Dads: A gay couple's surrogacy journey in India Read Online Free PDF Page B

forward to helping this sexually abused boy who would need so much love and understanding and nourishment and care. We had his name, his bio and it felt as if he were ours until the mother learned about the faggots and refused.
    Down we go again. In hindsight, realization that homophobia is still alive and well, and that social workers don't give a rat's ass about fighting for our rights, and although we were chosen as the best possible couple to look after him, they just gave up and gave in. No worries, right?
    Who cares about the feelings of two gay guys? I mean, after all, they should be glad they get to marry. They could be in Zimbabwe or Russia.
    In the meantime, we age, we grow older, the desire to be a parent becomes stronger and when we lost the boy, we realized that we would never be chosen as foster parents. Society just isn't ready for this sort of thing, but we want kids. We want to pass on our legacy, just like everybody else, and contribute to the evangelical dream of procreation. I'm being ironic…
    So here we are, Friday night, a few weeks into the process of becoming parents by our own seed. It's funny really. I spoke to neighbors on the boat about it and we all had a chuckle of the highs and lows this process entails. I was so happy on Tuesday night when the swimmers test came in positive (good in this case), I sent away 56 million happy campers/ml (!) with my load… Seems like pretty good odds to me! :) After all, only ONE needs to make it.
    The next day, the blood results came in and I was in surrogate heaven. All was well. Let's send in the documents and get this started, but alas, bureaucracy (as I wrote yesterday).
    Thing is, the fear of not being successful, all this background and upbringing, all the failures, all the preconceptions are constantly rumbling in the background, making it difficult to think straight. So I end up feeling my way through the day and that IS my roller-coaster.
    When the clinic sends e-mails asking for “income statements”, I understand both words, but have no real clue how to answer, as we don't have that here. When they talk about SS couples not being recognized by the Indian government, I don't read “gay couples” but “Sturm Staffel” and I wonder what the nazis have to do with all this. There are heaps of jargon and funny words and abbreviations unfamiliar from the world of in vitro fertilization (IVF), medicine and surrogacy.
    And even an inconspicuous phrase like “submit family photos” throws me on a loop. What pictures? I mean, my family is me and Alex, why don't they just say, a photo of you and Alex? They must mean something else… So I think of my 'idea' of the Indian family and off I go on a tangent of huge clusters of people. Four or five generations living under one roof, the youngest being popped in one end of the house and the oldest being burned on the roof (ironic again)… Then comes the answer. No, no, just photos of what 'you' consider your family, could be friends, relatives, neighbors, even cats.
    How very soothing, right? Because my heart goes boom and I can start sending my...cats. LOL! Seriously, I felt a lot better when I realized I didn't have to visit my mother-in-law, of whom we have no photo because we haven't spoken to her in five years…
    The doctors, nurses and staff at SurrogacyIndia are absolute darlings, particularly Dr. Shyja Gangadharan, who's shown so much patience with me these past two days. They meet my craziest requests with equanimity and respect. When I told them that one of our wishes was to have a tall mother, they questioned me, saying that even small people could be successful, citing themselves as examples. And yes, that is quite possible but wasn't my point.
    I mean, what do you look for in an egg donor (quizzically abbreviated “ED”)? Beauty? A PhD? What are good genes? What is it you don't want? Moles? Alex and I really don't place much emphasis on genetics, because they are merely the board on which the