My husband and I are back home in Stockholm and severely jet lagged.  It was an intense and incredible trip to California for our first embryo transfer. During the trip, I kept daily notes to capture how I/we were feeling for this historic stage in our journey.  This article is a summary of those notes to document this time for us and our future child. We will find out tomorrow (December 4th) on my actual birthday if our amazing surrogate is pregnant.  I could not think of a better birthday present, but if this transfer doesn’t take, it is still an integral part of our journey.  We want our child from this or a future embryo to know how exhilarating, nerve-racking, and amazing this process was to bring them into the world.

Ever get anxious that things are ‘too good to be true?’ It turns out that experience is called ‘happiness anxiety,’ and I have developed it during our surrogacy journey. I’m a doctor, and I had never heard of happiness anxiety before.  It seems counter-intuitive.  After all, if you are happy, then why are you also anxious? In this article, I discuss my experience with happiness anxiety related to our surrogacy journey and what I am doing to try and deal with it so I can better enjoy the process of becoming a father. 

We are finally at the stage in our journey where we are reviewing the contract between us and the surrogate. The surrogate contract is a dense, complicated, beast of a legal document.  You have to make challenging decisions about who will care for your unborn child if something happens to you and your partner, understand the impossible medical insurance landscape in the U.S, and navigate the evolving medical landscape of what pregnant women can/can’t/shouldn’t do. In this article, I share personal reflections and guidance on the surrogate contract for other gay intended dads on their journey in the U.S.

We think we found ‘the one,’ as in the surrogate who will help us to finally become parents. We don’t want to jinx it given our history of matching and unmatching with previous surrogates, but this one feels ‘right.’ Read more to find out how we got to this point, and the lesson for all intended parents of how important it is to try and navigate through their best possible journey.

Our fingers and toes are crossed. We met another amazing potential surrogate. Having two previous matches fall through, we are being extra careful in thinking of all the possible complications of a journey with her. I review the major challenges we could face in this article as we wait for guidance from our legal team on our options and whether we can proceed or not.

The main reason we moved to Sweden was because it could provide my husband and me with a life where we could be parents. The U.S. only allows for parenthood on corporate America’s terms. We wanted a different life for ourselves and our child.

As our journey to fatherhood progresses amidst some challenging delays, I wanted to take some time to refocus on why we are doing this and write a letter to our future child.

Our second surrogate is now pregnant, but not with our baby. Read more to find out the details as we continue to persevere through this latest and greatest challenge on our IVF and surrogacy journey.

Our surrogate / gestational carrier (GC) has just completed her final medical clearance. In this article, I wanted to review the recommended guidelines for medical screening of GCs in the United States, and compare this to guidelines in Canada and the United Kingdom.

Bonding with your unborn baby is especially challenging for international intended parents. However, we live in the 21st century and survived a global pandemic. Our lives have never been more remote-friendly, so it’s easier than ever for queer IPs to bond with their surrogate and unborn baby from the other side of the world. Read here about technology and options for you to enjoy and be as present as possible during your pregnancy.

After matching and unmatching with an amazing surrogate / gestational carrier (GC), we have rematched! In this article, I review questions to ask potential matches. I also discuss my own personal experience matching with a GC who has an incredibly supportive husband, and how I think all intended parents (IPs) should view their GCs partner on their journey.

This was a hard article to write as my husband and I have had to unmatch with our gestational carrier (GC). Read more to hear about the challenges with newborn insurance and lessons learned that can and should be applied to any surrogacy journey.

We have officially matched with a gestational carrier! This is a momentous and incredible step in our journey to fatherhood. In this article, I will describe the matching process with our agency, the aspects to a gestational carrier (GC) relationship that are important to us, and how I felt the night before and immediately after our first meeting with the GC.

My mom died this past week. In this article, I reflect on how my estrangement from her has affected me, the development of my ‘logical’ or chosen family, and how I now view becoming a parents myself through IVF and surrogacy.

After over a year of planning, we have our embryos! This article details the stages in this journey, describing the challenges, stress, and results. This was not what we were expecting, but we are thrilled to have completed what I am now calling the Embryonic Olympics.

There is no right time to become a parent. I do, however, believe there would have been a wrong time for me to become one. In this article, I discuss my path to parenthood, including why and how I finally feel ready in my 40s to become a father. I don’t think my story is completely unique, and I believe that more and more people will join the ‘old’ parents club in the future.

It is time for our journey to move to the next stage: Matching with a gestational carrier (GC). A key part of this process involves us writing a letter to potential GCs, explaining who we are and what we are looking for in a relationship. It’s really just a first impression, but it has implications for our journey as well as our child for the rest of his/her/their life. No pressure :)

Unfortunately, we have additional delays in our journey to fatherhood. Read more to find out why, and how this has altered our approach to the process and our agency.

Our journey to fatherhood continues with our latest milestone: The egg donor contract. This contract brought up a lot of interesting topics for my husband and me. We had to contemplate our own mortality, relationship, and future in a way that we haven’t yet. In this article, I reflect on this experience to share it with other queer intended dads.

Having a baby through IVF and surrogacy as a queer man is a marathon, not a sprint. In this article, I describe the first 1.5 years of my husband’s and my journey thus far. There have been some amazing highs, but there have also been a number of long periods of waiting. Focusing on the journey, not the destination, is one of the goals of BabyMoon Family, and one that I hope to emulate on my own journey to fatherhood.