Otto said he had thought about adopting while he worked in the museum world – working on film programs and writing grants. But his decision to adopt through the foster care system came after he took a year off and applied his fundraising skills to a job at the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse in Chicago.

“I saw what was lacking in children’s lives and (I) was coincidentally living across from a take-in center for child abuse cases,” he said.

While adopting through the foster care system isn’t the only way of becoming a father – it is the most popular, said Pertman.

Brian Tessier echoed Pertman’s viewpoint. An attorney in family law in Boston, Tessier adopted two boys as a single man and now his oldest son is 14. After his experiences, he started a hotline for prospective single fathers nearly five years ago that now has a Facebook page called “The 411 4 DAD.”

“Foreign adoption is expensive and fraught with its own problems and surrogacy is also expensive and difficult,” Tessier said. “Then when you look at foster care, you have 500,000 kids today in the system and Kentucky is a pretty tough state.”