Embarking on a Journey of Love and Science
Surrogacy sits at the intersection of the most human thing imaginable and the most clinical. Love and science, inseparable, working toward the same impossible goal.
I remember the exact moment I stopped researching and started doing. I had been reading about surrogacy for months — the costs, the timelines, the legal frameworks, the medical protocols. And then one evening I closed the browser and picked up the phone. That was the beginning.
Why Surrogacy Felt Right
I wanted a biological connection to my children. That desire is something I've had to defend, explain, and justify more times than I can count. But it was real, and it was mine, and I stopped apologizing for it.
Surrogacy was the path that made that possible. Not the easiest path. Not the cheapest. But the one that led where I needed to go. I've written more about why I chose surrogacy as a gay dad.
The Science Part
Gestational surrogacy is a medical process. IVF, egg donation, embryo creation, transfer, implantation. It involves clinics and contracts and blood tests and waiting rooms. It is, in many ways, the most clinical way to become a parent. Understanding the difference between gestational and traditional surrogacy is one of the first decisions you make.
And yet. Every step of that clinical process is in service of something profoundly human. The embryo is a person. The surrogate is a person. The intended parent — me — is a person who wants, more than anything, to be a father.
The World Is Theirs
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The Love Part
Love is what makes you keep going when the science doesn't work. When the first transfer fails. When the second fails. When you're sitting in your kitchen trying to understand how to hold hope and grief at the same time.
The science gives you the mechanism. The love gives you the reason. You need both.
What I Learned at the Start
That the journey is longer than you think. That the costs are higher than the estimates. That the emotional toll is real and underestimated and worth preparing for.
And that none of that matters once you're holding your children. The journey becomes the story you tell. The destination becomes your life.
Joseph Tito
Creator of The Dad Diaries. Gay dad of twins. Writing about fatherhood, surrogacy, and the beautiful mess of real life.