Dads: A gay couple's surrogacy journey in India

Dads

A gay couple’s surrogacy journey

in India

by

Hans M. Hirschi

Gothenburg / Sweden, January 2014

Dear reader!

My husband Alex and I had been talking about children ever since we first spoke on the web, where we met in 2001. We both wanted children at some point. The first time I remember my own proverbial clock ticking was when I was twenty-five years old. Once Alex had completed his studies and gotten his career underway, we started our journey.

From the beginning, we had no desire to conceive a biological child of our own. We would have been content to help a child already born to this world by fostering or adopting.

As time went by, I passed the age threshold for adoption in Sweden and we focused entirely on foster care, enrolling in mandatory training classes and undergoing the rigorous screening by local authorities.

Our two year journey toward becoming foster parents ended abruptly in April 2012. This is where our story begins.

The individual blog posts contained in this book are fetched directly from my blog (
http://blog.hirschi.se
) where you can read them as well. They have been edited for typos and legibility, and I’ve removed most images and all comments. The language is therefore that of a blog, not of a text written for publication in a book. The original posts are still available on the blog if you would like to see them there.

Keep in mind that a blog post is written in the moment. Other things were happening in our lives as well, things that are sometimes mentioned in the posts.

I never set out to create a book from the blog. The blog was intended to help us remember our journey, to allow our son, Sascha, to read and understand what his parents did, and why, including our emotions, long after our memories thereof will have faded.

However, after having published three novels, realizing just how easy it is, and having seen the tremendous response to the blog among readers around the world, I decided to make it available as a free e-book for two reasons:

We’d like to help others fulfill their dream of parenthood. This is still particularly difficult for many male gay couples who lack the reproductive means (aka a womb), and who are still discriminated by traditions and cultural values in most countries around the world. Then there are other couples where the woman’s reproductive organs don’t allow her to carry a child to term.

The blog, while easy to access and read, isn’t in any chronological order, and who likes to read a story backwards? In this book, the posts are easy to follow and they are ordered chronologically from the first to the last post, from April 2012 to September 2013.

Sadly, it seems that Sascha will remain our only child. The Indian politicians have discovered just how lucrative a business surrogacy is for their country, an industry they don’t profit from personally yet, as they completely overlooked its rapid growth. In a country where nothing happens without corruption, politicians and public officials have thrown up huge hindrances and have effectively blocked anyone but married heterosexual couples from pursuing their parenting dreams in India. It is their way of making sure that any future developments include lining their pockets with gold.

While several court cases are underway to clarify the law, Alex and I are not getting younger. We don’t know what the outcome in India will be. There are other countries, of course, but as human rights for the LGBT community make advances in the world, so does the resistance against these rights, e.g. Russia also closed its borders to gay couples seeking surrogacy or adoption. The legal situation in others countries such as Spain, Thailand, the Ukraine et al. remain volatile. That leaves the United States, a country where several states allow and have legally regulated surrogacy. Yet for many couples, the US remains a dream, as the costs are high.

This book is a document of the situation in India at a particular point in time (2012/2013), just as the visa regulations with regards to surrogacy were tightened. Please read it as such, as things may change again in the future.

If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me. If you consider parenthood through surrogacy, I wish you all the luck and patience in the world. Don’t be discouraged by the name-calling and hatred you’ll likely face along the road.

Thank you,

Hans M Hirschi

Have you ever experienced one of those moments when you feel that life just suddenly stops?

Well, I had such a day yesterday. I remember precisely where I was and what I was doing.

After having dealt with Singapore Airlines for 10 hours (can you believe it), being hauled to the airport, checking in, etc., I was tired, very tired (after all, I had been up since 4 am) and was just chilling in the lounge when my husband informed me of our “virtual” miscarriage.

Allow me to explain. We've been trying to become parents for two years now. Since the natural way isn't possible for us, we've tried different options and finally settled for foster care. There are plenty of children (unfortunately) who need help, our DNA isn't much to write home about, we don't think that surrogate motherhood is a good thing, and the idea of sharing with a lesbian just isn't fair to the child. Anyway, early in March, child protective services called about a boy, and we got all excited (although they told us not to, but after all these years, can you blame us?)

Last night, at 6 pm, Alex informed me that the catholic mother (who lost custody of her son after sexual abuse) vetoed us as foster parents for being gay…

Homophobia alive and well for you.

For an instant there, I thought my life was over. It is BS, I know, but that's how I felt and that's how I still feel, It's so strange. You want to help society take care of a child that needs a home, you want to make a difference, and yet there is still so much hatred, mistrust & misconceptions about gay people in this world it's scary, it really is.

As for myself, I was mentally prepared, the nursery was mentally being redecorated, my life was slowly being adjusted to becoming a stay at home dad for up to 18 months (which was the requirement from CPS!) and now, all of a sudden, they expect me to go back to full throttle in my "day job"? What do these people think we are? Automatons?

CPS believe you can go from 100% professional self-employed to 100% stay-at-home dad in a second. This is impossible mentally, not to mention from a professional point of view. But then again, that's public servants for you. What do they know about 'work', real work?

For now, I feel this total, utter and complete emptiness. I really do feel like I've lost a child and the sensation is not one I wish on anyone. I'm lost, I'm hurt, and I don't know what to do on Monday morning. I really don't.

Is this what you will look like? 

Here's your Dad in 1990 with a small boy in Romania. 

It hurt badly not being able to help those 

children more than we did...

I have not yet met you.

I do not know who you are.

I do not know where you come from.

But your father and I have made some very important decisions today. Given that homophobia prevents us from helping a four-year-old here in town to a better future (which in all honesty still brings tears to my eyes and blackness to my heart), we have decided that we will take matters into our own hands and find you with whatever means (legally) possible.

We are going to pursue legal action against the city of Gothenburg, and its staff if needed, if we feel that it doesn't jeopardize the future of the boy we had been matched to.

Or is this you? Crying your heart out at the orphanage

because you couldn't come with me? Trust me,

it killed me to leave this boy behind as well...

We are also going to go down the road of adoption, just because we feel we have been given no other choice. We know the chances of success that way are little to none, but that is still better than zero!

And finally, we are going to look at surrogacy.

These last two choices have always been available to us, but we had previously decided not to pursue them, as we, Alex and I, felt that there are plenty of children being born every day, that our DNA wasn't important enough to warrant doing it.

We were naïve! Incredibly so. We actually believed that society would welcome our help, given how often they have ads in the paper about needing foster parents. But after two years of being manhandled, having to answer the most ludicrous questions and meeting homophobic comments and remarks every step of the way, we've had enough. We are no longer going to play the role of the good samaritan.

I have had this feeling within me for twenty years now. I still remember the first time I felt that yearning of wanting to have you, and those emotions grew stronger and stronger over the years. When we lost “you” last Friday, something inside me burst. It was my last shred of faith in society.

So many children are born all over the world, unwanted, unloved. Yet

we who want to, who love, we are damned to jump through hoops of false

hope, contempt and despair to achieve what is inherit to most living

beings, the wish to procreate. (Romania, 1990)