A gay, polyamorous “throuple” details in an upcoming book how they became the first people to list three parents on a birth certificate.
“The fact that Piper has three parents is just not a big deal. I have three parents myself — my mother, father, and stepmother — and no one thinks anything of it,” said Dr. Ian Jenkins, who is listed as a parent on the certificate and is the author of Three Dads and a Baby: Adventures in Modern Parenting.
“Some people seem to think it’s about a ton of sex or something, or we’re unstable and must do crazy things. [But] it’s really remarkably ordinary and domestic in our house and definitely not Tiger King,” he continued.
The book explains how Jenkins and his partners, Jeremy Hodges and Dr. Alan Mayfield, became parents and the legal battles that took place during that time, the Washington Examiner reported:
Jenkins and Mayfield originally met in Boston, with Hodges joining the picture later, first as a friend and then as an additional romantic partner. After five years of the three being together, the group decided to consider adding to their family with children. That’s when a friend, Delilah, offered up her services as a surrogate. The process was complicated and expensive, with the trio spending $120,000 over the next year on legal fees and a process to adopt an embryo so that each man had equal parenting rights.
When one of Delilah’s embryos was not viable and another did not implant correctly, the men were forced to start the process over again. A friend named Meghan later donated her own eggs.
After working through multiple issues, they were awarded the right to have a “poly birth certificate” just before Piper, who is now three years old, was born.
According to the book’s profile on the Simon & Schuster website, it was “Ultimately the grace of women” that helped them “complete their family with one perfect girl, and become the first polyamorous family ever named as the legal parents of a child.”
According to Jenkin’s posts on social media, the ‘Thruple’ currently have two children and live in California.
In 2018, two men in a relationship with a woman were declared the legal parents of a child in a polyamorous family in Canada, Breitbart News reported.
Additionally, HGTV’s House Hunters introduced its first “throuple,” consisting of two women and one man, in February 2020.
“Polyamory — the state of being in a relationship with more than one partner — is a phenomenon that has risen in prominence as traditional families are increasingly viewed as passé by younger generations,” according to Breitbart News.