Leaning over the cozy, Jérôme gently rocks Augustine while the baby gives him big smiles. In the kitchen, Eric prepares the bottle. Mealtime is approaching. For nearly two months, the little girl has been the pride of her dads, who lovingly watch over her. Augustine was born on January 15 in Canada, from a “surrogate woman”, Ashley, who remained very close to the two men.
Eric and Jérôme, a couple for 15 years, resorted to management by others. They are “not militants” but they would like their story to be useful, that it can “move mentalities” and remove fears about GPA when 2021 will have been the year of PMA for all couples. They would like the person who will be elected during the Presidential “to advance the debates so that France opens up on this question”. “But not just for gay couples, for all couples,” they point out.
Facing adoption, a wall
They had almost resigned themselves to not becoming fathers. “At the beginning, we saw friends, cousins, cousins start a family. We said to ourselves that we would never have this chance, ”explains Jérôme, hospital agent in the Lyon region. But over the years, the desire to have a baby has become more and more significant. “We started talking about it, then finding out and looking at all the options that existed,” continues Eric, radio host.
At first, the two thirty-somethings plan to have a baby with a couple of women. But they quickly give up on the idea. “We did not want joint custody, we feared that it would be complicated for the education to be given. We preferred to have our baby full time,” he explains.
From then on, the trail of adoption looms. But the couple’s hopes are quickly dashed. “The procedures are particularly long. Already, it’s a hassle for a straight couple, so for a gay couple, imagine. There was almost no chance that it would succeed,” they explain. Especially since they are offered to adopt only “a child with a particularity”. The boys then turn to surrogacy, the last solution. But in France, “not possible”. The process is simply prohibited.
Two countries where surrogacy is legal and supervised
“There are only two countries in which surrogacy is regulated and legal, they are the United States and Canada”, specifies Jérôme. No question for the couple to take risks by going to a neighboring country which would circumvent the law. They will choose Canada. But the procedure has a cost: 90,000 euros for Jérôme and Eric. A real brake. “We are not Marc-Olivier Fogiel or Christophe Beaugrand. We had to resort to a loan, it’s a reality”, confirms Eric with humor.
In France, banks are not allowed to lend money for surrogacy. Whatever. Both men were “transparent”. “We didn’t want to lie. We are lucky that the loan has been granted to us, but this is far from being the case for everyone”, adds her husband.
“Yes, we are very lucky for everything. Because then, it went very quickly. Everything worked the first time, whereas it’s usually long and complicated,” continues Eric. In September 2020, the couple entered the GPA procedure. A month later, he met Ashley, the “surrogate,” not a surrogate. Because the eggs come from another woman. The embryo transfer took place in April 2021. And Augustine was born last January.
“We did not buy a belly”
Since the dads returned from Canada, Ahsley hasn’t missed a day without calling them on WhatsApp to check on the baby. It is also the second name that Jérôme and Eric have chosen to give to their daughter. “We have forged very strong ties. We stayed with her, we met her children”, they argue, wanting to explain that surrogacy is not necessarily “a commodification of the body”. The two dads refuse to hear that they would have “bought her belly”. In Canada, the carrier is not remunerated. The person concerned decided, at the age of 17, to take on this role to help couples who were unable to have children.
It is she who will again carry the couple’s second baby, in a few years. With always the same egg donor. The two boys are particularly fond of it. Just as they wanted to help other couples in difficulty. Eric has also launched the blog ” 2 Gay Dads on social networks to testify to their journey and answer the questions raised as precisely as possible. The feedback is generally very “benevolent”.
“Many people still have questions or reservations about surrogacy, but the children are covered with love, as Augustine is today,” he says. And to specify that their daughter “will know her whole story as soon as she is old enough to understand”. “Auntie Ashley”, she will never be far away, he promises. In the meantime, there are two final battles to be fought: the transcription of Augustine into the French civil registry and her adoption by the second dad. “Clearly, nothing is being done to make our lives easier, but we will show perseverance and patience,” concludes Eric with determination. A message for the future French president…