Gay Men Choosing to be Fathers--Part II

Two options are mentioned for male couples wishing to father a child:

1) arrange with a woman to be the surrogate and pay all medical expenses. The mother relinquishes involvement with the child after birth.

2) co-parent with a single woman or lesbian couple, one of whom is the biological mother to their child.

The second arrangement is complicated both emotionally and logistically. It can benefit from counseling to help navigate the complexities. But despite the problems of negotiating co-parenting from different households, many families have created loving co-parenting arrangements which provide a child with the richness of several devoted and responsible parents. Extensive pre-insemination discussions should occur in addition to a written contract that explicitly spells out the specifics pertaining to medical expenses and access to the child after birth.

An example--

Ron and Josh live in Philadelphia and were together five years when they discussed becoming parents. Two friends, Sally and Judy approached them. The couples met monthly for a year to discuss joint parenting issues including the specific contractual arrangements. Before attempting to inseminate Judy they reached impasses several times . However, they felt that either mediation or counseling would be too complicated and eventually resolved their differences--specifying access to the child and ongoing shared financial responsibilities.
Ron donated sperm and their daughter Sarah was born. She lives with her mothers full time. The men travel to Boston monthly and spend a weekend with Sarah. It took Sarah about six months to become comfortable with her fathers and now talks to both on the phone regularly, calling Ron "Pappa" and Josh "Daddy". Though Josh is not the biological parent, the agreement drawn up by the two couples guarantees access to Sarah and also defines co-parenting responsibilities.

Result-
Sarah has four loving parents, two of whom she lives with and the other two who take an active but long distance parenting role. Ron and Josh consider themselves the non-primary care-giving parents. As Ron puts it- "in terms of parenting responsibilities and child care our arrangement is almost identical to a family where the parents have separated or divorced and yet both have regular contact with the children."

A happy ending.