![]() ![]() Over the next few months Jenkins says the family spent nearly $121,000 on contracts, legal fees, medical procedures and tests for their firstborn. But the road to fatherhood involved more lawyers, paperwork and money than they’d ever imagined. Instead of paying her as an egg donor, they agreed to have the three fathers pay for her travel expenses to visit them at least once a year.Īnother female friend agreed to be a surrogate, and they were ready to be dads. She wanted to remain in the children’s lives as a sort of an aunt figure, Jenkins says. They shared their predicament with one of Alan’s childhood friends, a woman named Meghan who offered to be an egg donor. ![]() “We just didn’t have the ovaries,” Jenkins writes. The stress that comes with parenting sounded less intimidating when shared among three people. “With a third voice at the table, our conversations about parenting began to change.” Then Jeremy entered the picture: a zookeeper and nurturer by trade,” Jenkins writes in the book. “We knew he was right, but we never took the first step. We just didn’t have the ovaries.Īlan brought up the possibility of having children several times, but the numerous surrogacy and parenting challenges they’d face as a same-sex threesome appeared insurmountable. With a third voice at the table, our conversations about parenting began to change. To protect their privacy, Alan and Jeremy prefer not to use their last names. Jeremy works in animal medicine at the San Diego Zoo, where his patients range from apes to California condors. ![]() They met Jeremy online, and he joined them in 2012. “So here we are.”Īfter almost a decade together, Jenkins introduced to Alan the idea of bringing a third man into their partnership. “Turns out, the medical center that’s the farthest from Boston in the continental United States is in San Diego,” Jenkins says. They ended up in San Diego, where Jenkins is an associate professor of medicine at UC San Diego and Alan works at a hospital as a psychiatrist. The couple later decided Boston was too chilly and agreed to move in search of warmer weather. Jenkins went to Alan’s place with a baking stone, homemade pizza dough and wine, and made him dinner. In the book, Jenkins recalls being touched by Alan’s tender care of a frail old woman who had been hospitalized. He was drawn to Alan’s calm demeanor, witty comebacks and compassion for his patients. It was obvious, even though he wasn’t straining to show off his medical knowledge, like half of them were,” Jenkins says. He met Alan while they were doing their medical residencies in Boston. “It never occurred to me that people could even have two partners.” “I thought I’d never be able to live an authentic life. I didn’t know a single gay person when I was in high school,” he says. “But we are hopeful that other people benefit from the experience we had,” he told CNN in a recent interview, “and that it’s easier, less expensive and less stressful for them.”Īs a gay teenager in Virginia, Jenkins says he faced death threats after coming out and couldn’t imagine he’d ever be able to openly love another man. Jenkins says they fought to get all three of their names listed on the birth certificates to protect their parental rights and the rights of their children. The three men have all been together for more than eight years. ![]()
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