World Adoption Day, taking place this year on Friday, November 9, is always an exciting opportunity to celebrate gay, bi, trans dads who created their families through adoption. But as our friends and supporters at Dove Men+Care like to remind us, this is also a great opportunity to consider the impact a national paid paternity policy could have on all our families, especially adoptive and LGBTQ ones. Driving the conversation beyond our Father's Day partnership, Dove Men+Care continues to be committed to championing paternity leave for dads everywhere, spotlighting the importance of taking as much time as you can during those early moments with your new child.
As we prepare to launch our next life adventure – a baby food business – we've been taking time to reflect on our journey. From softball in Chelsea, to flying 5,000 miles for the birth of our son, to turning our passion for childhood nutrition into a company, it's been nothing short of an epic fairytale.
Eight years ago, Jay Faigenbaum messaged Adam Jacobs on the dating site Match.com. Adam had let his membership lapse, however, so wasn't able to read the email. “I'd kind of given up on dating at that point," Adam admitted. Still, he was intrigued by Jay's mystery message.
“I called customer service and said, 'Dr. Phil promised me six months free if I didn't find love on your site,'" Adam laughed, referencing a commercial from the time featuring the self-help guru. Sure enough, the company offered Adam six months for free. But as it would turn out, one extra day was all he needed.
Don't mislead yourself: Stay-at-Home parenting is a full-time job - or more. It may be even tougher than the 'traditional' job because there're no days off, no sick days, no Medical, Dental and Vision coverage and no bonuses at the end of the year. Nevertheless, many dads choose to stay at home to take care of the kid(s). Some of them do it out of need to give their kids the 100% care they've always wished for, others do it as a part of a complete change in their life's direction.
We spoke with Craig Sauer, who chose to stay at home and take care of his three kids until they were old enough that he could follow his passion of photography and turn it into a business involving 3D Real Estate photography. Craig talked about being jobless before the kids came along and what part that played in his committing to be a stay-at-home dad, his full-time daddy job, and the transition to being a WAHD: Work At Home Dad.
Craig says that having a stay-at-home dad can result in some guilt in the partner. Therefore, he advices to couples who consider having one of them stay at home to have the roles of each one of them clearly defined before the baby comes.
"Not that one person has to do everything," Craig explains, "but it will be easier if one person will be Chief Management Officer of the household.
"One of the choices that we made was that I was up all night with the kids, and I was like 'don't be guilty, go sleep. I need you to be able to make your decisions for your job to bring us money, and when I'm stumbling through the day so you'll be able to say hey I think you're boiling the baby instead of the dinner' or something. So going into this with those roles agreed upon and defined was really helpful to us."
Kyle Ashworth has four kids from a previous straight relationship. After ten years of marriage, he came out to his wife. "It was the most painful and wrenching experience of my life," said Kyle. "In the cold morning hours that coming-out-day in March, I began a journey of authenticity and honesty." Today, Kyle is 36 years old and ready to live his next chapter. But before we get to that, we need to look back at what led him to where he is now: an out and proud single gay dad.
Suraj, a 38-year-old software developer living in Birmingham, United Kingdom, met his future husband David, a 49-year-old journalist, 13 years ago at a Christmas Market with the help with the help of an online dating website.
When they started talking about creating a family, they immediately agreed on surrogacy. They looked at several different countries, but India had banned surrogacy for gay couples, Mexico was only available to Mexican citizens, and so on. Soon they settled on the United States. It would take them another five years to save enough money to make it happen.
It wasn't *just* wishing upon a star that helped Ben and Steve become dads, but the magic world of Disney has certainly played a role in making their wildest dreams come true.
Ben and Steve have always been big Disney fans, so much so they've worked for the Magic Kingdom in multiple capacities over the years: at theme parks overseas, with the Disney Cruise Line, and now at Walt Disney World in Orlando. The husbands even met at a Disney audition in 2009. And today, they're proud dads to a 2-year-old son.
"It's such a full-circle moment for both of us that now we raise our child with Walt Disney World right at his doorstep," said Steve, now the manager of Disney Performing Arts at Walt Disney World. "Many of our childhood Disney toys have now been passed down for him to play with," added Ben, now the Entertainment Manager at the Magic Kingdom. For the dads, it wasn't just wishing upon a star that helped them become dads through adoption, but Disney has certainly played a role in making their dreams come true.
Gay dads Brian and Jeffrey refer to son as their "Peter Pan boy" as he may never grow up like other children, but they see it as "a lifetime of adventures."
Brian Leonelli-Blain first saw Carter in the middle of 2015 when he was looking on Connecticut's Department of Children and Families (DCF) "heart gallery". Brian immediately knew there was something special about this boy. Brian told his husband Jeffrey about Carter and soon they reached out to the DCF, only to find out that Carter was already in the process of being adopted by a different family in South Carolina. And so, the aspiring dads thought that that was the end of it. Little did they know that their family journey was only beginning.
In our next vlog with "Broadway Husbands" Stephen and Bret, the dads-to-be talk about the process of choosing an egg donor and creating embryos.
After learning they'd have to wait for their donor to "cycle twice" before beginning, the guys offered a word of wisdom to future gay men who are interested in surrogacy:
"Just so you know they call it 'bleeds,'" Bret said.
"Yeah they said they're waiting for her 'second bleed,'" Stephen added.
"So if they tell you that, don't be shocked," Bret cautioned. "I guess that's just a phrase that they use medically?"
Bret, a New York actor, and Stephen, a Broadway dancer, make up the dynamic duo behind @BroadwayHusbands. Gays With Kids is extremely excited to have front row seats, as this theater duo vlog about the highs, lows, complications and revelations of their surrogacy journey.
Watch this latest installment of their journey and follow along as we learn about their hopes and their worries, gain insight on their mindset about starting a family, and the factors that helped them choose surrogacy and, ultimately, their fertility clinic, Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut (RMACT).
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In this video you'll hear Bret and Stephen discuss:
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