...a love story... (non-traditional)ü

Their twin baby girls strapped to their chests, Noe Valley residents Doug Okun, 38, and Eric Ethington, 37, went to City Hall on Feb. 13 to confirm what they already knew in their hearts: They were mates for life. And, by virtue of the sheer adorableness of their family and the presence of many photographers, they became international symbols of gay parenting. Publications from Newsweek to Italian Vanity Fair featured the mediagenic quartet, who have handled the sudden fame with laughter and a shrug of the shoulders. After all, Okun and Ethington, both financial professionals, have their hands full changing diapers. While they chat, they bounce 4-month-old Sophia and Elizabeth on their knees and walk the room with the babies, swaying when they fuss -- as parents have done through all time.
Doug Okun:
Eight years ago, we were both working for Charles Schwab, and met during a business lunch at a restaurant on Belden Place. A mutual friend of ours arranged lunch, not necessarily to set us up, but to see if we might want to work together. There were four of us, so it was not romantic. But it's safe to say that when we laid eyes on each other we both felt that attraction and energy -- we were both very interested.
We were looking for signals to see if the other one was gay and available. We started talking about books. Eric was reading "Hitler's Willing Executioners," which was about Germany and the complacency of a large part of the German population during World War II. It became clear to him right away that I was gay and Jewish.
We were quite smitten with each other and started trading little e-mails on our company system -- little instant messages that we would "ping'' each other with all day. And we just totally fell for each other. This was in 1996, the first week of June. A few weeks later, we had our first official date and right away started seeing each other pretty seriously.
We'd both been in serious relationships before, and learned a fair amount, so we were ready for a long-term arrangement. We found that we had pretty common goals -- and dreams. One of those was that we were really interested in having kids. Eric felt strongly enough about it that he wanted to find out right away if I felt the same -- really, on our second date.
I was 25 when I came out to my parents, and they were the only people in the world who acted surprised. They said all the right things and were incredibly supportive of me, Eric and our relationship. When Eric and I had our commitment ceremony in Napa, my 90-year-old grandmother sent us her wedding china as a gift. And it had been her mother's.
Every step we've taken has evolved so naturally, there was never really a "decision point" at which we decided to move in, have the ceremony or get married. We'd been living together for a couple years. And we were actually on the way home from a couples counseling session when we decided we wanted a wedding. No wine, no candles. Not very romantic. "You know? Let's get married!"
It was a long planning process. We had thought we'd do it in October 1999, but all the venues in the wine country were taken. So we ended up finding a private rose garden in Napa for Memorial Day weekend of 2000. It was amazing - - 300 rose bushes and vineyards.
We wrote our own ceremony and asked a friend to officiate -- the same friend who officiated at our baby blessing a few weeks ago. We had a sit-down dinner and a swing band. About 100 people, a lot of kids. It was really one of the most beautiful days of my life.
It was a real wedding -- only with no legal significance. That's what getting married in San Francisco gave us.
My parents were here the weekend we got married. They had come out for our baby-blessing ceremony, which was the same weekend. We weren't planning to get married, but it came up so suddenly and we were like, of course! But we didn't take my parents -- we just told them we'd be back in a few hours, got the girls dressed up and went down to City Hall. The commitment ceremony was for our families; we wanted the actual wedding to be just for us.
We got a lot of press attention when we were at City Hall because of the babies, and ABC News ended up filming us. So later, when we were home, I told my parents, "Let's turn on the news!" It was the lead story, so our ceremony was on TV. The Reuters photo also ran on Page 2 of the Boston Globe, so my family at home was able to see it.
We've been through a lot together, and having kids? Talk about commitment. That was an amazing journey to go through together. That was when I felt like, "Wow, this is really forever." So when we heard that the city was going to be issuing marriage licenses, we didn't hesitate. Yes, of course!
It was less about the ceremony than it was about the girls, in hopes that this would somehow make their own future more secure. I know I'll be with Eric for life; I've known that since I met him.
Eric Ethington:
There were definitely sparks flying in our relationship from Day 1. In fact, he literally made me lose my breath once. I mean, I am normally a pretty calm guy. But I was walking with a friend down Kearny Street and ran into Doug in front of the Bank of America building. We had just been dating for about two weeks, and I was so discombobulated that I started hyperventilating. My friend Lance was watching all this, and he got me out of there as quickly as possible. "I've never seen anything like that before," he told me.
And believe me, I'd had my share of cute boys -- this was nothing new to me. But in Doug I found the total package. The intellect, the smile, the sense of humor, the physical attraction I felt for him. The undefinable, unquantifiable spark that makes a relationship zing was there right away. There is just something about Doug that, even on our worst days, makes me love him so much.
Things are not perfect -- we have communication issues like every couple. I'm from Mars, and Doug is from Venus. Then again, and I've thought about this for eight years, there is something beyond language in the way we love each other.
From literally our second date, I was asking Doug how he felt about having children and getting married, because I wanted both those things so much. I told him, these are deal-breakers. Luckily, those things were important to him, too.
We could not have had more different backgrounds. I was raised Mormon on a farm in Idaho, and he was raised in a Jewish suburb of Boston. Once I left home at 18, I have not been back. But I thank my Mormon upbringing for my values of family and children. And getting together with Doug is not as far- fetched as you might seem. We both have the "persecuted religious minority" complex (laughs). And there are definitely some parallels.
I came out to myself when I was on a Mormon mission in Korea. "I don't believe any of this, and I'm gay." I came out to my parents after college. They were not surprised because my sister had told them years before that she thought I might be gay. They handled it OK at the time, and then cried for a week. It's been a hard journey for them. Life had not prepared them for this.
But they have come around 180 degrees. After the babies were born, they stayed with us for a week. They now ask about Doug, and talk to him and include him in the holiday card.
But we have not heard from one person in my family about our wedding, except my nephew's wife, who is in Provo, Utah right now. She called and asked, "Do you guys want a copy of the Sunday paper here because you made the front page!" But I have not heard from anyone in my immediate family. I know they read Newsweek, so they have to have seen pictures. I have heard it's caused a little uproar, but you know something? Life's too short, I don't want to deal with it.
We made the decision to speed up the idea of becoming parents after Sept. 11. We were supposed to go to New York on Sept. 12 and have breakfast at the World Trade Center. It made us think, what are we waiting for? We met soon after with an agency that specializes in gay adoptions and we decided to go the surrogate route, since we wanted to have our own biological children. We used donor eggs, too. They were born Nov. 7 at 35 weeks.
Sophia is very animated -- she is always talking and laughing. Elizabeth is not her normal self today, she is so easygoing and has the biggest smile, you think her face is going to break sometimes. They're both so wonderful, I can't imagine life without them. And I know it will only get better -- until they turn 13.
It's been interesting to see how the gay community is embracing parenting. I mean, our lesbian sisters have about a 20-year jump on us. But we're catching up! It's been great, in the wake of the wedding and the photo, to hear from younger gay men who see what we have and say, we want that, too! I feel like we're a role model for them, which is something we didn't have.
We think about having another child at some point; we are not closed to the idea of adoption. I know that we could love and give a great home to almost any child. But we can also have another of our own, since we have embryos on ice. How funny, that sounds like a Vegas show!
We didn't have to discuss getting married at City Hall, we just did it. It wasn't about the politics, or the civil disobedience, or the social activism. Of course, we are also proud to be part of the political and cultural movement it represents -- that is huge. But it was not the reason we did it. It was about our love for each other and our love for our family.