Nick Loeb

For as long as I can remember, I have dreamed of being a parent. I was only a year old when my parents divorced. My father gained custody, and my mother virtually disappeared from my life. I did not see her again until I was 9, and she died when I was 20. This made me yearn for the type of family based on the images one might see in a Norman Rockwell painting.

My father, whom l love, worked as a financier, philanthropist and diplomat. He was not around much, as work and travel left little time for parenting. It fell to my Irish Catholic nanny, Renee, to raise me. Although my father is Jewish and I was baptized Episcopalian, in my mother’s faith, I spent more time going to Catholic Mass with Renee as a child than being influenced by any other religion.

When I was in my 20s, I had a girlfriend who had an abortion, and the decision was entirely out of my hands. Ever since, I have dreamed about a boy at the age he would be now. Later, I was married for four years to a woman with whom I tried to have children, with help from a fertility specialist. The difficulties we had made me feel, more than ever, that the ability to create life was special. When she left me, as I was running for a seat in the Florida State Senate, my dreams of a family were shattered.

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