‘Hello, my name is Bud. I’m writing to you from Bangkok, where my husband and I are fighting to take our daughter home. For almost six months, we have been faced with the possibility of losing the life we’ve built for our family—our home, our careers, and worst of all, Carmen—because the woman who gave birth to Carmen doesn’t want her to be raised by gay parents.
Becoming parents was such a wonderful experience, that in March 2014 I came to Thailand to start our second surrogacy process with the hopes to complete our family with another child and give Álvaro a little brother or sister.
We thought everything went perfectly during my visit to Bangkok. We hired what seemed to be a reputable agency to organize the surrogacy, New Life Thailand. We chose an egg donor, I left my samples for the IVF, and we liked the profile of the surrogate who the agency suggested. She was from a middle class family with two sisters, a daughter, a professional job and what seemed to be a good support structure.
In January 2015, we came to Bangkok for the pending birth of Carmen. I met with the surrogate for the last ultrasound before the birth. After the birth, I went up to her room each day to visit her and make sure she was okay. I brought her flowers and just wanted her to know how thankful we were for bringing little Carmen into our lives. We did the paperwork where she put me as the father on the birth certificate and she signed a consent form that allowed us to take Carmen from the hospital. On the third day after Carmen was born the pediatrician said she was ready to come home with us.
That morning, the surrogate came down to see us off, along with her teenage daughter, her mother, her boyfriend and a translator friend. It was not a “goodbye” but more a “see you soon” since we would see each other at the U.S. Embassy and finish some other paperwork.
But at that moment, when she met Manuel and saw us together and happy, she realized that we weren´t what she later referred to as an "ordinary" family.
And this is when our nightmare began
The surrogate will not sign the necessary documentation, and without her signature to obtain a U.S. passport and another signature giving consent to immigration officials, we cannot leave the country. Carmen is a U.S. citizen, but she still needs these two documents to leave.
We have been in Bangkok for almost six months, desperate, changing apartments every few weeks because we are afraid that she will try to take Carmen. we are exhausted that the situation keeps going on and on, and the days turn into weeks and the weeks turn into months. We miss our families and friends, our life. We are both putting our jobs at risk when our children depend on us to provide for them, etc.
Although the surrogate is not the biological mother, she is given full parental powers under Thai law. Since I´m not married to the birth mother I don´t have any custodial rights. At the moment, the U.S. Embassy says they cannot do anything and we need to follow the Thai legal process. The agency spent several weeks trying "to mediate", but they no longer have operations here and their commercial interests are now focused on other countries.
She wants to keep Carmen because she doesn´t want her to be raised by gay parents. We have also discovered through the Thai media (Yes, she has gone to the press) she is accusing us of human trafficking. We have already tried everything and our savings have been wiped out.
We really feel that the biggest contributing factor to our situation was lack of adequate process in recruiting and counseling surrogates during the different stages of the surrogacy process, by New Life Thailand, our surrogacy agency.
We have tried to make a normal life for our two children, even while we are trapped in a foreign country. We smile and sing, run and play...but we have a great pain inside that is consuming us in the background. We want to go home, for our family and friends to meet our wonderful daughter. We want Carmen to meet her great-grandmother and her namesake. We want our son, Álvaro, to return to his life, his school, his nanny Pilarín.
We are growing desperate, but we aren´t hopeless. We believe that we have found a better lawyer, someone who is empathetic and who will fight for all of us to get home safely. We believe that with a little help, we can finally take Carmen home.
There is a new law that is about to go into effect making surrogacy prohibited for foreigners, but for those who started before the law can make a request to the courts to seek full custody of the baby. In principle this law should benefit us and solve all of our problems, but unfortunately it only addresses the rights of heterosexual couples.
We need help with legal expenses
Our finances are extremely strained. For now, with our salaries and with help from our families, we can cover the basic living expenses in Thailand - housing, school for Álvaro, food, visa renewals - as well as our expenses back home in Valencia. But our savings are gone, we have already borrowed money from friends and family and we have maxed out our credit cards and personal lines of credit, and we need help covering legal expenses.
If you are willing to help us, please donate to our fund to bring Carmen home. We are only asking for small donations, because we know believe that with many small contributions we can reach our goal.
You can click the button at the right to make a donation though Fundly/WePay, or if you are more comfortable making a direct transfer to our Spanish bank account ES61 0081 5515 2400 0164 4365. In the concept field please put "Bring Carmen Home" with your name and beneficiario Gordon Lake or Manuel Santos. Another alternative would be to use Paypal using the [email protected] email address.
We have created a secret Facebook group where we will give updates, post pictures and talk about our day to day. If you make a donation, please contact us at [email protected] with your Facebook username and your email address, and we will add you.
When we can finally leave Thailand all the donated money remaining in our account will be given to a child-focused charity in Thailand.’
If you have any suggestions or ideas of other ways that you could help, please contact us at [email protected].
Many heartfelt thanks to all.
Help us bring Carmen home.
snowghoul
andulkaphoto
baratheonpilled
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
