Andrew Swann is determined to become a father. For as long as he can remember, it is all he’s ever wanted. But as a single gay man, he hasn’t had an easy road.

“I’d originally had it in my head that I’d like to be a dad by the time I was 40,” he wrote in a recent essay for The Independent. “But here I am at 44 – still trying.”

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Swann, a filmmaker in the U.K., has yet to find the love of his life, but he finally decided he couldn’t put his dream on hold any longer. After breaking up with his boyfriend a few years back, he concluded he didn’t need another man to bring a child into the world and began learning more about surrogacy and egg donors.

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Finding a surrogate, he said, is “a bit like online dating.”

“I spend a lot of time meeting lots of other gay, straight, and single independent parents and building a network of friends and surrogates,” he explained, adding that he had to think hard about whether he would choose gestational surrogacy, where a surrogate carries an embryo that is not genetically connected to them, or traditional surrogacy, where the surrogate is the other biological parent (in the U.S., the legality of each kind of surrogacy varies by state).

When he learned he was a carrier for cystic fibrosis, he decided to go the gestational surrogate route. That way, he could find an egg donor who wasn’t a carrier for the disease and significantly reduce the risk of passing it on to his child.

It was hard, he said, to find someone who fit all the criteria he was searching for, but eventually, it happened: “She had her own family, a good education, and she seemed to be fired up about life. She wrote a lovely message at the end of her profile saying to the child: ‘If you ever choose to look me up, I’d love to meet you.’ It sealed the deal for me because she was happy to meet any future offspring.”

“Not only was she providing something so personal,” he wrote, “but she was also offering herself up in the future to meet any offspring from her eggs.” Because it is illegal to be paid for egg donation in the U.K., other than covering the costs of egg retrieval, Swann knew this person was doing it out of the goodness of her heart.

Swann was able to obtain 13 eggs from this donor, which ultimately resulted in five viable embryos. But he is still waiting to match with a surrogate.

The process is lengthy and unpredictable. “I did get chatting to a surrogate last year through social media,” he said. “Most organizations advise on a three-month ‘getting to know’ phase once you link up. Unfortunately, I wasn’t chosen. You can’t take it personally. It’s whoever you hit it off with. When so many single people and infertile couples deserve a family, it’s a hard decision for any surrogate to make.” He is hoping to find someone within the next six months, but he knows it may take many more months than that, possibly years.

“How long will it take to have a baby via surrogacy?” he wrote. “I mean… how long is a piece of string?”

He also knows that finding a surrogate isn’t the end, either. It may take several attempts for a successful pregnancy.

But one thing Swann knows for sure: He is not giving up.

“It’s so hard not having a partner to bounce off and be buoyant for you and help you make hard decisions,” he said. “Am I ready for it? I don’t know. But I know I want it. I can’t bear the thought that I haven’t given it my absolute everything. “

“I think I’m destined to be a dad,” he concluded. “I will move heaven and earth to achieve that.”

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