More gay men embrace marriage, fatherhood

Becoming a biological dad
Brisman, who specializes in reproductive legal issues, said laws dealing with surrogacy vary widely from state to state, as do the options for same-sex couples who become parents.

"Legally, being able to get married will help in some states but not others," she said. "I would never tell clients to get married. ... But I tell them straight out, 'If you do get married, it's going to be easier."'

The Taravellas (Brent has taken Joe's last name) both donated sperm — a fairly common practice among gay male couples who say they don't care which partner is the biological dad. Some other couples decide to have two biological babies simultaneously, each providing sperm and using two surrogates.

Among the enterprises offering such services for prospective gay fathers is the Fertility Institutes, which has offices in Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Mexico, and plans to open a branch soon in New York City even though New York is among a half-dozen states banning paid surrogacy.

"It's not going to happen in New York as the law stands now," said the Fertility Institutes' director, Dr. Jeffrey Steinberg. "You can't bring the surrogate into the state, but we can make the arrangements, fly the client elsewhere."

Overall, Steinberg says inquiries from gay men to his offices have increased 30 percent in the past six months.

"There are more couples that had been holding off because of the marriage situation who are now starting to show up," he said. "We've definitely seen an upswing."

‘Surrogacy is getting easier’
For now, adoptions, rather than surrogacy, remain the most common way for gay men to become fathers, but Steinberg believes a shift is under way.

"Adoption is not getting any easier — surrogacy is getting easier," he said. "You rarely hear horror stories about surrogacy."

In fact, there are occasional surrogacy cases which become anguishing — including lawsuits by surrogate mothers seeking custody of the child, and wrenching cases in which triplets or quadruplets are conceived, and a debate ensues over whether any of the fetuses should be aborted.

Lawyers say airtight contracts can head off such problems, but legal costs run high. Beyond that, there usually are medical costs in the tens of thousands of dollars, and fees to the egg donor and surrogate that together can exceed $25,000.

Dr. G. David Adamson, director of Fertility Associates of Northern California and president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, says gay couples considering the option of surrogacy should receive thorough medical and psychological counseling, as well as candid legal advice.

"What we've tried to do is have consent forms that make it very clear what the intentions of the people are," he said. "Who's going to be the mom, who's going to be the dad, what might happens if relationship ends, if someone dies."

"If you don't have an exit strategy, the usual result is that you have potentially several years of litigation, which is extremely damaging to the child," Adamson added. "It's incumbent on everyone to be very thoughtful about entering these arrangements."

A social support system
The challenges of gay fatherhood can seem relatively less daunting in gay-friendly communities such as New York, where Jeffrey Parsons and Chris Hietikko are raising a 2-year-old son, Henry. They've also remained in touch with the surrogate mother, a lesbian who lives with her own family in Oregon.

"As gay men, so much depends on where you live, what your social support system is like," said Parsons, a 41-year-old psychology professor at Hunter College.

"Our child will go to school with other kids with gay parents," he said. "I had a job option upstate, but I knew he'd be only kid like that there."

Parsons, who has been conferring with Hietikko about getting married, says he's a rarity among gay men his age — even as a youth, realizing he was gay, he was convinced he'd become a father.

More typical are men like Jeff Littlefield, who said that in his 20s, "I'd completely given up on the idea of ever having a child."

Littlefield was raised in Utah as a Mormon. In that family-focused culture, he regretted the prospect of not providing his mother with a grandchild.

When he and Starling did have their daughter, they rushed out to introduce the infant to her ailing grandmother — who died just a few days later. The girl's name, Carrigan, is her grandmother's maiden name.

"My mom was able to hold her," Littlefield said. "It was magical."

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