We’re having a baby!
—
Through the miracles of science, friendship and family: we’re expecting our first child!
Probably our only child but he is our first.
Oh, he’s also a boy.
…well, assigned male at birth or AMAB since gender is a construct.
Photos by Kaylee Colton Photography
Lauren
Ben’s sister and our egg donor
A good starting place is when Ben came out to his sister Lauren in 2012.
She immediately asked if he wanted her eggs – and not the omelet-kind. Single and not having even met Mike, this was surprising information. But it was also kind, and not all that unexpected from Lauren, who is a planner and had just had her second kid. And so that potential was planted in Ben’s mind.
Not long after, we met – introduced by childhood friends at a brunch in West Hollywood.
We started dating, got married, moved into our home, and adopted two cats. Interested in parenthood, we started researching fertility doctors and re-opened the conversation with Lauren about getting an egg donation– was she still willing? She was. But first, we all had to undergo psychological evaluation, which is important because the psychologist gave us advice that really helped: we didn’t know who would or could be a surrogate, but she advised us to talk about what we were planning, to everyone we knew. “You’d be surprised,” she said, “some women enjoy being pregnant and you never know if someone’s sister-in-law or second cousin would be interested.” And so we did.
Wedding Photos by Gina Clyne Photography
Then in late 2019 our doctor successfully made embryos using the genetic material from Lauren and Mike, and we put those pluripotent cells on ice
(at a storage facility, not like in our freezer).
Three months later a global pandemic happened.
We knew we wouldn’t have a kid immediately, but we did still talk about our journey and what we wanted with a lot of folks. Then, while vacationing on Beach Week in 2022 – an annual tradition that Ben and his high school friends have gone on every year since high school - his best friend Anna asked if we would be interested in her being a surrogate for their kid?
Ben and Anna’s friendship began in high school chemistry when they were seated alphabetically next to each other. Fun fact, Ben was incredibly surly at 16, but Anna still wanted to be his friend and was persistent. (Thank god.)
Anna
Ben’s best friend and our surrogate
They went to prom together and travelled to France for three weeks after graduation (where Anna’s mother is from). And while Ben moved to Los Angeles for college and Anna stayed on the east coast, they’ve stayed close and visited often – going on many trips together (a wedding in New Orleans, a road trip in Vermont, a Pack family vacation in Yosemite, the beach in North Carolina, skiing in Tahoe and more).
Going back in time to college at UVA, Anna met her future-husband John, got married, graduated Medical School from U-Penn, and returned to Charlottesville to practice medicine as a specialist in developmental and behavioral pediatrics. She and John also have four amazing kids.
So after several other conversations, medical clearances, psych evaluations, legal paperwork, insurance checks and some prescription drugs, we all finally pulled the trigger. In late November of 2023, Anna flew out to LA, one of our embryos was thawed, Ben took her to the doctor’s office and thirty minutes later —
that’s how you make a baby with two men, a sister and a best friend.
