When we began our journey, we knew it was going to be complex — with big decisions to make, big costs involved, emotionally arduous, and that’s even before there’s a kid! Mr. Stork flying in our window with a baby would’ve been far easier than what we were about to undertake. Anyways, having spent over a year researching and now being at the point that we’re about to dive in, here is what we’ve done since we asked ourselves the question: Would we like to start a family? Early on in our discussions, we said no to going the adoption route, and after a meeting to satisfy our curiosity, it turned out to be the right decision for us (for now). We didn’t feel ready to adopt a child, and although everything is in place for adoption in Ireland, it was when we asked, ‘How many same-sex male couples have been able to adopt a baby in Ireland?’ that we got our answer (hint: there hasn’t been any). We looked at options outside of Ireland and were limited to only the US if we went intra-country. Fostering and co-parenting were mentioned to us too, and even a rambunctious relative gleefully said we should go up to the pub to find a woman who would carry a baby for us. None were what we both wanted, especially the last gem of advice, so we began researching surrogacy. On a Saturday at the beginning of October 2021, when I would’ve preferred to have been with my extended family, we attended our first seminar on surrogacy. In a conference room full of resilient and tenacious couples, I scribbled notes on an iPad and tried to take in as much as I could of what was a very complicated process. Towards the end of the long seminar, they’d corralled the ‘gay guys’ away from the other couples into a smaller room where we were lectured by a bitchy queen who’d probably done a lot of drinking and drugs, that we needed to stop drinking and taking drugs if we wanted to start a family (Note: we’re not that hedonistic). That uncomfortable final engagement mixed with the drizzly cold weather in Dublin in October really dampened our mood. When the seminar finished, we decompressed on the train journey back to Cork and exhaustingly talked about what we’d both learnt. Agreeing it was a disappointing first experience and to leave it settle for a few weeks until we picked it back up in the new year. By early February, we were looking into going via the UK, where altruistic surrogacy is practised, but it turned out he himself had to be domiciled there for us to be eligible. Our desire was not to go down a commercial route, and with our avenues limited due to our legal marriage not being recognised in many countries, we began looking at Canada. They had a solid system in place built on an altruistic surrogacy model (like the UK), where we’d need to be chosen by the surrogate and not the other way around. They had the legal frameworks in place for foreign intended parents, and Canada was being viewed as an example for Ireland to follow when we would eventually legislate for domestic surrogacy (see Health (Assisted Human Reproduction) Bill 2022). We had gathered some information about surrogacy in Canada from the seminar back in October but reached out to NISIG first to ask for help, and following a consultation, we were added to an intended parents WhatsApp group. This group turned out to be a guiding light of sorts in lining up what we needed to do, as many had gone through surrogacy or were in the middle of their journey or were new starters like ourselves. If I wasn’t asking questions, then someone else was picking them from my brain, and the free advice was flowing. We’d need a lot of free, though, because after I began engaging with the different groups, agencies, etc., we’d need to work with to estimate our financial obligations for an entire surrogacy journey; the costs began to build. It wasn’t going to be cheap, and we’d known that, but we were both not expecting what the Financial Coordinator at an agency we’d spoken to told us how much it cost her. I remember showing him the spreadsheet I’d created with the estimated costs for:

Surrogacy Agency Surrogacy Insurance Fertility Clinic Egg Donation Solicitor in Canada Solicitor in Ireland

Back in October 2021, we decided to take a break after the seminar because it felt like we needed to climb a mountain to realise our dream, and after this revelation, it felt the same and put us back a bit. We began to ask and say, ‘Why is it so expensive? This is unfair. If we do this, we won’t have any money to raise them. The universe is against us’. During the pandemic, we’d begun walking within a two-kilometre radius from our house, and when restrictions were lifted, we’d worn a 6.4km route around the area where we lived. This habit was locked in, so during our nightly walks, we used the opportunity to talk about how we both felt and gradually worked out how we would move forward. We kept pulling in our imagined future closer to us, and as we did, a few things started to give us hope.The € to CA$ exchange rate improved, so it didn’t feel as financially burdensome, and in 2023, I became eligible to qualify for a substantial reimbursement of surrogacy expenses from the company I work for. The legislation to recognise and regulate domestic surrogacy in Ireland was scheduled to be brought before the government for discussion in the first quarter of the year (and hopefully enacted in law). Although it may take a few years to set up, part of the legislation should help us both being recognised as legal parents when the time comes. So, that’s where we are as of January 2023, and we still have a long way to go. We will need to start making some big decisions, spend some money, and support each other on this, the most arduous part of our journey.

RMx