TMC PULSE

t m c » p u l s e | m ay 2 0 1 7 19 A drian de Luna sat on the living room sofa in his Houston home, cradling his 5-month-old son, Evan, in his left arm and propping up a bottle of formula with his right. The U.S. Marine-turned-full-time-dad looked into his son's bright blue-gray eyes, still half open after a midday nap. De Luna's husband, Enrique Vasquez, sat beside him, with Evan's twin sister, Lilienne, nestled in his arms. It was a relatively peaceful moment for the couple, but the sound of their 2-year-old daugh- ter's erratic footsteps punctuated the silence. Vivienne stomped with excitement on the wooden floor, proudly brandishing a half-eaten Oreo. Vivienne had just finished a 2-minute melt- down. Even with tears streaming down her face, her brown hair stuck to her cheeks and her mouth open wide enough to reveal baby teeth, she bore a strik- ing resemblance to de Luna. They had the same big brown eyes, the same nose, the same smile. "There's no denying that Adrian's her father," Vasquez said. Incomplete The couple met in 2007 at a bar in downtown Houston. Vasquez, who was working on his degree in mechanical engineering at the University of Houston, was hanging out with a friend when—like a meet-cute scene right out of a romantic movie—he caught a glimpse of de Luna in the crowd. "It's going to sound super cliché, but it was love at first sight when I saw him," de Luna, 35, said. They've been inseparable since then. In 2011, de Luna and Vazquez filed for a domestic partnership license by mail through the state of Washington. Then, in 2014, a year before the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex mar- riage across the country, Washington converted domestic partnerships to marriage. Vasquez and de Luna were officially hitched. But their love story was incomplete. They wanted children. "I always wanted kids, but I told myself, 'I'm never going to have kids.' I made myself under- stand that was not a possibility," de Luna said. "When you don't have the means to go through something this big, you think, 'Well, how is this going to happen?'" For Vasquez, who has four siblings, 13 nieces and two nephews, having a big family was always a dream. "Even when I knew that I was gay in high school, I still wanted a family and … I was going to do whatever I could in my power to make this happen," Vasquez, 33, said. "I wanted to leave a legacy, if that's possible." The couple briefly considered adoption, but out of fear that the child's biological parents would take issue with gay parents and try to win back custody, they decided against it. Even after gay marriage became legal in the U.S., de Luna and Vasquez knew that without any statewide protection from anti-discrimination laws, they might find themselves at a disadvantage if a legal battle ever ensued. Two of their female friends offered to try an unconventional form of artificial insemination. This DIY approach would require one of the men to fill a syringe with his semen, which a female friend would then inject into her vagina. "Like you're basting a turkey," de Luna said, sheepishly. And then, there was surrogacy. For that, de Luna and Vasquez would need to find an egg donor and hire a woman to carry their child to term by way of in vitro fertilization, or IVF, a procedure in which an egg is fertilized with sperm in a lab. The embryo or embryos formed are then implanted into a woman's uterus, where a baby or babies are carried to term. The success rate for pregnancy by embryo transfer for a woman under 35 falls between 55 and 57 percent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which monitors and compiles data for all assisted repro- ductive technology procedures performed in the U.S. But it comes at a steep price. The average cost of surrogacy ranges from $98,000 to $140,000, including the gestational surrogate mother fee, the surrogacy agency fee, the cost of IVF and fertility treatments, as well as expenses for travel and legal fees. With such a high price tag, surrogacy was looking more like a distant dream than a viable option. Giving thanks In November 2012, Vasquez's older brother, Marco, 42, and his wife, Nora, 31, brought their three daughters to the couple's home to celebrate Thanksgiving. As the extended family sat around the dining room table, Marco verbalized what Vasquez and de Luna had only discussed in private. Nora Vasquez with her husband, Marco, and their daughters, Angelica, Monica and Veronica. "You guys would be amazing parents," Marco said. "You guys need to have a family." "Yeah, but how?" de Luna lamented. Marco volunteered Nora. Although they had never discussed her being a gestational surrogate before that moment, she eagerly agreed. "I tell them, 'Do what you gotta do. Do your research. Just tell me where to go, and I'll show up,'" Nora said. Gestational surrogacy, in which the ges- tational mother carries a fertilized embryo implanted by assisted reproductive technology, is legal in Texas. Traditional surrogacy, in which the gestational mother provides the egg, is not. Chapter 160 of the Texas Family Code outlines additional guidelines: the intended parents must be married and the gestational mother and her husband, if she has one, must relinquish all parental rights. Between 1999 and 2013, about 2 percent (or 30,927) of all assisted reproductive technology cycles used a gestational carrier, according to the CDC. That number is on the rise, particu- larly since the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage. Vasquez and de Luna considered this new option. At this point, de Luna was working as a communications specialist on an oil rig in South Korea. His salary was substantial enough to cover a majority of the surrogacy and IVF treatment costs, but it was the first time in the couple's six years together that they would be apart. (continued) I would like both of us to have the chance to have a child. Whether it goes through or not, that's up to the universe. — ENRIQUE VASQUEZ

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