{"id":9695,"date":"2026-01-02T14:27:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/?p=9695"},"modified":"2026-01-02T14:27:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T14:27:16","slug":"what-do-we-do-now-we-never-thought-kids-would-be-in-the-cards-but-here-we-were-with-twins-lgbtq-couple-inspired-to-become-parents-after-moms-passing-have-twin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/storieshub.xyz\/?p=9695","title":{"rendered":"\u2018What do we do now?!\u2019 We NEVER thought kids would be in the cards, but here we were with TWINS!\u2019: LGBTQ couple inspired to become parents after mom\u2019s passing, have twins through surrogacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2018You should call Mom.\u2019 This popped up on my phone as my husband and I arrived at our final stop of our honeymoon in Sevilla, Spain. It was the final few days of our trip and we decided to splurge for a night at a romantic bed and breakfast in the heart of the city. The text came from my brother-in-law, and at the time we very rarely texted. Then I remembered a message from my mom a couple of days earlier, asking when we were coming back. She had our schedule in her email, since I had mapped out the entire trip in our typical packed schedule\u2014early mornings and late nights so we could maximize every minute. I didn\u2019t think too much of it at the time, since I figured she just wanted to see how everything went. She was always the first person I would tell about my adventures. Immediately, my heart started to pound. I know now she had messaged me for a very different reason.<\/p>\n

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My husband and I immediately called my mom. Ring. Ring. Ring. It went to voicemail. I called my dad. Ring. Ring. Ring. It went to voicemail. Usually, I would think this meant my parents were lost in one of their shopping trips and stuck in the time warp called Walmart. This time, I couldn\u2019t help but wonder if there was another reason. I couldn\u2019t help myself. I called them both again. No answer. Then I called my brother-in-law. He answered, but just told me I should try again and didn\u2019t say anything else. As I was trying to convince my brother-in-law to tell me more, I got a call on the other line from my mom. I immediately switched over. Her first words were, \u2018I didn\u2019t want anyone to bother you while you were on your honeymoon.\u2019 This was very typical of my mom. She was a nurse, and one of her favorite things was caring for people\u2014and putting their needs above hers. After pausing for what seemed like an eternity, she told me, \u2018I have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.\u2019<\/p>\n

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While we were celebrating our honeymoon, she had been admitted to the hospital to do an emergency bypass on one of her ducts since she had jaundice. This is how they discovered she had a tumor growing. Pancreatic cancer is one of the more deadly cancers, with only a 9% survival rate. The last few days of the honeymoon were a blur to me. My husband and I went immediately into overdrive to figure out more about pancreatic cancer and see how we could help my mom. Over the next nine months, we flew from the West Coast to the East Coast at least once, if not twice, a month. We were in every doctor\u2019s appointment, either virtually or in person. We celebrated her birthday by surprising her with a special ride in a silver convertible. We brought together our entire family for Thanksgiving. Our first in Jacksonville, Florida, and the last for her.<\/p>\n

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She moved into hospice after Christmas. She no longer could breathe on her own. And I wasn\u2019t even sure if she knew it was us. Still, she loved celebrating holidays with the family. We celebrated New Year\u2019s with her while she lay in her hospice bed. It was the end of the holidays, so reluctantly we had to fly home. I knew I wouldn\u2019t see her alive again. When I got the call from hospice she was near the end, I was on FaceTime with my husband, sister, and dad saying goodbye to her as she passed. In her end-of-life orders, she wrote, \u2018Love never dies.\u2019 This is what I thought about those last few moments. My mom\u2019s journey through cancer was the kick in our pants that made my husband and I realize as much as we loved our independent life, it was time to start a family. Let\u2019s face it, there is no such thing as an \u2018oopsie\u2019 baby when it comes to two guys having kids. We certainly didn\u2019t get here overnight. We had talked about kids for years, but it never seemed like a good time.<\/p>\n

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When we first met, we never thought we\u2019d see the day when kids would be in the cards. This was well before marriage equality. And basically, the only gay guys we knew with kids were from previous marriages before coming out of the closet. Flash forward to present day, and we can\u2019t even begin to tell you how many same-sex couples we know with kids, or who have at least talked about it. We considered all the options, but ultimately decided on surrogacy. With surrogacy, it didn\u2019t take long to realize there was an overwhelming amount of information to cull through. More importantly, it was hard to figure out where to even start. Eventually, we realized it came down to three steps. The first step was picking a fertility clinic. As my husband, Kevin, likes to explain, this is where we needed to make sure our \u2018stuff was up to snuff.\u2019 In other words, this is the step of the process where we had to check our sperm was normal. Or if it hadn\u2019t been, where we would have worked on a plan to get them there.<\/p>\n

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But this isn\u2019t the only reason we did our homework on a top-notch fertility clinic. It was vital to find a highly experienced doctor with a high success rate in creating babies for LGBT couples, and who knew the ins and outs of surrogacy for gay dads. After deciding on our fertility clinic, the second step was to find some eggs. Truth be told, this part initially felt a little strange to us as we went through egg donor profiles. It felt like we were on a dating app! Sexual history, hobbies, favorite foods. It\u2019s all there! There are several ways to approach the egg donor process. However, we decided we should not commit ourselves to any agency until we found a right match. Several egg donor agencies require you to commit with them up front. But then you limit yourself to just one agency. Now that we had the fertility doc and our eggs on ice, it was time for the final step\u2014finding a surrogate. Every couple is different, but we had three main criteria for selecting our surrogate:<\/p>\n

Proximity: This was priority #1 for us. We wanted our surrogate to be near us so we could join her for the doctor\u2019s appointments.
\nA \u2018mom\u2019s mom\u2019: Basically, this is what we would say broadly when talking about someone with a support system.
\nA healthy mom, who\u2019s had babies before.
\nWe were lucky and had a relatively smooth process, so a year and a half later our twins were born. We spent so much time working to have kids that when the kids were finally here, we remember seeing them for the first time and asking ourselves\u2026 what do we do now! Due to COVID, we couldn\u2019t leave the hospital, send our kids to the nursery, or even step out of the hospital room to go to a vending machine. Thankfully, our hospital was great. As we fondly look back on it now, it was baby boot camp where we learned to feed, swaddle, burp, and change the babies\u2019 diapers! As we were getting ready to leave the hospital, our kids had to pass one last exam\u2014the car seat test. This is basically a test where the kids are placed in a car seat for 90 minutes and observed to make sure they were okay. Our daughter passed with flying colors. Our son didn\u2019t quite pass. As the nurse told us, when he was brought back to us, he was straining to relieve himself. Unfortunately, this meant we had to wait 24 hours before he could be retested.<\/p>\n

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The next day, he was taken for the re-test. While he was gone, my husband and I packed up. We were ready to get out of there! 90 minutes later, he wasn\u2019t back. Two hours later he still wasn\u2019t back. At two and half hours, the nurse came into the room with his car seat, but without him. We were told he had apnea of pre-maturity. Basically, this meant he still thought he was in the womb and would forget to breathe unless someone reminded him. While we were isolated in the hospital room, he could have stopped breathing and died, and we would never have known until it was too late. We stayed an extra night and split our time between him in the NICU and our daughter in our hospital room. The next day, rather than leaving with both kids, we could only leave with our daughter. It was excruciating to have to split up, but we visited our son in the NICU every day. Only one person could go in at a time, and only once every 24 hours. Thankfully, his stay was short-lived and we were able to bring him home a week later.<\/p>\n

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One of the very first questions we asked ourselves was whether we should have paternity leave at the same time\u2014and one many couples had differing opinions on. Many of our co-workers suggested taking it separately to stretch out the coverage. We both have strong opinions on this question. Without a doubt, we believed the best way to handle our paternity leave was doing it all at once. Think of it this way, can you start a project and stop midway through? Would your work be okay with you being there for a few weeks, only to have you hand off your projects just as you\u2019re gearing back up again? In our case, we both felt leaving for those three months all at once would be best for our work (and our own sanity). As we told friends (and strangers alike who never asked!), we truly loved our paternity leave and having this time together as a family. What other time in your adult lives will you have time off your work to truly just bond as a family? And share the moments of your baby\u2019s first few months on Earth?<\/p>\n

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During our paternity leave, we started a blog called Adventuring Dads, dedicated to life\u2019s many adventures\u2014from travels across the country and around the world to everyday adventures all parents can identify with. Our goal with Adventuring Dads is to not only entertain, but to also share our knowledge on becoming parents. We hope our site serves as a resource for those going through the surrogacy process, whether you\u2019re LGBT parents or anyone struggling to have a child of your own. Every day when I look at my kids, I think about my mom\u2019s parting message to us: \u2018Love never dies.\u2019 Mom, wherever you are now, I want you to know our love will never die and we can\u2019t wait to share it with our twins.\u201d<\/p>\n

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