Company Helps Gay Men Become Fathers

The longed-for package from Denise in Tulsa, Okla., arrived in the mail. The anxious Manhattan Beach couple popped the enclosed videotape of the ultrasound into their VCR and anxiously scrutinized the grainy image.

Their baby looked healthy, and he certainly appeared to be a boy. The parents-to-be--Jim and Brian--were delighted.

Denise agreed to carry a baby for Jim and Brian after she was introduced to them by Gail Taylor, founder of Growing Generations, a 1 1/2-year-old West Los Angeles company that matches gay men who want to have children with surrogate mothers.

Growing Generations is the only surrogate-parenting agency in the United States exclusively serving gay men, according to Shirley Zager, director of the Organization of Parents Through Surrogacy, an Illinois-based national nonprofit group that includes prospective parents, surrogacy clinics, psychologists and attorneys.

Zager said most agencies turn away same-sex couples. “If you can build your business on the straight community, you might not want to stick your neck out,” she said.

Taylor, herself a lesbian and the mother of a 6-month-old daughter, spent four years working for a large surrogacy agency in Beverly Hills before starting her own business. She is now working with 15 couples and a few single men, but Jim and Brian’s baby--conceived through artificial insemination with Jim’s sperm and expected to be born in May--is the first pregnancy.

The realization that gay men can have children to whom they are biologically related still comes as a pleasant shock to many of her clients, Taylor said. “They really come to it with gratitude and enthusiasm and excitement that this could possibly happen to them.”

Jim, 33, and Brian, 38, talked about wanting children on one of their first dates nearly three years ago. For Jim, it had been a lifelong dream. For Brian, it took a while to get used to the idea.

“In my age range, you just gave it up, period,” said Brian, a Los Angeles city computer mapping specialist. “I mean, that was part of being gay.”

To protect the privacy of their unborn child and themselves from possible reprisals from those who disagree with their lifestyle, the men and the surrogate mother spoke on the condition that their real names not be published.

Taylor, 29, gave birth to her daughter with the help of artificial insemination. Her partner Trisha’s brother was the sperm donor.

She said she has received hundreds of inquiries nationwide since starting her service, most from people who heard about it via the Internet or word of mouth.

A few weeks before their surrogate’s ultrasound test, Jim and Brian sat in their comfortable living room and discussed their impending fatherhood.

“I think we’re going through what every other parent who’s just about to have a kid--no matter who they are--[goes] through. It’s like, ‘Oh, my God, are we crazy? What are we doing? Can we do this?’ ” said Jim, a pharmaceuticals salesman. “We know we can. I honestly believe that if we couldn’t be terrific parents we would never do this.”

The two are a picture of pre-parenthood stability. They’re building a new house in Manhattan Beach. They have two dogs, a vacation home, and shelves full of books about pregnancy, parenting and infant care.

“Every other night on TV you hear about some heterosexual couple who’s done horrible things to their kids, and all we can think of is, ‘Could we possibly be any worse?’ ” said Brian.

California does not regulate surrogate agencies. Taylor says her basic fee is $47,000, including medical screenings, legal costs of terminating the surrogate’s parental rights, adoption by the non-biological parent and compensation of $15,000 that is paid to the surrogate over the course of the pregnancy.

Growing Generations recently added the option of using an egg donor. Couples might opt to use an egg donated by one man’s sister, for example. This choice, which necessitates in vitro fertilization, significantly increases costs.

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Long before the gay couples meet prospective surrogates, psychologist Greg Travis, who works with Taylor, asks them how they plan to handle sticky questions: What will they tell their child about the role of the mother? How will they help their child explain to other kids why he has two fathers?

“Almost without exception when two men are walking down the street with an infant, people will swoop in on them and ask the most profoundly personal questions. [I] ask them, ‘Are you ready for this?’ ” Travis said.

Before Jim and Brian got to hear about Denise, Jim (as the sperm donor) underwent a complete physical. He was tested for a range of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, and his family medical history was assessed. His semen samples were tested to see if they could be successfully frozen and thawed.

Denise, 36, became pregnant through artificial insemination after seven months of attempts. In the meantime, she and the men got to know each other well. Denise has visited them in California, bringing along her two sons.

Taylor characterizes the women who work with Growing Generations as “progressive, holistic, earth-moms,” about evenly divided between heterosexual and lesbian women, many of whom have known someone who has struggled with infertility.

Father-to-be Jim says he believes Taylor is “sitting on something that’s huge. Five years down the road . . . there’ll be a ton more people wanting to do this.”