Full Transcript
Speaking of your welcome, you know what else is full of gratitude?
SPEAKER_00:
That was perfect. It was perfect. Was it? This is Gate Yorks.
David:
So obviously this past weekend, where was I? At a child’s birthday. Outside of every motherfucking weekend.
Gavin:
You know what? It does, for once, David, it does get better. Just you wait, it will get better. I remember those days every, every single weekend. Now I can’t even remember. It’s been a decade now. It’s been two decades since I was at a child’s birthday party. So I know.
David:
It’s Franzi a brain. You can’t remember much. So I’m at this party, and it is a gymnastics party, and both of my kids are there, and my husband is there. So all the kids, they’re they’re doing gymnastics with the trainers. My husband’s out there with them, and I’m just obviously hovering the snack tray. And I was like, man, my back hurts. And I kind of have a bad back, but not really that bad. And my back’s hurting. I was like, ah, God, it’s really hurting. Did I pull something? And then it’s getting worse and worse. And so I’m like, maybe I have to poop? Like, I just like, what is going on? So I go to the toilet and I’m sitting on the toilet and I’m like, I’m gonna throw up.
Gavin:
Wow, we are going to places that places that Gadriarks has never probed. Anyway, please.
David:
Um, and so I’m I’m just like, I feel horrible. So I leave the bathroom and I’m feeling terrible. And of course, that’s when I get uh cornered by the chatty dad who’s like, hey, what’s going on? Blah, blah, blah. And all I’m thinking of is, I’m gonna puke on you. Like, I am in such pain. And I’m like, I have to go to the doctor. Like, I’m I’m in such pain. So I go to like walk into the gym to tell Brian, my husband, that we need to go. And I’m like, oh no, I’m gonna throw up now. So I run to my car, I get in my car, I start throwing up in a trash bag. I text him, I’m like, we have to go now. And he’s like, okay, so he grabs the kids, he comes to the car, he’s like, What’s going on? I was like, I don’t know. My back hurts. I’m throwing up, I don’t know what to do. So we drive home, I’m throwing up the whole way. My kids are terrified because they’re wise.
Gavin:
They’re going to start a podcast someday about that time that their dad was barfing in the car all the way from the gymnastics party.
David:
And so I we dropped the kids off. Luckily, my mother-in-law was there, so she could she could take care of the kids. And my husband gets in the car. He’s like, So maybe like walk in clinic, like, where do you want to go? And I was like, You’re taking me to the ER. I was at that level of I didn’t know what was going on. I was like, did my appendix burst? Yeah, what’s going on?
Gavin:
That’s what I was thinking.
David:
So I get to this, I get to the ER. First of all, I haven’t been to the ER as a patient. I’m not sure ever. I and we don’t live in a bad area, but they’re like, I have to go through security to get into the ER. I’m throwing up in a Walmart bag, and this guy is wanding me, asking for my keys.
Gavin:
What if you had chopped a leg off or something and they’re still gonna wand you? I wow.
David:
Yeah, I don’t know. They’re not, you’re gonna have to go through the scanner again.
Gavin:
And so please put your leg, please put your leg on the scanner at the end. On the table. Looks like there’s keys in the pocket. Anyway, I’m sorry. I know that I’m absolutely hijacking you. Just let me tell the story, please.
David:
And so I get there and they’re triaging me, and they are they are as casual as if I’m just checking out at the grocery store. They’re like, oh hey, yeah, we’ll get to you when we get to it. I am, Gavin, when I tell you, I’m violently throwing. I am, I am, I am like filling bags and then handing them to my husband who’s getting the new bag. And I’m in such pain that I’m like, I look like a you know how in the first season of Walking Dead, like a new zombie would just be like lurching? Yeah. That was me. Long story short, they get me in and the doctor is like, what’s going on? I was like, my back is killing me, and I can’t stop throwing up. He’s like, it’s probably kidney stones. Here, take this, take this, take this. They they get me an IV, they get me all of this, um, all the drugs, and all of a sudden I’m feeling fantastic. They put me all the drugs and I do a CT scan. I had kidney stones. What? Which I is one of those things where I feel like you hear it, you’re like, oh, that’s what old people in the 50s used to have. Yeah, yeah, totally. Well, I’m an old one. Or just Gavin. Or just Gavin. So just Gavin.
Gavin:
So fuck you in all of your Gavins, the old guy here. Cause because listen, first of all, two things you will never hear me talking about on this podcast. Me pooping, never. Never, ever am I gonna tell you anything like that. I am fundamentally against it. And two, I don’t have kidney stones. So Gavin, Gavin doesn’t poop, he has it removed.
David:
Um, so I I I I uh first of all, for all the women out there who’s listening who have given birth, I in no way would ever equate this to giving birth, is it got to be the most incredible and the most painful thing that’s ever happened. No doubt. But I did read online that they were like, this is on par with giving birth to pain. It was, I can’t even describe it to you, other than it felt like there was a baseball in my back that was on fire and it was shooting lasers out. And so I, at 45, had a kidney stone. And so now in my brain, because it’s it’s this ER and nobody really tells you anything, and they just kind of send me home. And I’m imagining, oh my God, at some point in the next week, gravel is gonna come out of my dick. Yeah. I’m going to shoot rocks across like it’s fucking contra on Nintendo. Right. And I was terrified. And then long story short, I learned I had to go to the urologist, and he was like, no, a lot. It’s super painful, but like once it goes into the bladder, it could be as small as a grain of sand. You probably won’t even notice it when it comes out. Really?
Gavin:
But I thought the whole point was that it was as small as a grain of sand and it was excruciating.
David:
It is when it leaves the kidney and goes into the bladder. But once it’s in the bladder, it doesn’t hurt anymore. But they say they can get as big as a kernel of fucking corn. Oh, yeah. So then they gotta like go up into your ureter and like squeeze it out. Oh, geez. So but the the the reason I bring it up is because I like talking about disgusting things. But also, what was so weird was the car ride home to drop my kids off. I’m having to like craft what they’re experiencing because I don’t want to scare them, right? My my my son is like, what’s going on? Is dad gonna be okay? And I I had to tell him, I was like, Dad’s gonna throw up a couple times. He’s just not feeling well, we’re gonna go to the doctor just like you do. And I remember when he was walking to the house, he kept turning back and looking at me like with such concern on his face. And so I did like a goofy wave and I like jumped up and down. And you pooped a little bit. And I pooped a little bit, but I was literally like, if I die, because I was at that level, I was like, I’m gonna die. I need to make sure his last memory of me is a positive one. It was it was crazy. Wow. And so, yeah, so you know what? If Gavin is not gonna tell poop stories, I’m gonna tell all the poop stories to balance it out. I’m that’s fine. That’s I’m I didn’t poop, it had nothing to do with pooping. Yeah. To be anyway, that was my weekend.
Gavin:
Uh that uh uh you know what? Randomly, there was a moment this week where my son, you know, I’ve I’ve said many times, and many, probably multiple something greats at the end of episodes because I forget what I’ve said, that my son is so reflexively an I love you kid, and it’s just so fantastic. And there was a reflexive I love you this week. We might have even been like, we might have been arguing about something, but then still he was like, Okay, I love you, and which was great. And I thought to myself, what if that was the last time? Like maybe it was meant to be that he said that is this the last time he’s gonna see me. Well, thank goodness the last thing he did hear me say was, I love you too, uh, kind of along those lines. But I’ve never been so morbid as to think this is the last view he’s ever gonna have of me.
David:
But wow, that’s um I was there, I was literally there. I was in that amount of pain at that moment. Also, at that moment, I was like, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. If I had known it was Kitty Stones, I wouldn’t think I was dying. Yeah, but I was like, oh, I might have ruptured something, one of those things that when they rupture, you die immediately of substance. I oh god, it was it was it was not good.
Gavin:
That is a lot. That’s a lot. Yeah, that’s a lot. So um I had a moment uh this week uh dealing with a mouthy teen, and I don’t mind saying this out, putting this out there in the world. And if she listens to it, well, guess what? You affected me that badly. We were driving, we had done a road trip with some friends, and she’s in the back of the car, and she we had had a very, very That reminds me of a time where actually it it when I was That was terrible. You nice try, nice try. Okay. I’m okay with it, I can go back and forth. So we had done a service project, actually. We can talk about that another time, but we had done a pop-up soup kitchen and we were coming back from a very, very long day with some friends, and she planned that she was gonna have a sleepover that night because my daughter is nothing if not obsessed with sleepovers. You will see someday. And I’m like, what is the point of them? Except I suppose I wanted I always wanted to have sleepovers with did you like sleepovers as a kid?
David:
Yeah, I loved it, it was so fun. It felt like such an adventure, and you always stay up late, and yeah, yeah.
Gavin:
Yeah, well, she is obsessed with it, and she wanted to have a sleepover that night, but I’m like, no, no, you never cleared this with me, blah, blah, blah. So she’s in the car, and when you you know how when one person can destroy the atmosphere of a room, and you think, wow, you just did that every Wednesday, Gavin.
David:
Every Wednesday.
Gavin:
So she turned, she was Elsa and turned the entire car ice cold because she was so angry with me. I’m impressed that she wasn’t cussing at me. And I don’t know if it was because she thought she could that I would cave because I was in public, but I mean, she it was just a relentless game of I am you are ruining my weekend, you are ruining my night, you are ruining it for my friends, you’re ruining my friendships, you are ruining this. And it was so awful. It was a terrible, terrible 10 minutes in this car where she was just relentless. My son was there with his friend, and my my son’s friend goes, Wow, she’s like a lot. And my son goes, Yep, it’s like this all the time. And I’m like, ooh, thank you for for shade and a little read in public. But I will say, um, I it was a parenting win for me because uh there were three girls and two boys in the car and this other mom. And I turned it into a hey, y’all, who has the worst parent in the room in this car? And of course, Ellis uh my daughter shot her hand up and said, I do. And I was like, well, besides you, of course. And um, all of mainly all of the other kids were like, Yeah, my parents aren’t so bad. My parents aren’t so bad. But there was one other girl who said, No, my mom’s the worst. My mom’s the worst. And so we had this actually kind of lighthearted conversation about how who’s the worst parent and who has the worst parent. And it actually turned into a fairly funny moment. And um anyway, uh, this is not ending on a funny note, except to just say it was really rough. I know. It was a rough, rough conversation. Uh, rough, rough. But it does lead me then to um have a have something that we haven’t done in a while. What would you do? What would you do? Speaking of Mouthe Teens, because then another night that week, we uh were at a get together with some friends, and um my my daughter didn’t want to end the night too soon. My partner went up to her and said, Okay, so we’re gonna go in about 10 minutes, and she said, No, I’m not, and just like declaratively, no, I’m not. Said, I’m not gonna do that, I’m not gonna do that, and was arguing with him and then accused him of being drunk and storming away. So, my what would you do is what do you do when your kid accuses you in public of being drunk and storming away? And by the way, it doesn’t matter whether or not you actually were drunk, it’s just what do you do when your kid accuses you of being drunk and storming away?
David:
It it is such fucking clever, like diabolicalness because I was just thinking, have you ever seen the people who will be like, hey, will you film me? Like in the grocery store, they’re like, they’ll say to their husband, like, will you film me? I want to do like a TikTok. And so they’re filming him. And the woman turns around, she goes, Why are you filming me, sir? Stop it, leave me alone. It’s such great. Yeah, I I I I would applaud the effort because calling you drunk is really that’s that’s such that’s such shade. I fucking love it, but also it would infuriate me that like you use that to to to try to win this conversation publicly. Um I don’t know. I I am not prepared. Gavin, the stories that you tell about your teens, I’m not ready for it. I can’t, I I I I I am okay with temper tantrums and diapers. I I don’t know if I could deal with this like strategy. Like it’s too much. I don’t know. What would you do?
Gavin:
I don’t know. And well, the things in public also, where you’re kind of like, well, I don’t want to look like I mean I I don’t want to have CPS called on me in public, but there are times when things get so extreme with a teenager, you’re like, you know what? I’m gonna walk away from this situation, even though it is the height of disrespect. And so uh my partner did walk away from it, and then she lost her phone for two days, and she regretted that for sure.
David:
I gotta imagine, like, you like if that’s you gotta pull that card, whatever that like, they really love the whatever, and then you take it away from them. Yeah.
Gavin:
Because you’re like, fuck off, don’t ever do that to me again. So is the phone. So I also have a dad hack of the week that I implemented last weekend, all right? I said to my kids, hey, uh, I was so exhausted from that exhausting night where my daughter accused me of being the worst um parent in the in the car and saying that I ruin her life 24-7. It was exhausting. The next day I wanted to take a nap. And but they wanted to, I don’t know. It was sweet. They wanted to play soccer or jump on the trampoline or something like that. And I’m like, I really need a break. Um and you need to do your chores. And they were like, they don’t want to do their chores on Sundays. So I was like, listen, wake me up from a nap in like 15 minutes, and then we can all do chores together, okay? And I’ll help you. And guess what? They did not do, Kavan.
David:
I make fun of you for being stupid and not funny all the time, but this is the smartest, most brilliant thing I’ve ever heard. And yes, did I just wrap up that compliment in a ball of hate? I did. But I I’m like a god, I’m like, I’m gonna implement this tonight with my kids. Hey kids, we’re gonna all get our vaccines tonight. Wake me up in five minutes when you’re ready. Oh my god, did it work?
Gavin:
You’ll actually be able to sleep through the night. That’s fantastic. Did it work, Gavin? Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely it worked. Oh my god. I mean, yeah, it absolutely worked. Of course, they were just on screens for like three hours. So they uh but you know it was a win-win-win all around.
David:
Oh my god. Guys, 88 episodes later, we finally found the dad hack. This is it. Because I feel like that would be useful from three to thirteen. Like that’s in every age. Yes. Absolutely. Oh my god. Yeah. Oh, I can’t wait to I cannot wait to try this tonight. You know what I don’t want to try tonight? Tell me. Our top three list. Patriarchs, top three list, three, two, one. Um, this is your week, I believe.
Gavin:
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. This week, I wanted to hear about the top three ways you owe your parents an apology. So, number three, embarrassing her in public by calling her cheap. I did it all all the time. All the time. Why are you being so cheap, Mom? Why are you being so cheap? We’re not poor, mom. Well, frankly, we probably were poor, but we were a lot less poor because my mom didn’t just spend money willy-nilly, right? And I accused her of being cheap constantly. And now that I um am also trying to, you know, clip coupons and save money, um, when my daughter says, Why do you act like we’re so poor, or mocks me for saying we’re poor? I just want to be able to call my mom and say, I am so sorry every single time I called you cheap. Number two, asking for shit incessantly. Somewhat adjacent to calling her cheap. I mean, I if if there were if I could have renamed myself as a child, it would have been Gaven Capitalism Lodge because boy did I wanted to spend, spend, spend, and was entitled and thought that I deserved it all. And now that I have a child who is exactly like me, asking me for shit all the time, literally texting me in the midst of this recording, I’m gonna read this to you, okay? Bruh, gimme money.
David:
Just bruh, gimme money. Unblocked, blocked from my sender’s list.
Gavin:
Bruh, blocked. Bruh, give me money. And then finally, number one, I am so sorry I gave her so much shit for looking at my homework. Because now that I have kids in middle school who don’t show me any of their homework and they’re basically flunking everything. Now I understand why my mom made me a great student because she checked all of my homework before she sent it in. And my kids throw up a huge fit if I ever asked to look at their homework, if I even remember to. So, you know what? She made me the fabulous success that I am now as a podcaster who earned 20 cents, I believe, last month podcasting. Um that thank goodness she looked at my homework and made me not be an idiot.
David:
Uh, so for me, number three, similarly, uh, I have to apologize to how expensive things are and how I didn’t give a buck. I would take every lesson and I’d be like, I don’t want to do this anymore. They’re like, we’ve already paid. And I’m like, who cares? Yep. Um, bitch, you’re going to every fucking gymnastics gymnastics class that I paid for. And I just, I didn’t take a lot of things seriously, and they were expensive. So sorry about that. Uh, number two, we had an open bar at my house, and uh, I would for sure just you know, bring my kit friends over, and we would just drink the alcohol and then we refill it with water and our iced tea. And until we made it full circle and we like, oh, let’s have a vodka drink. And it was like, why does this taste like water? Bitch, because we’ve drank the bottle. We’re on the other side. So, mom, you’re our listener. Uh, sorry about that. And number one, this is this is so far above all the other ones. It is like number one, number one, number one. I have a brother, and uh, my mom, my entire life, mixed our names up. Oh, yeah. We are we are 13 years apart, we are nothing alike, but man, every time she talks to me, she calls me by my brother’s name, she calls my brother by my name. She goes, g- d she stumbles over it, and I would be like, Mom, don’t you know who I am by now? When I tell you, every single time I yell at my children, every time, I call them, but I call them by the neighbor’s name. I don’t even know who anybody’s name is.
Gavin:
Looking them directly in the eye, and you call them the wrong name.
David:
I spent$65,000 on you and I don’t remember your name. So, anyway, sorry, sorry, parents for that. Um, so next week, next week, we’re gonna calm ourselves down and we’re gonna do the top three relaxing things. Okay. Not listening to this podcast, that’s for fucking short. So, our next guest is the executive director and founder of Men Having Babies, an international nonprofit that is dedicated to providing gay men with educational and financial support to achieve parenthood. Uh, he and his husband are also one of the first same sex couples worldwide to father children through gestational surrogacy. That’s amazing. Yeah, and coincidentally, Gavin is credited as being the first out gay man from the Jurassic era. Please welcome to the show, Ron Poole Dan.
Gavin:
Hey, Ron.
SPEAKER_04:
Hey, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Gavin:
We literally have gay royalty on this podcast. I mean, this is this is the room where it happens. And Ron, thank you for uh coming and uh sharing some of your story with us. That is, I mean, you’re a first. That’s amazing.
SPEAKER_04:
Uh, you’re too kind. We we thought we were the last couple in New York to have kids. In fact, uh, we watched a show by Barbara Walters called The Gay 90s, and there was a flight attendant from Air France, I remember it until today, that had a childhood surrogacy, and we said, Oh, you know, everybody’s doing it, we should do it again as well. So that’s a relativity relativity for you.
David:
The 90s were pretty gay. Uh uh, it was a lot of gayness in the 90s. But before we start, before we dive, before we dive into men having babies and your amazing career, how have your kids driven you bananas today?
SPEAKER_04:
Uh, we’re empty nesters. So that’s uh our kids are gonna be 24 years old in a couple of months. So so this is uh it’s probably something that uh at some point you might get to doing an episode about, but uh given uh the the demographics, uh there are probably not a lot of people that are already experiencing this. So our kids uh you know have stopped driving us crazy for a while now. That’s the good news. There’s light at the end of the call.
Gavin:
That is a good that is a good feeling. But I suppose like the worries never end and the annoyances I would imagine never end. But you’re so happy to have the annoyances if they actually pay attention to you that it you welcome it.
SPEAKER_04:
It’s a matter of perspective, absolutely.
David:
Well, what what I’ve I’m very curious. So the three of us on this call are on three different eras of parenting. You’re an empty nester, Gavin has teens and preteens, and I have a five and two-year-old. So we’re kind of spread out across. But when you became empty nesters, was it was it a relief? Was it a was it complicated? Was it sad? I’m just curious. Like you you’ve spent 18 years doing this thing and then they move out. What was it like?
SPEAKER_04:
And and I stayed home with that for three years uh full time. So um I, you know, I I have to say I cried for you know a good day. I was down for a week and then it was over. And then I realized that you know, it’s not as if I need their physical presence every minute of the day. But I it it was uh having twins. We literally dropped them off in one trip, though we needed two cars, they had a lot of sleep. So and on the way back, you know, it was I mean, we had a little a word of advice. Uh sending kids to overnight uh sleepaway camp uh is really good preparation. So so you know, the first time we dropped them off at camp, and you know, then they don’t want to see you like you know, five minutes and you’re out. Uh and and then and then driving back with an empty car and quiet car, etc., that’s that’s a good preparation for dropping them off at college.
David:
That’s what’s so messed up about being a parent is that what you know when you’re so desperate for some time to yourself, you’re just like, please let me be alone, please stop touching me. And then the second they do it, you’re like, why aren’t you touching me? Why aren’t you hanging out with me? What’s going on?
Gavin:
True, man. So then uh we are so curious. Let’s dive into it. What inspired you to start men having babies?
SPEAKER_04:
That’s an interesting question because my kid one day asked me that question, and I said, because nobody else is doing this. But uh the the the the full answer is that I, you know, I wasn’t inspired one day and started men having babies. Like a lot of other things, it kind of evolved. Uh it started at a program at the LGBT center in New York in 2005, where I volunteered to run a workshop because there was a workshop for lesbians and there was a workshop for co-parenting and a workshop for adoption, but it was none for us. So I said, let’s uh, you know, so I was running a workshop once a month. Uh and then we did a seminar, and then somebody said, uh let’s call it Mediving Babies. Sure. You know, and then and then uh more people joined us, and then in 2012 we said, we need financial assistance, you know, this is very expensive. Uh and uh the LGBT center said that’s beyond our mission, so we started our own organization, and I still didn’t think I’m gonna work at the organization. So it’s not as if one day uh I was inspired to stop being a marketing strategy uh consultant and and doing this, uh, but rather it evolved. But and and I guess the common denominator is that nobody else was doing that. And looking back, I would say that it’s not a coincidence because I always feel that what happened was really that the demographic uh evolution of our of our community that was disrupted by the AIDS crisis kind of finally became more normal around the time that we started thinking about a family, that more people had stable relationships, you know, their health and uh or medications that were able to uh live with HIV. And um and that’s when people, gay men, started uh in in larger numbers to uh uh look into becoming parents. So so it’s not a coincidence that it happened at the time.
Gavin:
I was kind of surprised that it wasn’t until 2005, though. I would have thought that um that there uh like you said, you were one of you thought you were one of the last gays in New York to have uh kids. Uh 2005 is not that long ago, honestly, that um that you were giving this service to a huge and growing population, frankly.
SPEAKER_04:
Well, you have to keep in mind that there was no the technology is also a factor here. Uh there was no egg donation. Literally. We were very lucky to have my husband’s sister, my sister-in-law, to donate donate her eggs. There were no egg donation agencies, there was no egg donation. Uh IVF was a lot more primitive than it is today. We, you know, we succeeded on the second try with three-day embryos. We transferred four embryos. Uh, you know, things were very, very different uh uh back then. So very few programs, very few hospitals were were doing this. Uh there were no private clinics almost that so it’s not just, you write, it’s not just the demographics, uh, but it was a combination of of those two things. Uh the path was not yet, you know, uh paved. There was no uh, you know, clear um I mean we thought there was an agency we went to this guy, he was a lawyer, and it turns out a few years later became an agency. But but uh at the time it was very, very um word of mouth, I should say.
Gavin:
Right. Yeah. And how has men having babies changed since you um founded it to today?
SPEAKER_04:
Well, what happened is that, as I mentioned, the very first thing we did is to create the uh GPAP, as we call it, the gay parenting assistance program, because that was what we really thought was a problem. Uh uh it used to be that you know, we were members of uh uh CBST, the LGBT uh synagogue in New York, and we used to get a lot of, you know, we brought our babies with us, and people were looking at us and shushing us and stuff like that, and we realized that there was a whole generation of gay men who were telling themselves, this is not possible. And and some of them, at least, as a defense mechanism, was saying we don’t want to have children. And when they saw people coming with children, that challenged that uh uh uh you know that that uh life uh uh um you know uh outlook uh they had. And and so we we were like, you know, we had to realize that more and more people are I see that they can become parents now, and now all of a sudden they just can’t afford it.
David:
I mean that’s that’s the big that’s the big hurdle, right? That’s yeah that’s huge. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:
And and I just thought to myself, and and I have to say, I I’m probably gonna have to uh knock on wood again. I always felt myself that I was so, so lucky that you know, from like it’s karma. I have to do something that because what if I didn’t have the money to do that? What if we didn’t have the money to do this? How can I imagine my life uh without the family I have, and for that to only be because I can’t afford it? So I just I just couldn’t live with that that feeling.
Gavin:
Yeah. Along those lines then, can you tell us how uh the the GPAP works actually then?
SPEAKER_04:
So uh luckily, uh very early the the Robin Hood type of uh vision we had, which is we already have this uh the audience and we have those uh providers, uh why don’t we have them pay to come and speak to our to our members and take that money and give it to people who can afford it? So that was the original idea. You know, why do we charge those agencies and clinics who want to come to our events? Uh we wouldn’t have gotten very far with just that. Because the other realization I had is that this is not some wholesome, uh, easily marketable charity donate, you know, uh situation. You won’t be able to do donation drives. Until today, that is not that is a very small part of our budget. Um so what really made it uh uh uh you know take off is realize that there is goodwill in the industry and we need we can channel that. They will never do that. They kept saying we will start a foundation, we will do this. They were not in a position to do that. Somebody had to do it. It was a collective action failure, uh, as is known in my academic background. So what we did is we started channeling pro boner services and discounts. So if somebody wants to be at a conferences and be in a director and all these things, you know, why not create even more goodwill by donating services? And today what happens is that we have about two dozen couples uh singles a year. Uh we’re about to get to our 100th baby uh born, we’re maybe 20 uh 98, uh, born from what we call stage two, which is the full assistance. And full assistance means that they still need to have some self-participation, but I would say the majority of their budget comes from pro bonus services we can give them. And I’m not just talking about agency and clinic, that too, but a lawyer for them, a lawyer for the surrogate, a lawyer for the egg donor if needed, uh uh escort services, uh insurance review services, uh, mental health professionals, milk banks, you name it. They’re all part of our 180 network uh providers, all of that for free. And then interest fee loans and grants.
David:
Yeah, you said escorp. I heard escort, and I was like, I did not know that men having babies has escort services. I need to apply to them.
SPEAKER_04:
Subsidized and not without even help.
David:
Uh so yeah, but like I I am actually one of the people who benefited from this. So I applied for this GPAP program, and we got into the there’s two phases or whatever. And so our I know our attorney had, I think, I can’t remember what the discount was. This was it was a it was a it was a discount. It was like a cheap. And I was like, you know, I don’t do anything without a coupon. I don’t do anything in life. I don’t go to Wendy’s without a coupon, I don’t go to Costco without a coupon, and I do not create kids via gestational surrogacy without a coupon. So I very much directly benefited from it. And also I kept our attorney for other journeys and for other things that we needed. Hang on. Yeah, but I was introduced to a really great attorney that I really liked, that otherwise I would have just kind of picked one out at random.
SPEAKER_04:
And and so you’re one of about over 300 couples we have that get what we call stage one. And they could, they’re eligible for discounts from agencies, clinics, uh, and lawyers, et cetera, et cetera. And that amounts typically, it could amount, uh, some people only come to us after they already started a journey, but if they come to us before they start a journey, uh that could be easily$30,000 off uh their their, you know, their uh uh you know$20,000,$30,000 off their journey. So we’re talking about a lot of um people who probably uh you know either have a child among those 100 almost babies that they would never have had, or have a child uh and that and we helped push them uh over the edge. So so that was really the reason why we created it. Uh but I would say going back to your original question, for the first few years, I didn’t even know that this is we’re here to stay. I mean, it was it was a project. And after about three, four years, we kind of like did a strategic assessment and we said, we need to you know realize we if we want to be here for the long term, we need to really build an organization, we need to have you know real employees, we need to have uh some processes, etc. etc. And that that kind of happened, as I said, a few years after we we were established, but we were already growing. I mean, now we have seven. There were years when we had eight conferences um uh worldwide, we have two European conferences now. Uh we really benefited from a lot of evolution in the sense that uh things are when they’re happening at a cycle again and again and again, they can be improved. And but we moved way beyond that. I mean, we still have terrific conferences. Our last New York conference had uh you know 305 people we registered, which meant that about there were about 390 people there. We always have some no-shows, etc. But really, really large numbers of uh prospective parents benefiting from that. But we also have amazing tools and resources. I mean, uh we have a directory that is that has cost comparison features and scenario modifier. You can say in like a calculator, you can find how much it would be under these circumstances or those assumptions. We have uh just launched, fresh, uh uh new uh this week, uh a database, an upgraded database of employers uh around the country and worldwide, and how much family benefit uh what the the amount of family building benefits they provide.
David:
Do you have a section on your website that helps me when I my toddler asks for pasta and I give her pasta and she cries? Is there a section that I can choose to see what do I do? Do I take the pasta she asks for away, or do I just keep pushing it towards her as she sobs and screams? Is that on the website? We do.
SPEAKER_04:
We have it’s called it’s called it’s called the peer advice program.
David:
Oh man, you’re such a businessman. You’re like, yes, yes, yes.
Gavin:
Well, you you said that you were in marketing before starting men having babies, that’s right, right? So I’m so curious. I mean, are you able to divorce yourself of wanting to also get in the nuts and bolts of the marketing or criticizing what terrible decisions somebody else has made? Or are you in charge of the marketing? Because it’s actually really great marketing y’all do.
SPEAKER_04:
Interesting, you ask. Uh we do uh provide tutorials to providers who come to our conferences. Uh but not just because we want on, but but we always preface that and saying that’s not because you don’t think you’re good marketers or you didn’t go to the right MBA, you know, program. It’s because our programs are not, you know, car fairs. They’re not, you know, uh, you know, some sort of uh, I don’t know, uh, uh comics or some other type of you know expo. It is it is something that you know has specific you know rules or or specific you know uh uh uh atmosphere and and you need to know how to you know to conduct yourself. So yes, uh marketing helps, uh but it it all comes down to but on the other hand, I would say that for several years we felt like we were a very well kept secret, uh that not enough people in the community knew about us. Uh so uh there’s only so much you can do uh on your own, and also, you know, uh we don’t have a lot of resources. There are community organizations out there, charities that do a much better job than us, uh doing big galas, I’m not gonna name anybody, and bring celebrities. We have the discount crowd.
David:
You know, uh I give you speaking to me, baby. You’re speaking to the discount crowd. I’ll give you only deals in coupons and bulk. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:
I’ll tell you a secret. Uh Anderson Cooper and Elton John didn’t come to men have babies uh before they had their genre.
David:
Exactly. But so I I do want to speak on that because I feel like you, men having babies, while you have a really great political arm and you have the GPAP and you have a lot of things, I feel like you’re most notable, at least now, for these conferences. And these conferences are just kind of weekends and very, like you said, internationally and locally. And that’s how I first came to you. And one of the things, and you know, you do a lot of amazing things. You have panels and you have an expo, and you have you have all different things. But for me personally, as somebody who walked in the front door and I was like, my husband and I were like, hey, we want to have kids and we’re gonna go to this thing and learn about it. The thing that I went away with that was so magical for me was it was the first time I had been in a space with actual gay parents with kids on them. And I was witnessing, I knew gay parents existed, but something about seeing the dads in person holding a baby or with a toddler. Um, I remember going to a panel about single men having babies, and he had his kid kind of running around and he had to keep stopping to grab them. And there was something so beautiful about that. I’m sorry, I’m treading on Gavin’s like grateful territory. But like he was I I walked out of that weekend kind of being like, wow, like they they exist. These people actually exist. And it was so weird and jarring in a the most beautiful way. So if you have never been to a conference, even just to be around other gay parents, it was a pretty it was pretty amazing experience. And then we joined the GPAP and now we have two kids. Um and so I thank you, but also blame you for anything bad that happens with my with my children.
SPEAKER_04:
I I think I think you’re touching upon a lot of a lot of things. Uh, one of them is the fact that among the obstacles we have to uh uh overcome is not just the financial, I mean, something that comes out of our plumbing. We just don’t have the right parts, you know, uh to procreate on our own. Um and not just you know the political and societal views about you know LGBTQ, yada yada. It has to do with the fact that people don’t see us as childless. People don’t look at two men and say, oh, look at them, they don’t have children. On the contrary, when we want to have children, some people look at us in suspicion, the way they want to look at a lesbian couple. You know what I’m saying?
SPEAKER_03:
Totally.
SPEAKER_04:
So what we have to overcome totally and not only is it double standard, it is we grew in the same environment. So uh the there’s a guy who started a big agency, uh, I’m not gonna name it, that when they wanted to become parents, they first came to our living room to see how it looks like to have for two men to to raise children. And so I absolutely hear what you’re saying, and that’s also why we have you know a personal stories panel. We even had we bring children uh that were born through surrogacy. We by the way also bring children born children of surrogates because we want people to understand how it affects the surrogates uh family.
David:
But absolutely. I was lucky enough to be on a panel at Men Having Babies with when I had my son, he was in the audience, and we were on the same panel as a surrogate, and it was exactly what you’re saying, where you get to hear from these people who are actively doing it.
Gavin:
That’s phenomenal. Well, uh so I’m curious. I mean, kind of along the lines of what David was there there as a panelist, um, there must be so much advice that you have gathered over the years. I’m curious with you since you’re on the front lines of starting families, like what’s what’s the most common issue you see with first timers um and the advice you give to those starting out? Gosh, there is a lot.
SPEAKER_04:
Uh Um I would say Undoubtedly. Yeah. I I would say uh uh uh the most uh difficult thing for people uh when they come is uh parsing it, understanding what would the path look like because in its entirety it’s overwhelming. Uh in fact, what we do now is weeks before you come to the conference, that didn’t happen at the time when you came, David, we start sending uh attendees because people sign up months in advance uh oftentimes, we start sending them like preparatory emails with some you know little tidbits of like you know information and and and links to you know things they can read to not just ease the you know the the the landing in in in uh what oftentimes is called uh uh you know uh a boot camp. Um because we’re talking about Friday afternoon through Saturday, Sunday afternoon, it’s a lot of material. But but no doubt. It’s really just to kind of like understand uh what does the lay how does it look like? What does the path look like? And also understand what you have to understand to make a decision about, and things that are not subjected to decisions, because there’s a lot of moving parts here, uh not all of them you need to decide upon. You can you you it’s good to know about them, but you have no control over them, and then there are some things that you don’t might not have thought about it, but for instance, about where people uh you know end up in on a map. People have the assumption that they will have to find a local agency, a local clinic, a local surrogate, and a local egg donor. That’s not how it works. But we then tell them listen, you’ll never even set foot at the agency’s offices. So who cares where they are? Uh your surrogate might not be from nearby. That’s hard. But try to find an egg donor that lives close to this to the clinic because that’s gonna save you a lot of money. Things like that people don’t even know about. So, so and and we talk about even proximity to a major airport as opposed to where the the actual distance they so we go into a lot of details. Uh, but I would say really the if I had to point one thing, it’s just like the how this whole thing looks like in real life, because you can Google such a thing. That that just doesn’t exist.
David:
And there’s a lot of, I mean, listen, I’m I’m a part of a lot of uh Facebook groups of surrogacy and uh gestational surrogacy and even just like regular IVF groups. And there’s all oftentimes people coming in there being like, hey, I’m thinking about doing it, but like don’t know where to start. It’s like, oh man, is that a lot? But the most common thing I see is hey, how the fuck do you guys do this financially? And everyone says the same thing. I mortgaged my house, I got a second job, I did, I got a job at Starbucks for the IVF and you mean it’s like it it is it is always top of mind because it is oftentimes$150,000. And that is not all not a lot of people have that to light on fire. Um, and so I think programs like yours are so important because it even because at least for us, like those little bits here and there and here and there add up to a big sum of money. Really big. Just 10% off your lawyer maybe sounds like nothing, but like your lawyer’s thousands of dollars. And if you get that off of lots of things, and it just it it is going back to your previous point, it is so sad because a lot of people I think are prevented uh to to be be have families like this because they just simply can’t afford it. And adoption is not cheap either.
Gavin:
Heck no.
SPEAKER_04:
So I I have to I have to talk about then about advocacy. That’s another important, important thing to understand. We we we have we started uh as I mentioned.
Gavin:
I’m buckled up. I’m so excited for it. Bring it all the advocate. David loves this. Go.
SPEAKER_04:
So I already touched upon it when I mentioned the fact that you know it’s not a straightforward like LGBTQ issue. I mean, it’s uh sometimes within our own community, people are not supporting us. They really oftentimes you know throw back at us that we are cisgender white uh men, we should wait for our term. Uh, that this is uh some sort of a problem for the privileged, that we want to create a family. So, first of all, tell them come to our conferences. We’re not all white. In fact, you know, we’re probably a lot less white than the average. But besides, um the the point here is that we feel that this comes down to our human dignity. The fact that people don’t think that we deserve or even uh worth or even capable of becoming good parents. And just like that, everybody had to get married, uh, for marriage equality to be a fundamental turning point in uh in our movement. Such, I think, the fact that understanding that access to family building is just as important. If I see, and not every gay man should see that, that the path to my full human expression, human fulfillment is having a family. I should not be uh uh prevented from doing that just for financial reasons. Now, do I want somebody to give me the money? I still at least don’t want there to be obstacles and discriminations on my path. And when we build our families through IVF and egg donation and surrogacy, we cannot write off almost anything for tax purposes other than our sperm testing. When we have a surrogate, her insurance will not cover her pregnancy many times. Yeah, our insurance will not cover her IVF and the egg donation and etc. etc. And not to mention the fact that sometimes we pay more for services that uh uh heterosexual people get because of sort of a negotiated rate that they benefit from, even if they pay out of pocket and we don’t. So uh several years ago we realized that on the one hand, uh surrogacy became legal everywhere, it counted, you know, in the United States at least. So Michigan was the last place, and we we played a role in all of those uh recent uh more than half a dozen states that only became legal uh in the last five, six years. But then we realized we need to look into affordability. So the first thing we said is to be recognized uh uh as everybody else, um there needs to be a redefinition of the concept of infertility. And in 2020, we got together with uh Resolve, the National Infertility Association, and uh um and the uh National Center for Lesbian Rights, NCLR, and we created a new model legislation that defines, redefines infertility as not just a disease, a condition, but also as a status, the inability to procreate with that uh uh basically uh uh uh medical help. And that is now the law in Michigan, in Maine, in Washington, D.C., which means that as of January, federal employees will be able to get free IVF if when they’re doing services as gay men. Not just in Washington, D.C. But also New Jersey recently and California. And now we really, really need to move to move the to move it in New York, where they passed a law in 2019 saying that people can get free IVF if they’re medically infernal and if they’re lesbians, but not but we were left out.
David:
Lesbians are always there before we are. They’re always getting there before we are. Why are they always one step ahead?
SPEAKER_04:
So we need we need to change all these things, and that that’s something we’re doing a lot more. And as I said, it is not just a fight for privileges or fight for more benefits. It is, I think it comes down to what I said before, that it is a fight to be recognized, you know, as humans and our human dignity to be on par with the human dignity and the and the human worth of people who are recognized. Uh I the caricature I always mention is that when you ask somebody to draw a childless, childless people, they would draw a sad woman and a supportive husband. And and because even heterosexual men are not uh are considered to be too uh you know too much of to really care if they have children or not. You know? So what what do we have to do? Where do we fit in that picture?
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_04:
So that’s what we’re doing, and and this is why we have a membership program now, and we ask people to become members also because they’ll get discounts even if they’re not worthy for uh uh for uh financial assistance, but also to stand up and be counted. They’ll get access to more resources on a website, but they’re also gonna be part of the change we’re trying to bring about.
David:
That’s when I’m asked when I’m asked to draw a uh a picture of a sad person, it ends up just looking like Gavin every time. Gavin, yeah, yeah. I could have filled in the line. Yeah. Wait, so Ron, you used your sister-in-law’s eggs, right, to create your family. I uh my sister-in-law was our first gestational surrogate. So just like I’m I’m curious of like how how that experience went and was it maybe different than I know you only did it once, but like what what uh tell me a little bit about like involving family members into your family building.
SPEAKER_04:
I mean, I I should right away say that this is something we address at our conferences, especially now when we talk also about modular surrogacy or what people call dependent surrogacy, instances where people can afford this by finding, you know, uh uh either family and friends to help carry or donate the eggs or uh sometimes uh other ways. But in our particular case, um what we were always curious about is how the kids, you know, perceive that one day. Because uh, as opposed to your situation, um they are technically or in some people’s minds uh half siblings of their cousins. And I can tell you that that that was the and and that’s the most common question I hear from people. I mean, how would that work? I mean, and and I can tell you uh that and many other questions uh are are answered by the fact that people don’t realize that those kids live with you several years, and their entire world and reality is already established in so many ways before these questions even come up.
SPEAKER_03:
Sure.
SPEAKER_04:
They already know who’s your who’s in their family.
SPEAKER_03:
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:
And they already know who their cousins are, and they already know who their aunt is. And and and and the I always tell that the funniest questions and the funniest uh situations are happened in uh car uh car trips, uh road trips. Maybe that’s because our family we used to live in New York and a lot of our family was here in Canada, so we we you know we try drove probably more than uh the average. And one of those trips, of course, one of those trips they ask, how do other kids get uh created? You know, by the way, which is a question we get you know a little later after because it’s the easiest question to tell them how they were created. But um, but one day they asked, actually, they didn’t even ask, our son was like talking, rhetorically asking or talking to himself, saying, Some people, some people would say that Henry, that’s his cousin, is my half-brother. But that’s not true because he has two parents and I have two parents. Case dunk. He just articulated it to himself that being a sibling means that you share a parent, and he doesn’t share parent with them.
Gavin:
Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. Speaking of hilarious things happening in the car, one way we always love to bring out some more humanity, also of our guests, is talking about the the dirty times, the messy times, or will you tell us the time you’ll never forget as you were a parent?
SPEAKER_04:
Okay. Um and this is uh probably true for every male uh you know primary caregiver or somebody who just you know uh uh moves around with children, especially here. You have two toddlers who you probably kept at the Barnes and Noble’s uh story time a little too long. And by the time it’s time to leave, you have to put one under this arm and one under that arm, and uh drag them kicking and streaming while you’re trying to also prop up the umbrella because it’s uh pouring rain. And just imagine the the looks you have for people of this uh guy, you know, uh snatching to children uh who are you know trying to murder. So so I think that’s probably one of my most uh embarrassing or you know, frustrating. Yeah.
David:
But it is a good taste. Every parent. Yeah, but I mean, every parent, it it you’re not a parent unless you have carried one of your children screaming from something, be it the bowl of pasta they asked for, from the Barnes and Noble story hour to the you know, the MAGA extremists. I don’t know, but what whatever is like we’ve all we have all we have all done that’s a rite of passage. It is absolutely a rite of passage. Um, uh Ron, this we could talk for hours because I know you you have a lot of political work and you there’s so much more we could go into, but we’re we’re out of time. But I want to thank you for being here and being on Gatriarchs and demeaning yourself by being on our stupid podcast. Please, everyone out there, if especially if you’re a listener who is new to this or is thinking about creating a family, go to menhavingbabies.org, go to one of the conferences, and just exist in the space where other gay people who want to become parents exist. There’s something so magical about it. Um, thank you for creating it and thank you for being a kind of a part of my story, the beginning of my family building. And thank you for joining us. Thank you, Ron.
SPEAKER_04:
Thank you so much for uh having me. Thank you for having this podcast. It’s part of building community and part of uh, you know, you know, passing the, you know, uh passing it forward. So thank you so much.
Gavin:
So, my something great this week is parent teacher conferences. Because if it weren’t for parent teacher conferences, I would have no idea. In this era of getting so many messages from our school, uh, we just fairly recently had our uh parent teacher conferences, and I um I gotta say, um, it was eye-opening. It was certainly eye-opening. And um, my parent my children are not quite as perfect as I was thinking they were, um, but that’s an okay situation. And it means that I need to be a better parent, and parent teacher conferences make me hopefully a better parent. But teachers, man, teachers themselves, um, they are something great and they all deserve to be paid, what Elon Musk is not willing to pay in taxes. Anyway, what about you?
David:
So this week we we had a babysitter come over that we hadn’t had in a while. And when we talked about it a couple days prior, my son was very scared. He was like, I don’t want her to be here, and blah, blah, blah. And there was just, for whatever reason, he was digging in that, like, I don’t want her to babysit, and we were like, you know, she’s gonna babysit you or whatever. And so we were going to pick up my daughter, and he was in the car and he was like crying, and he’s like, I just don’t want her to be there, and it was like this whole thing, and we basically said, Listen, she’s gonna come over, but it’ll be fun. But we really need you to be brave and to because we don’t want Hannah to get scared too, right? And we don’t want um her to be afraid because you’re afraid. So let’s, you know, we’re we’ll all be there and it’ll be fine. And he was okay, okay, okay. So we get Hannah, we put her in the car, and the second she gets in the car, he turns to her and he goes, Hannah, guess what? You know, this person’s gonna babysit. Isn’t that so exciting? And you can see in his eyes, he was still a little nervous, but he was making such an effort to make this a positive, exciting thing because we asked him to, and he we didn’t want her to be scared. And it was just like the fucking sweetest thing I’ve ever seen this child do, and it totally came from him. We didn’t ask him to say anything, and that was something great.
Gavin:
David, I usually think that your parenting is questionable, but I would say, I would say that this is actually a testament to Brian, and that was the best choice you made.
David:
Ugh, and unfortunately, that is our show. If you have any comments, suggestions, or general compliments for David, you can email us at gatriarchspodcast at gmail.com.
Gavin:
Or you can DM us on Instagram. We are at Gatriarchspodcast. On the internet, David is at DavidFMVaughnEverywhere, and Gavin is at Gavid Lodge on Truly Nothing. Please leave us a glowing five star review wherever you get your sandwiches. Thanks, and we’ll avoid you next time on another episode of Gatriarchs.