Gay Dads Keeping Busy With Quadruplets
Sept. 12 -- A playful exchange in a hair salon turned into a history-making event for Michael Meehan and Thomas Dysarz.
A gay couple who own two hair salons in Lexington, Ky., are now the proud fathers of 7-week-old quadruplets, with the assistance of a surrogate mother.
The biological dad, 36-year-old lawyer Meehan, and his partner, Dysarz, 31, are believed to be the first gay couple ever to have quadruplets. They had the children through in-vitro fertilization after Dysarz met the babies' mom, a 23-year-old Kentucky woman, by chance at one of their salons.
Both men joined the woman, who does not want her name publicized, in the delivery room when the four infants were delivered via Caesarean section on July 26.
Taylor, the only girl, was the smallest at 2 pounds, 14 ounces. She and Michael, who weighed 3 pounds, were both born at 3:05 p.m. Jacob, weighing 3 pounds 5 ounces, came next at 3:07 p.m., followed by Tristan, who was born a minute later and was the largest of the brood at 3 pounds, 7 ounces. The new dads say they were shocked to the core when they first heard the mother would give birth to four babies.
"I was like, 'Oh, Lord, help us!' I was a little nervous," Dysarz said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "I was excited — I come from a large family of seven myself, a good Catholic family, and I was just excited."
Longing for a Family
Dysarz and Meehan became a couple in 1998 and decided early on that they wanted to have children together. Initially, they were busy starting up the hair salons, but four years later, they were ready to take the plunge into parenthood.
Since Kentucky law doesn't allow gay parents to adopt, they decided that surrogacy would be their best option, and that Meehan would be the biological father of the first child.
Then Dysarz met the woman who would become their surrogate mother. She appeared in one of the salons, with her three children in tow. Dysarz thought the kids were cute, and kidded her that he wanted to take them home and keep them.
Related Stories
ABC News Live