Tom Daley has wanted to be a father since he was a teenager.
The 24-year-old diver and his husband Dustin Lance Black welcomed son Robert into the world via a surrogate last month and parenthood has always been a dream come true for the Olympian, who had initially worried his sexuality meant he could never be a dad.
He admitted: "I’ve been shopping for baby clothes for six years, since before I met Lance, since I was 17 or 18.
"There’s nothing I’ve ever been more sure of in my life than having a family.
"One of the things I was so mortified about, so upset about, when I came out, was that I’d never be able to have a family. But then obviously I did more research. Because there’s something so special about passing on what my parents have taught me to children of my own."
Tom admitted he finds it frustrating when people are critical of same-sex parents because they have to "really want" a child as it’s such a lengthy process, whereas some heterosexual couples have to deal with unplanned pregnancies.
He told The Guardian newspaper: "We know we are going to love that child more than anything else in the entire world. As a same-sex couple, we have to really want a child to make that child happen. There’s no glass of wine and a pizza, and then the next day, oh my goodness, I’m pregnant. You have to really want it."
And the couple weren’t impressed by the differing attitudes that greeted them and Kanye West and Kim Kardashian West, who used a gestational carrier for their daughter Chicago, now seven months, because of problems the ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians’ star had experienced while expecting their older children, North, five, and two-year-old Saint.
He said: "I always flash back to when Kanye and Kim announced they were having a baby through surrogacy.
"Apparently Kim had some kind of health issue, the first [baby] was all right, and the second, but the third would be a problem. And it was all, ‘Oh my God, isn’t she so lovely having a baby.’ As soon as it was two men, the narrative quickly shifted."
Tom Daley always wanted a baby
