NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Andy Cohen shared his surrogacy experience as he revealed that his daughter's birth is one of New York's first gestational surrogacies. On the Dear Media podcast 'Not Skinny But Not Fat' by Amanda Hirsch, the 55-year-old talked about his role as a father and also discussed the Tom Sandoval allegations.
"I was going to Albany ... [gestational] surrogacy was illegal in the state of New York until [2020] and I helped get that law passed. And Governor Cuomo, he really made it happen," the Bravo host told of his 13-month-old daughter, Lucy.
Why does Cohen claim Lucy's gestational surrogacy was one of the first in New York?
Until 2020, a type of surrogacy called gestational surrogacy where the surrogate does not use their own egg for fertilization was illegal in New York, according to the New York State Department of Health. The Child-Parent Security Act was passed recently and allowed gestational surrogacy to create more opportunities for family-building. However, traditional surrogacy has been legal in New York since 1992, according to People.
"So I went to Albany a couple of times and I was out there, you know, trying to get it passed. I wanted to have the baby in New York, or I wanted my surrogate to have the baby in New York. And so Lucy was one of the first surrogate babies born here," the writer said. "But also, it was good because it gave me a lot more time to kind of get good at it with Ben," Cohen said of his four-year-old son Benjamin.
'I'm the only gay parent at Ben's nursery school'
At New York City's 92NY, Cohen recently promoted his book 'The Daddy Diaries: The Year I Grew Up', Cohen talked about parenthood. "I'm the only gay parent at Ben's nursery school and the only single parent," he told his longtime friend Anderson Cooper and also added that he was "so grateful" for their friendship as his son sees "Wyatt [Cooper's son] with two dads." He noted that he was "so grateful" for their friendship "because Ben sees Wyatt [Cooper's son] with two dads."
The television personality said that his son "has been saying lately, 'I want another daddy, I want another daddy.' And it's so cool to me that he knows that it would be a daddy," and jokingly added, "My son has excellent gaydar, what can I say?".
