The Men Having Babies ( MHB ) Surrogacy Seminar & Gay Parenting Expo took place Sept. 20 at Lake View's Center on Halsted.
Following a collaboration in offering a mini-conference in September 2014, MHB teamed again with the Center on Halsted and Howard Brown Health Center to offer a program dedicated to biological parenting for gay men.
The agenda for the all-day event included an opening session in a standing-room-only Hoover-Leppen Theatre that included everything from coverage of basic terminology to known versus anonymous egg donations.
There were also an expert panel about medical and legal considerations; surrogacy workshops and breakout sessions; a personal stories panel; an expo with surrogacy agencies, attorneys and related businesses; a reception; and even private consultations.
MHB Operations Director A.J. Edgewho has two adopted children ( and a godchild ) with his husbandtold Windy City Times that MHB "is the only nonprofit that we know of that is geared toward helping gay men have babies through surrogacy."
As for the purpose of the all-day event, Edge said it was "to provide educational resources to gay men who want to go down the path to parenthood and have a biological child. We asked these different providers to sponsor our event, we have experts to speak about the process.
Of course, money is important, Edge stressed. "There's a big financial aspect to this," he said. "Our research shows that it is $110,000-$120,000, on average, for surrogacy.
"We also have this gay parenting assistance programGPAP, for short. Gay men and couples are welcome to apply to this and, if they qualify, they get access to providers who are [offering] discounts for their services. [In addition,] we have cash grants."
Edge added that he learned about MHB through a gay fathers' Facebook group. He said, "I was really intrigued because I remember what it was like to be on the other side of that. We didn't even know where to start." Now, he said, there are sites like SurrogacyAdvisorwhich is like TripAdvisor, complete with ratings for providers.
Andrew Davis