pink, party was held in her honor a few days ago. I've been reflecting a lot lately about how much my life has changed. There are days when I long for the old days, when I could come and go as I pleased, when I could go to the bathroom without an audience, when I didn't have to be “on duty” all the time. But only for a moment. I wouldn't trade the reality of my life now for what it was approximately three years and nine months ago, give or take a day.

 

Georgia turns 3!

My life these days begins with a lively little girl saying “Good morning, Mommy! I had a great nap!” as she crawls into the bed with me, warm and smelling of sleep and wet diaper. Then we watch cartoons for a while, usually Dora The Explorer. We snuggle and talk during these mornings together, time I treasure. Next, we get up and begin our day. Our days involve staying at home and reading, coloring, playing dress up, dancing, singing, making crafts with lots of glue and glitter. Some days we have play dates with a local group we found online at http://www.meetup.com/, or we shop for groceries, or run other errands. Sounds pretty boring, right? Not to me. Every day is an adventure and an opportunity for me to learn more about this amazing child. We end our days by reading books, snuggling with Daddy, and gathering up the six or more stuffed animals (the babies) that our little one insists she has to sleep with, and saying goodnight. Before I go to bed myself, I will tiptoe into her room several times just to look at her.

When people hear our story, about using a surrogate mother to help us become parents, most will begin to regale us with a horror story of “The Surrogate Who Kept The Baby.” They always want to know if we ever worried about that. The short answer is “NO.” Sure, it has happened to some couples, but it happens far less often than the horror stories everyone seems to know would indicate. Most surrogacy stories are really boring and wonderful. Like ours.

Another funny question we are often asked is “So, how does that work?” I guess what they want to know is the mechanics of “how” our surrogate mother got pregnant. Artificial Insemination. Google it.

People also want to know if my eggs were used. No. They want to know if we used donor eggs. No. We decided to combine the egg donor and gestational carrier into one neat (and attractive, I might add) package. This is called Traditional Surrogacy. They want to know if we used my husband's sperm. Yes.

Certainly these are nosy questions and sometimes somewhat inappropriate, but I feel that in order to educate people about surrogacy, you have to be prepared to be asked these kinds of questions. I don't mind; I'm proud of the fact that four adults (my husband and I, Christie and her husband) and two children (Christie's boys were an important part of this journey, too) came together to create a child.

Laurie keeping a watchful eye on her newborn

This child that I love so very, very much, has absolutely zero biological connection to me. And guess what? I'm okay with it. More than okay with it. She and I have a connection that goes beyond biology and always will. She will always know the story of how she came to be. She will always know that she has two handsome and loving half-brothers who are older than she (our surrogate mother's children), and an adorable half-brother who is younger. That would be Max, son of Jacob and Stewart. We have created not only a child through surrogacy, but a large extended family.

Laurie and Georgia meet newborn Max

These days, my relationship with Christie is exactly what she and I had both hoped it would become...two friends who are also moms. The only thing I'd like to change about it is to live closer so that we can spend more time together. And my husband and I are working on doing just that. We want to live closer not only to our own families, but to our extended families as well.

There is one other thing I'd like from Christie: that she honor the part of the surrogacy contract that states that she will potty train my child. She insists that she never saw that part of the contract. It is there, in very small print.

Is motherhood everything I thought it would be? Absolutely not. It is more. So much more. Happy Birthday, Georgia Grace. You are everything I wished for. Thank you, Christie, for making my dream come true. And, finally, thank you, Jacob, Stewart and Max, for being a part of our wonderful, extended surrogate family.

We love our new extended family too, Laurie!

The Tie That Binds

As promised, below is a guest post from our surrogate and friend, Christie.  Thank you so much Christie for agreeing to share your thoughts and experiences with our readers!  We are three incredibly lucky guys to have you in our lives!  (btw, post title, photos and captions are by me)

I got a text the other day from a girlfriend of mine whose daughter has been a bit under the weather- turns out it’s strep throat. I can completely sympathize. It’s no fun to take care of a sick child and you feel so bad for them. My younger son has a nasty cold right now that is making his nose run and he has a bad cough. We’re in this together, girlfriend!

I got another text the other day from another friend of mine whose son just had his 6 month check-up. He is 21 pounds, 14 ounces, and over 27 inches long at only 6 months! His dad was so proud. Apparently, despite what these impressive numbers might indicate, this actually qualifies as “thinning out.” I can relate to this, too. My older son was getting a little rounder in the middle for a while (and eating me out of house and home), and then all of a sudden recently has shot up about 3 inches. I keep telling him not to grow so fast.

There’s nothing unusual about those two paragraphs, is there? It probably sounds like a day in the life of all of you reading here. The strange thing about it is that I have given birth to all of those children- the two boys that I am raising, my friend’s daughter, Georgia, and the little boy, Jacob and Stewart’s son, Max. What’s more, I am related to all of them because I am a traditional surrogate, but I only consider myself to be the mother to my own two boys, Dean and Drew.



Georgia, Dean, Drew and newborn Max

I am an incredibly fortunate surrogate. There are many kinds of surrogate/intended parent (IP) relationships. Many surrogates, both gestational and traditional, do not have any ongoing relationship with their IPs. Some of them become “Christmas card” friends, where they get a card and maybe a photo each year. As long as the relationships work, however they work, I think it’s fantastic. I knew when I decided to become a traditional surrogate (in which my own eggs were used and I became pregnant through artificial insemination- gestational surrogates are not related in any way to their surrogate children), that it was important to me that I had an ongoing relationship with the families I created. I didn’t know exactly what that would entail, but I don’t think you should keep secrets from children, so I didn’t want to be completely unfamiliar. I have been outstandingly lucky in that, by helping to create these two families, I have gained extended family. Through the process of becoming pregnant and being pregnant, I have become great friends with these families and I cherish that- not so I can stay close to their children, but just because I love them for them.



With Christie prior to the pregnancy

Jacob asked me to write a guest post talking about what it’s like from this end, after everything is over.  I’m sure he thought it would be interesting and informative, but I’m willing to bet that he’s super curious what I’ll say, too.  (I’m totally right, aren’t I? J)  The truth is, being a surrogate changes absolutely everything about who you are.  It changes your family, and it obviously changes the families you create, but it changes your relationships with other people, too.

I decided to become a surrogate because I thought I could, and I thought I would be good at it, and I thought it would be fun and amazing. It took me about 4 years after I decided I wanted to be a surrogate to talk my husband, Bill, into it. He thought it was an awfully big risk to take for someone else. However, if you know me, you know I can be a bit… tenacious when I want something. (That works in your favor if I’m working with you on something, like getting pregnant, but makes me VERY hard to live with otherwise.) After we had Drew, we knew we were done with our family, both pregnancies had been easy (for pregnancy), and he caved gave me his support.

Bill with newborn Max

I met both of my surrogate families through an online community. Getting pregnant with Georgia was quite easy. The pregnancy itself was very easy. The strange thing for me was how nervous and cautious Laurie was about the pregnancy. It was my first brush with infertility. Every time I had gotten pregnant, nine months later (or eleventy billion months later, like with Drew, who was 89 11 days overdue) there was a baby. That wasn’t true for Laurie, so we had a few hiccups when I couldn’t figure out why she was nervous. When Georgia was born, it felt like an enormous victory. Everyone was so happy, and healthy. Same with Max- despite a few hurdles, and a brief time on bed rest (which sounds like a fantastic, doctor-required vacation in bed, but really just sucks is super boring isn’t), the pregnancy was easy, and Jacob and Stewart were wonderful IPs the whole time (except for the one time that Stewart said my girth was impressive- that was his exact word- impressive- ouch). Then I went home and there was the hormone crash.

Post pregnancy hormones can turn you into a crying, raving psycho make life a little difficult. That’s true whether or not you keep the baby. For those people around a surrogate, who has just relinquished the baby, it seems as if she is so sad to have the baby gone, like we have regrets or are sorry we did it. Well, it is sad. For nine months you spend literally every single minute of your life with this person, and you get to know them, and you get used to having them around. Pregnancy hormones get a woman ready to be a mother to a child, and there isn’t a baby to care for. Surrogates don’t love these babies less because they aren’t going to be ours. If anything, they often are more careful, because this baby’s parents have entrusted their care to you for the duration of the pregnancy. That’s a big responsibility! It’s important to understand, though, that the sadness isn’t because the baby is gone- that was the whole point, and it feels great when it happens. The sadness is that the journey is over, and it was everything to you for a long time. It does get better- once you recover a little, the hormones settle down, and the body returns to normal, it really is back to your regularly scheduled life again.



Christie with Max at 4 months

So how do Bill, Dean, and Drew feel about all of this?  They are such an important part of what happens.  My husband and boys pick up a lot of slack when I am pregnant.  With Max, I was on bed rest for a bit, and that really required a shift in the family dynamic.  Despite his initial reluctance, Bill is one of the biggest supporters of surrogacy at this point.  He also considers everyone family.  My boys don’t really think anything of it.  Having a mom who is a surrogate is their “normal.”  They are young, and they haven’t ever known any different.  They do realize that Georgia and Max are their half-siblings.  They loved it after Georgia and Max were born and they got to meet them and cuddle them.  For a while after we had Georgia, they wondered if we would have another child in our family, but Dean later decided that having half-siblings who live somewhere else was best.  He gets to travel to see them, gets more family that he loves, has more siblings, but doesn’t have to live with them all the time or share anything with them.  He figures it’s win-win.  (Sometimes, when my boys are being especially difficult, I’ll joke to Bill that either Georgia or Max is my “favorite child” for pretty much the same reasons, so there.)  What it boils down to is that we all love all of them, and we wouldn’t have our lives any other way. 

Dean and Max

I think the surprising thing was how extended family took it.  I told my grandmother about the first surrogacy.  She seemed very happy and supportive.  I found out later that she did not tell any of my relatives (aunts, uncles, great-aunts, cousins) that live in the same area.  She didn’t think they would understand.  My parents know, obviously, and I thought they’d be very supportive, but I don’t think they understand.  They have met Georgia, and they have seen pictures of Max, but I think the whole thing makes them uncomfortable.  I think they feel like I am giving away grandchildren, but they don’t/won’t ever really talk to me about it.  When I told my mom I was going to be a surrogate a second time, one of her first thoughts was that I would “lose the body that I had worked so hard to get back.”  Nice priorities, Mom.  Surprisingly, one of our biggest supporters has been Bill’s mom, who is in no way related to these children.  She’s met them both, and came down to help when I had Max.  She loves them, and she thinks it’s awesome. 

Max with Bill's mother

Friends and colleagues are insanely curious about it, and ask the most invasive questions.  Probably most common is “How can you give your baby away?  I don’t think I could do that.”  So don’t- nobody asked you to.  (Laurie says nobody wants their kids anyway- she says why would you when you can have one of my designer babies.  She offered to be my “baby pimp” for a cut.  Too funny.)  (If you are mortally offended by that, it’s just surrogacy humor, and it’s really okay.  Deep breaths.)  The reality is, I didn’t give away my babies.  I gave them to their parents, but if you aren’t a surrogate, or don’t feel like you could be one, then it’s a mentality you’ll never understand, and that’s okay, too.  Regardless, it changes people’s perspective on you, usually for the good, and when I get to tell my positive surrogacy stories, I know it’s helping the community as a whole.

So now Georgia is 2 ½ years old (and in the terrible two’s full force, from what Laurie tells me, but that’s okay because I have a tween who has so. much. attitude. we may need another bedroom built on to the house just to make room for it, so Georgia is still my favorite) and Max is 6 months old (and smiling and cuddly without poking anyone with a scrawny elbow or wiggling to death or protesting with a very long, very painful “Mo-o-o-o-om” about the torture of being cuddled, so Max is still my favorite) and I am fortunate in that their parents have allowed me to keep loving them. And, despite the roller coaster of pregnancy hormones and post pregnancy hormones, and me just being me, they all still tolerate love me. I feel so fortunate to have done this, and my life is richer for it, so while Laurie and Joel, and Jacob and Stewart, may feel that what I did was generous, it was selfish, and that’s okay, too.

XXOO- C

Bill, Christie, Stewart, Laurie and me toasting newborn Max

PS – Good job if you made it this far! This was much longer than I anticipated, so my apologies. I can be painfully a bit wordy. My first big “getting to know you” e-mail to Jacob and Stewart was so long that I think they are still reading it. Love you guys!

Love you too!

Molecular Parenting

This is a guest post by Stewart, aka "Papa":

Max is my biological son.

I know what you’re thinking. Whoa . . . wtf?! I thought Max was Jacob's biological son! But wait, family members, don’t faint just yet.  Max is also Jacob's biological son, and Jacob would beat me hands down in any Jerry Springer paternity test episode.

Okay, now that your universe has righted again, let me explain. When you are two guys planning to start a family via surrogacy, everyone wants to know which one is going to be the biological father. Some people ask directly, and others ask everything about the process except that, hoping that you mention the parentage, since it’s what they really wanted to know in the first place. But even as it’s obvious how badly people want to know, their question is always tempered with: “not that it matters . . .” Indeed, we know several sets of gay parents who have taken this attitude to heart, and actually mixed their sperm together before inseminating their surrogates, so that even they would not know which of them is the “real” father. After all, it just doesn’t matter. Each of the men in these couples are their babies’ “real” fathers, regardless of whose little swimmers won the race.

But, even these couples usually end up finding out the answer through a paternity test when their children are very young (even if, in the spirit of “not that it matters,” they do not divulge the results to others). Because biology does matter in certain respects, right? It can matter legally, as I discovered when our lawyer and I had to go through more hoops than Paul “Dizzy Hips” Blair just to get listed as “mother” on Max’s birth certificate. It certainly matters medically, as we know that genetics affect an individual’s tendency towards such innocuous traits as height, eye color and skin tone, as well as much more serious concerns, such as susceptibility to cancer, alzheimer’s and diabetes. Let’s face it, there is a reason why, if you want to become a sperm donor for an infertile couple, you have to do more than grab a dixie cup and aggravate Christine O’Donnell (so to speak). You also have to fill out a 22 page questionnaire about your family’s medical history. Anyone in your family ever have Mad Cow Disease? You better know the answer (for real) if you want to earn that $200 for your deposit.

So yes, biology matters. But so what? That’s no skin off my back. Because parents who adopted their kids, or whose partner did the donating in a surrogacy relationship (as in my case), are still their kids’ biological parents. How? Because a person’s genes are not solely the result of which sperm met which egg. Parenting also plays a role in the biological make-up of our children. For example, as parents we can literally alter our children’s tendencies towards certain genetic conditions. According to a finding published in Newsweek last year:

In most cases, our genes are only a predisposition; they are not written in stone. And if we have a strong family history for diseases such as prostate cancer, breast cancer, or heart disease -- "bad genes"-- then we may need to make bigger changes in lifestyle in order to help prevent or even reverse chronic diseases. In the centuries-old debate about nature vs. nurture, we are learning that nurture affects nature as much as nature affects nurture.

As parents, we have the power to affect in our children all of the lifestyle choices mentioned in the article: “nutrition, stress management techniques, walking and psychosocial support.” As another example, through parenting we actually change our children’s physical brains. The Toronto Star reported last year that:

Infant brain imaging, baby brain wave studies and even autopsies of infants show the profound similarities among newborn human brains. Adult brains, however, are profoundly different biologically.

In other words, our brains are literally shaped by our lifetimes, and our lifetimes are shaped by our parents, irrespective of how they became our parents.

So, while Jacob and Christie created Max’s biological make-up, as his “papa” I will have the tremendous privilege and obligation to help mold his biology in a positive direction, towards a lifetime of health and happiness -- through guiding him in what he eats, how much exercise he gets, how often is brain is engaged through reading and experiencing the world, and in countless other ways. So yes, Max is my biological son, and is becoming more so every day.

Bragging Rights

Many people ask us how Max was conceived. It’s a rather personal question that some parents would understandably decline to answer. We usually don’t mind it, because we see it as an opportunity to inform them about the wonderful ways that families can come together outside of the norm. Of course some people ask in more articulate ways than others. While some may understandably ask if Max was adopted, others have simply blurted out, “Where did you get it from?” I’m always tempted to reply: “They’re a blue light special this week at k-mart -- hurry before they sell out!” I once replied that Max was born in Georgia, and the person assumed I meant Georgia as in the former Soviet republic! Until a few months ago, Russia was a popular country for international adoptions. (To see why it isn’t anymore, recall this disheartening story). I now make sure to say Atlanta, Georgia. But regardless of how people ask the question, my answer always winds up with me bragging about Max’s surrogate mother, Christie, in one respect or another.

 

There are many reasons why we brag about Christie. First, there’s a lot to brag about. Max is a lucky boy to get half of his genetics from her. She is both beautiful and super smart. She has two masters degrees, one in the sciences, and she is an AP chemistry teacher. Max can thank his lucky stars for her prowess in the sciences, because neither Stewart nor I are math or science whizzes. She is also incredibly driven, which is another trait that we hope Max emulates. For example, our journey almost ended before it even began, if it weren’t for Christie. We were having trouble finding a doctor to perform the IUI (intrauterine insemination) in the Atlanta area for two men. There weren’t many doctors who performed it for infertile straight couples, and finding one of those in the deep South who didn’t mind that we were gay was even more challenging. It was Christie, after much persistence, who found a doctor to perform the procedure. It shouldn’t come as any surprise that it turned out the doctor was Jewish and originally from New York!

 

There’s another reason we like to brag about Christie. There is a common misperception that traditional surrogates aren’t known for having great looks or intelligence. When we met with some surrogacy agencies to see if we wanted to work with them, we mentioned that we were also considering traditional independent surrogacy. They told us point blank that we were not going to find what they thought was a “quality person” to do traditional surrogacy; and, that we were especially not going to find such a person online. They warned us that a surrogate found that way would likely not be college educated, would be from a different class level, and therefore would be hard to relate to! We feel that the agencies (not that there aren’t pros to using them, which is beyond the topic of this post) really push this incorrect stereotype because it scares infertile couples into thinking they need to sign up with them and pay for an expensive egg donor, which then leads to having to pay for expensive IVF treatments to implant the donor’s egg into the surrogate. Given that this is what couples exploring surrogacy are often told, it is not surprising that when we met other couples planning to have children via surrogacy, they would raise their eyebrows when we said we were not working with an agency and were on a journey with a traditional surrogate.

So another reason we brag about our surrogate to anyone who asks about our story is to debunk the stereotype that prevails about traditional surrogates and carriers. We’ve come to learn that, in reality, traditional surrogates are as beautiful, talented and smart as any other women out there, and on top of that are extraordinarily selfless and courageous. We talk to a lot of couples (and even some singles) looking to start their family through surrogacy. We tell them all about Christie not only because we’re so proud to have her as Max’s surromom, but also because we hope to open their eyes that independent traditional surrogacy is a real option for them and that they aren’t sacrificing a bit -- genetically or otherwise -- by pursuing that route. We don’t think that the agencies adequately convey this message, so we feel like we have to as a counterbalance. Because if we had listened to the naysayers, Stewart and I would have lost out on the son, and the surromom, of a lifetime.

Mr. Mom

The two month anniversary of Max’s birth had come and gone and we still had no birth certificate for our son.  We had been told by the hospital in Atlanta that we should expect his birth certificate within four weeks. We were starting to get a bit nervous. Was it held up in the system simply due to government bureaucracy? Had the hospital simply gotten the typical time-frame wrong? Or was something more sinister afoot -- was some renegade county clerk from the heart of Dixie refusing to process the birth certificate after seeing that Max’s parents were two men? Were we going to have to sue the state’s Attorney General to force him to issue Max his birth certificate?

Finally, to our immense relief, a couple of weeks ago an envelope arrived in the mail with the return address of Department of Community Health, Vital Records Branch, Atlanta, Georgia. Max’s birth certificate! The first thing we did was to check to make sure that both of our names were listed on it. We are believed to have made legal history in Georgia because we obtained a pre-birth order from a state court judge there stating that even though we are two men, and only one of us is a biological parent of Max, both of our names may still be listed on the birth certificate as Max’s parents. It took a lot of work to get that order! While we were pregnant, we met at our monthly Planning Biological Parenthood for Men group a couple who obtained a pre-birth order in North Carolina. And like Georgia, North Carolina was not known for actively processing pre-birth orders for gay men. The couple said that they thought they might have been the first gay male couple to obtain one in North Carolina. Well, I thought, if they could obtain one in North Carolina then we should at least try for one in Georgia, right?

Normally in Georgia, and in most other states (the exception being California and Arkansas), since I am the biological father my name alone would be listed on the birth certificate. We would have to apply for a second parent adoption for Stewart to be added to insure that he has the same parental rights that I do. But by making history in Georgia and getting a pre-birth order, Stewart’s name is on Max’s birth certificate from the start, so now he doesn’t have to worry about whether or not he will be perceived as a legal parent of Max. If Stewart is traveling alone with Max and for whatever reason he is questioned, all he has to do is show the birth certificate.

While the Vital Records Department made us very happy with the birth certificate, there was one big inaccuracy on it. While I am listed as Max’s “Father,” Stewart is not – he is listed as Max’s “Mother”! With all due respect to you mothers out there, Stewart was not pleased to be included among you! In fact, he had actually anticipated this possibility. While filling out the information for the birth certificate in the days after Max’s birth, we noticed that the paperwork only allowed for one parent to be listed as “mother” and one for “father.” Stewart decided to edit the form by hand to replace the listing for “mother” with “Father # 2.” As an additional attempt to sway Vital Records, we attached a letter to the application requesting that they list us on the birth certificate not as mother and father, but as “Father 1” and “Father 2” or – if that was too gay for them – as the more benign “Parent 1” and “Parent 2.”

When we opened up the envelope two months after Max’s birth we learned that our efforts had failed. Maybe it was political, or some clerk’s moral judgment, but more likely – in our minds --the Department of Vital Records didn’t want to bother to change around their template to accommodate the reality of our family structure. Of course the important thing is that the birth certificate proves that Stewart is Max’s legal parent, even if it isn’t so accurate in the particulars!

When I have shared this story with people, some have asked why Stewart wasn’t listed as “father” and me as “mother.” One friend pointed out that I am playing the more traditional mother role by staying at home with the kid. My sister pointed out that on a birth certificate it is usually definite that the mother is the biological parent and they are not always sure about the dad; in this case, since I am the one that has the definite biological connection, she argued, I should be listed under “mother.”

The reality though is much less philosophical.  The pre-birth court order we obtained had legally established me as Max’s biological father – so Vital Records was required by law to list me as the father on the birth certificate.  In other words, Stewart became "Mother" simply by process of elimination.  Stewart has been a good sport about the whole thing though.  He looks at the bright-side. Now he can ask for breakfast in bed on Mother's Day!

The Apple of Our Eye

The other night I was on line at the Apple store on 5th Avenue and 59th Street. I had just gotten off the interminable waiting list for the new iPhone 4 (the home button on my old iPhone broke a couple of weeks ago) and I had exactly 24 hours to pick up the phone before being booted right back on to it. The line snaked around the store and was also incredibly slow, causing a customer four or five people behind me to become seriously disgruntled. The guy directly behind me and I started laughing about the whole situation. In our chat, I mentioned my family and he inquired about how we had conceived Max. He explained that he and his partner were about to sign with an agency to conceive a baby via surrogacy in India because they thought they couldn’t afford to do surrogacy here.

Naturally my eyes lit up at the opportunity to talk about surrogacy, even though standing in the middle of the Apple store was the last place where I thought I would be discussing it! Of course I advocated that he seriously consider independent traditional surrogacy, the route Stewart and I took. There are many amazing reasons for gay men to start their families through surrogacy generally, and through traditional surrogacy specifically, that are beyond the subject of this post. I will certainly be exploring those in the future, but this guy at the Apple store didn’t need that talk; he was already sold on surrogacy. His issue was cost, so that’s what we discussed.

You can do surrogacy here in this country, I told him, and it doesn’t have to break the bank (relatively speaking). Yes, if you plan on using an agency and conceiving a child via gestational surrogacy (in which you create an embryo through the use of an egg donor that is implanted into, and carried by, a different woman who has no biological connection to it) that could very well cost you a small fortune – that is, after adding up the fees for the agency, the egg donor, the carrier, one or more embryo transfers at a fertility clinic, the medical insurance for the carrier, the bank escrow fees, your lawyer, the carrier’s lawyer, and on and on. However, if you conceive a child through traditional surrogacy (where the egg donor is the same woman as the carrier) and do it independently, without agency involvement, you do not have to spend nearly as much (e.g. no fees for agency, egg donor, transfer, escrow, etc.). I have spoken with several people who felt that they couldn’t do surrogacy because of the costs, and once they found out that it can be done for much less than they thought it could, they were interested again.

I told him to check out the “Planning Biological Parenthood for Men” group that meets monthly at The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center here in NYC, and to attend the Men Having Babies Seminar - Biological Parenting for Gay Men that takes place every September there.  I mentioned that on the Center’s site he could find a link to view the panel presentations from the 2009 seminar, which are actually contained on a YouTube page! I also referred him to surromomsonline.com. This website is an excellent resource for all things related to surrogacy, and it is where we met our surrogate. The aim of the site is to provide information for, and support to, individuals who are interested in pursuing a surrogacy journey – either as the hopeful intended parents or as the woman looking to be a surrogate to make those intended parents’ dream come true.

Stewart and I first considered surrogacy as an option for us after we attended the Men Having Babies seminar in 2008. At that seminar we heard from some representatives of the different surrogacy agencies, and were daunted by the cost and the complicated steps involved, as any sane person would be. But we also heard from a man named Jeff -- who has since become a good friend (“hi Jeff!”) -- who had a baby boy with his partner Chris via independent traditional surrogacy. He had used the surromoms website to find his surrogate, and that’s where we learned about it. A few months after the seminar, we started attending the monthly Biological Parenthood for Men meetings, and continued going to them in the months leading up to, and during, our surrogate’s pregnancy with Max. It is a great resource for information and support.

When we first heard Jeff talk, we said to ourselves that we could never do this whole process by ourselves like he seemed to. Let’s face it, Stewart and I can’t even change a light bulb (but we have gotten mighty good at changing diapers)! But by investing a lot of time and hard work, and importantly by finding our perfect surrogate who had the same heart and drive we did to make our journey a successful one, we ended up a year later with our dream boy. Hopefully the guy behind me in line at the Apple store will too!

An Early Crisis

The first three weeks of Max’s life created surprisingly little stress. Stewart was home with Max and me and Max basically slept, ate and pooped. But anxiety did creep into our lives during that time in a rather surprising way. We were asked to speak about our surrogacy experience at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center’s monthly “Planning Biological Parenthood for Men” meeting that we attended in the months leading up to, and during, our surrogate’s pregnancy with Max. We embrace telling the story of our family’s creation and answering questions about our experiences. So what was stressful about attending the meeting? Was it speaking in front of a large group? Was it worrying over how Max would behave? No and no. The cause of the stress was over something much more important -- what was Max going to wear!

The only clothes we had for him at the time were layette clothes and ones that we got from the Carter’s, Oshkosh, and Children’s Place outlets in Georgia shortly before Max’s birth. Cute clothes and all, but even my sister Rebecca, who lives in the Boston suburbs, said that these mass-produced clothes weren’t going to cut it! So Stewart and I spent a whole day leading up to the meeting hitting downtown infant and toddler clothing stores to find the perfect too-cool-for-school baby outfit. We eventually purchased a $40, on sale, outfit from the boutique brand Milk and Honey with a Japanese surf print on the front. I’m not necessarily proud of it. I did the one thing I vowed not to do before Max was born, which was to buy over priced hipster clothes for my baby. That said, it actually was a totally cool outfit! All 3 times Max wore it he got compliments. Of course Max has grown like a weed since then -- doubling his weight and adding 4 inches to his height -- so now his ultra expensive and ultra trendy outfit is sitting in a hand-me-down bag dedicated to our friend Lisa who is having a baby in October.  So hopefully the outfit isn’t done glamorizing babies quite yet!

My Big Gay Blog

Hi all, my name is Jacob! I live with my husband, Stewart, and our infant son Max in New York City in the East Village. The “About Me” window on the right tells a little bit about how we all became one big happy family, and that’s what this blog will be all about.

More specifically, I see this blog as a creative outlet for me to address how we created, and are raising, our family. I look forward to not only relating some amusing anecdotes -- hopefully not too many horrifying ones! -- about my daily experiences as a gay stay-at-home-dad, but also being informative about surrogacy and parenting issues. I would love this blog to be a dialogue not just a monologue. So I would love your feedback, suggestions and questions. I hope sharing my experiences will encourage you to share your experiences with me. I am always interested in talking with other parents, gay or straight, about parenting issues and advice. I am also very interested in talking with people about my surrogacy experience.