Well, Adam from what I understand you didn't come here to get advice, you came here to tell us your desire to become a parent. Which is very good no matter what other says. From your replies it seems to me that you are pretty decided. However, now the only thing you're going to get here will not help you much since you have made your decision. Of course you're talking for two people which the other guy isn't here to give his point of view. Yes, you have made a mistake by "normalizing" the desire of being parents. As you may have realized that being parent isn't everyone's desire, whether they are gay or not. But it is everyone's right to be if they desire so.
You came here asking for advice, I gave you an example of myself and my husband who have 5 children, yet you just took it as being a nice story, but in between you seem to have missed the point. I went through a lot for adopting my child and this was done internationally, which is one heck of an adventure if you ask me. I know a shit load about adoption because I, myself, was adopted (and you'll notice that I speak of my adoptive mother as my real mother - I am in their family three so are all my children), so you didn't get just a cute story to bring you tears or envy, I gave you a hint that if you need the advice you're looking for, perhaps it would have been good for you to contact me or my husband directly because we went through it. I am the result of adoption myself. I know more about adoption than most of the people you will encounter here.
However, it may be too late as this account will be deleted at the end of today. Now that you feel ready to adopt or have kids by any means possible, if you believe that you truly went through all pros and cons (allow me to doubt it) because it doesn't matter the amount of thinking you'll do, when that little person enters your life and that of your partner the game rules will change and many of your previous questioning will just be questioning as the reality starts to kick in.
You are in New York City, well, that's a big city, there's certainly adoption agencies, or even association of gay parents that can give you the advices and the information you need to fulfill your dream. Do you really believe Adam you will get a subjective idea here? Most of the guys here aren't parents, the majority of them don't want children, some are just content with being uncles. You need a place where you can get real advices from people who have been through that road that you're about to take. What you'll get here is people's personal opinions, fears or disagreement or people who will take one word that you placed wrongly and they'll go around that word making it sound like a grammatical correction. Yet you came across someone who does have children, I would have expected you to contact me and ask for more details.
Your thread here will have a life span of about 3 or 4 days and when you'll stop responding it will be quickly forgotten. Do you really believe Adam you came to the right place to get advices on gay parenting? If you said you did some research, what in the world make you believe that GS was the place to discuss such things? Here's a quick research I did and there's the result:
http://www.therainbowbabies.com/Links.html - discussion group of gay parents with legal advices, it's all about treating the subjects of:
- Insemination
- Surrogacy
- Adoption
- Foster Care
- Pregnancy
- Raising Kids
http://www.adoptionopen.com/gay_adoption.html - WOW look it's in NY and it's all about adoption for gay people.
Adam if you and your partner want to be parents, stop fucking around the bushes and go straight to the information, stop talking about it with people of general interest, they'll only put some more doubts into you or you'll spend more time arguing and defending your ideas when in fact it seems that what you want is to become a daddy.
Take action! However, what you can do with GS once you have started taking action, it's to create a thread telling your journey (this is more what you can do with a subject like this in GS).
Oh, and by the way... GET A FAMILY LAWYER (those are specialized with most of family matters including adoption, insemination and other parental options) if you do not have one already. The adoption lingo is as fucked as the criminal or business law.
Good luck and welcome into parenthood (I have given you my personal contact in PM should you need our help).
Best to you and your partner!