Scott Hoying and his husband, Mark, have officially become dads. The Pentatonix singer, 34, and his husband welcomed their first child together, a baby girl, via surrogate on June 3. The couple announced the joyful news on June 23 with an Instagram video revealing their daughter’s unique name: Birdie James Hoying.
“It really was beautiful,” Scott told People of the moment he met his daughter. “It was this overwhelming flashback of all these memories growing up and being like, ‘Am I going to find love? Is gay marriage going to be legal? Am I going to be able to have a kid?'” He added that the process of expanding their family took four to five years.
The couple chose Birdie James for deeply personal reasons. The first song Scott ever learned to sing as a child was “Put On a Happy Face” from the musical Bye Bye Birdie. Mark’s middle name is James. “We wanted something that was musical, but not too on the nose,” Scott explained. “And we also just loved that it felt… like it could work at any age”.
Scott’s sister, Lauren, served as the couple’s egg donor, a gesture he described as the ultimate “gift of life”. “I literally cannot believe how selfless she is,” Scott said. “She was so passionate about doing it”.
For Scott, becoming a father carries special significance as a gay man. “I just wish that I had more idols that were queer and gay in media growing up that I could see families and be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, there’s an example of something I can have,'” he shared. “There wasn’t really a lot of that growing up”. He hopes their family can inspire others and challenge perceptions.
