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I'm a dad. I can't believe I get to say those words. “I'm a dad.” When I was growing up it wasn't possible for a gay man to utter that phrase unless he’d once had a straight family. There was often shame, sadness, and guilt around the husband that fathered children and then shocked his wife and kids by flinging the closet door open and attending his son's graduation accompanied by his new Yves Saint Laurent–donning male lover. Studies have illustrated the difficulties kids suffer when they feel they are the product of a lie. The wives aren't usually thrilled about it either. But many of them do come around, then everyone spends Christmas together: the kids (all grown up and married themselves), Mom (who never remarried but has a lot of cats), and Dad and Bob (who just got a summer home in Amagansett and "everyone is invited for clam season!!").
It wasn't that I'd come to terms with a childless existence as a gay man. It simply wasn't part of the possible picture, so it just never came up. I was content that I could thrive in an open relationship with a man that I loved. But 20 years later the parental horizon has completely changed. This is the first real generation of gay men and women who are adopting as tried-and-true, real-life couples -- legally and everything. As soon as it was possible I wanted to be a dad. All of my natural fatherhood desires that had been sequestered to an out-of-the-way corner of my heart were suddenly ignited. That was about 10 years ago. But life, the development of my relationship with my partner, Danny, the flux and reflux of a career in show business, living in New York and then Los Angeles, Danny’s development of his own successful career, and my coming to terms with alcoholism (oh, that!) distracted and derailed us a bit. In retrospect, I know that life is perfect and happens in the way it’s supposed to, in the time it’s supposed to.
That would be one of the phrases Danny hated.
Like many couples, gay or straight, we didn't arrive at the idea of having children at the same time. Since I got sober nearly five years ago, my need for children had grown into a literal ache, to the degree that being around our friends' children became painful for me. But Danny, again, like many men, was concerned about what we might have to give up -- our time, our travels, our privilege to spend money on what we wanted when we wanted -- basically, our free, spontaneous, and fabulous life. I didn't get it. None of those compromises compared with what I perceived as our greatest potential joy. I thought that since our life together was so blessed, it was the next step to a fuller life. If I loved the life we had, why not make it bigger? It was like God was knocking on my heart and saying, "You think you know love? You think you know happiness? I am going to give you love and happiness beyond your imagination. Beyond your wildest dreams. Beyond what you know as possible." So, what, am I gonna look at God and say, "Hmm, I’m not sure…let me think."
But it takes two. And Danny's reticence was what was right for him. Healthy for him. And he was suffering for it. Our friends and family knew I was on the kid path and they were all pressuring him to get on board. Tick tock! Everybody knew he was born to be a father. Amongst our friends, he has long been known as "the child whisperer," with kids drawn to him at parties. So it wasn't like he didn't have the instinct. Rosie O’Donnell, who'd been advocating that we have kids for about 10 years (and who has 16 or 17 children of her own), once cornered Danny with the question, "Do you not see yourself as a dad? Afraid you don't have what it takes?"
Danny sputtered, "No, it’s not that, I just…"
"Well, that’s the only question there is," she lasered in. "If you don't think you're parent material, you don’t like kids, you don't think you've got what it takes, you're missing the dad gene, then that's the end of the conversation. But if you do, well, everything else just works out."
That would be another one of the phrases that Danny hated.
When he would voice his concerns, every parent we know said, over and over, "You just have faith and it works out. It just works out…it just works out…"
This was followed quickly by "There is no perfect time" and "God doesn't give you what you can't handle" and "It changes your life -- for the better." Blah blah blah…
At one point, Danny actually believed that parents united to learn key join-the-club phrases in order to scam others into parenthood so they would not be alone in their misery. "It just works out" didn’t seem reality-based to him. But Danny needed time, and not on my clock. Finally, when he was ready, on September 17, 2007, we proceeded…
On September 18 (I wasted no time), we met our attorney, David Radis. He'd been recommended by several friends and seemed to be "the" guy in town. One friend said that David "matches souls." I dug the idea of soul matching. It sounded metaphysical, spiritual, and organized (like socks) all at the same time. He explained that it could take as long as a year and a half, maybe two years, but that he felt we'd have a child much sooner because we'd been together for 13 years and we had a good "parental profile."
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