Family Karma’s Amrit Kapai and his husband, Nicolas Kouchoukos, have officially begun their surrogacy journey.
“We’re ecstatic. I think we’re just at a point, both of us, where we just want to keep adding layers to our relationship, our marriage, and we want to create a family,” Kapai exclusively shares in the newest issue of Us Weekly. “I feel like we’ve done it all. So much of it’s so fleeting, but I think having a kid is just this magical — exhausting — but magical journey. And we’re both very ready to embark on that journey. We’re hoping. Hoping, hoping for at the very least a pregnancy in 2024.”
According to Kapai, he and Kouchoukos, who wed in April 2022, decided to pursue surrogacy in Colombia after a friend of his had “really good things to say about the process down there.”
“There were a couple of things that really stood out for us in terms of doing it abroad. One, it was … a little cost prohibitive to do it here. It’s just so expensive,” he explains. “But even putting that aside, there were certain parts of the process that we really loved hearing about in Colombia, one of which was, for instance, in Colombia, they’ll do as many tries as it takes to get a baby in your arms.”
Not to mention, the country is not too far of a journey from the couple’s home in Miami. “The proximity of Miami to Bogotá is, I think, closer than Miami to Chicago,” Kapai adds.
Kapai and Kouchoukos took their first trip to Colombia in September 2023, during which they met with representatives from the surrogacy clinic, foundation and agency who will be helping throughout their parenthood process. “It was not only our introduction to Colombia and our first time there, but it was our introduction to the process and an introduction to the various people that are going to have a part in bringing our child into this world,” Kapai tells Us.
As an LGBTQ+ couple, Kapai and Kouchoukos also met with a legal team to ask important questions about the country’s laws regarding surrogacy and the queer community.
“What happens if Columbia decides in six months that they want to repeal some of their laws when it comes to surrogacy or when it comes to their LGBTQ+ laws?” asked Kapai. “Because right now today, Columbia is a very, very, very pro LGBTQ+ country… But what happens if that changes?
“That’s such a legitimate concern for us because not only do we have to worry about, well, medically how this is going to take place, but legally the last thing we want to do is go through this entire process and then be told you can’t have your kid back in the country for whatever reason,” Kapai states.
During their trip, the Bravo stars also got to meet directly with potential surrogates, though they have not selected their surrogate yet. “We have selected our egg donor, which is really exciting,” Kapai reveals.
As far as surrogacy specifics, Kapai says he and his husband plan to do an “egg split,” adding, “We’ll split the eggs and fertilize half with Nicholas’s sperm, half with my sperm. So then that way the children – because we want more than one — the children will have the same biological mother, different biological dads, either my sperm or Nicholas’ sperm.”
Though the couple hopes to have more kids in the future, Kapai is hoping their first will be a baby girl.
“I want to be a girl dad and buy pretty dresses for her and learn how to do her hair and all of that really fun stuff,” he tells Us. “But at the same time, there’s so many apprehensions. Well, what if I can’t be that motherly figure that she needs? I don’t know. But I mean, those are again, things that I’m just worrying about now that I don’t need to worry about at this time.”
And Kouchoukos is just as excited for parenthood, added Kapai: “I think he’s more of the, I just want a baby, whether it’s a boy or girl.”
For more on Kapai and Kouchoukos, watch the video above and pick up the latest issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now.
With reporting by Andrea Simpson
