When his wife suggested being a surrogate, he was taken aback. After 3 pregnancies, he gets why she does it.

• Kyle Hanson's wife told him during dinner that she was thinking about becoming a surrogate.
• Initially he was very much against it, but he warmed up to the idea.

Kyle Hanson went to dinner with his wife, his sister-in-law, and his sister-in-law's husband, in what he thought was just another family outing. Midway through the meal, his wife, Sunshine Hanson, said, "I'm thinking about being a surrogate."

Kyle Hanson's immediate reaction was confusion and shock. Though the couple had a colleague whose wife was a surrogate, he could not understand why his own wife would want to pursue a similar path.

He was against it initially

"When my wife first mentioned she wanted to be a surrogate, I thought she was nuts, and I was very much against it," Hanson told Insider.

Over time, Hanson started warming up to the idea and moving past his reservations, especially as he started to learn about the mental, physical, and emotional tolls this decision would take on his family.

"I talked to a lot of husbands whose wives are thinking about doing surrogacy, and they're initially really cold to the idea," he said. "Their biggest fear — and mine when I first was approached with the idea — is that being the husband of a surrogate will somehow make you less of a man."

It made him a better father

On the contrary, supporting his wife during her three surrogacy journeys helped him become a better father.

As a self-classified "nontraditional dad" who's parenting an adoptive daughter, his wife's son from a previous relationship, and that son's half sister, Hanson said he wanted his children to move past archaic notions of what a family unit "should" be.

"I now know that family is defined in multiple ways," Hanson added. "Being the husband of a surrogate has made me a 'superfather' who not only is raising my own family but also helping my wife create a family for someone else."

The couple have lost friends over surrogacy

Sunshine Hanson has had three separate surrogacies, resulting in a pair of twins for a gay Australian couple and two children for a heterosexual couple.

Some of the couple's conservative Christian friends and family decided to step away from their relationships with them after learning that Sunshine Hanson was a surrogate for a gay couple. The lack of tolerance by people he once considered close fueled Kyle Hanson to be more accepting and less judgmental. His perspective has shifted and he's an ally. He hopes he's a role model and that his children adopt the same views.

"As a Christian, I didn't have much exposure or understanding of the gay community," he said. "I went along with the process, and after meeting them, I thought that if anyone deserves these babies, it's them. They were the kindest people who made loving parents."

When asked whether he felt an attachment to any of the babies, he said he didn't. Instead, he believes that attachment forms when a person is deeply involved in the raising, nesting, and planning of that child's life and not limited to the physical birth, especially since his sperm was not used for the pregnancies, he said.

Surrogacy has helped them financially

Besides helping out families, Hanson said surrogacy had helped his family financially. Despite their steady jobs, their expenses were high, and surrogacy proved a helpful secondary stream of income. Now the couple have left those jobs to pursue an agency, Surrogacy Is, that matches surrogate candidates to partner agencies and assists prospective surrogates in making educated and safe choices about their journeys.

Hanson aspires to continue educating husbands and partners of surrogates to teach them patience, acceptance, and kindness for people struggling to have children with alternative methods.

"I'm a much, much better person having gone through these surrogacy journeys with my wife," he said. "We're closer. I already knew we were a great team, but this allowed us to show off how strong we were together."