Gay dads looking for friends

[LittleWonders]

Hi everyone!,

We hope its ok to join and post to your group.

We are a gay couple (both male) whom have recently been feeling a little bit isolated and unsure since becoming new gay dads via surrogacy. Finding some genuine like minded parents/friends who live for their kids seems to be difficult.

Since completing our rather tortuous & sometimes impossible journey to acheive our long term dream of having our own genetic kids, we recently succeeded, and now have two beautiful boys - (whom we are both mum and dad to). Unlike many same sex female couples or single mums, we appear to have encountered a much more judgemental reaction from many sources, (many unexpected). So the last 3 years have effectively been in reclusion.

However, a friend happend to see this group and suggested it might be worthwhile to test our faith in human nature again and reach out. So we hope that there are indeed some other genuine people out there whom are like minded and also live for their kids.

We are not sure what to expect, so hope that we will all be pleasantly surprised.

We are both decent, law abiding, hard working dependable people, both of whom have formerly lived 'normal' heterosexual lives and have now been together for 20 monogamous years. We appreciate that not everyone agrees with our choices, but we intend to do all we can to try and ensure our kids have as balanced a life as possible. If we can find others in a similar position whom can understand and can share ideas and support, then it will be worthwhile.

In the meantime, sorry for writing 'War & Peace', but we hope the most worthwhile journeys start with the smallest of steps:-).

Take care for now and thanks for reading this.

Hi, mildmanneredjanit

Just read your response to a part of my post about the subgroup of parents who are very proactive in having children. I didn't mean to cause offence to man/woman couples. In fact, I intended to include in my subgroup of proactive choice parents, any person or couple who has/have very proactively chosen to parent and to distinguish those from people who kind of get PG 'by accident' or as a natural by-product of man/woman sex - including those incidents where everyone is very happy it happened. The point I was trying to make was that for some of us, you included, it has to be and is a very proactive decision, either because we're gay/lesbian or single or a heterosexual couple with fertility issues. I still don't meant to dismiss anyone at all who has progeny more as a happy by-product. I just wanted to emphasise that particular starting point where someone has to take a long, hard look and reflect deeply on the meaning of having children and the very proactive manner in which that would need to be done. I was trying to suggest that as well as there being, of course, millions of fantastic 'accidental' parents, there's this subgroup who have had to work hard at all stages of trying to become a parent and how that's a great starting point for any potential child - who is clearly very very much planned for as well as very much wanted.

Hope this clarifies things?

Hi again everyone,

Thanks for the additional posts and support. We have all been down with some form of lurgae this week, which everyone in our 3 year olds nursery seems to have, but the doctor just said its 'viral' and to let it run its course. Its hard seeing your little ones ill, but lots of hugs and cuddles seems to be the bonus:-)

For anyone that wishes to mail us direct, (as we clearly dont get on the PC as much as we would like), you can contact us at:
[email protected], also, we have activated the message link on here (although am not sure how it works), so try that too if you like.

We would love to meet other parents, and yes, you are right, we need to just get ourselves out there to become as 'unremarkable' as possible. Its not as if we walk around like the 'only gay in the village', as no-one would ever think we were gay dads until they worked out that the kids get picked up by either papa or dada:-)

It just scares us that people can be cruel and homophobic, which the kids neither understand or deserve. They are beautiful, sensitive, caring and considerate kids, we thank god every day for giving us such wonderful kids. We probably just need to have a close circle of supportive friends rather than the negative contacts we have had to date, so hopefully that will evolve naturally..

I know that some religions frown, (if not condemn) homosexuality, but for example, do some of the parents who know about us at nursery really need to forceably pull their kids away as if we and the kids have leprosy? We keep ourselves to ourselves, are always polite and be ideal citizens - we even invited everyone from the nursery class (all 28) to our 3 year olds birthday party, only to find some of the invites intentionally torn up outside the entrance for us to see when we left. We try to shrug it off for the sake of the kids, but its hard to explain why a classmate and friend isnt allowed to play with them. Any suggestions on how to manage that would be more than welcome.

In the meantime, have a good weekend everyone, and we hope to hear from some of you soon.

Take care

LittleWonders

*PS we are in Amersham - at the north end of the Metropolitan line.

Hey guys

what a coincidence. Im a single gay dad and am looking of support (and I live down the road from you...Ruislip)

I found this site doing a search, but I also found a WHOLE site dedicated to gay fathers. In fact , I am going along to my first coffee evening taking place this wednesday in Soho. Wish you could come so Im not the only newbie

The site is: www.gaydads.co.uk. I felt uncomfortable about paying the tiny subscription charge, but glad I did. Ive only been a member for about 36 hours and already am being contacted by people interested in my profile and wanting to share their experiences.

They have a national network and seem to have a variety of events where they can meet up through the year.

My email is: [email protected] if you wanna chat...in any case...best of luck

Cheers

x

M

Hi Baconsarnie:-) (Great name by the way:-), thanks for the posting. We are still getting to grips as to how to reply on this, so hopefully you will get this!.

We are in Amersham at the north end of the Metropolitan line (30 mins from central london). Where are you?

You are probably going through similar to that of our 20 month old - which is a precious time:-).

We tried contacting you directly through this, but it says you dont accept email messages from other mumsnet members. But if you (or anyone reading this) would like to contact us direct, our email is [email protected]

We dont get on the net much, so if there is a bit of a delay in getting back its not that we are ignoring you:-)

Hope to hear from you soon

Take care

Littlewonders

Hi Guys
I am a 33yo gay guy based in London and having twins with a lesbian friend on a co-parenting basis - mixed gender twins no less - due in May - v exciting! Its good to know there are others out there!

Hope to talk again

Ciao

Hi amack, we would be up for meeting. myself and partner have 4 and half month old twins and live in west london. we met up with gay dads a few weeks back, lovely couple!! hope this thread wasnt exclusively for fellas though!. my email is [email protected] hope to hear from you soon. Don x