Kenya

Almost nothing. I knew Kenya was in East Africa. I knew Mombasa was a coastal city. I knew the clinic had a good reputation for international intended parents.

I had never been to Kenya. I had no connection to it. I was going because it was the path that was open to me — the one that didn't say no.

Warmth. The people I encountered — at the clinic, at the hotel, in the city — were kind. Not in a performative way. In the way of people who are genuinely interested in other people.

I walked the beach in Mombasa in the days before the birth. I ate food I'd never tasted. I watched the Indian Ocean. I was 27 hours from home, waiting for my daughters to arrive, and somehow I felt less alone than I expected.

It's where Stella and Mia were born. That's what it means. A country that had nothing to do with me became the place where my family began.

My daughters will know Kenya. Not as an abstraction but as a place — the place where they came into the world. I'll take them there someday. I want them to see it.

I'm grateful to Kenya in a way I can't fully articulate. Not to the country as a political entity, but to the specific place — the clinic, the hospital, the beach, the people who were kind to a single gay Canadian man who showed up alone to become a father.

They gave me my daughters. I won't forget that.