-I’m carrying somebody else’s baby.
-I do enjoy the pregnancy.
-I always knew that I wanted to have kids.
I’ve never been married, and I’m currently single.
-I ultimately decided on surrogacy after looking into adoptions.
I believe that it’s redefined the family.
-They’re my kids.
I’m not gonna be embarrassed about it or shy about it or,
you know I had them, and they’re mine.
-Alright, big announcement everybody!
Yes, my wife is having a baby; no, it’s not mine.
-I was, I don’t know, having the urge to be pregnant again.
[Kids Yelling]
-Is this gray coat yours? -Yes, Sully.
-Great!
-So I had said, do you want another baby,
or should I have a baby for someone else?
And he said, someone else.
-Thank you.
-We ended up going through an agency.
-Well we meet with them, you know,
we start with a basic questionnaire to get a feel for
who they are and why they’re coming to this process.
-I am a gestational surrogate.
It’s an egg donor and sperm of the father.
-The surrogate is carrying biology that’s not hers.
-It’s a total disconnect.
The one ultrasound tech actually like,
scrolled over and saw my bladder and said,
“Oh, mom has to pee!”
And I’m like, don’t call me that!
I always wanted to have kids by the time I was 35.
If I had known that it was going to take so long, I probably
would have started the process sooner.
I had done research on my own with different surrogacy agencies.
What I liked about circle was that they were more gay friendly.
Some agencies were not open to gay parents, and I…
Yeah. I don’t have time for that.
-I definitely think there are people who think that surrogacy
is an easy money type of thing.
-And we were in a very different financial place.
We weren’t doing well, and so like it felt dirty to me.
I think the line I said was, um,
"I’m not pimping your womb out."
-I mean I’ve heard stories about them being compared to say
prostitution where’s this idea of wombs for rent and,
kind of taking away the fact that they’re making the decision
to enter this process just as anybody else.
-You can’t do this for the money, you can’t…
you know…it’s too hard
there’s too much emotional stuff that goes into it.
-I signed up for it all, but I never really thought about it.
and then, when she said it was, you know, a single dad,
I was like…and it wasn’t because it wasn’t because he was gay,
it was because I was like what single guy wants to have kids!
And I just wanted to ask him,
why is it that you want to be a parent?
Because it was very important to me to hear
how he answered that, and like not just,
ah well you know it was time.
He said this one phrase that was, "I was living a selfish existence,"
and once he said that I was like I’m in.
This is exactly what I want to be doing.
-Everybody tells you that your world is going to change,
and it does, and I would think about that and say
yeah I know my world is going to change, I know that it’s going
to be completely different, but you don’t know
how it’s gonna feel, until it happens.
-So many emotions that…I mean I cried obviously…um…
and I’m not really a crier but like man this whole process,
I’ve cried more than I think I’ve ever cried in my entire life.
-I mean my dad, he originally said that,
oh that’s a really unique way to like, give back kind of thing
because it something that comes easily to me and I know
that so many people struggle with infertility.
-For people that can do this, and do, do it,
and do for the right reasons,
it’s a beautiful thing, it’s an amazing thing.
-This new idea of what it is to be a family, I think a lot of
people will say that allowing singles to have children or gay
people to have children is going to cause a collapse
in the family structure.
The traditional family structure has been collapsing for 40 years,
you know, people aren’t getting married,
people are getting divorced.
There’s a lot of kids out there that don’t have two parents,
so, it’s no different for me in my eyes.
Except for the fact that, in order for me to get to this point,
I had to jump through a lot of hoops.
-We’ve developed a great relationship, I mean,
he said, he never thought going into the process
that he’d be gaining an additional like family.
-You know with Michael, like he is a part of our family,
and he will be, you know, my brother forever.
-Jenna and Phil have been wonderful.
For them to be so emotionally invested in someone
else's desire to have a family.
I wouldn't change it for the anything.
I love my kids.
Everything that I thought I would feel is amplified
a million times.