Manuel (39) and Javier (44), They were born in the sunny Spanish island of Gran Canaria. Growing up in this island has formed our character. Probably the sun, the closeness to the sea and the constant contact with Nature that we have around here, make us to be outgoing, cheerful, friendly, and caring about the impact we make to the environment and the community we live in. That is why both of us enjoy our work so much. Manuel as a math/science high school teacher and I as teacher of people with disabilities, we have the opportunity every day to make this world a little better by engaging with the students and helping them grow.
Our love story started 12 years ago, and like many couples these days, it all begun online. We had this feeling that it was going to be very hard to find a partner with whom to have a stable relationship, but then on June 1st 2010 we crossed our paths and everything changed. We found our life companion and our love only gets stronger. Now, after all these years, we really cannot wait to expand our little family and share the love we have for each other with a child of our own.
We think we make such a great couple because we have the same core values while having different hobbies. We both love travelling, music, dancing, and spending time with our families (Javier has plenty of nephews and nieces with whom we organize many activities to bring joy and closeness to our family). However, we complement each other through our different interests. I love playing basketball and growing my own vegetables and fruits in my farm, where I also have some domestic animals. Manuel on his side is pretty much into technology, movies, and series.
Manuel and Javier are very close to their families. Javier comes from a large family. He grew up as the youngest of 8 brothers and sisters. He adore his siblings. Summers at the beach with them are some of my favorite memories. I have always felt supported and protected by them. My parents did not have many resources when I was a child but that helped me understand the value of hard work. They taught me to believe in myself and, most importantly, fight for my dreams. They also installed in me the value of helping others. My dad passed away some years ago, but my mother with 90 years old does not lose her faith in me having a baby and being a grand mother again.
When Manuel was born, he was diagnosed with a blood pressure related disease and his parents went through a tough time. He cannot be more grateful to them for all the love and support they gave him at this stage in his life. He has one older brother. He also loves spending time with his closest aunt and his two cousins. His family wanted the best for him and made everything possible for him to study electrical engineering, although he says when he met Javier and saw how fulfilling my profession was, he discovered his passion and pivoted his field of study into his true vocation: teaching.
Our teenage years really impacted Manuel and I’s personality. Being a gay teenage kid raised in Catholic family in the 90s was not easy. We felt we needed to hide our true selves from the world. With time we have learnt from this experience. We learnt to value ourselves and accept our homosexuality. When we started dating, we realized the love we had for each other was much more important than what everybody else would think.
Today we live together in our beautiful home and for that we feel extremely lucky.
After spending several years thinking about expanding the family and saving money, in May 2020 we began this long process. We are from Spain and in our country law does not allow us to have children by surrogacy. For this reason, we had to look for another country that could help us. Which complicates and delays everything a little more. Finally, after a lot of research, we discovered Canada was the best option for us.
Several months after, we received the news we already had an egg donor. We were super excited to trigger the next steps when she decided not to go through with the process anymore and we had to start all over again. We also had to decide who among the two of us would be the biological father. Finally, as Manuel has some congenital diseases that could be transmitted to his offspring, we decided that I would be the doner. Then the Covid crisis unraveled and we had to wait for Canada to open the borders again. I was finally able to travel to Toronto in October 2021 to discover at the clinic that I had difficulties to create embryos and had to undergo treatment to do so.
We were devastated. At this point we did not know what path to take. However, we had a great Doctor, Germán del Valle from the ReproMed clinic, and he told us the safest option was to choose a sperm donor.
At the beginning we were a bit reluctant with not having a baby of our own, but we opened our minds and realized having a sperm donor would only bring more union to our couple if possible. Now that child was going to be both of us under the same conditions and we fell in love with the idea. Today we have a precious 10 frozen embryos and we can’t wait to see the face of one of them one day.
We love to be active and do many things together. As I said before, we are lucky to live in the Canary Islands, which are famous for the good weather throughout the year, their beaches, and mountains. It is almost impossible not loving spending the day outdoors at the beach, swimming, sunbathing, or playing rackets.
We also love hiking and we have a group of friends with whom we go hiking every two weeks. This year during the Easter holidays we are planning to do the Camino de Santigo in Galicia.
Quality time with friends and family is a must for us, and that is why we enjoy organizing barbecues and spending weekends away in the mountains with them.
Having a farm is difficult not to be an animal lover. At our home we have a dog called Chatito and several singing birds that brighten up the house every day.
We are very proud of the home we have built together. We have plenty of space, open areas and we are very close to the main facilities in our town (good schools, health centers, airports…). We enjoy decorating and cleaning our house together.
We try our lifestyle to be as healthiest as possible. We exercise frequently, we try to grow our own veggies, eat healthy and we do not smoke or drink. We only have some beer or wine in specific celebrations.
Travelling is one of our favorite activities and we plan to keep doing so as much as we can with our future child. We have visited mostly our country and Europe and we cannot wait to discover new places. Perhaps this summer we will go to the French Blue Coast.
Additionally, we are very involved in the high schools we work in and with the development of our students. That is why we plan many activities with them. We also like to fight for the causes we are committed to and that are important to us. We use to participate in meetings and demonstrations which pursue human rights and the environment.
We are so excited to have come this far that we will do our best to ensure that our surrogate is as comfortable as possible and has a happy and peaceful life before, during and after the pregnancy. It would be a blessing for us to be chosen and we would be extremely grateful for the help she would give us. We want everything to go as well as possible and we will do everything that it’s in our hands to make her feel comfortable during the process.
We believe that in this step the surrogate mothers are the true protagonists. They deserve all the emotional and economic support that is needed. We also want to respect the type of contact she wants to have with us. We are very open to having constant contact with her, to listen to her and talk about as many things as necessary.
For us it would be great to have further contact with her even after the birth. If we could visit each other that would be fantastic for us. The way we see it, if she wants of course, she could become someone very important in our lives because thanks to her we will have the most precious for us, a child.