Posted on 06/17/2017 6:02:16 PM PDT by nickcarraway
In his 47 years, Tom Garden has held many roles, from CEO of his family business to soldier in the Israeli army. But it's his most recent role as single dad to an 11-month-old boy that Garden says has been the most challenging and rewarding.
The Minnesota dad also says fatherhood almost didn't happen for him.
"Four years from 50, I thought I would never have a family," Garden told TODAY Parents. "I had been married to my business for 10 years so I was really never thinking about kids and I didn't have time to date or do anything else."
Tom Garden with his son, Joseph, 11 months.
After a cousin pointed out to Garden that the family name would end with him, the then 45-year-old had a life-changing discussion with his mother, who told him about in vitro fertilization (IVF) and offered to help him find a clinic and become a father.
The process was lengthy — Garden is Jewish and wanted an Israeli egg donor, then had to select a surrogate to carry his baby and go through extensive medical and psychological testing — but in June 2016, Garden welcomed his first child, Joseph, into the world.
Garden's first child was born in June 2016, when he was 46 years old.
"I was petrified at first — I don't think I'd ever even held an infant before," said Garden, who enlisted the help of a doula service for the first months of his son's life. "If you would have asked me three or four years ago if I'd have kids, I'd have laughed. I never thought I would be a father."
Dr. Thomas Molinaro is a reproductive endocrinologist at Reproductive Medicine Associates of New Jersey (RMANJ,) the clinic where Garden went through the IVF process.
Molinaro says most single men have a similar mindset to Garden, believing it's too late for them to become fathers, or thinking that without a female partner, parenthood is impossible.
"The reality is, stories like Tom's are not common enough," said Molinaro. "We don't see enough of it, and we know there are men out there that don't even know how to get started or that becoming a father is possible for them."
Shortly after Joseph's first birthday, Garden plans to return to New Jersey for another IVF cycle, where he hopes to give his son his first sibling. Molinaro says the process of becoming a parent is easier for single mothers, who already have a uterus and eggs, and only need the assistance of a sperm donor.
"For men, it's more complicated because you do need both an egg donor and a gestational carrier," said Molinaro, explaining that each component must come via a different woman due to legality issues and the need for surrogates to feel a degree of separation from the baby they are carrying.
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Each year, RMANJ performs between 75 and 100 gestational carrier cycles. Of those cycles, only about 15 percent involve male patients without a female partner. But Molinaro says the numbers of single dads who are seeking out IVF treatment will continue to grow.
"I think all-in-all, the pieces are really starting to come together for men who would like to do it," said Molinaro. "It's a growing part of the infertility treatment world, and it's important to get the word out that this is something that's possible for single men. You don't have to have a partner."
Garden says he has leaned on both a doula service and he advice of his surrogate when it comes to learning to care for a baby.
While Garden has no partner, he says he found an unexpected friend in his surrogate, who he still calls frequently to update on Joseph's development and ask for parenting advice. In fact, Garden and the same woman will be returning to the RMANJ offices later this month for a second round of IVF.
"I have six viable embryos in storage," explained Garden. "I feel like I'm the father of six children, and as someone from a small family, that's a big deal. My plan is to have a kid each year until I have at least four."
So what will Garden tell his children about the unique way they were conceived?
"I'm going to be honest and say they were brought here out of love," said Garden. "Maybe it wasn't the traditional way of man and wife, but they were brought here out of love and they are very special and they are here because their daddy loves them and wanted them."
Garden says he is thankful for the gift given to him by his medical team, his surrogate, and his anonymous egg donor.
"When I was a CEO, it got to the point where it didn't feel meaningful anymore and I was just empty," said Garden. "But being a dad — when Joseph hugs me — that's worth a billion dollars and that's what's meaningful in my life."
Artificial wombs are making tremendous progress. Will be good for both men and women for a number of reasons.
Is this what transhumanists have wet dreams about on the nights they’re not dreaming of electric sheep?
There’s more than one way to be a mother or a father, and I’m not talking about hiring surrogates. There are children in your life who could use a devoted aunt or uncle, and children not in your life who could be adopted.
Did he consider just having sex with a woman, to create a baby that way?
It will be bad for the whole human race for a number of reasons.
Even now, IVF + surrogacy dehumanizes parents by denying the link between natural intercourse and procreation. It breaks the natural bond between the child and his genetic and gestational mothers (who ought to be the same woman, but they are not) and brings him into the world an intentional half orphan, permanently deprived of a mother and of one-half of his kinship universe.
T’hell with mother-child bonding: dispensable! Like saying one of your eyes is dispensable! Like saying half your brain is dispensable!
With artificial wombs it would be even worse: once again, reproduction by less-than-veterinary methods, based on a commercial transaction and not on love making, but yet another step down the road to total depersonalization.
If mothers are optional, even disposable, what about fathers?
In the future children could be begotten, conceived, carried and raised by machines. Each one individually copyrighted, trademark protected and licensed. And with a return and full refund, no-questions-asked, product quality control guarantee.
Tremendous progress!
A plus for everybody except the human race!
This is creepy stuff.
The world has gone mad.
Nah. Too messily human.
I’m not going to judge the guy since I’m not walking in his shoes.. IMHO, the more children that are born in the Western world to a parent that will love them and actually SUPPORT THEM (both financially & emotionally) the better.
I never had heard the term “doula” before reading this article.
Women and the state have already made fathers disposable. The only thing they are kept around for is to be the woman’s atm.
Women already have the ability to be single parents whenever they want. They can go to a sperm bank or do any number of things.
Women and society - uncle sugar - are proud they have made men obsolete and smile when they say kids do not need dads to urn out ok, they already say dads are optional and are either not needed or two women can do just as well.
This just levels the playing field and gives men the option to make women optional, if they desire.
And of course the women will hate it because it gives men power women already exclusively have over men. Can’t let men do it too.
All these things you listed are wrong.
And it doesn’t help to take things to another level of wrong, instead of trying to make one thing right.
Let’s commoditize everything!
We do see what’s wrong with that, I hope.
The missing key to this story, I am guessing, is that this man is a homosexual
There is a link? Who knew?
Only God can judge anyone on a subjective level, so I am with you about judging this guy’s heart. As for his plans, there are so many children who are born and going e born who don’t have fathers. There is no need to go to freaky, artificial lengths to create children for this particular man. If he wants to be a father, he can become one to a child who already needs one.
Why didn’t he find a wife? Head of company, wants to have a family?
Don’t know, but my gaydar didn’t ping when looking at his picture and there were no quotes about “my partner”. But it’s possible.
He wanted to have HIS biological child(ren). That’s quite a normal thing to want. That may not be important to some folks, but it apparently is to him.
Or, even more common, a misogynist.
I think if he were a homosexual, that would be part of the lede. He’d have brave hero status.
So the Beatles were wrong? Money CAN buy you LOVE?
Yikes. Bump for later. Or, maybe not.
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