| Today, March 21, we celebrate the 9th anniversary of Gays With Kids. I remember the date well, as I had hoped to launch our website a day earlier: That would have allowed me to celebrate my birthday and GWK’s anniversary on the same day! But the Internet gods had other plans, and our site didn’t actually go live until March 21. You may already know the story behind GWK. Back in the mid aughts, my Dutch husband Ferd and I made the decision to start a family. Our roller coaster ride of a journey to fatherhood included: A birth parent who decided to keep her baby, which caused us to abandon our chosen path to fatherhood (after investing 12 months and $20,000 in non-reimbursable adoption-related expenses) and to start anew with surrogacy, which was further complicated thanks to my HIV status. Four days after signing contracts with a surrogacy agency and IVF clinic, we received an unexpected yet very welcome call from our adoption agency: a baby boy had been born the week prior and, if we wanted him, we’d need to take him home just two days later. Three months later, Ferd received word that his legal immigration status in the US would expire in three months, so we moved to Canada where we found an amazing immigration attorney who got me a work visa (HIV status be damned!), and visas for Ferd and Levi. Almost a year later, Ferd and I drove from Toronto to West Virginia, arriving just a few hours after our surrogate’s emergency c-section delivered our girls at 35 weeks and 1 day. Of course, before bringing our girls home to Canada with us, we had to navigate the myriad legal hurdles that I now understand as typical for international dads who choose a US-based surrogacy journey for their family-building. |
| The idea behind Gays With Kids was born out of the hope that I could somehow use my experience to help others navigate their own journeys to fatherhood. And that, by extension, the more stories we could share of others creating and raising their families, the more people we’d help. So, for our first 8 years, GWK acted primarily as a media company, publishing hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of such stories. Of course, we have always done so in a positive and accurate light, which we hope helped to counter-balance some of the nastiness and lies perpetuated by those who wish us harm. Then last year we had an epiphany. Telling these stories provided inspiration and some anecdotal guidance for future dads…but that wasn’t enough. We could do more to support gay and queer men as they attempt to navigate their own journeys to fatherhood. And that’s why we created GWK Academy, to provide intended dads with a roadmap to follow along through their entire journey. We are tremendously proud of GWK Academy, and we hope GWK Academy will soon earn the reputation as the very first stop on any gay or queer man’s journey to fatherhood. For us the launch of GWK Academy is even more…it represents our very first service offering, but it will not be our last. I can’t think of a better time to share our new strategic vision than on the eve of our 9th anniversary… while we will continue to publish blog posts on our site and share family stories on social media…our primary focus is to provide our ever-growing community of gay and queer dads and dads-to-be with more invaluable and unique service offerings that aren’t available elsewhere. By the way, before finalizing any new services, we will seek community input as an important part of our process. When we do, I sincerely hope that I can count on getting your thoughtful and invaluable feedback, as that’s the only way we can be sure you’re as excited as we are with these new service offerings. Thanks for reading, Brian Brian Rosenberg, Founder Gays With Kids |
4 thoughts on “Personal Email from GWK Founder on our 9th Anniversary”
Johnny Rocco
We attended your live with the couple who used simple surrogacy! We wanted to thank you 🙏 as it was educational for us as we start our own journey to start a family! I’m USA from NY & my husbands Chinese- we live in China currently so know your reaching around the world my friend! THANKYOU
March 23, 2023 at 7:05 am
GWK Staff
Thanks so much for taking the time to provide a comment, Johnny! Glad you attended our webinar and found it helpful. If you guys are open to a call with me, I’d love to discuss how we can provide tremendously more value for your surrogacy journey through our GWK Academy app! You can schedule our call using my calendly link: https://calendly.com/gwkacademy
March 23, 2023 at 8:47 am
GWK Staff
Thanks so much for taking the time to let us know our programs reach you all the way over in China, Johnny! If you guys are planning on a US-based surrogacy journey, I’d love to share how GWK Academy can support your journey. If this sounds good please email dads@gayswithkids.com so we can schedule an introductory coaching call.
April 24, 2023 at 12:16 pm
Gustavo & Romain
That’s beautiful guys!
We went through the same path after living our surrogacy journey.
We were the first around our family and friends doing such a process and it wasn’t easy to be frank.
There are loads of misinformation and we ended up spending way more than what was budgeted.
You are a big source of inspiration to us we hope someday we will be able to have such a positive impact in people’s lives.
We wish you all the best in this new journey.
Gustavo & Romain
May 16, 2023 at 11:02 am