Love will always find a way

They connected with a woman in Canada, and after visiting her and providing their sperm for the procedure, they waited.

“We went over in 2016 to meet with our surrogate partner and to provide our sperm, and we thankfully returned in 2018 to pick up our daughter.”

Surrogacy is not an easy, or cheap, method of starting a family, but for Steven and Cris, they were willing to do whatever it took to start a family.

“We were looking at doing a surrogacy with a mother in Vietnam, Thailand or Nepal, but both became much more difficult around the time we were really getting serious, so we decided to settle with Canada,” Damien said.

“Beforehand, we talked with many support groups, families and friends, as well as lawyers before deciding it was right to do it.”

Fletcher, who is now four, is about to start school, and Damien knows she is going to have to deal with some negative comments about her family.

“We’ve been so blessed so far by the reception we have been given,” Damien said.

“Both Cris and I are both vocal and outgoing, and have commanded respect from the community, as we just want to be treated like every other family.

“Thankfully, Fletcher hasn’t had any mean or hurtful comments made to her, and ideally, we hope that continues.

“But realistically, we know that it probably isn’t going to happen because of the diverse group of people she will be coming in contact with.

“We’re both pretty strong, and brush off comments quite easily, but some of the conversations we’re going to have are definitely going to be a bit more difficult.”

For Damien, one of the hardest parts about being a dad in a same-sex relationship was trying to balance his work with his family.

He started a new job when Fletcher was born, but after a year, decided to swap it for a more manageable ‘nine-to-five’ role.

“I was given a management job that had me on the road a lot, and I realised how much I wanted to be at home, with Fletcher and Cris, and so I decided to quit and find a more family-friendly role.”

During that first year, Cris had taken on the role as the stay-at-home parent, looking after Fletcher while he took time off work with paternity leave.

“We were really lucky with the fact that we got paternity leave, and because Cris was the stay-at-home parent, he managed to get the same amount of time and support as typically mothers get,” Damien said.

Being the stay-at-home dad did mean that Cris had to deal with people asking about Fletcher’s mother or making comments about him having “daddy-daughter time”, but Cris said it didn’t happen as often as you might expect.

“We’ve had a few experiences where I’ll be taking Fletcher to the shops or swimming and people make comments about Fletcher and I having a ‘daddy and daughter day’, or even me babysitting her whilst her mum is at work,” he said.

“Thankfully, they don’t happen often, and they’re usually not trying to be rude, it is just their natural thought.

“But we’ve been super lucky with how smart and adaptable Fletcher is.”

One of the questions Cris and Damien were asked while waiting for Fletcher to be born was what she was going to call them both, and if she would get confused.

But thankfully, it hasn’t been an issue.

“Fletcher calls both of us Dad,” Cris said.

“When she calls out, if I answer and she was looking for Damien, or vice versa, she just corrects us and says she wants ‘Daddy Damien’ or ‘Daddy Cris’.

“She picked this up before she was even two, so it’s really never been an issue.”

Although Fletcher is starting school soon, and the house will become much quieter during the day, Damien said he and Cris were happy with the way things were.

“We’d love to expand our family, but at the moment, we are incredibly happy with how it is,” Damien said.

This story originally appeared in Kids Now Magazine. You can find the full publication at https://www.sheppnews.com.au/features-and-magazines/kids-now-2022-23/