- My husband and I wanted to have children, and our son was born in 2020 via surrogacy.
- We still chat with our surrogate all the time, and our son knows he grew in her belly.
In a ball pit, my 3-year-old son, Solly, and an older boy were taking turns trying to hit me on the forehead with plastic spheres. I was lying down and kicking hard, so green and blue plastic balls were flying all around us.
"Throw it to Daddy Pauly," Solly said to the older boy while lobbing another blue ball toward my face.
My husband, Robin, had been drinking coffee at a nearby table and arrived to swap with me. "Daddy Robin, here!" Solly said. The older boy, whom Solly had never met before, pointed to me and said, "No, that's your daddy."
Solly's reply was instant: "My two daddies."
Robin and I looked at each other. He had never said this out loud before. Then the older boy joined in. "I have 10 daddies!" he shouted, throwing his hands into the air and jumping back into the ball pit.
My husband and I became parents to Solly on the first day of the first UK lockdown in March 2020. Over the past three years, we have enjoyed witnessing the variety of reactions that we get to our nontraditional family. Children's fun, curious, and sometimes bonkers responses are the best.
Robin and I welcomed Solly through altruistic egg donation and surrogacy in the UK
My husband and I met in 2014, first on Grindr and then on Tinder — it must have been destiny. We must have discussed how we both wanted children very early on, as I do not remember ever not knowing this about Robin.
Four years later, we started seriously exploring how we could grow our family. Initially, we were against exploring surrogacy. Wasn't surrogacy something that celebrities did, and didn't it cost hundreds of thousands of pounds?
We learned how surrogacy was legal in Britain but not commercial. This means you cannot pay surrogates a fee for carrying your child, but you cover expenses. We listened to podcasts featuring surrogates telling their stories, and it all sounded so lovely, if slightly bewildering because such extreme altruism can be so hard to comprehend.
After the embryos were created with an anonymous egg donor at a fertility clinic, we joined SurrogacyUK, a nonprofit organization that hosts social events and an internet forum for surrogates and intended parents, a term used for couples like us in the surrogacy community.
We found our surrogate and bonded
We met our surrogate, Rachel, and her family. Shortly after, SurrogacyUK called to let us know that Rachel was keen to get to know us better. At our agency, intended parents are not allowed to ask surrogates whether they want to carry a child for them, it has to be their choice.
We spent the next few months traveling to and from Rachel's home, spending the days with her and her family. We bonded over a shared love of Chinese takeout, true-crime documentaries, and countryside walks. Rachel told us how she had been inspired to become a surrogate by her sister, who had carried a boy for a couple with fertility problems.
We also went through paperwork outlining different awful decisions you might have to make during a surrogate pregnancy — such as whether the surrogate would have an abortion in extreme circumstances — and were relieved that we agreed on every discussion point.
After signing an agreement and having counseling separately and then together, in July 2019, our first frozen embryo was thawed and transferred. Five days later, Rachel did the first pregnancy test and sent us a video with the result. She was pregnant. We called her, and all screamed in excitement down the phones like teenagers.
Months later our son was born
When Solly was born, our surrogate's husband reached for a phone and captured it all: me cutting the cord, me holding Solly for the first time and staring at his tiny blue eyes, Robin holding him close while Solly sucked his thumb, Rachel and James cuddling the child that their family had helped to create, altruistically, for ours. Solly's middle name is Ezra, which is Hebrew for "help," to honor Rachel.
We are still incredibly close to Rachel and her family, chat regularly, and stay at each other's homes a few times a year. If you ask Solly whose tummy he grew inside he says, "Auntie Rachel!"
There's no gender equality at home
After becoming parents, my husband and I loved how liberated we were from the societal pressures that our straight friends faced when it came to stereotypical parenting roles. We were particularly struck by how little was often expected of us as male parents — and how much praise we were getting for doing the basics that no woman would ever be thanked for.
I had not thought much about parenting equality before having our son, but suddenly, this felt like such an obvious problem facing my generation of new parents. While we strive for equality in the office — and rightly expect no less from women at work than from men — there is still no real expectation of gender equality at home.
My book, "The Equal Parent," is an investigation of the truths behind the myths about gender and parenting roles. Is there really a mother's instinct? Why do dads still usually take so little time off work to bond with their babies?
The book includes my experiences as a gay dad through surrogacy, interviews with other nontraditional families, research from around the world, and conversations with leading scientists. The findings are really clear: Parenting equality would benefit all of us, mothers, fathers, and, most importantly, our children.
"The Equal Parent: How Sharing the Load Helps the Whole Family Thrive" by Paul Morgan-Bentley, published by Thread, is out now.