LEXINGTON - Brooke Verity is confident her quadruplets will be raised well by two gay men.

        The four babies were conceived through an in-vitro fertilization that paired Ms. Verity's eggs with the sperm of Michael Meehan, a Lexington lawyer. He plans to bring up the children with his domestic partner, Thomas Dysarz.

        The quadruplets' July 26 birth at Lexington's Central Baptist Hospital drew worldwide attention and controversy.

        But Ms. Verity, 23, of Nicholasville, has no doubts her babies are in good hands.

        “I don't look at people for color, or opinions or sexual preference. I don't look at what they are, but who they are,” Ms. Verity said in an interview with the Lexington Herald-Leader.

        Ms. Verity can relate to being raised without a mother.

        Her parents divorced when she was 3. Her mother raised her until she was 5, but then Brooke went to live with her father.

        “I couldn't have asked for a better parent. If I needed something, he took care of it,” she said.

        She met Mr. Dysarz, a hairdresser, in 2001. One day, she brought her toddlers to the salon where he worked. That's when he told her that he and his partner wanted to become parents and were looking for a surrogate.

        Mr. Dysarz then introduced Ms. Verity to Mr. Meehan, a former California deputy sheriff and deputy district attorney who had run an unsuccessful race for the California legislature.

        Ms. Verity asked them countless questions and visited them many times. Ultimately, she became convinced that their relationship was stable.

        “I started to trust that they would be good parents,” she said. “I knew that a man could do it because I was raised by my dad.”

        The in-vitro fertilization took place Jan. 6, 2002, at Lexington's Samaritan Hospital.

        The babies, born nearly 11 weeks early, had routine problems common to many premature infants, but overall they were healthy. Ms. Verity was struggling, however.

        “I had the baby blues, postpartum depression. I was in pain. And I was scared for the babies.”

        Her depression was tempered every time she saw Mr. Dysarz and Mr. Meehan in the nursery.

        “Their faces lit up. I was happy that they were happy,” she said.

        The quadruplets, now 6 weeks old, are home with Mr. Meehan and Mr. Dysarz. Ms. Verity talks to Mr. Dysarz on the telephone about every day.

        “I've got a long, hard road,” she said. “But there's always someone there - my mother, my parents and friends. And even though I miss the babies, I would do it again.”

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