![\"\"](\"https:\/\/proudparenting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/Rabbi22017.jpg\")
\nRabbi Joel Alter is a happy man \u2014 a new father to two girls, twins born on February 7th. But while he is delighted with his new daughters, Ayelet Ori and Annael Dora, he is also scared. Of the future, and of being a single father for the first time, aged 49.<\/p>\n
Brittany, the surrogate, became pregnant pretty much straight away, but had a miscarriage. However, at the end of June last year, she found out she was pregnant again, this time with twin girls.<\/p>\n
“I feel completely petrified, financially, emotionally, physically, morally,\u201d he says. “I know that I will manage it, I just don\u2019t quite see how yet.<\/p>\n
“It\u2019s incredibly sweet to embrace these little babies, my babies,” he says. “I\u2019ve wanted this for so long and here I am, saying the words ‘my daughters’ in conversation as if it\u2019s the most natural thing in the world.”<\/p>\n
Rabbi Alter is director of admissions for the rabbinical and cantorial schools at the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York.<\/p>\n