With Father's Day being tomorrow and many pride celebrations this weekend, gay dads must be having quite a celebration. For this Massachusetts couple, it sounds like fathers' day is plural possessive and every day.
Chad And Jeff's Story From The Let Love Define Family Series
In this week’s Huffington Post Gay Voices RaiseAChild.US “Let Love Define Family™” series installment, contributing writer Eric Criswell celebrates Father’s Day by sharing this story.
This is the story of Chad Argotsinger, a 38-year-old college administrator, and Jeff Shorey, a 44-year-old registered nurse, who met 6 years ago, fell in love and began their journey towards building a family. As they began to look at options with surrogacy, a clear picture began to form of the two parents with their new child living the American dream in their New England world. – huffingtonpost.com
I hardly ever share stories that I see on the Huffington Post since most of us seem to follow them already, but this story is different. I had the pleasure of following Chad's journey from single man, to committed partner, to new home owner, and now new dad. It was uplifting to see my friend's life change with every Facebook post. The excitement and joy he shared through the process was truly heartwarming.
There was quick agreement that they wanted two children. “I’m one of four children and Jeff is one of two, and we both enjoyed growing up with our siblings,” according to Chad. “We started to plan for two children, and never really entertained the thought of having any more.”
The two took an adoption class, started the process to buy a bigger home and waited for their social worker to find the right match for their family. “We met kids that were wonderful and perfect but, for whatever reason, just didn’t work out,” Chad said. "Then we heard from a social worker about two brothers who had been separated and were living in different homes. Something about their story resonated with us and we both wanted to explore it further.” The brothers had lived a short time together but were put in separate homes when they entered the foster care system. It was heartbreaking to know they had started to grow up together, only to have to spend their childhood apart. – huffingtonpost.com
I know I know, we all hate making that second click over to another page, but to learn more of Chad and Jeff's journey to fatherhood and the surprise of a third child, pleas click over to The Huffington Post here.
Not only is it a great story for Pride and how far we have come, it is also a beautiful story of two men becoming fathers and 5 people becoming a family. Once again, thanks Chad for being so open on Facebook about your journey and thank both of you for sharing your story with writer Eric Criswell and us all.
Jeff summed it up best: “It has been such a wonderful experience, and even though we thought we could only handle two kids, neither of us can imagine our lives without all three of our kids. Life has given us a greater gift than we were asking for, and we’re so grateful.” – huffingtonpost.com