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am maria lombardo fred duda. i am married to my husband paul. we have been blessed with 7 sons in our marriage. and dumb. we had an attorney that was introduced to us. his name was john or jerry. he was our business attorney for 5 or 6 years. and as that happened, we attended his wedding of john and john, john, jerry and john lamb. and does it change the relationship from lawyer client to friend friend? are we going to go to see the glass blowing company do it? yeah, because i'm there, robbie, robbie rob lowe,

who had some struggles as im practicing catholic. trying to balance the trueness of my faith and the very difficult obstacle of my relationship with john and john as a gay couple who chose to become a family. they have met that challenge through medical practices which may or may not be opposed to the catholic faith because of their desire to have a family. so when i was asked to be the godmother of santino their 2nd born, i decided as of boardman, as a mother and also as a daughter to the court that and none of us that walk this earth

have the right to judge that ah, 20 years ago our committee was dealing with aids. no one was talking about becoming dads. it's a paradigm shift for the gay community. 10 times $88.00. what is 10 times 7? in me i would have to do that because ever since i was a kid, i wanted to have a family good. when i realized i was gay, but i let go of that idea. so martin, i thought what future can i get to my son? society isn't reading the old 13. that was perfect or we didn't have 9 months of pregnancy. it became in the house and we like

put college down in the florida right there. and we just kind of sit there and you're like, are we allowed to have this baby like? i'm going to tell us what to do. thank you. that a funny thing. the you got a you panama, for just like that you can tell us was your favorite. i know last year so i didn't rank really are likely to lie brown, the trash. our main aim is so they allen bay. oh oh. their favorite. thankfully rob. good dead. do you know was birthdays going to be the sunday?

if someone who's very old i this is brenda is going up. well, wake up all the queen. we're going to have a little talk you and i, oh, i've had enough. you're getting married and that's all there is to it. oh, the prince pushed away his breakfast. he couldn't eat a bite as the queen talked on and on and on. i don't understand you. every prince in these parts is married. every one of them, but you. when i was your age, i've been married twice already up by evening. all that talking had made the prince

dizzy. very well mother, i'll marry. i must say, though i've never cared much for processes. that night the queen found her list of princesses and called every castle. the very next morning at crowd waited at the gates princess aria from austria sang, a thunderous opera for the prince. no sooner had she finished than she was shown the door. oh, next came the funny little prince from greenland. the prince didn't had it off with her either. oh wait! called the page. there's one more princess. presenting princess madeline and her brother, prince lee. at last the priest felt a stir in his heart. it was love at 1st sight

at last. the prince prince. so stir. kinda like what happened when papa saw data? he had a journal heart. oh, that now stretch. let go with. what a wonderful prince! what a wonderful friend! what a wonderful print! me ah. so how we met at the time i was single, i was living on my own and i had to do laundry. so i had to take like these 2 big bags them to be dirty valley dance where and go to the laundry. i remember it was a nice and funny and i was going to across the street, and most bostonians won't let

a pedestrian crop. but they happen to be john and he stopped and he let me pass. ah, when he crossed the road, he gave me a big smile. i smiled back and i thought he was very, very attractive. so i was on my way to drop off my dry cleaning. and i quickly drove around the block to see if i could catch him again. and sure enough, he was there in front of a coffee shop, came over and then he just sat down next to me and said hi, how if you get a ah, it took about a month since we 1st initially met. and i remember walking into my apartment,

no, there's 36 different apartments in this building. and there is this on below that tape on the entry door, which i don't know who would do that because there's so many people going through these doors, you know? and it said john, the dancer and it had a card and it's, it's a hologram. so if you, if you went down it said no. and then if you what it said, yes. and inside the card it said, i hope you're thinking yes to had dinner with me very through his date was life. yeah. and i was a tough one. i think they, they really wanted to know what his intentions were because i, i think at that time in my life i was, i was not willing to just date someone just to date i wanted something that was more substantial and someone that,

that saw essentially what i saw in life and what it meant to have family. and i think that that was the number one thing that i asked him is if he would ever have children's because i always knew i wanted to have kids. there is a very early stage to be discussing that, you know, 1st dates that talking about the rest of your life and kids. but it was very interesting to have some one like john, so young thinking about that and who are you there, buddy? ok, you've had enough and that was the beginning of the kids talk. right. santino ah, my family absolutely loved john from the moment they met him. even though john comes from a very different culture being vietnamese, the via the families are also tight. and they're bound in a lot of tradition,

and i think that that melded very well with our italian background. they were quite excited about that. my parents took bare bows seriously and remain married all their life and family was most important. so my family's reaction was very positive from the get go and it was a lot of a lot of good for them. it was a lot of good for the family to stay together, be together. and now with the addition of children, it's been even better. i don't know about job experience. i come from a very traditional in the family. 7 and i'm the youngest and traditionally the youngest usually never leaves a house or things that are very just not your typical v enemies child. i left home very early. i was the 1st one to leave and i came on gay.

so i think that it was, it was very difficult for my family to understand why i lived the way i live. but when they met john, i think it helped them realize that john was a good man and that he wasn't this horrible person that forced me to do something that i didn't want to jail. so i think that they were able to realize that this is something that was real and that was going to happen. the wedding was very special. the queen even shed a tear or 2. ah, that was like that in papa's cake. when dan and papa got may without a bake, i guess stay. yeah. we, we did. yes. there's a prince and a prince of the can pop by about. bah, that's right. they read or any beg, ha. okay,

good pug mine. no. oh eh, what about you? portable you very much good boys. now it's time to run by math in the red under the covers. go okay. shuffling off. with on your head. i think, i mean, i shall.

ah lou thank ah

ah along with mm mm it's unbelievable. what business of surrogacy has become now? just you pick and choose, you know, do you want your both parents to have

a high i q, you want all these different things that to us seems a little crazy. you know, we just wanted to have a happy, healthy child, but when you go to the surrogacy process, you are confronted with these questions. we went to with this one agency here in boston, 4 hours later on we thought this is going to be a 20 minute conversation about understanding whatever it is for our alike. be all about surrogacy and at the end john, and i just want to teach how they were like, wow, ok, this is, you know, going to be a very interesting process. now, this agency that we initially went to was like the rolls royce, of a surrogacy. i mean, you say whatever you want and 9 man, here's your baby. so very care free. they didn't want the parents to stress about anything. they did all the legwork for you. they did everything which confound,

very appealing. but i wanted you to do the research because i wanted to, to immerse myself and understanding what it meant to creating our family through surrogacy. we didn't just go to the agency and told them, okay, here's the jack, find a circuit. it was more that we were more hands on that revised the well, the reseller said after the, for our initial interview at the, at the surrogacy place. and we were starting this journey. and he said, i did great news for you. you guys can be fathers and you can have a great baby. you said the bad news is what i can do for a $9.00 bottle of wine. you have to spend 100004. so our agency said twice, this is going to be a 2 to 4 year wait before you get matched with the surrogate, because that is the timeframe that they give. and we said that's fine. we were very much in the early part of it. and then 4 weeks later he called us and said,

we have a circuit that's ready to go. mm . me . stress, i was finding the 8th donor. i think we went through 4 different agencies, but the just happened to not be the one that we wanted. you know, you have to both be like, yes, this is that we were kind of at a standstill. i said, let's just try one more time. and he was like, i think at like 11 pm at night when john like half asleep or. and then on, on my computer, like look in all these girls in reading about these drove and i come across this

one girl and i'm like, i think it's the girl just by looking at her me. i opened her file and i was like, she's in amy's french, that's half of john and half of me it's like ok. and then i kept reading about her medical history or family and she was willing to donate her 8th as soon as possible . usually women one a, a month through i b s. they have these hormone drugs that will create more than maybe 510 eggs at a time for us they were able to hard to d, 5 a was an incredible success. oh, me. from the 2520 were able to survive after the transfer. we separated the 8th,

so john had 10 and i had 10. and we said if it's meant to be our sperm, we'll inseminate these eggs in the petri dish. that is the most frown upon thing to do an ivy asked because it's the least effective. but john and i were like, we wanted to come from some sort of organic way as organic as we can through ibm. because it's the life that you're dealing with me, the circuit at the time is ready to go. or uterus is essentially ready for implantation. so it's all, it's a very orchestrated ballet. you have to like, have all the things happen and then all of a sudden they okay, it's performance time. in

this we decided to do a transfer. one of john and one of mine in hopes that we would have twins. so after a couple days it's like the longest days that you're waiting, they called us and tell me that the am real in real life, super happy. we're like, oh my god, we're having 2 kids. and then a couple weeks later they do an ultrasound and there was 2 sacks, but only one harpy. thankfully, one of them was very, very strong and grew very, very violent, very perfectly. and we heard that 1st heart beat, it was just like, just like, wow, that's like a real human being like that's one of ours. we don't know who it is. so on august 15th, 2013, our 1st son giovanni,

was born. so all the waiting up to getting pregnant and getting the eggs and making embryos have been transferring and then getting pregnant and up the 2 year old 1st words. no, no, no. all right, buddy. bye ah, about a year after geo is born, we started the process, we started the process for the 2nd child. we had the fertilized eggs because they didn't freeze the eggs you don't use and you can have them for years. i mean it's, it's indefinite. so all we had to do for number 2 was find another carrier, and we were lucky again. on july 5th, 2015. we had van tino here,

you hear try me back we did the reading was like what? a batter santana is there, a pattern pattern said the, you know, they go, there you go, we live in a protective bubble of this liberal area and it's great and it's love and it's

fantastic. but we know that there are other states, other regions of this country, other countries that just do not have that, that education yet. and they still hold ignorance for that i level done so. i mean, when, whenever we travel we, we kind of have to remind ourselves that it's not, you know, if we're, if we're flying to florida and we go on a fellow vacation, i think to myself, it's very hot to go on a vacation with our kids. but i forget that it's a different state. people luck and people stare and people wonder like, oh wow, like, that's a gay couple. but here, massachusetts. like i don't ever really. i don't even think about it. i truly believe that we are no different in the out there on the quality. come on this way buddy with come on,

let's go with the fountain bar that with just a little bit in google kill. but nobody can question that babies were born from a male seed in a female egg will fit. but parenting is something else. so sexual orientation has to do with raising the child's while efficient raising a child is keeping low that a full stop to boston. mm. along with just double shoot, if you what for the die, let me do it. the alley you me to feed and south. we met in the south of italy when we were 22 or 23 from yeah. i had a girlfriend and later he hit on the school friend of mine that he had,

he's actually in a mando level at to you. then we decided to move up north to find work development . see him after a month and a half of living together, our relationship developed almost casually vitality. let's go back and see him. it said, you know, we discovered our homosexuality together in a fit body depend of ammo. d tried to hide it in front of our friends and family as we thought it was wrong about jada in delphi neck. then we decided to get married. and at that point, we had to tell the people who did not leave it for like another for peter, available when he got to that everyone knew us as just being friendly until they got the wedding invitation to them that he might be that much more. no oh, i do with a

try going this way. go on, get the water aqua by the 5th. right. oh ah, good alonzo. what a jump that but that they're finished buster like about little go up. the pastor will be ready soon. her feel the be call us immediately the ever since i was a kid, i wanted to have a family goes to could be with me gay. when i realized i was like, i like know if that idea my attention. no, i thought what future can i give? my son society isn't ready. then we got, you know, other families with same sexual errands ago. we saw that they were normal families or so we thought we can do this very so going from you know, monday green the middle calcium. are you mad at me that a letter relating to little? don't you legged calling all?

what do you mean now, loy, don't you once on the hour? if that isn't there were 2 countries that would allow us to have a baby or canada or the u. s. energy that we chose canada. aw, keyboard know a mostly it's very hard to find a surrogate for her to carry out this active love that she has to fall in love with us is annoying. annoying. we were really lucky tramecia kelly's profile after only a day's sadly walk, but i will i d novilla with the leaf and we had our phone's in her hands at all times. this one that she sent us would ever video. she could possibly

meet the guy from the positive pregnancy test to the growth of her belly. she even bought a device that she put under lavelli. so we could hear the baby's heartbeat telling us that he went through all the emotions from a smartphone that was marked for most of my dad's in canada. so we got to canada, 14 days before leon was born. a did he think then we can finally experience everything we had in the previous mom sivilton or maybe i became one with her belly up as soon as she felt a movement she would kala. she was always with us during the entire month that we were there. neu, it's the thin, the day of the c section was announcer cells. if we were both allowed in the delivery room, we could only see her from behind a cloth shred, elijah too, she gave us the thumbs up in the middle and telling us it was all good. we were really nervous and restless until we saw our son for the 1st time old,

but he is in head gradually through the room with her back. so with the rhythm from your mother, if you have an opportunity to be part of their g a, c, it's an amazing journey. it's just really, it's one of the most beautiful things i've ever been involved with to see the intended parents hold the babies for the 1st time was just unbelievable or so overwhelming. it just the amount of love that you felt not just from the parents, but just from their family even was amazing. oh oh oh. oh parents understand that for us before they come into our program, our number one concern is not about them. it is about the baby. the 2nd thing we

want to be concerned about is will they be respectful to the surrogates. i see these women as goddesses, what they do is the greatest gift that any human being can give to another human being. and i want to make sure these people understand, we expect them to communicate with expect them to say thank you, expect them to treat them respectfully. the cost of any child born through surrogacy depends upon the individual situation. generally, egg donation in terms of paying the egg donor and all the legal work that needs to be done runs around 20 or $25000.00 surrogates. can we usually get paid somewhere between about $35.00 and $45000.00. ivy f usually runs between $30.00 and $40000.00 . an agency fees are usually about $25.00 to $30000.00 as a therapy at your benefiting financially from doing it. one thing i can tell you though,

is no amount of money to compensate you for that time and everything that you need to do. the whole process is pretty intense. when you 1st apply, there is a 1000000 questions that you answer. what your relationship status is, or what your past relationships were like, what your family life was like. and my husband goes to the same. he went through talking with the social worker. he also had to go ahead and have his fingerprints done. the 1st dirty they turkey for stds. with me it was a little more in depth. they had to get a lot of blood work done, but also had my uterus looked at in just really a full over on me. i would say it took about a month for me to get through my 1st journey for the screening and to be matched with my intended parents. i. one thing that you hear about when you start

a journey, but you really don't think about is all the medicine that's involved with that. i am definitely afraid of needles. so that 1st time that i saw the needle that i had to give, i was extremely, extremely nervous. it's very long needle. it has to go into the muscles in your cheek. and it took us probably an hour before my husband can finally give me that shot because i was so nervous. so that was shocking. shocking how much medication that you are on. and with that, it's pretty shocking how those medications affect your hormones and how miserable you can be for a few weeks. in total, i've been pregnant 7 times. i've had my 3 pregnancies and then for pregnancies through this, erica sees. but when you go into your 1st day argosy,

it's new. you don't know how you're going to feel. during one of our monthly counseling visit, i just started crying and i said, i think something's wrong with me because i don't want to keep these babies. i actually just want to deliver or not be pregnant any more. and the counselor stopped. you said no. that's exactly the way you should feel. so i felt guilty. i felt guilty. i didn't want to keep the babies. when you say, oh, do you do bigger? so sorry after this morning. as a jim oh, good day. my late this you come down in the shower like leon did on one day, you come down and leon did. oh no, no,

no, not as much. no winter can legally. ah, oh, my family. oh oh, by talk is be shy. the shies? oh yeah, that's normal at that age and now i see. but are you ready for us to come to canada? awesome. are you ready? let's i'm going to canada while i i'm excited. it will be a year since the last time we saw one another in person. now,

not now to my aunt that gets you physically dig it up now. oh, i can do that. you can still use our store. okay. so, and she's the one who made it possible for us to hold our son in our arms senior normal. i won't go to bed without texting a good night after the book it little after leon was born. she said if they want a 2nd child. okay. but i'm not available for anybody else. now she's pregnant. again, i'm going to, we're expecting lucelle. our daughter, born in about a months is omega. how about it? here my look. oh, you know, you know, let me. ah ah, ah little bit what you're like. oh boy, oh boy. oh boy. oh

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i'm leaving today. usually i've been married now to john for 7 plus years and we've had to gorgeous children by surrogacy. and we're very fortunate because it's very, it's music. you know, how they came to be? it's absolutely incredible. so ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. or wrapped them in their giovanni's and, you know, already are getting concepts and understandings of mommies and daddies and siblings

. and i'm sure there's going to come time where they're going to ask, you know, where is my mommy and why don't i have a mommy like, you know, this one or that one had school. and as soon as that happens, i think john and i will address it and a b completely open and transparent, and hopefully educating them in just the right way as to their history. good job or in school. and then given of what if of the day you day union that is going to ready was yags,

do you want to go home and i think when they're old enough to comprehend what's going on, we would have the discussion with them about this is the woman who gave birth to this is the woman that you were, you know, in her tummy, so to speak, and who went to the hospital one day and then you were born. but this isn't your month. i and that and they will, i'm sure at that point in time understand that difference. and then there's going to be more questions because then know did of the next thing would be will that who is the mommy and that would bring on that whole conversation. um, in our particular circumstance, the young woman who gave us the eggs remains to us a anonymous donor. so we know all about her. we know about her background, me all about her medical history. we know about her upbringing, but we don't know she is. and so we could never really pick up a phone and call her,

but we can show them her picture. we can show them are all the information about her and explaining to them why to respect another person's privacy that she wanted to help us grow our family and she wanted to help bring them into the world. but she didn't want to take any credit for it yet, that young woman, you know, in my eyes, is unbelievable because she gave us the gift of their lives. and so we have to respect that she will remain anonymous to us and them. but they'll know that she's out there somewhere else was, is, you know, and yeah, no, let's go gee, uh,

going with that. what about donna for you now? which one are you, linda? no, it's fine. everson, i'm great one. let me do it off and you know you gave back to school. right? yeah. and was the light on it is how's that keeps him warm. he didn't check.

now the morning when we go back home tonight you can check and make sure it's on ok . and don't pick me up early, you don't want me to think you're burly. i should know it. take me up when i get to was school and know pick me up for next night. when do you want me to pick you up? at 6 minutes. how about if i pick you up at 515? yeah, that's the right time. if that's the right time i can have a cough drop you and have you caught up now, do you think it'll help you a little cough? yeah. i've been back class job. this is your contract vitamin i would like you

pop by how? oh well, how about i give you this one now and then when i pick her up at school, i'll try to get some of the cough drops that you like. okay. and this will help you a little bit because it'll give you something to put in your throat. take it and then give me back the last one because we're gonna save that one for you. yeah, exactly. i can't talk a my mom's fine. yeah.

i brian, i'm the co finest gave the tiers. i went to lunch with a kid, we help gay dad, navigate fatherhood to buy lots and lots of videos of gay dad family, vasa, that experts on me and who can help you and your own path to fatherhood or dealing with issues that arise as you're raising your family, we became 1st time dad's bill over 10 years ago when our son levi was born. we found out about leave. i actually had the 3rd day of his life. and on the 4th day, i panic, i said we have nothing. we know nothing. and i thought, wow, i would love to meet other dads, gay dad, specifically to talk about what life is like. the girls are born 17 months later. and it wasn't until everyone was out of diapers eating regular food going a day. kid, i said, let me see if there's any way to connect with other gay dads. and i was shocked

that at this time the still was no website, no facebook group, etc. and that was a bertha gaze with kids 5 years ago, march of 2014. a lot of gay dads live in communities where they don't know any other gay dads are there we go, the only ones. we want to make sure that they know they're not alone. oh, i was firm, you were storm his firm as i work with mom's day off.

with. excuse me, how much do you pay for a 499 with her so maybe she needs some money. no, we're all set like go get her for you. which one is she? brian? i met in 1993 by the told me he was a positive and at that time that was a death sentence. so all our focus was on keeping him healthy and keeping him alive and it was healthy. and you h i v negative, i keep to be negative. no one was talking about becoming dad's it was, it was trying to house and how many funerals did you go to this weekend?

and then in 96, that medication came out. and so our horizon of life changed from have made movies together for a few months. until you get, take me before a few years and then suddenly became, well, perhaps you can live for 10 more years or 20 more years or even have a normal life expectancy. and then the started thinking about what used to be on think about which is can we be dads and today, by not only different men, most of our friends have become that mr. i gave him the paradigm shift for the gay community. time for lunch. oh yes, yes. thanks. thanks. now is going to be many gay men start their family a little later in life than straight couples do. and then if you decide that you want to have kids, it's a very conscious decision and that's the case for us. we really wanted this and i

decided to give my job and be to stay at home dads so i could spend a lot of time with my kids, you know. yeah, no, i do days. i mean, i am not now. okay, but i'm sure he will. those, you know, i do want to play with you anymore. right? you have the right leave. i was a very easy kid there. yeah. well, we've got this damn pat reiner ourselves all the credit. he was the baby in the world and people to all you're so lucky and we big yeah, i know he would leave it with the creature that like we just were so skilled. and then we got the twin girls and we realized it was totally lucky. exactly. to do with us

with oh yeah ma'am. ah. oh oh oh. oh, the 1st day that you come home with your 1st baby is the most bizarre thing. i mean we, we didn't have a long pregnancy. we didn't have like 9 months of right. you know, they, i left for work on friday morning and it came home on sunday with a baby became in the house. and when they put con, down on the floor right there, and the cat came over and see what she knew right away. she went upstairs and head for 2 years and and we just kind of, you just kind of sit there and they're like, we're in this know what that, i mean my big that was like, who is the grown up here?

like who are we allowed to have the baby like who are going to tell us what to do. but when you get me to be just phone. ready we looked at other ways that to dads have her former family and we looked at surrogacy, we looked at if we had friends or family who we will want to carry for us. and then we looked at adoption, both private and public adoption and private adoption was the way we wanted to wrap up. well, you do it really damage. yeah, let me get to the mill. here. i am a yoga teacher and a studio owner. and josh is

a full time executive, but we're not both surgeon, we could spend the time and money and resources to generate our own new child, right. or we could make our hearts open for a child who was here and needing a home. so we were doing an adoption agency locally and you know, it's super invasive. it's, you know, home studies and meetings and f, b, i clearances and fingered trends. and a straight couple can make a bad decision in the backseat of a car and be instantly qualified for parenthood. so we went through that whole process twice and you do call in and you coming through the hallway and coming to me for a minute. please. where would you like to have your lunch? do you want to have your lunch and on your little table or at the big 0 we went to drink collins,

biological parents were very young. they had chosen us from the number of families the agency had available and we were at the hospital. the nikon was born, they handed him to us and may understood fundamentally what adoption was, because they were both adaptive. but they were very definitive in their decision to choose us as a couple. and so that was a really amazing experience for us. on the other side, with our daughters adoption, the journey was somewhat different. parker's biological mother showed up at the hospital. having had no prenatal care delivered and said that she wanted to make an adoption plan. and justin

a wish we had more. we wish we knew her. we wish we had some sort of connection to her. but in this we don't. and of the she checked out of the hospital and left parker there and we were you know, 40 minutes away and prevented um from going there for 3 days. um i was, i know i was so angry and the lawyer rightly or wrongly was like if you wanna, if you wanna leave here with this baby you're and you can't go to the hospital. there would not let us go. and i have been out and proudly out. i'm out in my business. i'm out walking in the street. i'm out and i was like, i will go in right. i will send josh, i will not go like one of us needs to. and then the, the lawyer in kentucky refused to, to allow us to go and be with our daughter. i

work and it to a bid, thomas 3 and a half, who's sitting on my lap? and he said, daddy, when i grew in your belly and i was like, oh and, and then i was like, holland, like, you know you, you didn't growing my belly and then his like. so i grew in daddy, josh's valley and i was lake lake. he had no way to contextualize straight. um, but it also was the start of a bigger conversation of course, but it also made me feel like this kid is secure in his family and he's had some feelings recently about i think as he gets older and he's in school and like the, you know, he's, he's got it. you don't tell me. he is adopted. these are things that are different than some of the other kids and our job is to fix it or try to hide it. our job is

just her parent, parent gentlemen, go to you. but you know, moon is it going to school the great day? you sure i

school oh oh oh rena, who i'm some breck bear me. busy now, who's going to pick the eggs while i run down and turn on tv for 10 minutes? yeah, we walk down very smart, but then we'll be done 10 minutes and then we'll cook breakfast. ok, papa dad are going to get ready. close the door, play. oh we have some. thank you. if you were in the the office just for 2 hours i, i don't, i think i'll take for the bar and then i'll be back early. yeah. that we have to look through our schedule before the week. give me crazy. yeah, as usual in the picture,

john and i what we've really made sure to develop is our family unit. no matter if there's a soon army coming or there's fire coming, we all try to go in together. and i think this is what's beautiful about families and you, i toast. what about that? thank you. good job. and again, this is patty eager aid. you said you wanted to wait for that to me too late for you. but could you give me a glass, please wire up. very good coverage. you. thank you very much. and you do have a favor here and you said with your hands on the back of the chair, you should have to look this house there. okay. oh, the weight is freight laddie,

hair that you're with for my family in particular, it's still very tough because all they know is a straight marriage. and children coming from a female female raising children and men going to make money. that is all they know and that's all they are willing to really understand. okay. oh i i

knew john was getting from when i was 12 and he was 6. and i just like put it aside because just, i don't know. people didn't talk about it then. well he kind of had any girly won cuz he was, i mean, he's hot now, but he was, i honestly got all the girls wanted to know what happened to me. so then, so i don't know. i don't think i was as in tuned when as diane was at 1st, but then at one point we both kind of said, we think he's gay. i what i went on, we got to go talk to him and went to lunch or something. jose bar and grill. yeah. really remember did you know i will let you know, but 1st of all, your heart. yeah. but we didn't talk about it until we went to the restaurant and then you asked me. i remember saying, well, we were like, just like concerned about your personal life. i remember that i do

and he said you must know on gay or something like that. and then debbie started crying. i really what i do and i was like, oh my god like bad, good. and john was like really nervous and then it was whatever you do, don't tell mom and dad. oh oh, the 1st time i read, richard john was living with richard in his beautiful house and i came down the stairs with my shirt off, and that's the 1st time i met with richard. said the girl with

a penis. mike. hi, i'm richard. i'm mike. hi, i'm johnny like, what do you do here? like, well know what number by i am getting a very bad rap here. if this is going to be to one, get one in the on. it's true. you know, it all happened, but i knew i was gay at a very, very, very young age. almost from when i was aware of the difference between a boy and a girl. i do remember distinctly was like 1976, which means i was 11 at that time. and i called my father over and i sat with him and i told him that i liked to be with the boy next door. and i like to show him my parts and stuff. and i was crying when i told this, and he looked at me and said, you're just being inquisitive,

you're just exploring. but i knew in my head while i was hearing him, say that that he did not know what he was talking about. that i knew that what i was saying was much more deep and much more real than he thought it was. i didn't come out and till i was 27. so there was a lot of years of sneaky hiding bringing girls home, dating girls, having sex with girls. that was last time. i think i knew when i was around 5. i remember seeing an older man, naked in a dressing room and now we've kind of funny huh. so to me, at 1st i felt as a neat attraction when i was little to say i was attracted to this, this person. i didn't know what a man thought it wasn't like a sexual thing. so when i went to canada, that was a time where i can explore what homosexuality was for me. that wasn't

a different country. and i felt very safe to just be who i was. so either suddenly when i really came out to myself, but i would still go back home and my parents would still ask me like, where is your girlfriend? and i always tell them to be dancing. so they never really question more for that. 2 2 2 2 ah ah ah, the presumption is that mailed answer again. which is wrong is wrong. the valley world in general is more straight and gay. yeah. so you were at a school with at least one of the gay boy family. and you know, i was, i thought i thought i was the only one. i literally said i am the only one i to

felt. you know, is it only me, am i the only one? and then your world opens up and i, and i do remember distinctly going to boston university, which is liberal city liberal university. and going for the 1st time to the metro nightclub and seeing hundreds of gay people. and they were dancing together and they were having fun together and it was, it was like mind boggling mind blowing that there were that many people that were like me and it was, it was unbelievable. and it was, it was great because, and i was one hour away from my family which was just far enough that they didn't know what was going on with my life. and then i could still go home on weekends and be, you know, straight john or, you know, don't ask me about what i'm doing otherwise. and then i could be myself, when i was in the city of boston. and, and that's and at school to

a degree. so even marry what, 9 years. yeah, yes. now. so it's been 9 years. i was 11. right? yes. it's been 9 years just just last year when i went home with the kids we were at a grocery store and the lady that was checking us out was like, oh, where's your wife? and i was gonna say, i have a high then my mom told me vietnamese don't tell her that you have a husband. and i'm like, really, i'll be back now. but again, held up for like checking out the food who i don't even know, you know, i mean my parents were hippies, i mean like to have you my mother handed up pop brownies to my friends in high school and they were ridiculously good and strong. and i just thought jesus, i had to call this family in the whole world like no one ever said anything bad or get anything bad or, or made a comment. and then very late in life. my brother had its on who i am god father to him and he has told his children not to call my husband, uncle,

so up it, it killed me. it. it just literally blew me away, that they, this family that i thought from around 18 and 19, who just, you know, didn't care if i loved a guy or girl or whatever, which is always cool about it. and i have these great cousins where just this hush hush thing. yep. it's fine. we love you, bye device does not talk about it. and we're definitely not going to tell our kids about it. when i did come out to my father and tell him that i was gay. yeah. because he asked me sure. what, what's going on with you? you don't have a girlfriend. do you think you're gay? and i said, well, no, dad, i don't think i get, i'm gay. i said, i know i'm gay. and then his response there was, well, you know, you, you'd really be better off dead. and that was not a good thing to hear as a 27 year old, even what i knew that any age but it listed 27. i had already hid myself for so

long, and i had a job and i had an apartment, and i knew that even though he said that i had a place to go that night and that was okay. now he thankfully quickly came around like you couldn't believe crying the next day. apologizing. having slept on what he said, and he came around faster than any parent i know. and is now the most loving, wonderful, and has been wonderful father to me, to john, to our children. but yet that initial reaction was what he thought because that's how he grew up the artistic director of the national art centrum in mexico and showed me this book and said, what do you think you can do with this? and i looked at the book and if the children's book, which you can read of the grown up quite quickly,

although when you read it quickly, you miss a lot of the beautiful details in the drawing. so it's worth taking the time to look through it. but it's a book called king and king by linda, the hon. and stan mickland and the story is about a prince. his mother is a widow and she's tired of being a queen. so she says that her son needs to be married and become king. so they organized a party, and all these princesses are introduced to him, but he doesn't seem to fall in love with any of them. and when the last princess comes into the room, the prince immediately falls in love with the princess brother. and the queen says, well, then you're going to become king and king, and she crowns them both. and the beautiful thing about the story is, if not by doctor in any way, it's just

a beautiful story. so when i taught this book, 1st of all, i thought the fed up is pretty much one the so i so huge connection to about the bread already there. and they all agreed to, to do this call production between the company and the art center. and we created it, we gave it a life. oh oh i when we had the press conference, the were a couple of difficult questions. you know, stuff like it's ok for grownups to do whatever they want. but why are you trying to influence children into becoming a certain way?

and i remember hearing the question and i couldn't believe that this idea still existed, but you could influence someone to, to be a certain way, or to love someone, you know that. and, and that was the whole thing with the book that it's not about homosexuality. it's about love. it's about universal love. and it's just this young man who falls in love with another young man. and so i tried to explain to this man during the press conference, but if it was so easy to influence people, then we would have no home a sexual us. because there aren't any stories for children that's far than tell that story. so how does that come about? you know, we're not creating this some, we're just expressing something that already exists and that is part of nature. oh, the misinformation or the lack of knowledge is what leads to fear. and that's why indication is completely

essential in these issues. a little boy, a little girl that read the story, might be having feelings that going that way at some point in their life. and knowing that they read the story might help them to be able to, to deal with it in a way that is normal to them and not feel that they are either doing something wrong or something that they don't know how to express. because they've never had a role model for them. so these are the things kelly got for us. kelly made this for us. this is been been a guess for leon guess for lucere. she got diapers already

and i think she was born on august 14th. we left on july 25th, that she quit. when i was, once we got to canada, 14 day current team started. the fridge is full. if i don't, i think it was a long way to learn about those 14 days felt neverending young man. finally, kelly could meet us with her. she wished us a lot of drug with it because she thought woochie was very demanding. i i went to india, now we're both at home. we were not sleeping at night, but it's fine. it's not a problem, not. we're very well organized. lemme said multiple days, dorothy said bell, all that i that i meant upon the point it will be interesting once he goes back to work next rental and i'll be alone dealing with both clear the sort of law to city that are being

sh with the the the the new vill oh oh oh, when mm hm. ah. obviously will i will glad we had the possibility to adopt. we would have done it with our eyes closed it. okay. our son could have been black, the white at any rate, it doesn't matter little what that only thought in since italy doesn't allow it. we took this other pat, our bucket. i'm in gum, which i could i'm. there are still

a lot of taboo surrounding homosexual couples. yes, barricading li, delaney. i hope it in the future will be able to change things. ostena can be at a liquid baby, only needs love hobbies or where grows up doesn't matter issue and defend ha in bold, but a place where we're having a 3rd child with how much time we have. so i tried to expedite my heart attack and even a girl never like her off. there's gonna be any 3rd

such as like for if is going to be any, there is a do it in 2 years. we can't happen be more than that. gonna probably be too bad. yeah. and also i don't want to get to like yeah, i meant to care which i might see because i want to roll you up with one was very sweet. sweet of you. dear. nice. i'm more to milan. la are but you haven't in all you

need a little bit more. who are we to judge what actually is a family when i see deal and said tino they're fine young men, fine young men. i see the love between them. i see the love between their fathers. i see their love towards me. is it the conventional parenthood? is it a mother and a father? is it her father and father? it's called nurturing. okay. there are so many families that are raised by people who are not their biological mothers and fathers. and i don't know what the word conventional is. i mean, these are all of these words and all of these labels that we give to every one are all man made labels for the time, the times change. my name is what i did and was that has been

down and down and had that mean. yeah, i better get a little confusing, doesn't it? yes, he but you know the difference between papa dad, dad, dad, is the youngest stern one and upper is the more handsome. nice one. right? yeah huh. do you like any better bubba? yes. why? eggs and we don't hiring down. we can range everything high. so you only need that, am papa to reach something really high wanting to say or any correct? uh huh. what about your g? l y. do you like to have a better huh?

i loved them so much. less very sweet. oh, oh. oh oh, i came out very late in my life, so i never expected to be as out and is visible as i am. it's just that society did this wonderful thing in this country and now was exploring through the world where acceptance and tolerance is here. so that was one unexpected thing that happened to me in my life. then another unexpected thing was getting married. i certainly never thought that marriage would be legal,

ought to gay people. and that i would be involved in getting married until i met john. so that was another unexpected thing in my life. and then having children which i never had envisioned was going to happen in my life. and as a result of new technology, new social consciousness and acceptance. we now have this spectacular family. we know this great and wonderful family unit. i could be happier. ah, ah,

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ah, ah cruise ah, with ah, it might seem easy. but how much can we do smoking?

is me multitasking is a modern made because if we do too much at one point gets it all wrong, risking brain damage. so let's stop the self sabotage. 15 minutes on d w. oh, how do you germans celebrate christmas with centuries old customs. with mold wine at the streets and marked the glow of the hand holds moravian stock with stolen gingerbread and a crispy roast goose. john and christmas traditions general macs, 90 minutes on

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how lucky that i was able to build a jewish museum. berlin is architecture. is a celebration of democracy and one building. the biggest thing in the world is the spirit of an architect of emotions. this kid starts december 25th on d. w. is this dw news live from berlin, cutting loose from russian energy. germany starts up its 1st liquid natural gas