Hello! We are Josué (37) and Dan (45), a male couple based just outside Panama City, Panama. We have six embryos created at our clinic in Toronto. Josué is a vet, Dan is a humanitarian aid worker, and we both speak English and Spanish.
We love to cook (and eat!), travel and explore, cultures, concerts and spend time with friends and family.
We researched surrogacy destinations widely – UK, USA, Argentina, Colombia, and Canada. Given that we are based in Panama, it made sense to focus the search on this side of the Atlantic. What we liked about Canada was the altruistic model – there is minimal financial motive and very little scope for financial exploitation of the surrogate, which was really important to us. We felt that the bond mattered – our surrogate will be a part of our children’s lives forever, the reason for their existence, and we want to find someone who is emotionally committed to what that really means. While motivations are as diverse as individuals, given the information we had available, we felt that altruistic surrogacy made it most likely that the bond would be lifelong, allowing our children to have a relationship with their “tummy mummy” and not miss out on an important part of their emotional development.
We took our time about the decision to become parents, and we think we will be better parents now than we would have been at the age when biology had urged us to do this had we been a straight couple. We intended to start our journey in 2020 – and we all know what happened that year!
The decision to become parents was more of an evolution than a revolution. Josué comes from a big family, being one of six and having eight nephews and nieces. Three of those nephews are in Panama, too, and we see them often. This might have contributed to the thinking of both Dan and Josué.
Josue has always been close to his family, and seeing his nephews grow up since childhood and spending a lot of time with them were the beginning of his interest in becoming a father. This was an idea we frequently discussed as our relationship developed. For Josue, to be a father is one of his most important life projects.
Dan comes from a small family, being the youngest of two siblings and the youngest among all his cousins. Babies were always a “if I am with the right person” thing, rather than a “do it no matter what” thing. After we realized that we were going to be together for life, the parts of the puzzle seemed to fall into place, and the “calling” began.
