Why the pen name?

Good question, so glad you asked. This journey to having a family has been long for us - almost a decade, to be exact. After all the starts and stops we’ve been through, along with the never ending disappointments and having to explain our situation and get asked a million, mostly inappropriate questions, in the latest phase of our journey we’ve elected to tell very few people. In fact, some of our parents don’t even know.

Not sharing our journey has had both its advantages and drawbacks. At times, it’s been great now having to answer questions, because no one knows we’re trying. Other times, like when our surrogate had a miscarriage at 7 weeks, it was difficult carrying even more pain in silence. Still, for the time being, we’re comfortable with our decision to keep our journey increasingly private. It's just one of the many costs of being seen as a same-sex couple trying to build a family.

In speaking about our goal of creating a community of people in similar situations to us, Waiting with Love for a family, we ultimately decided to leverage a pen name to preserve our anonymity, primarily with our family and friends. It’s the best compromise to be both authentic with our story, and private with our journey.

In time, we will share more about ourselves including our names, but at this moment, balancing privacy to manage the fragility of our relationships with others, and authenticity in our story lends itself to use of a pen name.

We know those of you in similar situations will understand. IYKYK.

In love,

Hopeful Dads.