A few weeks ago I connected with Dustin Ling, who was raised in Aruba to Asian parents and now is an openly gay man living in New York City that is a single dad by choice. Dustin was kind enough to help connect me to the other men for this story to help make it possible. Dustin decided he wanted to become a dad and ran into some obstacles during the surrogate search. He explained,”You have to sell yourself, right. And the surrogate, maybe some surrogates want to help straight parents. Some surrogates want to only help couples," Ling says. "Some surrogates want to help a single mom who wants to have a child because she can't. And then you're kind of there as the person of color or as the single dad. So it took a while to even just find a surrogate." His son Spencer, is named after his brother who died by suicide in 2015. His second name is Kai, which really signifies the ocean, since we're from the Caribbean." Spencer Kai was born during the pandemic, forcing Dustin to make hard decisions to limit his exposure and keep he and his son safe. “But in their time together, exacerbated by the isolation of the pandemic, Ling says he and Spencer have spent time learning one another. "He's got an amazing will to him," Ling says. It's a determination the two have in common. Despite the challenges of life as a single gay dad in New York, Ling remains an optimist. He said he is still hopeful to find romantic love, and plans to begin a new surrogacy journey in a few months.” Please read the full story online at @npr, words by Alana Wise. Thank you @virginialoz for understanding my vision and giving me your full support and beautiful layouts. It’s such a pleasure to work with you.