Last night, I watched the pilot of “The New Normal” – NBC’s new comedy about a gay couple going through the process of gestational surrogacy. I think Ryan Murphy might be stalking me. Surely he got the idea for “Glee” from watching me sing to my cat.

But there are a lot of differences between David and Bryan’s experience and ours. First, and perhaps most importantly, David and Bryan are rich. Bryan drives a Range Rover; I drive a Honda Civic. Bryan shops at Barneys; my Barneys jacket was a “gift” from the lost and found closet at my previous place of employment (it had been there 4 months, don’t judge).

Because of their wealth, David and Bryan make the choice to expand their family through surrogacy very easily. It is a matter of weeks between their decision to become parents and their first meeting with a surrogacy agency. (The agency is called “Expanding Families” which is clearly a play on the name of “Company A”, the organization that asked me about my menstrual cycle on their questionnaire.) Alberto and I have been on this path for five years and there have been a number of setbacks and challenges that David and Bryan, with their “platinum plan”, will not have to face. For instance, when things go wrong with their first surrogate, whom Bryan refers to as a “womb terrorist”, they are able to move quickly on to a different carrier. If our relationship with B. devolves into a hostage situation, we’re screwed.

A second difference is that Bryan decides that he wants to be a parent in, like, five minutes. He sees a cute baby at the mall and decides he wants one too. David is easily convinced, but up until then he was content to raise puppies instead.

As I mentioned before, Alberto and I have wanted to be dads our entire adult lives. And as much as I love my cat, he is never going to be a substitute for a child. I think it is dangerous to portray David and Bryan’s quest to become parents as a pursuit of a status symbol because there are many people out there, even within the gay community, that see the recent increase in the number of gay families that way. I get that this is a comedy, and Bryan is already a collection of gay stereotypes played for humor (which I am not generally opposed to), but I don’t think it would have detracted from the comedy to have the intended parents have a more sympathetic or well-considered motive for wanting to become parents.

In the show's defense, it seems to have moved quickly beyond the topic of initial motivation and David and Bryan now appear to want a child for more noble reasons.

Finally, David and Bryan have chosen a carrier that lives in their community. I think it would be great to have B. closer to us so that we could see the pregnancy progress on a daily basis. (And I do mean daily, which is probably why B. will be glad we live a dozen states away.) Unfortunately we will have to make do with Skype, which I understand would be awkward for the TV show.

And now for one of the things that makes me think Ryan Murphy is living under my porch. David and Bryan decide to use David’s sperm because David is an only child and carrying on his DNA would be important to his family, while Bryan has a big family - brothers with kids and a gay sister.

 Ryan, while you’re under there, watch out for the woodchuck.