Cenk Bulbul, a single father by choice, with his youngest daughter Gaia Bulbul in New York, NY. Cenk had his two daughters through the same surrogate using his donor eggs and sperm to create implanted embryos.
Jackie Molloy for NPR
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Cenk Bulbul, a single father by choice, with his youngest daughter Gaia Bulbul in New York, NY. Cenk had his two daughters through the same surrogate using his donor eggs and sperm to create implanted embryos.
Fatherhood comes in many forms, from the one you take your first steps to, to the one you meet later in life.
NPR spoke to three men, single gay fathers, who chose to become fathers through surrogate mothers, after years of coming to terms with their identities, their families, and the technological advances that made this kind of journey possible.
Cenk Bulbul comes from Turkey. He came to the United States in 1994 – the early days of a tool that would help him, and many others, understand emotions they didn’t know yet: the World Wide Web.
“Things that I felt as a young man, but I don’t know what they are because there are no public examples of where I used to live in Turkey and even at Carnegie Mellon [University],” Bulbul said of his experience. time surfing the internet while earning a master’s degree in Pennsylvania.
“At that time in 1994, you don’t see a lot of gays [on] college. So I realized I was gay, but I was kind of scared, confused.”
While she was finally able to label her romantic feelings, she still felt lost. So he returned to Turkey and completed his mandatory military service, before returning to the United States – this time to New York – where he completed his doctoral program.
“Here I am, like, 20 years later.”
Cenk Bulbul, a single father by choice, with his daughters Emi and Gaia. Cenk’s mother, Nurten Bulbul, was also visiting the city from Turkey, where he was born.
Jackie Molloy for NPR
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Bulbul always dreamed of becoming a father. In his youth, he imagined himself in 2000 – 28 years old – married, to a woman, with two young children.
“Then I left in 2002,” he said. “There are no examples of same-sex parents or single parents based on any choice around me, not even adoption circles.
“And then as time went on, more and more, as I became more comfortable with who I was, I started looking at examples and, you know, then the laws started to change, and that also started to bring more families from different backgrounds to the surface. And that childhood dream of mine started to bother me.”
Cenk took Emi to grocery shopping and prepared her for bed. Cenk had his two daughters through the same surrogate using his donor eggs and sperm to create implanted embryos.
Jackie Molloy for NPR
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At first Bulbul wanted to adopt. But the process for single people, especially relatively older gay men, he says, is difficult.
“If I’m going to be a parent, I just have to try to figure out the shortest route at this point because, you know, it’s not fair to kids that they have geriatric parents. I want to be around me,” she said. .
In 2019, his first daughter, Emi Jules, was born through a surrogate. In 2021, amidst the upheaval of COVID, Bulbul welcomes her second daughter, Mine Gaia, with the same surrogate partner.
“Her first name, Gaia, means, Mother Earth. And for me, it’s a perfect fit for a child who has just grown up on a warming planet, whose future is at stake. So I think she will be the future president,” he said with a laugh.
Diarra K. Lamar, M.D., a single father by choice, with daughter Archie Madeleine Lamar at a park in New York, NY.
Jackie Molloy for NPR
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At 2 1/2 years old, Archie is a precocious toddler with colorful ribbons adorning his hair and a vocabulary that belies his age.
“It’s a certain language,” said her father, Diarra Lamar. “I’m talking Archie. Are you talking Daddy,” he asked, turning to the bespectacled toddler beside him.
Archie said yes, before asking his dad if he remembered “Wheels on the Bus” and reminding him that he likes vanilla.
Lamar, who now calls New York his home, grew up in Montgomery, Ala. Black, gay and plump in the South, he was raised by a single mother in a single mother family.
“Despite what one might expect, given those characteristics — that geography, those circumstances — who I am as a person has made me seem oblivious to the perceived constraints,” he said.
“Yeah, you know, people will say mocking things about me, but I don’t really care,” he said. “And the reason I don’t care is my mommy loves me and my grandma loves me.”
It was because of the love he felt in his family, and the strength of the women around him, he said that he felt it was his duty to bring a child into the world.
“My mother was a phenomenal woman,” he said. “My grandmother was a phenomenal woman. My aunt was a phenomenal woman. My uncle was a very creative person. My great-grandfather was a giant. The world needs to see the next generation.”
So in 2016, she started the process of giving birth to Archie.
Diarra K. Lamar, M.D., at home with her daughter Archie Madeleine Lamar.
