London - Two gay British men have become the parents of twins born in California to a surrogate mother using in-vitro fertilization and plan to register them as the first British children with two fathers and no mother, a London newspaper reported.
The boy and girl, Aspen and Saffron, were born on December 9 in a clinic in Modesto, California, to an American woman, Rosalind Bellamy, who carried embryos created from the eggs of another American and the sperm of one of the gay men.
London's Mail on Sunday carried a two-page spread with interviews by the men, Barrie Drewitt and Tony Barlow.
It also included pictures of them in surgical gowns cradling the babies in the hospital, and of Ms Bellamy, still in bed, handing them to the couple.
Ms Bellamy, from Turlock, California, has four sons of her own, ages 15, 14, 10 and 7. She agreed to act as a surrogate mother after Drewitt and Barlow, frustrated in Britain in their attempts to become fathers, decided to try in the United States.
Ms Bellamy was resting at home on Sunday and declined to comment.
Her husband, Chris Bellamy, said that he "really couldn't think of any more qualified parents" than the men.
"I'm extremely, extremely happy," Bellamy said.
"Our whole family sat down and discussed this. It was a decision the whole family made," said Bellamy, who runs a surrogacy agency.
The men plan to bring the children, whose surname is Drewitt-Barlow, back to their home in Danbury, Essex, east of London, next year and then attempt to have them registered.
"At first it was like it wasn't real. It was only when Aspen came out and cried that it became real. I went into fits of tears," Barlow was quoted as saying of the birth, which came one month premature by Caesarean section.
Barlow, 35, and Drewitt, 32, a former nurse, say they have been together for 11 years and describe themselves as millionaires from having built up a "medical and consumer-testing business."
They were rejected by the county authority in Essex when they applied to adopt children.
Ms Bellamy, a second-time surrogate mother, said the couple won a US Supreme Court order before the babies were born allowing them to register their names on the twins birth certificates as Parent 1 and Parent 2.
A court spokeswoman was unable to confirm such an order on Sunday night.
The men know, but refuse to say, whose sperm was used, but say they will tell the children when the twins are old enough to understand.
Neither the name of Ms Bellamy nor the egg donor, American Tracie Matthews, will appear on the certificate.
The adults were put in contact through a California agency - separate from the one Bellamy runs - that specializes in helping homosexual couples.
The men had previously publicized the impending birth through British newspaper interviews, arousing some controversy, and now face a legal battle.
The Mail on Sunday said lawyers have warned the men that as unmarried fathers they have no automatic right to pass their nationality to the twins, and that the birth certificate issued in the United States may not be recognized in Britain.
"There has been so much prejudice and criticism about what we have done, but none of that matters now," Drewitt was quoted as saying. "We have a family and that is enough for us."
The newspaper said the men will initially care for the twins with two British nannies in a luxury hotel before bringing them home. - Sapa-AP