A little background if you will.......

I never thought I wanted kids.  I mean, the idea would sporadically cross my mind in my 20's (I'm 33 now btw) but it was a thought that left as quickly as it came.  When asked if I wanted kids or if I planned on having any, I would just simply say "I'm too young", "they're too much work and responsibility", or "I like my freedom" and while those were all very true reasons, the main reason I never put much thought into it was because I was gay and it wasn't really an option for me.  I'm not here writing a sob story so don't worry.  In all honesty, I never let this depress me and I never dwelled on it too much; it was just the reality of it.  My friends and my relationship(s) were my life.  I loved it!  All my weekends and even some weekdays were spent going to dinners, going out for drinks, or the almost always fun game nights.  For those that I've played game night with will understand the "almost" in that last sentence.....it's tested some friendships to put it mildly and we'll just leave it at that.  :-)

But then things started to change.  Over the last 10 years my friends were all getting married and more recently they started having babies.  Whenever I'd be at their house, any chance I had I would hold the baby, feed them and by some bad luck or poor timing, I would even change the diaper.  Now when I go back to KC, I of course want to see my friends but I get just as excited to see their kids!!  When all of my NC group starting popping out babies in rapid succession, I got super excited because that meant even more babies to spend time with.  Not to brag but I'm pretty damn good with kids.......well except for one; I'll win you over one day Ashlyn!!  Spending time with the kids and seeing these new families made me realize that this is the life I wanted.  I wanted a loud house, the family dinners, tears on bad days and screams on Christmas morning.  But I'm getting ahead of myself here so let's rewind a bit.

Neither Chris nor I ever really pictured kids in our future.  It wasn't really on our radar and wasn't even discussed much at all one way or the other.  Also, early in our relationship we weren't really at a place to bring kids into our lives anyway.  Now, almost eight years later (and slightly more mature......shut it!!), we both want to have a family.  We've been actively talking about this for the last three years or so but the conversation would always end with a reason to push it down the road.  Reasons like "we're moving", "we need to save up money" (more on that in a future post) or "I can't let having children affect my job" (that one was mostly Chris).  But now that we only have one more move ahead of us, Chris has just over a year left of his second fellowship and the fact that I will be the stay-at-home dad so Chris won't have to take off work for sick kids or bad weather days, it was time to get this ball rolling.

So last spring, I began looking into surrogacy.  Adoption was an option but as a gay couple in NC or VA, it would be an uphill climb that would probably go on for four or five years.  More importantly, I wanted a baby with my genes.  I mean, how could we deny future generations the blessing of my offspring....haha.  Jk....sorta.  It'd be nice if there was a way to take the best genes from each of us but I don't think medicine has come that far yet.  Oh right, so how did the conversation go when I mentioned that I wanted to be the biological father??  It went rather well actually!  I said I wanted to use my DNA and Chris completely agreed that that was fine with him!  Phew!   I've actually heard this discussion can really cause issues or resentment in couples so I was glad it was a non-issue.

Over the past several years our friends have known that this was something that we (more specifically, I) have wanted for quite some time and they all have always been very supportive.  Now we had to tell our parents.  I was so nervous!  Not so much that they wouldn't be supportive because they always have been but I knew that we hadn't really talked to them all that much about this and I worried that it would seem like it was coming out of left field.  I'm not saying that it went over poorly but it wasn't met with ribbons and confetti.  I think they were mostly quiet about it at that very moment was because it came as a surprise and a bit of a shock.  But now they know how serious we are to start our own family and they are very supportive!  They're going to make wonderful grandparents and I look forward to them sharing this experience with us.  Not only are they supportive, our entire family has been fantastic; so much so that Chris's sister will be, um, very involved (more on this in a later post).  Quick note, when I say "our parents" I mean Chris's parents but I consider them mine too.  Most of you know but I realize that some don't; I have no relationship with either of my biological parents and they will have no part of our child's life either.

I really can't express how excited and nervous I am about starting a family!!  I only know of one other couple (again, a later post) that has gone through this process but none of my gay friends have gone through this yet and after talking to some of my best friends, I was easily convinced that this would be a good way to share our story and the experience with all of you.   So I'm starting a blog!!  I want our gay friends who are also thinking about surrogacy to hear a first hand account of the steps it takes, the amount of time and the costs involved.  I also want our straight friends and family to fully appreciate what we have to go through to start our brood that comes so "naturally" to most couples.  No detail will be spared.  All the highs and the lows, the celebrations and the disappointments, and the milestones and the set-backs will be covered in full detail.

I've had numerous phone calls with the fertility clinic over the last couple of months but our first appointment/consult is on the 15th of this month - less than two weeks!!  I'll post another entry discussing the plan, the time frame and how the surrogacy process works before the consult next Friday.  

So whether we talked last week or haven't talked in over 10 years, each of you have been a part of my life in one way or another and I'm really excited to share this journey with each and every one of you!!!!