Around the 6 or 7 week mark, we got our first glimpse of a heartbeat during an early ultrasound.
Monitoring appointments came after that—frequent ultrasounds, hormone levels, belly photos Latonya would text us with updates like "Your kid's already dramatic—wouldn't stop kicking during the scan."
Each message a small miracle, proof that something was growing, that our impossible dream was becoming flesh and blood inside someone else's body.
Every appointment made it feel more real.
But I was still holding my breath like a person underwater, afraid that surfacing too quickly might break the spell.
Around week 20, we reviewed the legal side.
We met with Samantha Ruiz, our lawyer, who laid it all out: parentage petitions, court dates, contracts thick as phone books from a world that doesn't exist anymore.
She made sure we both had our names on every single page, every single form, like she was building a fortress out of paperwork.
"You're both the dads," she said, her voice carrying the authority of someone who'd fought these battles before.
"Let the paper reflect it. Let the law acknowledge what the heart already knows."
In Florida, none of this paperwork would have protected us.
It would have been toilet paper, meaningless as promises politicians make during election season.
Here, each signature was armor.
Each form, a guarantee that no one could question our right to be parents, that our love was legal tender in the marketplace of family.
My phone buzzed during one of Samantha's explanations. Elena's message: "Congressional hearing scheduled. They want your testimony about interstate restrictions." I showed Kevin, who grinned quietly. "Look at you," he whispered. "Changing the world one testimony at a time." "One family at a time," I whispered back, gesturing toward the ultrasound photos scattered across Samantha's desk. "Starting with ours."