The Gene Machine and the Rolling Ball

PART I
At the Ripley's Believe It or Not! Museum New Orleans, formerly located in Jax Brewery, there was a photo booth called the Gene Machine. Two people could have their pictures taken, facial features measured and plotted, and a third photo--a composite of the two "parents"--would be "procreated." Virtual children could be begotten.

When we were at the museum for a fundraiser in early 2000, we had our photos taken for grins and giggles. Although it was just in fun, we were literally putting a face on our biggest project yet to come.





PART II

In November 2004, the Times-Picayune printed the article "Everyday Dads," featuring Dale and Chris Liuzza and their son Seth.

...Dale, 23, is not a mother.

Neither is Chris, 37, his partner of six years.

They are gay fathers, basking in the joy--and embracing the responsibility--of new parenthood.

The Liuzzas are part of the "gayby boom," a surge in the number of gay and lesbian couples who are choosing to become parents through adoption or reproductive technology.

Finally, we found others like ourselves. We had to meet them. They could show us the way!





PART III
After refinancing our house to pay off bills, after completing a major bathroom renovation, after streamlining our budget in order to afford the new addition, after a storm that drowned our dreams, I met Tommy Starling and Jeff Littlefield while I was at work. It came up in conversation that they too had a little one, Carrigan, and that their surrogate was wanting to carry for another gay couple.



Once again, the ball started to roll.

A few e-mails and phone calls later we learned that we weren't going to be able to work with Tommy and Jeff's surrogate. But just having verbal contact with a surrogate had given us hope and motivation. By late 2006, David Favret's full-time job became scouring surrogacy boards and their classifieds.

A Bun in the Oven

PART I
The surrogate search is a complicated, involved process. There are websites devoted to the surrogacy process where one can learn the basics and read through the "classifieds" where women advertise their services for surrogacy, traditional or gestational, or for egg donation and through the "want ads" where prospective, "intended" parents post their desires for a surrogate or egg donor.

David Favret did the legwork, poring over hundreds of listings, writing emails and replying to responses. Two years ago, by the end of 2006, we chose a wonderful woman who had donated eggs a few times before but was wanting to complete her own surrogacy experience by giving the gift of new life to a deserving family. Her own family was extremely supportive and she was willing to do whatever it took to help us achieve our dream.

Being a male gay couple is not an easy road for having children. Fortunately for us, California and a handful of other states (though there are more everyday) are very supportive of "intended parents," be they straight or gay, males or females. Through the intervention of lawyers, a "pre-birth order" can be established where the intended parents are listed as co-parents on the birth certificate, where no mention is made of egg donors, sperm donors, surrogates, surrogates' husbands, etc. The catch is that the medical procedures and, most importantly, the birth must happen in that state--California, in our case--and everything, of course, must be legally contracted.

Our surrogate was willing to travel for the medical proceedings and "reside" in California for the delivery. We had finally begun our journey!

David and I learned more about the female body and its cycles than we ever wanted to know. Although gestational surrogacy (where the surrogate only carries a child to term having no genetic relationship to the child vs. traditional surrogacy where it is her egg that is fertilized) is a highly medical, clinically-controlled process, there is still heavy monitoring and dependence upon the surrogates' and egg-donors' natural cycles, compounded by government-regulated testing of all the players involved and clinic-required psychological, genetic and medical counseling and examinations. David was a great coordinator. I would have gone crazy trying to align the doctors appointments, phone consultations, flights, hotel stays. All but David and me lived in different states throughout the country!

To make a long story short, things did not work out. After two attempts, one failed and one called off minutes before the embryo transfer, we learned that there were incompatibilities with our surrogate and the medical regimen. We were back to square one.

Sort of. The eggs my sister had donated were fertilized and all viable embryos were frozen. We just needed another surrogate.


PART II

It only took about one month before we found Florence, a New Hampshire native, living in California, only two hours away from Los Angeles. We fell in love and signed on the dotted lines.


She has a husband and three adorable daughters. They are all supportive of her decision to carry a child for a gay couple and are very interested in the process. They have become extended family and we enjoy our time with them when we're there for our monthly doctor's visits.

As quickly as we could, we got her medically and psychologically cleared and started the procedure. Although this is her first surrogacy journey, Flo is in nursing school and had a great handle on the medical regimen of injections and pills. A month later we were ready to transfer the embryos that were frozen.


We had frozen seven embryos from the prior transfer attempt, but the freezing and thawing process destroyed all but two.


We implanted those two and one successfully attached to the uterine lining.


Now here we are--a beautifully bigger Flo at the New Orleans airport with traveling companion!

Genetic Ingredients

Here we are. I am David McElveen, on the left, and my partner David Favret is on the right. By August 2008 we will have been together for 16 years. We have wanted a child/children longer than we've been together. That mutual dream was definitely a bonding thread. We have been pursuing the dream and making lifestyle changes for about eight years. With the help of multiple friends who have been through this process before us, we officially started two years ago and we now have a baby boy on the way--Truman McElveen Favret.


Here is another, more recent picture from one of our many trips to Los Angeles where the medical procedures all took place.


Here is my wonderful sister Diane and her family. Her supportive husband Jim and adorably precocious daughter Ziggy flank her. Diane has been the gracious egg donor, donating twice to our cause. Obviously David Favret contributed his sperm to the mix.


Diane and Jim are a wonderful, caring and giving couple who reside in a suburb of Denver. It's amazing to the see the strong woman (wonderful wife and devoted mother) that my little sister has become.


Although Ziggy is our niece, she is going to bear quite a resemblance to her cousin. David never envisioned his offspring having olive skin and almond eyes. Surprise!!!!

Me doing what I do best--sleeping and cuddling.