Unusual Family: 2 Dads, 1 Mom, 8 Kids

Feb. 5 -- In Lexington, Ky., there's a family that consists of eight children, three adults, and every conventional notion of family turned upside down.

There's one dad, Thomas Dysarz, and there's another dad, Michael Meehan. And there's one mom, Brooke Verity, who was only 25 years old when she gave birth to four babies, with Meehan as the birth father, before having another with Dysarz. She also has three children by an ex-husband.

Religious fundamentalists have traveled halfway across the country to protest this relationship. The law reels in the face of uncharted territory. This family's story is messy, lyrical, emotional, stressful, and real — with no guarantee of a happy ending.

Family Values

Dysarz and Meehan have been together for six years. They moved from Los Angeles because they wanted more traditional middle American values around them.

The couple may be challenging convention, but they are decidedly conservative. Dysarz is anti-abortion rights, against divorce, devoutly Catholic, Republican. He and his partner are gay.

"We're just people," said Meehan. "I think people stereotype every gay person's like this, every Catholic's like this."

Meehan is an attorney and a former sheriff's deputy. Dysarz is a hairdresser. Together they opened a successful chain of hair salons and then began to plan to have a family.

Kentucky law doesn't allow gay couples to adopt. But in 2001, one of their clients who had three kids of her own, understood how much children would mean to the two men, and volunteered to carry their children for them.

Verity even agreed to put her life on the line for nearly nothing beyond expenses. Based on a standard agreement for surrogates, she would get $9,000 for living expenses and $750 for maternity clothes, in return for not smoking or drinking during the pregnancy and agreeing to never attempt to obtain custody after the birth.

"There's nothing like hearing your child's cry for the first time, and I just knew that I wanted to do it for someone else," she said.