NYC dads add two infant sons to growing family in time for Father’s Day — thanks to gestational surrogates

Eight years ago, Peter Thiede and David Turley said “I do” outside the Stonewall Inn, with then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo officiating at their ceremony after gay marriage was legalized nationwide.

Things are a bit different these days for the happily married couple, with plans for a low-key Father’s Day at home alongside their three beautiful children — with a pair of infant boys delivered 10 weeks apart this year joining their daughter.

“This Father’s Day will be very significant for us,” said Turley. “As far as celebrating, it will be like any other day, just triaging, taking care of the kids and diapers. No daddy brunches or anything like that.”

Turley, 44, and Thiede, 43, welcomed their first son this past March and the second barely two months later. Both children were delivered by gestational surrogates, as was their adorable big sister when she arrived back in August 2021.

“Divine intervention,” said Turley, a resident of Washington Heights. “Even though this is what I wanted my whole life, I didn’t know this was the life I could have. We always knew, from the first date — having kids was a dream of both of ours.”

Dr. Brooke Wertz, an NYU Langone Fertility Center reproductive endocrinologist and infertility specialist who worked with the couple, said the multiple such births within a family were not as rare as it sounds.

“A lot of people want more than one child, so their child can have a sibling,” explained Wertz, who first met with the two men in 2019 to help make their hopes come to life.

The parents-to-be paired with the same anonymous egg donor for all three children, starting with their daughter two years ago. The embryos were then matched with the gestational carriers — including one who carried both the nearly 2-year-old girl and one of their sons.

“They were just so grateful,” said Wertz of the proud parents. “I think there was a time when they really didn’t think it was possible to have genetic children .... They were ready to jump in and be positive, highly motivated.”

Thiede, while thrilled by the new additions to his growing family, was just as happy to join the growing number of same-sex couples welcoming their newborns.

“What we did is unremarkable,” he said. “LGBTQ people are having children all the time, all over the country. I don’t think there’s anything remarkable about two dads becoming parents. It’s great in its own right.”

The couple acknowledged hearing their biological clocks ticking after welcoming their daughter.

“We felt we needed to be proactive given our age,” said Thiede. “We want to have as much time as we can with our kids.”

Turley became choked up when thinking about his late father.

“My dad was taken way too young, a wonderful father,” he said. “I’m excited to be a father myself, to have the relationship with my children that I didn’t get to have with my dad.

“Right now, I can feel him looking down.”