To Kid or Not to Kid
Exploring the big, scary, beautiful decision of becoming a parent.
This week on my podcast Well…Adjusting, I’m joined by host and podcaster Sam Sanders to tackle one of life’s biggest, messiest questions: Do I actually want to have kids?
In this episode, we get wonderfully tangled up in the existential pros and cons — like, will your 40-year-old knees survive a decade of crawling on the floor? (Because kids will absolutely demand you become a human jungle gym.) Deciding whether or not to have kids is a deeply personal decision, and honestly, I think we don't talk about it enough. Some folks feel guilty for not wanting kids. Others feel pressured to say yes because... society, family, brunch conversations where everyone just assumes you’ll get around to it.
In tend to think parenting is awe-inspiring and life-changing— but it's also to freaking hard and all-consuming to step into because of guilt, fear of missing out, or because someone’s aunt asked when you were going to "finally settle down."
Talking to Sam got me thinking about all the emotional, hilarious, and downright beautiful conversations I had when I hosted a podcast about LGBTQ family creation. If there's one thing I learned? No one is more intentional about the decision to have kids than LGBTQ folks — because, logistically, you literally can’t stumble into it after a few too many margaritas. It takes planning, lawyers, medical appointments, and often several small miracles.
Somewhere along the way, those conversations turned into a book deal, and the result was a labor of love called:
If These Ovaries Could Talk: The Things We’ve Learned About Making an LGBTQ Family
In it, we explore all the ways LGBTQ folks create families, weaving in the real stories of the incredible people we interviewed. And wouldn’t you know it — chapter one? It’s all about that age-old question: Do I want to have kids?
Reading it back now, I realize: the concerns are universal. Straight, queer, single, partnered — the big questions are the same.
Is it the right time to bring kids into this world?
What if I’ve had health scares?
Will my kids be embarrassed by me? (Um, yes. They will.)
So if you're teetering on the fence, wondering whether parenthood is right for you, check out my conversation with Sam Sanders (dropping Tuesday, 4/29!) — and read the chapter excerpt below. If you’re feeling super ambitious, buy the book. There’s a lovely forward by the Judy Gold and Amy Schumer said she “fucking loved this book!” What more do you need to hear?
No matter where you land on the decision, remember both paths are valid. Oh, and I support you too!
Chapter 1. Deciding You Want to Make an LGBTQ Family
And I said, “At the end of our lives, what are we going to wish we had, a family or a bigger apartment?” - Gary.
In our interviews, we discovered that while growing up or in the early stages of relationships, many LGBTQ folks didn’t think of having kids. That was mostly because they didn’t see a path where they could create a family for themselves. They didn’t know any gays raising kids. If they did, those families were often made up of kids from a previous heterosexual relationship. They didn’t know of any famous LGBTQ parents until Rosie O’Donnell and Melissa Etheridge. And they definitely didn’t see any nontraditional families in movies and TV. Some couples knew they wanted to be parents but had no idea how to make that happen since no matter how hard we try, we can’t get pregnant the old-fashioned way.
But over the last two decades, both fertility treatments and LGBTQ rights grew by leaps and bounds, and a path to parenthood slowly emerged. As that happened, we began making our very intentional, nontraditional families.
But just because we can make a baby doesn’t mean every person wants to make a baby. In that sense, the LGBTQ world is no different than the straight one. Figuring out if you want to bring a child into the world can cause fights, leave two people stranded at an impasse, and even lead to breakups.
Here are excerpts from our podcast discussions with couples and single folks trying to answer the age-old question, “Do we want to bring a baby into this insane world? Or should we just continue on with a life filled with free time, money, and spontaneity?”
Wait. We’re kidding. Parenting is totally worth it. We really mean that.
ROBIN
Co-host of If These Ovaries Could Talk
I always wanted kids, even after I switched teams from unsuccessfully dating boys to unsuccessfully dating girls. The only difference in my mind was that now my future children would have two moms instead of one mom and that strong black dad I envisioned back in college.
I always saw myself as a mom. My childhood wasn’t an easy one. My mom showed me many more examples of what not to do rather than what to do, but it never deterred me. I was confident that I would know how to be a good parent, and I’d perhaps even right some of the wrongs that were done to me. I felt so strongly about parenting that after several cocktails, I was fond of telling people that being a mom was one of the reasons I was put on this earth. That’s funny because now that I’m a parent, I’m constantly worried I’m breaking my kids in some subtle emotional way that will definitely require therapy.
That said, if I had not met my wife, Mary, I would have gone forward on the “single mom by choice” path. Thankfully for both me and my kids, I found Mary because she’s a way nicer mom than I am.
When we first started dating, we immediately talked about whether or not we wanted to have kids. I recall asking Mary if she wanted to give birth. I thought this was a fairly basic question. I wasn’t asking if she wanted to have a baby with me. It was only our third date, and that would have been too soon, even by lesbian standards. But I was asking if she thought it would be a cool experience to, you know, pop a baby out of her vagina.
She responded to this question by immediately making an appointment with her gynecologist to see if she was still physically capable of having a child. I thought that was hilarious. Her lack of communication skills was cute in our early days, but I continued peppering her with questions until I understood what her issues were.
Mary was like many LGBTQ folks. She didn’t think having a baby was a possibility, so she didn’t allow herself to dream about it. She never pictured herself marrying a man because that didn’t feel right, but she had a sense it was expected of her. So instead, she assumed she’d grow up to be a divorced woman, like Mary Tyler Moore, but without the marriage.
Once I convinced her we could make a baby, she was forced to think about changing our relationship dynamic and adding in a third party in the form of a baby. She had this theory she called the “Upside-Down Triangle Theory”, which stated that in any situation where there’s me, her, and another person (like a kid), the focus of my attention would be on the other person, leaving her alone at the bottom of the triangle. She also had a very real and probably not misguided fear that the world was running out of peak oil, and all of us would die a slow death not dissimilar to The Walking Dead.
But I didn’t watch that show, and I wanted kids and so I would not be stopped. I told Mary that we’d figure things out if she didn’t want kids. I am not sure I meant that, but I wasn’t going to get bogged down in the weeds. I asked her to spend a couple of weeks considering her life, both with and without kids, before deciding. I believed it was important that she really think things through. Plus, I figured I could talk her into it. I had to because Mary was my person, and that was that.
So Mary thought about it. Luckily for me, she concluded that if we didn’t have kids, our life would be a series of weekend trips to towns we’d already gone to and shoulder shrugs about what to do with all our free time. Now that we’re parents, the idea that we would be bored with all that free time is hilarious.
TL;DR
We’re a family with two kids, one cat, two moms, and, at the time of this writing, two fish. And I’ve never regretted it, not once. Okay, that’s a lie, but I’m going to stand by it because I think it makes me look better. I’m kidding, really. I love my little animals and can’t imagine my life without them.
JAIMIE
Co-host of If These Ovaries Could Talk
I have always wanted to be a mom. Back in high school, I got that science assignment where they give you a bag of sugar and tell you to take care of it as if it were a real child. I took the assignment seriously. I’d been waiting for this my whole life. I went to the thrift store and bought outfits for her that I changed daily. I painted eyes, nose, and lips on the flat part of the bag where her face would go, and I made sure my high school boyfriend knew that this baby was both of ours. Such a feminist I was, and such a fun girlfriend, obviously. I named her Angelina because she was an angel from the skies, and I wanted her to have a Latin flare. She went everywhere with us. We were the perfect family. One day, she got soaked from the rain, and I dried her out in front of the fireplace while my boyfriend and I hung out in his room. All the while, I was thinking I’m really nailing this mom thing. I just knew I was destined for motherhood.
I also assumed mom-ing ran in my blood. My mom is truly better than all the other moms. Wikipedia should use Sue Kelton’s name as the definition of a mom. She’s that good. She’s a natural-born nurturer. I have always wanted to carry on the genuine momdom that runs in my veins. I learned from the best, after all, and I owed it to society. I was also very modest, and I think I still am.
When I figured out that I liked the ladies more than the gentlemen, the need to be a mom didn’t disappear. I might have to try harder to make it happen, but I was destined for this shit. Any partner of mine would surely see that and be on board.
Fast forward to my current reality. I just said to my 5-year-old, “If you don’t stay in bed tonight, I will tell Nana to stop buying you presents. Like forever, little girl. So close your eyes and don’t open them again until morning.” And my son is currently asleep in his stroller, which we also use as his crib. This is due to the fact that I’m either too lazy or too much of a wuss to sleep-train him.
Perhaps my dad’s blood runs stronger in my veins than my mom’s. His mom smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey on the regular and called everybody “lady”, even her grandkids. So maybe I’m carrying on a tradition, just not the one I hoped for.
The takeaway here is this. I’m a mom now, but I’m surely not the mom I thought I’d be. And though I joke about my parenting skills, deep down I’m extremely proud of my little family. We built it with intention and patience and tenacity, and we’re doing our best with what we’ve got. I definitely lose my patience way more than just a little and rely a bit too heavily on the chardonnay, but my kids are turning out to be pretty good humans.
I’m a mom doing her best, and for that I’m proud.
DAVID
David, a self-described 50-year-old-millennial, never saw having kids as an option in his life. But when he met his husband, Billy, he knew he couldn’t deny him kids.
David:
I'm not the model of a first-time gay dad who had a kid. I didn't want to have kids, mostly because I never thought that was an option. It didn't occur to me. Growing up, I was an Air Force brat, and we literally moved every two years to increasingly horrible places.
I was 28 when I came out, and that was pretty daring for me. So for what is half of my life, I was in the closet. The combination of always being in a new place where I didn't fit in, plus being gay, I had this other life which was in my head, and I didn’t share it with anybody.
I think I'm still that guy. I had a lot of shame about my everyday feelings and thoughts and opinions, and to have a child is so public and so social. I wasn’t ready for that. But my husband Billy was open and honest from day one and said, “I want kids. I’ve always wanted kids.”
I thought, “Oh, I’ll deal with that later.”
Ultimately, I got there because, whether this was a good reason or not, there was no way I could let him down. I couldn't do that. I wouldn't do that. And so I said, “Sure.”
RAE AND MARGIE
Rae and Margie were pioneering lesbians, who conceived their daughter, Emma, in the 80’s using an anonymous sperm donor. From the beginning, Margie wanted kids, but it took Rae longer to warm up to the idea.
Rae:
We talked to every one of our friends about having a child, and we met all these women who were adopting children. Emma was born in ‘85, so we started talking about this maybe five or six years before. Our friends all said, “Do it already. You'll be good parents.” We talked with everybody, though I didn’t discuss it with my family or my brothers.
Robin
What were your concerns? Bringing a kid into the world as gay parents or just you two being parents? Or all of the above?
Margie:
All the above, I think.
Rae:
I was always fearful someone would come and take the baby away. I lived with great fear, and I didn't think my family would accept us having a baby, though it turns out that when we finally told my brother, he said he would have helped if I had asked. That idea had never occurred to us. Also, while it was not something that we had thought of doing, my nieces and nephews are really terrific, our daughter Emma is terrific,but it wouldn't have been a terrible thing.
Margie:
She wouldn't have been blonde though.
Rae:
Correct. So Margie wanted to have a child, and she wanted to birth a child. I don't think I loved myself enough to do that. Second, I was always concerned about my weight and I knew with pregnancy that would adjust. I thought my weight was in a manageable area, so I was really rooting for the adoption.
Margie:
I wanted to actually try this pregnancy thing. I thought, “You know people have been doing it for thousands of years. It might be something I want to try.” But I felt like it would be strange to have other people determining whether I could or couldn't have this baby, and then there was also the threat of somebody coming in and taking the baby away. And that was even more of a threat for Rae because she would not have a legal relationship to the baby. In New York there weren’t second-parent adoptions yet. At the time there also wasn’t legal same-sex marriage, so she would have had no legal relationship to the baby, which would have been true if we had adopted as well.
PATRICIA AND KELLEN
When this fiery couple Patricia and Kellen started dating, the question of having kids was front and center. It turned out that the decision to have a baby was much more about their commitment to each other than whether or not they should have children.
Patricia:
When we first started dating I said, “I have to tell you one thing. I am having a baby, and it's with or without you. I don't know if it's with you because I don't know if we're going to be together forever. But are you willing to date a woman who's going to start the process to have a baby?”
Kellen:
And I never wanted to have a baby. I didn’t want to have a child. I wasn’t into children. I didn’t have the desire to give birth or anything.
Patricia:
But what did you say?
Kellen:
Yes.
Patricia:
She said yes! So you know what it's like when you meet the one and it’s the first few months. You’re in heaven. You’re in bliss. So when she said, “Yes, I wanna have kids,” and, “Yes, I wanna get married,” in my mind, I had met the one, and I was letting my guard down. Then one night, she invited me over to her place, and we were making dinner, and she said, “I have something to say.”
Kellen:
I told her I thought she should have a baby with a man because I didn’t think I wanted to have a baby. In reality, I got scared.
Patricia:
My beast came out. I was so mad. I was so hurt. I was like, “How dare you? You chased me, you pushed after me. What kind of a person, what kind of a human being are you? Don't you see what you've done? You've torn my heart out of my body.” Oh my god, I let her have it.
Kellen:
I called my best friend and he said, “You did what? You broke up with Patricia? Are you out of your mind? I'm not talking to you.”
I said, “Come on. You have to help me here. I'm devastated.”
He said, “No. I'm not talking to you. You deserve this.”
But I was scared shitless, and I couldn’t lie. It wasn't in me.
Patricia:
Well, we met up, and we tiptoed back into the conversation. We said, “Okay, let's slow the whole thing down. Let's not talk kids right now. Let's get back to, ‘Are we good for each other?’”
Kellen:
And I said, “So marry me then. If you want to have a baby, I want to get married.”
Patricia:
I said, “I don't want to get married.” And she's like, “Well, I'm not having a baby because then you're going to give all the energy to the baby, and I'm going to be left here.”
Kellen:
Well, it’s a big commitment, so if you want me to have a baby—
Patricia:
I think that the marriage was probably the bigger deal than the kids.
Kellen:
For me, yes. I felt like, “I love you forever. And I'm going to be with you, so if you want to have a baby, I'm on board. But let's be together.”
Patricia:
Then we were on the same team.
MARK AND GREG
Dr. Mark is a fertility doctor who helps make babies for a living, so he knew exactly where he stood on the kid question. It took Greg longer, but Mark’s experience came in handy during their decision-making process.
Greg:
Three years into our relationship we were headed up to visit friends for the weekend and on the drive up he said, “I'd like you to think about this over the weekend, and you don't have to answer until the way back, but I'd really like to have a family with you.”
Mark:
I said, “If you're not willing, we're wrapping this up.”
Greg:
I saw it coming, and it was a tantalizing moment. But I did wait till later in the weekend to tell him because I wanted to be thoughtful about my decision.
Mark:
Greg’s a very special person, and I met him, and it really changed my perspective on life, and I was thinking of moving forward with parentage by myself. But I met this person and fell in love and that's awesome, but I still wanted to be a dad, so that was important to me.
Greg:
So we decided to move forward, and I was really coming at it blind in the sense of not knowing how, what, who, when, where, why. And it was overwhelming once we got into it. I was very thankful that this is what he does for a living.
TIQ
As a transgender man, Tiq couldn’t fully commit to the idea of becoming a parent until he transitioned.
Tiq:
I always wanted kids. There was a point in my life where I thought, “I know I want to have children, but I don’t want to be a mother.” This was before I transitioned, and I didn't understand then that I was trans, so I put it in the back of my mind.
Then I transitioned, and when I met my wife, we were talking, and she wanted to have kids, and I wanted to have kids. So I was like, “Great. Because I finally met someone who wants to have children, and we were in the same place.
THE ABBYS
Sam and her wife Laura, author of the book 2Brides 2Be: A Same-Sex Guide for the Modern Bride”, spent time on a reality TV show called The Newlyweds. They went on the show to have some fun, but the network had other ideas, pushing them toward parenting much earlier than they planned.
Laura:
The network wanted to take us to get our eggs tested and do some fertility testing. I knew nothing about any of it. I guess I thought, “Someday we'll have a baby.” So we agreed to go get this testing done. We figured, “Sure. If they'll pay for it.”
Sam:
But listen, we were 28, living in New York City, pretty early in our careers, and we weren't looking to start a family, at all. But we went in and both did ultrasounds, blood work, whatever else they wanted us to do, but we made it very clear, do not expect a baby to happen during this season of the show.
Laura:
Weeks went by, and the next time the producers showed up they told us, “We're going to go back to the fertility clinic and get your test results.” They were going to film us, and our doctor who we really liked, was out on maternity leave, so they put us with this older doctor.
Sam:
He was the partner who had started the clinic.
Laura:
He was one of those doctors that doesn’t really prepare you for news. He just dropped a bomb on us. He started telling me how some men can't have children, and then he went on this tangent about sperm. I knew he was going to lead that back to something like, “And some women don't have eggs.”
Sam:
It was his chance to be all, “I'm on TV.”
Laura:
He talked so much. Then he slides this piece of paper in front of me and takes out the tip of his pen and he says, “This is a normal AMH level. And this is yours.” And he points to the lowest possible number. And I was like, “Okay.”
Sam:
Your AMH is how many eggs you have left.
Laura:
He said, “You need to start trying to get pregnant right now.”
Sam:
And you still might not be able to have a baby.
Laura:
Of course, we then told our family and said, “Hey, before you watch the show, it's not that big of a deal, but I might have trouble getting pregnant.”
Sam:
And Laura’s mom is a very emotional woman, so she cried.
Laura:
She's like, “I don't understand. I got pregnant no problem.”
Sam:
And we were like, “We know!”
Laura:
So then the producers take us outside to get the shot. We're in the middle of Brooklyn in a Hasidic community, and there are children everywhere. And the producers say, “We're going to film you walking down the street talking about how you feel about this.” But they had to set up the shots, so we had to stand there and wait with the producers saying things like, “Don't talk to each other!”
We just stood there looking at each other. And Sam's one of those people that wants to make me feel better, and she's trying to rub my shoulders. And I don't want to be touched when I’m in a mood.
Sam:
This was really hard because we're not very emotional people. And this was a bomb.
Laura:
That was probably the closest I came to really losing it on camera because I felt like, “I don't want to do this right now.”
Sam:
It was hard because I would say, “We're gonna figure this out.” And she was like, “No.”
It was rough.
Robin:
You weren't even trying to have a baby. So all of a sudden someone just told you, you can't have something that you weren't even trying for.
Laura:
That was exactly it. I'm not there yet, so I can't emotionally connect with this loss, if I would even call it a loss at this point.
Sam:
Laura's also someone who doesn't process things until they're happening to her. She has to be in the moment to be feeling what is going on.
Laura:
So we did nothing. The producers wanted us to do it now, and I was like, “Nope. Still not ready to have a baby.” It was actually good though that we did this whole thing with that TV show because we realized I would have to carry first. But Sam still had to push me to move the baby thing forward.
EMMA BROCKES
Emma is the author of An Excellent Choice: Panic and Joy on My Solo Path to Motherhood and is a single mom by choice. She spent loads of time waffling over whether or not to have kids.
Emma:
Well, I turned 37 and that was it, really. And it was early to panic. I mean, I've been upbraided by lots of women who tell me I shouldn't have started panicking until 44. But I was really worried about the money. I knew that it was going to be expensive because the pregnancy was going to have to be assisted. And every year after 40 was going to be another 15 grand.
Then it was basically getting my nerve up. I kept losing my nerve, and I kept thinking, “It's too weird. I don't think I can do it.” And, “What will people say?” Which is so strange because it's not like I live my life like that. I knew one person who’d done it [single mom by choice], but no one in the generation above me. So I felt like I had no template. And I had trouble imagining what it would look like. I didn't know where we were going to live. I felt dislocated in a million different ways. Then I just had this relationship going on at the same time, which was unresolved. So I kept getting near to making the decision then retreating.
But I thought in terms of money, and I thought in terms of outcome. I realized I would be devastated if I couldn't do it, which was a shock to me because it's not like I sat there for five years hoping that I could have a kid. But suddenly the possibility that it wouldn't happen completely floored me.
LISA AND JENNIFER
Lisa and Jennifer both knew that they wanted kids. They discussed it early in their relationship and were ready to go, but life got tricky for Lisa when she got cancer. That forced her to reconsider if she really wanted to be a parent.
Lisa:
I always wanted kids, and the closer I got to 40, something shifted in my brain, and I no longer was certain that I wanted to have children. And Jennifer’s twin sister was pregnant at this time, and Jennifer was like, “Chop, chop. When are we having a baby?”
Jennifer:
We had to go to therapy. The way I said it to her at the time, and it’s still what I think, is that it's one of life's great experiences. And I didn't mean great as in great versus terrible. I meant great as in awesome. And I felt like I didn't want to live my life without that experience being part of it.
Lisa:
And we had discussed it early on in our relationship.
Jennifer:
Yeah, we had cleared this up at the beginning.
Lisa:
It was a bit of a curveball when I said I don’t know if I want kids.
Jennifer:
I thought, “Ahh. If you don't want to have kids, we might not be able to continue the relationship.” And there was no question that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together—she was my person. So we went to a couples therapist for a few months, and we talked through a lot of stuff, particularly around Lisa's mother's early death. Lisa's mom had cancer when she was a kid. And as we were getting closer to thinking about having kids, the idea of potentially having cancer and abandoning our children was unconsciously heavy for Lisa.
Lisa:
I think I’ve always been afraid of getting cancer, dying young and leaving a child behind. And lo and behold—literally, in our last appointment.
Jennifer:
Lisa had gone to the gynecologist for a checkup because of some bleeding, and given her family history, the gynecologist said, “Let me do a little biopsy.”
Lisa:
Two weeks later—
Jennifer:
We found out that Lisa had endometrial cancer. And so that was what we talked about at our last appointment with the couples therapist.
Lisa:
Even the therapist was surprised.
Jennifer:
Because we had been talking so much about Lisa's fear that she would get cancer and die, and then she got cancer.
Jaimie:
That’s when you just decided you wanted to have a kid?
Lisa:
Yeah, we were like, “Let's get online. Let’s pick some sperm. Let’s do this.”
Robin:
How did you make a right turn to saying, “Now seems like a really great time to bring a family into the world?”
Jennifer:
Well, it was just like, “Come on, can we get on with our lives?” You want to embrace life.
ACTOR, DAVID BEACH
David and his husband spent somewhere in the neighborhood of two decades deciding to have a baby. But eventually, they got there.
David:
We met when we were 23, and we kept on thinking, “Oh, you know, we're definitely about ready to have kids. We had the names picked out, Benjamin, and Emily. So we had all that set aside. And for a long time, if I was home cooking and Russell would come home, I would say, “Hey, Benjamin, your father’s home.” And the people downstairs, I think really thought we had a kid who we never let out. It was awkward. They must have thought it was the strangest thing in the world. And when we finally brought home a baby, I think they were all, “Well, the first kid’s still not around. Don’t lose this one.”
But I think that we would have definitely had more kids if we had started earlier. But everyone who was a parent who we talked to, it seemed like they must have hated having kids. They’d say to us, “Oh, you're about to have a kid? It's not easy.”
People would say, “You guys are gay. You don't have to have kids. No one's forcing you. Really, you do not have to do this.”
Or they’d say, “You will get into fights with your spouse that you have never had before. You're going to find things about each other that you have never known, and it's going to get so dark.”
And I’d think, “Why are you telling me this?”
Of course, some of that is true, but that whole sense of people just really wanting you to know that it’s going to be dark.
Also, I didn't want to make a baby if there were babies that needed homes. That’s just the way I felt. And with adoption, I couldn't deal with the fact that in some states, you have this amount of time where a birth parent can change their mind. Or if the birth father is in the military, he can come back a year later, and then still get the baby. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t put myself in that kind of vulnerability.
And I thought, “So what do you do? You withhold love for the first 30 days? You’re just like, “Oh, nice kid, but don't really cuddle them.” So we finally had to embrace the fact that you have to be vulnerable to that. There's no way around it.
We were getting older and older and thinking we still might want to have a kid, and people would say, “So how's the kid thing coming?”
And we'd say, “Oh, we’re still thinking about it.”
They’d say, “Dudes, you're 41. You can't just be thinking about it. If you're thinking about it, then you're not doing it. And it's a passive no.”
We had been talking about our future kids, and we knew where we were going to send them to school and where we were going to vacation and all that kind of stuff. I mean, we knew Benjamin Thomas would be doing all these great things. He just wasn't there. So then we finally we went to one of those introductory talks at an agency.
After that, we're like, “We're gonna have a kid.”
TOM
Tom is a single, successful gay man who wasn’t planning on having kids. It crossed his mind, but he had a full life. Then, without much thought, he volunteered to donate his sperm to a lesbian couple.
Tom:
When I was younger, like prepubescent I thought, “Oh, I can't wait to have a boy.” And at that point, my sisters had a friend whose son’s name was Robert Michael, and I thought that was the best name, and I just couldn’t wait to name my son Robert
Michael.
As I got older, I became a gay man. Of course then I dated a Robert, a Michael, a Robert Michael, and a Michael Robert. Yeah, they really deterred me from any thought of having children.
By then, I'd been single basically longer in my life than I'd been in relationships, and I'd had a very full life with performing arts and work. I thought a little bit about kids, but I didn’t think I really wanted a kid attached because I liked having my life.
But when the opportunity to donate my sperm presented itself, I thought, “I'm not doing anything with it. You want it?” It was not predetermined. It wasn't like I laid in bed and thought, ”I want to donate my sperm to the birth moms.” I suggested it very off the cuff.
And they said, “Are you serious?”
And I said, “Yeah, we can talk about it.”
Shortly after that, we got together every couple of months and had dinner and talked about this idea. I heard what they wanted. They wanted somebody who the kids would know growing up, and I didn't really know what my level of expectation was going to be. How often am I going to see them? How much are they going to keep me informed on things?
As I continued with the process, even after the sperm banking, and through the legal process, I thought “Is this what I really want?” But ultimately, we figured it out. I realized I wanted to know who the kids were as well. I wasn't just going to write them off as a donation I made in the past. It was over the course of a year and a half that we figured it all out. And everything just sort of lined up.
GARY AND TONY
Gary was raised by parents who said, “Waste not, want not.” and he felt pretty strongly that applied to his extra sperm. So before he and Tony had any children of their own, they both offered sperm to several lesbian couples to help them create families.
Tony:
We were at a wedding party event when we met our friends, Leslie and Alicia. We had been talking with a couple who wanted to have a baby with a known donor, but they were moving to Washington and we decided it probably wasn't the best situation. And then we started talking to Alicia and Leslie about it, and they were really interested.
Gary:
Actually it was Karen and Francine who were the first, and there was an email I saw they sent to you, and I responded, “Are you looking for sperm?”
I said, “We have this stuff, and I know it can be expensive.” They didn’t really respond. But that's what started the conversation.
I looked at it like it saves money. My parents were depression era, which meant you use the things you got. I knew none of our friends had tons of money, and I know my grandparents lived to be 100, so there's health in my family. That's when I offered to the first couple. And then the second couple who thought about it, but then they were gonna move away.
Tony:
Then Leslie and Alicia. And I donated.
Robin:
How did you decide who donated?
Tony:
Well, we were both kind of working with both partners at the same time, and Alicia got pregnant first.
Jaimie:
Whoa. So you donated to one of them, and you donated to the other, and whoever got it first was gonna be the one?
Tony:
Yeah.
Gary:
Yeah.
Robin:
Wow. Talk about letting the Universe decide.
Tony:
And we ended up with Piper who's now almost 13.
Gary:
They live a block from us, and we all work together, and our kids go to the same school.
Tony:
So it's a wonderful kind of family forest, as opposed to a family tree. But it changed the way we thought about parenting, and we kidded with one another that Piper was our test child.
Gary:
Because we could babysit her and parent, and be fun, and help her study and then drop her off and still go see a show.
Over time, it became clear they wanted a kid of their own, but they couldn’t swing the cost of surrogacy, and so they assumed that the nontraditional setup they had would be their only link to parentage. Then their neighbor passed away and left them a large chunk of money giving them the opportunity to have a child on their own.
Gary:
I've always lived in walk ups. And there's always been that one old lady living in the building. And I've always said, “If you need my help, I’m here.” So Tony and I helped a woman in our building for 10 to 15 years, even when she was on her deathbed.
Tony:
Helpfulness is a deeply ingrained part of Gary. So many times, I got mad at him because we’d be walking on the street, and I’d turn around and he’d be gone. And I’d see him ushering a little old lady across the street or checking on someone who was by themselves. His parents taught him so well. So of course we took care of the woman in our building.
Gary:
Every day, twice a day.
Tony:
We would bring her the mail and help her with her bills. She lived this wildly rich life, and we were really fortunate to be able to get to know her. When she died, she left half her estate to Gary and me. We had no idea she came from this family fortune, and it was a very significant amount of money that she left us. We never, ever would have been able to do surrogacy and have our son if she hadn't left us that money. All of a sudden we had this opportunity to have a family the way that we really wanted to, though there was a moment where we did think, “Should we get a bigger apartment, or should we have a kid?”
Gary:
And I said, “At the end of our lives, what are we going to wish we had, a family or a bigger apartment?”
Tony:
We still have her ashes in our apartment.
Just did a giant bookshelf clean out that has allowed me to finally, properly, feature your book much more prominently in my apartment. Forever so proud to have been part of your book and podcast!