Tom Daly has opened up about fatherhood, surrogates, and the difficulties same sex couples face when it comes to starting a family of their own.
The 27-year-old Olympic diver has been married to 47-year-old Hollywood screenwriter Dustin Lance Black since 2017 and together they welcomed a son named Robert in June 2018.
Tom says that losing his own father, Robert, who passed away in 2011 aged 40 following a cancer battle, cemented his desire to become a father himself.
And he has also explained that husband Dustin’s own personal losses – his brother died of cancer in 2012 – also left them wanting to have a child.
Speaking to Giovanna Fletcher on her Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast, Tom revealed: “For as long as I could remember, I have wanted to be a parent.
"I think because of the relationship with my mum and dad, we were so close and then, when I lost my dad, it was like, I want to be everything that he was to me to someone else because every child deserves to have what I had with my dad because it was such a special relationship, we were so close.”
Tom also opened up about the challenged he and Dustin faced in their journey to fatherhood.
The diver explained: “Once I started to realise that I was gay, it was like, how am I going to have children in the future? What does this look like for me? What are the options?
“And having to figure out exactly how that was going to work, looking down the routes of adoption, surrogacy and all of those different things.”
He continued: “It is a lot more complicated for same sex parents to have children and you have to really think about it and like really, really want to have kids in order to be able to make it work and it’s extremely complex for same sex couples in a number of different ways.
“Lance and I […] had lost so many people in our families and there was something about surrogacy that we were drawn to that just meant that we could pass on the people that we’d lost, their genes and their thoughts, their feelings, their personalities and being able to bring someone into the world, that felt so extremely special.”
He also opened up about their choice to find a surrogate mother in the USA rather than in the UK.
Tom said: “We looked into it in the UK and in the US […] In the UK it’s a lot more complicated because surrogates aren’t as well protected legally, intended parents aren’t protected legally […] it’s just not safe […] there’s a lot of hurdles to have to jump over.
“In the US, everything is regulated in a way that keeps everyone safe and in the US the surrogacy process is a lot more streamlined.”
He also explained that he and Dustin remain close to the surrogate of their son.
Tom said: “There are no words to describe how grateful you can be to someone […] our surrogate […] is so special, we speak to her all the time on Facetime with Robby.”
Download Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy Mum Happy Baby podcast every Tuesday at 6am from acast.com
Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at webcelebs@mirror.co.uk or call us direct at 0207 29 33033.
