The same-sex parents who won custody of their daughter in a high-profile surrogacy case last month flew home with baby Carmen last night.
Gordon Lake and Manuel Santos, both 41, shared a selfie taken in a plane as they were leaving Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport to Valencia, Spain, where their first surrogate son is waiting for them.
“Today is a big day for our family, we just started the journey for our family to be together after 16 months. Tomorrow we will be with our son Alvaro in our home with our family,” read a statement on Facebook.
READ: Foreign same-sex couple says fight to bring Carmen home ‘biggest challenge of their lives’
Carmen was born in January, 2015, through a Thai surrogate, Patidta or Yonrada Kusolsang, before the ban on commercial surrogacy in Thailand.
The couple started an online campaign #BringCarmenHome and took Patidta to court after she refused to sign the documents for Carmen’s passport.
Last month, the Central Juvenile and Family Court in Bangkok granted sole custody of Carmen to Gordon Lake, her biological father, as Patidta is not related to Carmen by blood.
The couple will, however, have to come back to Thailand as they have also filed a lawsuit for defamation against the surrogate mother and her legal adviser Verutai Maneenuchanert for allegedly calling them “human traffickers.”
They described the battle as a “big injustice to the eyes of the world.”
“It’s been a plot to destroy a LGBT family with lies and tricks… We will come back soon because we won’t stop until they pay for all they have done to us,” the family’s statement said.
A court has accepted their lawsuit and the trial is scheduled for May 25.
Reader Interactions