NORWALK — The day Mark Leondires first held his baby in his arms, he felt a surge of love and responsibility. Finally his dream of being a father had become reality. Like countless parents before him, he and his partner learned how to give a bath and change a diaper, guided by a helpful nurse. And like countless parents before him, he marvelled over his newborn son. However, they were unusual patients at the Magee-Women’s Hospital in one regard. “We were two men staying at a women’s hospital,” Leondires recalled with a laugh. “All the other patients there were women.” Leondires and his husband, Greg Zola, began their journey to that postpartum ward in a woman’s hospital years before. For a gay couple to have a biological child takes an extended family — an egg donor and a surrogate, but also mental health professionals to screen both and lawyers to ensure both fathers have parental rights. The entire process takes two to three years and between $100,000 and $200,000. Reading through 15-page profiles of potential egg donors and poring over childhood photos, imagining how their own children might look, were sign posts on the path that led the Westport couple to the Pittsburgh delivery room where they became parents. And similar journeys have been on an upswing, part of what has been called the gay baby boom — though the term implies an ease and speed that gay parents who have been through the process are quick to dispel.
The gay baby boom While there are no official numbers on how many same-sex couples are having biological children, fertility clinics in Fairfield County can describe the increase in gay clients in recent years. Leondires himself is a doctor at Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut, a fertility clinic based out of Norwalk with satellite offices in Stamford, Danbury and Trumbull (“Obviously, I had an inside track,” he admitted regarding his path to fatherhood). In recent years, he has seen the percentage of his clients who are same-sex couples rise from 0 to 80 percent. Roughly two-fifths of those same-sex couples are women, who use sperm donors and sometimes opt to carry embryos from their partner’s eggs, a process known as reciprocal in vitro fertilization. Melvin Thornton, a doctor at CT Fertility out of Trumbull, has seen the same in his office. “We’ve seen probably a 40 to 50 percent increase in the past few years,” he said. And while Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology does not track whether procedures are for heterosexual or homosexual families, it reports that surrogacy embryo transfers in the United States increased more than 250 percent between 2005 and 2015. Leondires believes that the growing number of LGBTQ couples choosing to have children is due in part to growing acceptance of the LGBTQ community and the Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality. “It became a safer place not only to be yourself, but to raise a child,” he said. Chris Buckley, a father of twins living in Westport, can attest to that change. When his partner, Mark Ciano, raised the idea of having kids in the 1990s, Buckley was afraid stigma would be harmful to their children. “I didn’t think it would be fair to our kids,” he said. But during the 2009 National Equality March for LGBTQ rights in Washington, D.C., he felt the tide had turned. “It was being part of that march and being in the company of other couples, same-sex couples with kids, that really made it feel like it could be something for us. And that it was a possibility for us.”
Connecticut a hub Connecticut is a destination for gay parents-to-be around the world. Both Leondires and Thornton said they receive patients from as far as Europe and China. “The reasons come down to issues of female autonomy,” Leondires said. “Surrogacy is illegal in every country in the world except the United States and Canada.” But many who travel to receive services in Connecticut are from nearby New York and New Jersey, where surrogacy contracts are unenforceable. The demand in New York is so high, Leondires travels to New York City once a month to do free consultations for gay parents-to-be. “Everybody who wants to have a child in their home should have all the tools they need to succeed,” he said. “Connecticut is a very friendly state for surrogacy,” Thornton said. “So that’s why you see all of these centers in Connecticut.”
A costly prospect While marriage equality has been affirmed, that does not mean that all people have the resources to become a parent. The six-figure price tag is prohibitive for many — the cost is more than what half of the married-couples in Norwalk make in a year, according to Census estimates. Costs for lesbian couples to have a child are significantly lower, since there is no cost for an egg donor or surrogate, but in vitro fertilization and attorneys still rack up costs in the tens of thousands of dollars. Connecticut is one of 15 states requiring insurance companies to offer fertility coverage for couples who have tried to conceive for a year without success. While that coverage applies to couples of any age, it does not yet extend to same-sex couples, who have no chance of conceiving from the outset. But while not required to do so, some companies, including NBCUniversal and Google, have taken a step toward what is being called equal access to fertility treatment. LGBTQ employees there can access the same benefits, such as in vitro fertilization, as their heterosexual coworkers. However such coverage is rare, and Hawaii’s attempt to pass a bill for equal access to fertility treatment failed in April. Thornton said that a more likely way for couples to reduce their bills is for them to look for what’s known as a compassionate surrogate — a friend or family member who would be willing to carry the child without a fee — or to find their own egg donor. “Right there, they may save themselves $45,000,” he said. In addition, Men Having Babies offers the Gay Parenting Assistance Program (GPAP), which annually facilitates over a million dollars worth of financial support for gay dads-to-be.
Family experience In Leondires and Zola’s home, a map of the United States hangs on the wall. The couple had a second son, and at 4 and 6, the two can already point to where they were born (Pennsylvania and Idaho) and explain that they spent time in a woman’s “tummy” far away. When the oldest, who recently met his surrogate this past summer, is asked who his mom is, he has no problem setting them straight. “No,” he says, “I have two dads.” While some people worry that having gay parents will impact children’s well-being, Ellen C. Perrin, a professor at Tufts University, has concluded that children’s relationships with their parents and the social and economic stability of the family are much more important factors — factors that are nearly assured by the intense planning it takes for gay families to have children. “This is kind of a joke, but there are no accidental pregnancies in the LGBTQ community,” Leondires said. And at least some area schools have already begun to adjust to the change. When Leondires and Zola’s first son went to a Westport preschool program called A Child’s Place, he wasn’t the only child with two dads. Buckley and Ciano’s twins were also in the class of eight. The program had taken the families in stride. On Mother’s Day, the school announced that it had made up a new holiday: Family Day. The children drew portraits of their families, which were hung up in the school for a big reception. Buckley still has the preschool portraits — wobbling figures in red and blue, labeled neatly in an adult’s handwriting: Ayla, Connor, DaDa and Daddy. “They’re lovely,” he said. “It tears me up when I think about it.”
NORWALK — The day Mark Leondires first held his baby in his arms, he felt a surge of love and responsibility. Finally his dream of being a father had become reality.
Like countless parents before him, he and his partner learned how to give a bath and change a diaper, guided by a helpful nurse. And like countless parents before him, he marvelled over his newborn son.
However, they were unusual patients at the Magee-Women’s Hospital in one regard. “We were two men staying at a women’s hospital,” Leondires recalled with a laugh. “All the other patients there were women.”
Leondires and his husband, Greg Zola, began their journey to that postpartum ward in a woman’s hospital years before. For a gay couple to have a biological child takes an extended family — an egg donor and a surrogate, but also mental health professionals to screen both and lawyers to ensure both fathers have parental rights. The entire process takes two to three years and between $100,000 and $200,000.
Reading through 15-page profiles of potential egg donors and poring over childhood photos, imagining how their own children might look, were sign posts on the path that led the Westport couple to the Pittsburgh delivery room where they became parents.
And similar journeys have been on an upswing, part of what has been called the gay baby boom — though the term implies an ease and speed that gay parents who have been through the process are quick to dispel.
The gay baby boom
While there are no official numbers on how many same-sex couples are having biological children, fertility clinics in Fairfield County can describe the increase in gay clients in recent years.
Leondires himself is a doctor at Reproductive Medicine Associates of Connecticut, a fertility clinic based out of Norwalk with satellite offices in Stamford, Danbury and Trumbull (“Obviously, I had an inside track,” he admitted regarding his path to fatherhood).
In recent years, he has seen the percentage of his clients who are same-sex couples rise from 0 to 80 percent. Roughly two-fifths of those same-sex couples are women, who use sperm donors and sometimes opt to carry embryos from their partner’s eggs, a process known as reciprocal in vitro fertilization.
Melvin Thornton, a doctor at CT Fertility out of Trumbull, has seen the same in his office. “We’ve seen probably a 40 to 50 percent increase in the past few years,” he said.
And while Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology does not track whether procedures are for heterosexual or homosexual families, it reports that surrogacy embryo transfers in the United States increased more than 250 percent between 2005 and 2015.
Leondires believes that the growing number of LGBTQ couples choosing to have children is due in part to growing acceptance of the LGBTQ community and the Supreme Court ruling in favor of marriage equality.
“It became a safer place not only to be yourself, but to raise a child,” he said.
Chris Buckley, a father of twins living in Westport, can attest to that change. When his partner, Mark Ciano, raised the idea of having kids in the 1990s, Buckley was afraid stigma would be harmful to their children. “I didn’t think it would be fair to our kids,” he said.
But during the 2009 National Equality March for LGBTQ rights in Washington, D.C., he felt the tide had turned.
“It was being part of that march and being in the company of other couples, same-sex couples with kids, that really made it feel like it could be something for us. And that it was a possibility for us.”
Connecticut a hub
Connecticut is a destination for gay parents-to-be around the world.
Both Leondires and Thornton said they receive patients from as far as Europe and China.
“The reasons come down to issues of female autonomy,” Leondires said. “Surrogacy is illegal in every country in the world except the United States and Canada.”
But many who travel to receive services in Connecticut are from nearby New York and New Jersey, where surrogacy contracts are unenforceable.
The demand in New York is so high, Leondires travels to New York City once a month to do free consultations for gay parents-to-be. “Everybody who wants to have a child in their home should have all the tools they need to succeed,” he said.
“Connecticut is a very friendly state for surrogacy,” Thornton said. “So that’s why you see all of these centers in Connecticut.”
A costly prospect
While marriage equality has been affirmed, that does not mean that all people have the resources to become a parent. The six-figure price tag is prohibitive for many — the cost is more than what half of the married-couples in Norwalk make in a year, according to Census estimates.
Costs for lesbian couples to have a child are significantly lower, since there is no cost for an egg donor or surrogate, but in vitro fertilization and attorneys still rack up costs in the tens of thousands of dollars.
Connecticut is one of 15 states requiring insurance companies to offer fertility coverage for couples who have tried to conceive for a year without success. While that coverage applies to couples of any age, it does not yet extend to same-sex couples, who have no chance of conceiving from the outset.
But while not required to do so, some companies, including NBCUniversal and Google, have taken a step toward what is being called equal access to fertility treatment. LGBTQ employees there can access the same benefits, such as in vitro fertilization, as their heterosexual coworkers.
However such coverage is rare, and Hawaii’s attempt to pass a bill for equal access to fertility treatment failed in April.
Thornton said that a more likely way for couples to reduce their bills is for them to look for what’s known as a compassionate surrogate — a friend or family member who would be willing to carry the child without a fee — or to find their own egg donor.
“Right there, they may save themselves $45,000,” he said.
In addition, Men Having Babies offers the Gay Parenting Assistance Program (GPAP), which annually facilitates over a million dollars worth of financial support for gay dads-to-be.
Family experience
In Leondires and Zola’s home, a map of the United States hangs on the wall. The couple had a second son, and at 4 and 6, the two can already point to where they were born (Pennsylvania and Idaho) and explain that they spent time in a woman’s “tummy” far away.
When the oldest, who recently met his surrogate this past summer, is asked who his mom is, he has no problem setting them straight. “No,” he says, “I have two dads.”
While some people worry that having gay parents will impact children’s well-being, Ellen C. Perrin, a professor at Tufts University, has concluded that children’s relationships with their parents and the social and economic stability of the family are much more important factors — factors that are nearly assured by the intense planning it takes for gay families to have children.
“This is kind of a joke, but there are no accidental pregnancies in the LGBTQ community,” Leondires said.
And at least some area schools have already begun to adjust to the change.
When Leondires and Zola’s first son went to a Westport preschool program called A Child’s Place, he wasn’t the only child with two dads. Buckley and Ciano’s twins were also in the class of eight.
The program had taken the families in stride. On Mother’s Day, the school announced that it had made up a new holiday: Family Day. The children drew portraits of their families, which were hung up in the school for a big reception.
Buckley still has the preschool portraits — wobbling figures in red and blue, labeled neatly in an adult’s handwriting: Ayla, Connor, DaDa and Daddy.
“They’re lovely,” he said. “It tears me up when I think about it.”
同觉得也不错，重点是后天的教育
华人上吐槽原生家庭的帖子海了去。
至少走到这一步的同性恋couple都是真的想要孩子，并且有一定经济基础，比起渣男渣女不小心搞出人命，管生不管养，忽视，虐待甚至虐杀孩子的强百倍。
strongly re
一般这种家庭都经济比较好
这个角度来说
和山沟沟的孩子
不一定谁更羡慕谁 ---发自Huaren 官方 iOS APP
外表看起来完美无缺，还作为模范上了电视。
结果发现这对couple从孩子两个星期大就一直sex abuse他，并录下来请发给其他变态，还带孩子出国卖给别的变态性侵。
又不是变太监了，怎么叫自己放弃生育。
个例能说明什么，异性恋家庭性侵领养来的子女甚至自己亲生的孩子，又不是没有。
没什么好惊讶的，从古至今这种事都有。
另外同性恋代孕一般都是代孕的女性和卵子提供者是不同人，即代孕代生的那个人跟孩子没有生物上的关系。
恩，还是要看怎样养的，没有爱同性异性都不应该养小孩
大部分同性恋的父母是异性恋。
RE.一说到同性恋养孩子，所有的异性恋立刻就变身完美父母了。实际上绝大多数弃养，虐待，性侵孩子，都是异性恋干的。
他们会想见自己的亲生父母吗？哦，不对，他们也许一辈子都不知道有母亲的感觉，所以也许压根不会想
虽然同性恋是每个人自己的选择，但是你选择成为另一个孩子的父/母，你就involve了孩子的人生，问题是这些孩子有选择吗？
异性恋父母确实有什么虐童的，可是这个不仅仅限于异性恋父母吧？人的群体中都有人渣有好人有平庸人，不能用异性恋父母有虐童什么的来证明同性恋父母没什么不好的
所以异性恋生的孩子都是商量好之后定向投胎的？那些被领养的孩子也没什么选择吧？从中国被领养到美国的女童，大部分人被亲生父母抛弃的吧
对孩子来说有奶就是娘，话糙理不糙。话说异性恋里根本啥都没想就当了爹妈的人太多了，还有很多父亲，孩子还没生下来就已经抛弃了。
赞成这个。 不负责任的父母对小孩的伤害最大，同性恋异性恋都有。 我希望有关人士可以追踪一下，以后有统计数据可以拿出来。
和你一个态度
我倒是好奇的是他们对于自己家庭的不同是怎么认知的，不知道家长会怎么教育。
同性恋是放弃成为父母的权利么？我觉得应该是两码事吧，谁都有养育自己孩子的渴望吧，这个倒是可以再讨论。
我以前在微博上看过一对亚裔男同的故事。一个是中国人，一个是越南华裔，在丹麦留学认识的。后来到美国，两个人都是教授。每个人各自用同一个捐卵妈妈代孕了一对龙凤胎。现在有四个小孩。他们微博ID是”李阮一家人“。你感兴趣可以看看
好像楼上夸同性恋好父母的不是个例一样。
没人痛恨同性恋，只是不支持宣扬同性恋，让孩子们以为同性恋是常态。
本来就是常态，虽然是少数现象，但一直存在，动物里也有。
我觉得华人对美国人的同性恋都能包容，也不歧视，但是如果是自己的孩子还是很难接受
大部分中国同志的父母也算是接受的，没有做出极端的事，像美国前不久就有一个父亲把他同性恋的儿子给枪杀了。
中国人反对一般主要是因为传宗接代，倒不是因为宗教而反对，而信仰宗教信的真的人，很容易极端偏执。
re...
这个挺正能量的，两个人感觉都是挺积极乐观的高知，培养出来的孩子应该不错，四个孩子长得也很像
话说之前有同性家庭领养长大的小孩也有好多都是异性恋，所以关键还得看教育
我觉得先天的因素还是大于后天的，对同性还是异性有性冲动，身体还是挺诚实的，虽然很多人两种都可以。