LIVE 24-SEVEN
You've used your own experience to help others and have set up
twodaddies.co.uk which supports other same sex families nationally, as well as working with fertility clinics in the UK and their teams to raise the profile of two dad families and their needs versus traditional parenting; were you surprised by how many people have approached you for help and guidance? The amount of appreciation from other Intended Parents was overwhelming. There aren’t many options out there exclusively for gay men when it comes to surrogacy in the UK, so when we started making ourselves more available for other IFs (Intended Fathers) the response was outstanding. Our Facebook and Instagram channels (@TwoDads.U.K) grew rapidly and now attracts over 35K followers and the website is building in hits each week. We’re about to begin our first surrogacy information events in London, Birmingham and Manchester which will run throughout the year, providing IFs with all the information we had to painstakingly piece together over several years. It’s really clear that more and more gay men want children and for those opting for surrogacy we appear to be one of the main sources for support, which is an absolute privilege.
16
You've been involved in Surrogacy Law Reform at the Houses of Parliament, is there still a long journey ahead though in normalising today's modern families? Yes! Back in October 2018 we were asked by the APPG (All Party Parliamentary Group) that were dealing with the Surrogacy Law Reform to provide our 'Lived Experience’ to a board of MPs that were interested to hear about our journey and the steps we went to, to create our family. Again, it was an absolute honour to hopefully help carve the way for other couples wanting to explore surrogacy in the UK. There’s still some way to go, the basic issue is with the Parental Order process, as Intended Parents aren’t recognised as the legal parents at birth, the surrogate is, and if married their husband is too. You can’t apply for your Parental Order until your child is six weeks and one day old and then the order takes around 10 weeks to come through after that. It’s far from ideal and totally bonkers, but providing you ensure your ‘journey’ covers all eventualities, you seek legal advice and maintain an excellent relationship with your surrogate – and are organised – everything usually goes to plan.
You've worked with some exciting brands from Audi UK to Sainsbury’s; can you tell us about that? That was fun. We first got approached back in the spring of 2017 as Channel Four were making a documentary with Kieron Richardson from Hollyoaks about his fatherhood journey as he was also to become a parent to twins via UK Surrogacy. The programme was later titled Gay Dads Forever. Later that year we got approached to be in the Sainsbury’s Christmas advert that aired in December 2017 (the sing along one!). We were the two dads signing with Talulah – blink and you miss us! Following that we also auditioned for an Audi commercial celebrating their Future Families campaign which had a really personal touch to it. It was filmed in London and was a really enjoyable day. It all helps raise more awareness about families like ours and how much of a fab job two dad (and two mummy) families are doing.
Do you hope that when Talulah is older the issues you've faced will all be a thing of the past? We really hope so. Families are being created in different ways than
All photographs courtesy of Victoria Boswell-Shattock
LIVE24-SEVEN.COM
they were 40 years ago when IVF was first pioneered here in the UK. 2.4 children born to the white middle classes is no longer the norm thankfully; the family unit has evolved just as much as society has, families are being created differently, by single parents, gay married couples, married heterosexual parents naturally and with the use of IVF, adoption and fostering. We’re very lucky to live in a country which is so accepting of all our needs. I hope that in Talulah’s lifetime we’re no longer classed as Same Sex Parents, we’re just her parents and our gender doesn’t even need explaining or excusing. Signs are looking promising though as in her nursery in Hagley there are two other children whose parents are gay or lesbian.
Whilst you're involved in reform and supporting and shaping surrogacy, there are day-to-day challenges that you face and which you're no-doubt tackling despite your busy lives; can you share some of those with us? We’re lucky to be honest. We’ve not had any negativity apart from the odd idiot trolling us on social media. The parts of this which tend to make us smile more are the questions or the assumptions people make, which only just reminds us that seeing two men with their children still isn’t quite the norm for them. Questions like, “Awww bless, are you giving Mummy a rest?” or “Whose sperm did you use?!” Can you imagine if we were to ask that to newly married Jeanette and Phil in Waitrose, whilst waiting at the deli counter!? “Awww, congratulations Jeanette, whose sperm did you use?!’ But for some reason straight people think it’s a perfectly acceptable question to ask a gay couple! We just smile and say, “We’re both her Dad”. One of the other challenges we face is the holidays we now take as a family, we need to make sure we’re safe and that we only travel where we know we won’t be targets for abuse or discrimination, as we don’t want the girls to witness that, as we all have the same surname on our passports we don’t want to draw any additional attention to ourselves, so some places we just avoid.
You're expecting another child this summer, how excited is Talulah about having a baby brother? Yes, we're over the moon, our surrogate agreed to do a sibling journey for us and we’re due at the end of August. Talulah is so excited, she’s two and a half now and she loves carrying her dollies around with her so she’s getting the practice in now for us! She keeps telling people she’s going to be a big sister and there’s no doubt she will make such an amazing one too.
INTERVI EW TWO DADS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148
