Gay Dad Discovers an Innovative Way to Celebrate Fatherhood

For many LGBTQ families-to-be, surrogacy can be a complicated and circuitous journey as much as a blessed outcome. Expecting parents are often distanced from their surrogates' day-to-day moments leading up to birth. As a result, texting exchanges between parents and surrogates are where many of these moments are documented and shared.

And once that bundle of joy arrives, baby updates are also frequently shared via texts. The desire to preserve these memories led one gay dad to turn the texts about his daughter's entrance into the world into a baby book for the 21st century using Keepster, an innovative app that archives messages with easy search functionality that can also turn messages into creative keepsakes for years to come. Her dad, Dan K., tells his story:

When my husband suggested that I take charge of creating our nine-month-old daughter's baby book, I knew exactly what I didn't want.

No leather-bound, stodgy version. For starters, we don't do dusty collectibles. For two dads and one baby girl born to a surrogate, I was looking for a more contemporary version that would tell our story as we embarked upon our lifetime dream role: fathers.

The problem was I couldn't quite find the words to describe what I wanted, nor could any search engine.

Then it dawned on me: we had our own sort of baby book right there, in our messages.

The idea to seek out a solution that included our texts struck me as I was scrolling back through a thread searching for a bump update from Lily's birth mother many months before. As I flipped through dozens of texts and photos, it was as if I was seeing them as a sequence for the first time. We had texts dating back to when our Lily was just a bundle of cells growing, many states away, in the surrogate's womb. There were even texts from the early days of "will we?" and "can we?" to scheduling the lawyers' and doctors' appointments as we took our first steps toward fatherhood. Our phones and messages had captured it in almost two years' worth of texts that told the story of her and us.

Surrogacy is a marathon: every milestone enormous, but how thrilled was I that unknowingly I had documented it all, down to the dates and minutes. There were all the updates shared with friends and family - the first ultrasound, all the ones that followed, the dilemma about which crib, the first onesies we'd bought. There was the evolution of our communication (and relationship) with our beautiful baby girl's birth mother. From knowing about the farmer's markets she went to, the 100% organic juices she made for herself (and Lily), the first big kick, pretty much every other one that followed, and then, of course, the glorious ones leading up to and after Lily's birth. It was all right there, in our messages and photos!

Googling around how to "save my messages," I came across Keepster, an app that allows users to backup all their iPhone messages with photos. You cannot begin to imagine my joy when I discovered I could also use their printing service to turn our messages and images into a book!

Within minutes I'd downloaded the app, plugged my iPhone into my Mac, and all those thousands of texts started to sync. I dumped all the messages and photos, plus those from our families and friends, both in iMessage and WhatsApp, into a Keepster Folder, labeling it: Lilly's Wonderful Life. I then designed the book, choosing a clean ivory cover with a favorite photo, and wrote a special dedication from Daddy and Dad at the beginning of the book.

I ordered four copies: one for Lily to have wherever life takes her, one for us, and one for each of her grandparents. I couldn't believe it: in under an hour, I'd found a way to create and complete just the right kind of modern-day baby book, perfect for a surrogate birth and our LGBTQ family history.

Three weeks later, when I handed the book to my husband, Nick, he was stunned.

He pointed to an early exchange we'd had with the agency, and I could see in his eyes he was immediately back in that moment - when the possibility of being a real family seemed so fraught and far off. We laughed over the texts with one another, swapping baby names, surmising future professions, finally ending on: "Happy. I just want a happy baby. And ours."

Someday, we know that our daughter will get to read these messages and, hopefully, if not sooner, realize what a miracle it is for us to have her in our lives. Until then, I'm just so glad that none of our incredible journey will be forgotten. With many more volumes to come!"