When single gay man Biancco Gardner finally found a surrogate to help fulfill his dream of fatherhood, he made a relatively unconventional decision: He invited the surrogate to live with him for the course of the pregnancy.

She wasn’t a complete stranger, though. She was his best friend’s cousin, and inviting her to stay helped Gardner manage the astronomical costs of having a baby via surrogacy.

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“The prices make it unattainable for many,” he told GLAAD, explaining that he did all he could to cut costs, including avoiding using agency and choosing traditional surrogacy (in which an egg donor is not used, but rather the surrogate’s genetic material is also used to conceive the baby).

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Inviting her to live with him, he said, was a creative way to give her more assistance without having to spend outlandishly.

“I paid for all the stuff. That way, she could just be comfortable because I knew I could do it. I’d been saving for a while, and it all worked out. My company at the time gave me $14k in assistance as well, so I didn’t have to take out a loan or a home equity line of credit.”

Now, Gardner has a five-month-old daughter, Bianca.

“I don’t remember life before my daughter,” he said, joking that “it’s only been five months of blissful torture. It’s challenging. I had to learn how to function on sleep deprivation. I have great moments where she’s laughing at me, and then the next minute, she’s pooping.”

While his surrogate relinquished any parental rights to Bianca, Gardner is making sure to stay connected to the people she’s genetically related to.

“When [Bianca] starts to ask questions later in life or if some medical conditions come up or if she’s just curious, she doesn’t have to go searching around the world. I can say, ‘Hey, everyone’s right here.’”

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