Arnold Myint had a long, complicated journey to fatherhood. Here's his story.

The first time he saw his baby girl, it was a picture on his phone of a tiny screaming newborn.

"Henley's here," the surrogate mother's husband texted with the picture, "and she's angry."

Within minutes, Arnold Myint — a Nashville chef, TV personality, restaurateur, drag queen and online personality with millions of followers — stepped into the hospital room and into his new role as single gay dad.

"Sà-wàd-dee loog, tee laak, " Myint said. "Hello, my child, my love."

He gently put his hand on the wailing baby's chest, and she suddenly stopped crying and relaxed.

"It freaked me out," Myint said. "It was the most beautiful thing."

The moving moment in that San Diego hospital room came Sept. 26 after a miscarriage, several failed pregnancy attempts, hundreds of thousands of dollars, a handful of rejections from Tennessee adoption agencies, close to 100 Amazon purchases, years of planning — and a lifetime of dreams of being a father.

"She's been a perfect baby," Myint gushed six weeks later at his spotless, modern home in Nashville's trendy Wedgewood-Houston neighborhood.

"For the first couple of days, I'm staring at her," he said. "I didn't want to leave her sight."

It was the culmination of one journey and the beginning of another, paths that began with the unconditional support from his own busy parents.

A kid who dreamed of having kids

For decades, his mom, Patti Myint, fed thousands of university area students, faculty and staff at her Thai-forward International Market restaurant on Belmont Boulevard. His dad, U. Win Myint, taught at Tennessee State University and was a force for religious unity and growth in Nashville, helping launch the city's first Buddhist Temple in 1981.

"I feel I was very fortunate to have the parents I did, not just for the opportunities they gave me, but for exposing me to all religions and worldwide travel," Myint said.

"When I went to [the private] University School, I was one of the only Asian faces around," he said, "and I was one of the only kids in my class who didn't have a bar or bat mitzvah."

Myint said he always felt his parents' love, acceptance and awareness of who he was — in his words, "a gay Asian boy in the South."

"I never had to come out," he said. "As a child, I remember going to Cub Scouts, playing with Barbie dolls, and riding skate boards all in one breath."

Myint remembers as a child wanting to pay forward his parents' love.

"As soon as Barbie and Ken got married in my first play date with friends, I had my first thoughts of fatherhood," he said.

"I wasn’t dreaming of my wife or husband, I was dreaming of my dream child. I saw myself at the park, dropping off cucpakes at school."

Myint had a stint as a nationally successful figure skater in his teens and early 20s, but eventually he became a talented chef after spending years in restaurant kitchens with his mother and her staff.

Around age 30, Myint started giving serious thought to becoming a parent, first thinking he might adopt from one of the orphanages in southeast Asia his parents had supported through the years. Myint then considered adopting an overseas cousin to give one of them a shot at the American dream.

When one of those opportunities fell through, Myint decided to start looking at adopting in Nashville, "my home turf."

Myint discovered, though, several leading agencies were Christian based and unwilling to work with gay Tennesseans or wanting pledges of belief in Christianity from prospective parents, he said.

The Tennessee Department of Children Services required several consecutive weekends of in-person training for prospective foster-to-adopt parents. But Myint's busy restaurateur life and regular TV appearances made that impossible.

"I kept hitting dead ends," he said. "The door slammed, three times specifically."

Shopping for an egg donor

When a friend suggested surrogacy — having a woman carry a baby created with his sperm and a donor's eggs — Myint hesitated, but only for a moment.

"At first I thought, why would I need to genetically birth a child into this world when I could help others?" he said. "But then, it was, 'Oh yeah! They can’t tell me no if it’s my child.'"

Myint, who started the process after moving full time to California during the pandemic, was surprised at the amount of money and work that go into having a surrogate baby.

He had to find a clinic, a doctor, an egg donor, a carrier mom, several lawyers, a hospital, a banker. At one point in the process, he spent $90,000 in one day.

Myint said he is well aware and sensitive to the fact that most people can't afford surrogacy.

"This is a process of privilege, and I don’t take it for granted," he said.

"I was blessed by my parents to be able to use what they set up for me to build my own family on my own terms. And I'm grateful."

In addition to expensive, part of the process were, well, weird.

"When you look for an egg donor in California, there are headshots and resumes, and you have to match like on a dating app," he said, smiling.

The only thing Myint really required was that the egg donor be open to meeting his baby later in life should the baby want to meet his or her biological mom

Myint went through a few donors, several failed implantations and tens of thousands of dollars before his surrogacy dream team finally came together.

The egg donor, who has asked for privacy reasons to remain anonymous for this article, is a "young mixed Black Dominican girl with a perfect smile" — and a high success rate with surrogacy births, Myint said.

She told the Tennessean in an email she was drawn to Myint because "he had had bad luck with previous donors and had been waiting a long time to find someone reliable, so my first thoughts were just wanting to help him."

And, the donor added, "When we met, we both shared a passion for food and culture and had many other things in common, so I felt quite comfortable with him."

The surrogate mom, JoAn Richardson, 41, who previously delivered five other surrogate babies, said she and Myint were "a good match."

"I'm always looking for kindness, and I felt he had a kind soul. And he was nice," Richardson said in a phone interview.

'All of a sudden, you're like, holy crap'

In the final push for fatherhood, Myint and his team secured 13 viable embryos.

"I asked JoAn, 'How many are you willing to put in your body? And she said, "Let's put in the two best.' So now I'm thinking, 'Do I have space for two? Do I have help for two? Do I get two strollers? Do I have money for two for nannies? How do I function with two?'"

Several weeks later, an ultrasound showed only one heartbeat: The male embryo didn't survive.

"Actually, I was fine. I couldn't let myself get emotionally attached to both. The goal was one child," he said, looking down.

At 20 weeks — beyond the "safe" mark for implanted embryos — Myint found himself sitting in his car outside a clinic staring at an ultrasound picture of his baby girl, letting it sink it that he really was going to be a dad.

"It was emotional for sure. And then it's go time!" he said. "Purchase, purchase purchase, build build build. The crib, the nursery, the stroller. All of it!"

And Myint shared the news online, complete with ultrasound pics.

"I don't know about you, but I swear these are the most beautiful feet I've seen in my entire life," he told his Instagram audience at 20 weeks.

The baby arrived two weeks early, so Myint flew out to California just two days before, scrambling to set up a rental house in Southern California.

Myint and his baby, Henley, spent a night in the hospital, where he got a crash course in feeding and bathing a newborn.

And after signing paperwork and getting a big bill, Myint — with a nanny beside — suddenly felt all alone in the parking lot.

"Now what?" he said. "They release your baby, and all of a sudden, you’re like, holy crap."

After a month in California, Myint and Henley flew back to Nashville and started life in their Wedgewood-Houston home, some nights with a nanny, some without.

"I have to zonk out when she zonks out. She has been pretty good. I feed her when she needs feeding. She efficiently poops when she needs to, and I have to clean it, and it’s generous. And I do it," he said, describing their lives together.

"I hate baby voices, but I do it all the time. I speak Thai and English to her. And I give her lots of affirmations. I say, things are perfect. You’re great. You're fine. I love you.

"I just hope I can give her windows of opportunity like I had."

Myint is filled with love and hope and a little sadness that his parents, who both died a few years ago, didn't get to meet Henley.

"She's their first grandchild," he said, shrugging, with tears in his eyes.

"I celebrate them through her," he said. "That's what keeps me going. It's very bittersweet that they're not here. Without them, she wouldn't be here."

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384.

The many faces of Arnold Myint

Arnold Myint as restaurateur: He and his sister, Anna, launched the popular Belmont University area Thai restaurant International Market 2 in 2021, a few years after their parents died. His folks, Win and Patti Myint, operated the original International Market across the street for about 40 years.

Arnold Myint as Suzy Wong: Myint has been a drag queen for decades, performing as Suzy Wong, describing his alter ego this way: "She is a domestic diva, event hostess philanthropist and savvy mixologist who can be seen at exclusive social events across the nation."

Arnold Myint, TV star: The chef competed on Bravo's "Top Chef" in 2010 and on "Food Network Star" in 2015.

Arnold Myint, former nationally renowned figure skater: Myint competed in his teens and early 20s, winning several Junior Olympics medals and launching a career as an ice skater on cruise ships

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Arnold Myint: TV personality celebrates fatherhood as a single dad