Two Scouse dads have opened up about their surrogacy journey with the hope of raising awareness for other queer couples.
Growing up, Sam Arblaster and his partner David Heath, never pictured themselves being parents - not because they didn’t want to be, but rather because it was drilled into them that to have children “a man and woman had to be involved”.
However, recently the couple, from Bootle, have had their “whole world changed” after their surrogate fell pregnant and their world is soon to be changed once again with their first child due in July this year.
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David, a 35-year-old dance and fitness studio owner, who previously came 5th on X-Factor as part of boyband Eaton Road in 2006, told the ECHO: “The surrogacy journey is a scary one - going into it, you are going into the unknown. It all happened so quickly, but it's been brilliant. Family is a massive thing for both of us, our house is never empty and is always filled with kids. Everyone is always here and it made us think ‘why aren’t we building our own little empire’.”
The couple first got together eight years ago when Sam was in his early 20s. When Sam met David, kids were never on the cards for him despite being “very family-orientated”.
The 29-year-old freelance recruitment said: “Being a 22-year-old gay man you’re brought up and not told much about surrogacy or adoption. I just thought I was never going to be able to have children because I was so often told to have children there needs to be a man and woman involved.”
It was when lockdown forced the couple “to stop everything” in their lives and “reevaluate” what they wanted that they realised they were open to the idea of expanding their family.
Sam added: “For lockdown for me and David it made us a complete unit when so many other people we knew split up. It brought us closer together and that's when we started looking into surrogacy to try and have our own biological children.”
As the fertility clinic was still classed as a medical profession during the pandemic, the couple were able to start their journey to parenthood during Covid-19. Having initially attended a clinic in Manchester with restrictions in place, the couple transferred to Liverpool’s Women’s Hospital Hewitt Fertility Centre - which they said has “gone above and beyond” for them - to be closer to their home in Bootle.
Being a same-sex couple, the two said there wasn’t a “textbook on how to become a parent” and the only option many people informed them of was adoption. Not ruling out the potential of adoption in the future, the pair decided to pay for their own private treatment and have been trying to become dads since April 2020.
With three nieces and seven godchildren between them, Sam and David have been getting plenty of practice ahead of the arrival of their own child in a few months' time. Whilst the two are still learning about the surrogate journey themselves, they hope to make positive changes in the future for LGBTQ+ couples who opt to follow the same route as them.
The couple argued more education is needed because, on several occasions, the surrogate has been referred to as their wife and the mum and when it was time for the couple’s first baby scan, they were initially told only one “dad” could come in with the “mum”.
They said: “The mindset behind having a baby is a mum and a dad - so when they say only one of us is allowed in, its because they are catering it for heterosexual couples. For now, we are focusing on our family but things definitely need to change.
“The process is so dated - when our child is born, the surrogate is on their birth certificate even though she has no DNA and no biological relation to our child, her name is there. If there was a medical emergency, we can’t do anything without her there.”
Sam and David have been documenting their journey on Instagram @scousedads.
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