“Katie was told she would only be a surrogate for me and would never have a connection to a baby that wasn’t actually hers. I was criticized for not wanting to carry my own egg and that I would have a hard time bonding with a baby I didn’t actually carry or deliver.”
‘We walked up to the counter, the lady asked for the mother’s name. We gave both names and she made a face. Then she asked, ‘Okay so which of you is the mother? There can only be one.’
‘We went out to eat. There was a family sitting beside us, obviously disgusted. That hurt. My ‘life choices’ interfere with their views. We ARE the new normal.’
“I still remember what the room smelled like, I even remember what we were wearing. I couldn’t look away as if I was frozen. I knew instantly, this was the very moment I had prayed for.”
‘My wife sat me down. ‘We are going to adopt.’ l couldn’t bear letting her down. I wanted to yell out, ‘That’s not fair to the child.’ I had my first panic attack.’
“Despite my ‘advanced maternal age,’ everything looked great. We naively thought getting pregnant would be easy for us. I felt stuck in the middle of two worlds.”
‘During high school, I decided it was time to tell my family. The thought of losing them was scary. I would return to school after break, for the first time, as myself.’
“To others, I was in need of fixing. In an attempt to make me more masculine and ‘grow out of it,’ I was placed in sports. I feared what I would face.”
‘Then came the email that changed everything. ‘I have an oven that has never been used. Do you need it?’ We laughed. We didn’t know why she was offering us an ‘oven.’ Ours was in perfectly good condition!’
“The tension was palpable. Within seconds, the room was completely empty except for us. No explanation from anyone. In that moment, we both embraced each other and sobbed. Was Kimberly going to be ok? What about our son? Nothing prepared us for this unexpected event.”
‘We got THE CALL. ‘Would you be willing to accept a 3-month-old baby with serious medical needs?’ Our girl had endured more in those first 3 months than most do in a lifetime.’
“The thought of leaving her at school left me breathless. Would her teacher know what she needed? What if she was sad? Would she be scared? Made fun of by other kids for the ‘funny way’ she spoke? While our love and commitment to her never wavered for a second, it was earth shattering to hear.”
‘Two women wanted to help us create the family we had always wanted. The funny thing is – we never asked them. They asked US.’
“My first comment was, ‘We need to hire some staff!!!’ I actually almost fainted. The nurse had to bring me a glass of water before we could even attend to Danielle, who now realized she was carrying twins!”
‘It all seemed wonderful. We’d found the birth parents of our future child, and then lost them. The birth father told his mom about the baby, and she decided to ‘come for a quick visit.’
“It seemed like a match made in heaven. ‘We’re still kids,’ we can remember her saying. And then we got THE CALL.”
‘I still love you.’ When he was 13, he told me he was pansexual. I wasn’t sure what steps I should take as his mother, or even what an appropriate response was.’
“I wanted to prove to Adrian that there is support for him beyond what he saw. Most people have heard that a number of transgender people will attempt suicide. Regardless, this is simply not a risk I was willing to take.”
‘I was sick of being a secret as if it was wrong or dirty, as if our love wasn’t acceptable. After she told them, her dad turned up at our home.’
“Zaynah reassured me everything was OK, that it was friends messing around, having fun. I guess at 15-years-old I didn’t have a clue what or who I was. Nobody knew about us, what was there to know? We were two girls having fun or so we thought.”
