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."
“If mothers are optional, even disposable, what about fathers?”
According to the Communists, we’re ALL cannon fodder. WEll, except for THEM of course!
They have made AMAZING inroads, have they not?
*SPIT*
Every single one of these perversions, including artificial reproduction, was ideologically enabled by contraception.
The underlying assumption shared by all: sex can be broken up into its component parts, and then reconfigured into any permutation or combination that gratifies me.
Autonomy! Mr-Potato-Head: our model for living.
Mr Potato
Bingo. In sorry but any 47 year old CEO can find a women that wants his kids. Something else was at play there.
You don’t need to judge “the man” as to his subjective motivations, his state of grace or his eternal destiny, but you can and should judge his objective acts.
He has objectively created a half-orphan as a laboratory product and a commodity in a commercial transaction. From the git-go he decided and planned to derive the child of natural rights: not by chance, but by choice.
His subjective yearnings notwithstanding, he has nevertheless objectively treated the baby boy, from conception, not as a child but as a lifestyle accessory, an expensive hobby, or a valuable pet.
If it were normal and natural it wouldn’t be a news story.
I think I have about had it with all the fake stuff. People can prop up these perversions all day long, but at the end of the day little Joseph still has no mommy to hold him and love him and want him.
Nobody bothered to be concerned about that little detail. Abandonment even before conception.. just part of the process.
Yeah, he's got some nerve wanting to have children of his own!/s
Sheesh, give me a break. I don't have kids, but if I were blessed to get married, I'd like a crack at having my own biological children first, rather than settling for someone else's kids right off the bat. I don't think that's asking too much.
“...at the end of they little Joseph still has no mommy ...””
***************************************************************
Well, at the end of the day, little 11-month old Joseph is ALIVE with a LOVING FATHER. You resent that baby’s life — you resent his very existence and would prefer that he had never been born. IMHO, he is one of God’s children. There are worse things in life than having a child being raised by a loving single parent -— far worse things.
By the way, in addition to being raised by a loving father who went to extraordinary efforts to bring him in to existence, I suspect that you won’t have to pay for welfare benefits for Joseph.
Joseph’s father CHOSE LIFE.
Exactly. One thing that struck me, is that a lot of people have sympathy for this single man’s deep yearning to have his “own, biological” child.
Granted. But did he never stop to think that the child would have a deep yearning to have his own, biological mother?
Children needs are as nothing, when put up against the demands of a grown man with money.
Giving men the same reproductive rights that women have now is the only way to change any of it. Women have just gotten more and more power and if nothing is done to reverse it it wil continue to get worse and nothing stops the current freight train.
They do not care its uneven and they are glad it is, they say they are the victims yet have all the reproductive power and just want more. They have no empathy and know they have all the power, hence they do not wat men to have any, much less as much as they enjoy now.
A woman would just take his money, house, and kid away in a divorce.
This is today’s America.
I can understand why he went this route.
They are working on a male birth control pill. I wish they could get that working ASAP.
The first groups that will come out against it when it becomes reality, and it will, will be womens groups.
Reproductive rights? You mean reproductive wrongs. And no, increasing and equalizing the wrongs so that bad men can be as bad as bad women, is not “the only way to change things.”
Equal help for equal hubris.
Is that good news for the children?
That’s “equal hell for equal hubris.”
Damn autocorrect.
Why does he need his sperm? $20k for an egg donor? Why not just use a surrogate and an unwanted embryo already in cold storage from a family with a surfeit of extras? I did. And have a beautiful daughter. I did it with a husband who ditched us, but still, there are thousands of beautiful children at the embryo stage just needing a chance to develop and be.
The problem is that we have no basis for real judgement, because we know that biased, progressive, statist media will omit or massage any facts to push a particular narrative. I feel intelligent Americans now must read the news exactly as soviet citizens read Pravda 40 years ago - what isn't the article saying? What point of view is being pushed? What's the political or social agenda being promoted? And one certainly CAN judge that
Congratulations, you’ve made a choice that was yours to make and brought a lovely child into the world. I commend you for it. He made a choice that was of a manner that differed from yours but it was HIS choice. And he brought a lovely child into this world also. And as I commend you, I also commend him.
God bless you & your daughter.
what kind of a mother doesn’t want her grandchildren to have a traditional mother, woman in their lives? Why would a man want to omit a true mother to his children?
These people are their own gods.
IVF, artificial wombs, surrogate “motherhood” are all abominations. Either adopt or go without.
In no way was I condemning him for his choice. I agree with you. I don’t have the desire to control how other people live, if they aren’t hurting others.
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