Two Dads are Better than None

The adventures of two very adorable gay men trying to become fathers in a crazy ass world

In January 2010 we were matched and got VERY excited. We were starting to think we really might pull this off and then the floor fell out from under us. This is a letter I wrote to a support group of sorts and switched to a surrogacy approach after that had failed...

Greetings Everyone,

We are new here and just wanted to introduce ourselves and tell you our story so far. We are a same sex couple living in Texas and have been together for almost 9 years. The last two years we have seriously discussed having a family and we officially started our journey about 9 months ago. Needless to say, we have had some bumps in this journey and are trying to remain positive.
A couple of years back we thought about co-parenting and even went so far as to meet a young lesbian and discuss this, but because of ours jobs we did not want to be tied to one area and deal with the complications of two families for our child. We then discussed the option of surrogacy, but once we looked at the cost, we realized that it was very complicated and expensive. It also seemed somewhat selfish when we thought about babies needing to be adopted.
Rewind about 16 months ago, we decided to start the adoption journey. We did tons of paperwork, saved money and discussed it with friends and family. We did our homestudy and signed contracts with an agency (really more lawyers) in California. California is one of the few states that allows same sex couples to adopt jointly at the same time, and that was important to us. This agency in California put us in a pool of potential parents, mostly straight but some gay, with the hopes that we would be selected by a birth mom. After thousands of dollars and 7 months, we have not been picked by any birthmoms, which has been disappointing for us.
After our homestudy was done, we were introduced to a facilitator in California through the gay-friendly woman who did our homestudy. Her model was a bit different. You choose who you want to be presented to and if the birth mother agrees, contracts are signed, money changes hands and you start down the road to being a parent. In January we were delighted to find out that a young woman in California had accepted us as the adoptive parents of her child. We were thrilled that things were actually happening. Even before we signed contracts, the facilitator encouraged us to give the birthmother some "gift" money in good faith as she was struggling, single and had a child to take care of. Being naive, we did so since we felt that our life was in this person's hands to some extent. Contracts were signed, 20k was wired to a slew of attorneys, trusts were set up etc.
We very much wanted to have a close and open relationship with our birth mother and were anxious to get to know her. After we were paying clients through this second avenue, they gave us her details (name, phone number etc). We called several times and left messages and she did not really return our calls. That is when I became suspicious. We had read and read about adoption and new that most birthmothers were very interested in getting to know the prospective adoptive parents. This young lady did not, so my partner convinced me she would just want minimal contact, which we were fine with. We gave her a lot of money through a trust to pay back rent, buy cell phones, get food and clothes, all the while she missed doctor appointments for a June birth. This whole time we had not even gotten a "hello" phone call or a return of our messages. While this was going on we spent thousands of dollars on another attorney trying to get the presumed father to waive his rights. Imagine how upset we were when we discovered that once presented a letter by an attorney, he OPPOSED the adoption, even though she told us he would not. The presumed father was separated from the mother for months and in a religious halfway house of some sorts. The attorney also showed us a letter she had written to him months ago WHERE SHE LIED AND TOLD THIS MAN SHE HAD MISCARRIED HIS CHILD! Needless to say, we were devastated. Just like that, the whole thing fell apart. The thousands of dollars we had spent on attorneys was gone as well as all the money we had “gifted”. And we did not have any malice towards this man if he truly wanted to father his child.
This all happened over the last month. We have been licking our wounds and trying to be hopeful, but it is hard when you feel as though you have been used and it seems like everyone has their hand out asking for money in the adoption process. So far our experience with adoption has been disheartening to say the least. You feel like your fate is in these other people's hands and you have very little control. The lesson we learned is that you must terminate the father’s rights before you go too far down the process with a birthmom.
We are still getting a few potential birthmothers from this facilitator we paid, but many of these women who are even open to gay couples are felons, former drug users and one woman who was gang-raped (and we know this is not her fault at all, but we wanted to know more about the father's medical background). I apologize to all of you for venting, but this process has taken a toll on us both mentally, financially and in our relationship. If anything, we are even more determined to make a family now, so that is why we are here, with the hope having a bit more control over this situation. We truly believe that somewhere out there is a child waiting for us.
We are here looking for a traditional surrogate mother, hopefully not too far from Texas, who would be interested in perhaps working with us. We are very honest and open and want to find someone who is the same. We have already been hurt once, so we are a bit apprehensive still, This would be an open situation meaning the surrogate would use her eggs and our sperm and there would be some contact throughout the years, but we would want the surrogate to terminate all legal rights. We both love our mothers very much, so you have to believe us when we say that we would want our child to know who his/her mother is.
Again, I apologize for venting, but I wanted to see if others had any advice or suggestions or maybe someone has been through something similar. Our apprehension about going the surrogate mother route is that it will just be about the money, that we will get our hopes up and it will fail, or that we will be misled by doctors, attorneys or women struggling through this recession like everyone else. As a potential parent going these routes to start a family, you sometimes feel as though all people see are dollar signs, so it can cause you to lose faith. We are trying hard not to, The thing that appeals to us about the traditional surrogacy route is that we truly want to get to know the mother and develop a relationship with her, since this whole journey is based off that. Thank you everyone for listening. Hopefully our dreams will come true in the next year or so. Until then, we will try to keep our faith in humanity. Wishing you love and luck and please contact us if there is any sincere interest.

signed hopeful daddies,

Brent & Greg

The takeaway for other gay couples trying to adopt here is:

1. Lawyers, adoption agencies and facilitators are out there and happy to take your money and sell you hope or the "promise" of a match (cha-ching - $20,000)
2. Verify that assumed fathers will terminate their rights BEFORE you enter into ANY agreements. This is really tricky since these agencies and facilitators "hook" you with a match that requires thousands of dollars to get the BMs (birthmothers) details. If you are matched, tell them that you will pay for a social worker to speak with the presumed father first and verify that he is indeed onboard. Spend the $200 to have a state social worker do this and save yourself the heart ache and loss of money.

So I have officially repurposed my blog. I have changed some settings to make it more private and have decided to tell our story...so here goes.

Some Background:

We have talked seriously about starting a family since 2007. Since we are missing one critical part of that (duh - a uterus!) we looked at several options over the past few years. Here were some of our initial thoughts

- surrogacy - too expensive
- co parenting - looked into it, quite hard to pull off with 4 parents. Leaves you tied to one place
- foster parenting - first of all, gay couple get no love from the state in becoming foster parents. In many ways we are treated like 2nd class citizens or "backups" for special needs kids. Plus the thought of attaching and having to give a child back to a shitty mother/father!?? Are you kidding? No thanks.
- Adoption - sure. Why not?

About this blog

We are a committed gay couple of almost 10 years who are trying to start a family of our own. This is our story.

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