Christopher Garcia-Halenar

Chris and Alex were married in May, 2012.

Less than three months later, their first son, Xander, was born in Sacramento, CA. The road to Xander was a pretty easy one. They worked with one the nation’s top surrogacy agencies and were matched with the world’s best surro-mom.

Today, Chris and Alex are the very proud parents of two sons, Xander and Max. What makes Chris and Alex different from many parents of families with small children is they started their family later in life. When Xander was born Chris was 50 years old and Alex 40. Max arrived with Chris at 55 and Alex at 45 years of age.

Chris and Alex are at an age when many of their friends with children are first acknowledging, and many times embracing, the ‘empty nest’ parental stage. Frequent questions and comments are: “Do you really want to deal with the 3:00 am feedings?”; “Oh man, you are brave”; “Don’t you want to retire?”; “Better you than me”.

Chris and Alex laugh it off. They are the lucky ones. When they were younger there were no role models for same-sex families. The idea of two men getting married may have been discussed privately at a dinner table but never in an open forum, and never in the national spotlight of a Supreme Court case.

Times have changed.

They consider themselves trailblazers. They were married at a time when their own state did not recognize their union. President Barrack Obama announced just three days before their wedding that he had softened his stance on same-sex unions and publicly acknowledged that same-sex couples should be able to get married.

Fast forward to today.

Alex is an attorney practicing law with one the top law firms in Fort Lauderdale. Chris is a semi-retired Healthcare executive who has taken time off to be with the boys.

Their combined writing experience is over 50 years of career-based writing of which, up until a few years ago, included no children’s literature.

A natural question at this point: ‘Why would I want to read their work?’.

1. They are really good storytellers. From family history to a re-cap of Max’s dirty diaper, they have the talent to turn vanilla into spice;

2. Together, they have over 100 years of life experiences. In other words, they didn’t just ‘fall off the turnip truck’. Alex has lived both in the US and abroad. Chris grew up in the Midwest before taking the bus to the big city. Both have lived their lives without blinders.

3. They are crazy, crazy, creative. Just look at their scrapbook of family Halloween costumes and you will understand. No project is too large, and no idea is too nutty.

Chris and Alex believe that every child has a unique story and that story must be told. They started their children’s writing work with their first project “Little Miss Crazy Hair” written for their beautiful niece, Vivian. "Little Miss Crazy Hair" was presented as a fifth birthday gift to Vivian but never distributed.

As any good student, they have learned much since “Little Miss Crazy Hair”. They are working on a new and revised release of the book targeted for Summer 2018.

Xander’s Story was written shortly after Xander started to ask questions about his family. The explanation about two dads was the easy part, the tougher discussion was explaining gestational surrogacy. Xander’s Story was written in a way that a five- year-old can understand the basics of surrogacy but more importantly the love which fuels it.

For more information, www.xanmaxbooks.com