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Ok, here’s a twist I’d never heard of.
I know, I know, I live a sheltered life out here in Colorado.
Oh wait – This story comes from the very heart of the midwest!
Tick, tock, tick, tock.
Listen up, men: your biological clock could be ticking.
For Minneapolis resident Chuck Stroebel, his alarm went off when he reached his late 30s. He knew it was time to have a child — even if it meant raising it alone.
“I realized I was turning 40,” he said. “I didn’t want to be too old while raising a child. I needed to move along if it was going to happen at all for me.”
Stroebel, who is gay, considered adoption but eventually decided he wanted a child who would share his genes.
“I also like really seeing all the different stages of development,” he added. “I wanted to be involved with the process from the beginning.”
He found his answer through surrogacy.
Surrogacy?
Ok, I could go on about the surrogacy thing – but bottom line is, I just wish he would have adopted.
What’s the big deal about men and their gene pool anyway?
Single men are realizing there might come a time when they are too old to raise kids,” Taylor said.
Dr. Jon Pryor, professor and chairman of the Department of Urologic Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical Center said offspring of older males may experience some health defects, but it is unlikely.
“There may be some genetic complications of conceiving children with older men — like dwarfism — but it’s not always the case,” he said, adding that men as old as 90 can still conceive healthy children. “As men get older, typically it’s things like (their) energy level is less, sexual drive is less, testosterone levels decrease, the chances of osteoporosis increase and depression that are more likely to happen. Women go through menopause, but men just might feel like they don’t have the energy to be a parent or father.”
And then there is the price:
To pay for his surrogacy, which totaled about $50,000, Stroebel used personal savings and took out an equity loan on his home.
“It was worth every dollar, though,” said Stroebel, who works for the state Health Department.
Norman S., who did not want to give his last name, lives in Long Island, N.Y. The single, 49-year-old lawyer, who is heterosexual, brought his daughter, Madeline, into the world last year with the help of a surrogate mother in Minnesota. The procedure cost him $80,000.
Come on people! We can do better than this!
Adopt for heaven’s sake. For $80,000 you could help a lot of fatherless kids.
come on Michelle don’t beat up on the folks who don’t want to adopt. ha. i can see you banging your hand on the table and stomping your foot. after all, suppose a woman who could still have children (like me) decided to pay twenty thousand dollars or so to adopt. i didn’t. i went through a social service agency, but for the sake of argument, let’s suppose i had gone the private adoption route. how fair would it be to say to her, come on now, twenty thousand bucks? just HAVE A BABY for cryin’ out loud!!
Hummm.. Interesting Dr. G.
Last night as I was stomping my foot, my hand was actually Googling to make sure $80,000 was correct for a surrogate…
My other hand was slappin my head to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
Sounds insane to me.