Too Opinionated Interview: Ian Jenkins

Today on Too Opinionated we talk to author Ian Jenkins about his amazing and inspiring story.

Someone once said that every child birth is a miracle.  For Ian Jenkins and his family, it was so much more.  It was – literally – unprecedented.  Because Ian’s two kids each have three dads.

Ian is a hospital medicine specialist in San Diego, and he’s been partners with psychiatrist Alan for almost two decades.  And THEY have been partners with zookeeper Jeremy for about eight years.  They are, in contemporary parlance, a “throuple.”  And their two kids – Piper, 3, and Parker, 14 months – are the first to have a polyamorous family on their birth certificates.

The story of how Ian met Alan, and then Jeremy, and how the three of them are the first polyamorous triad to legally become fathers to their two children, is the subject of Jenkins’ upcoming Three Dads and a Baby: Adventures in Modern Parenting, to be published soon by Cleis Press.  In addition to the usual obstacles that many same-sex couples have in conceiving and bearing children with the help of surrogates, Ian and his partners had to break new legal ground to earn the same recognition as a two-person parental unit.  

That meant having to convince reproductive medicine specialists, potential surrogates, lawyers, and a reluctant judge to join them in creating one of the most unique family “origin stories” one might imagine.  Although this is Jenkins’ first major published effort, he’s a lifelong writer who tells his story with an ease and familiarity that makes even some of the more sensational elements feel perfectly reasonable. 

Three Dads and a Baby offers insight into the personal connection between Ian and his partners and how it strengthens as they pursue fatherhood together. 

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