Almost overnight the couple has gone from being childless to having four babies under the age of 12 weeks.

“It’s nice to have a big family right away,” Michael said.

Chris and Michael recently brought their four bundles of joy back from Thailand after two simultaneous surrogate pregnancies.

The district couple, who spent $76,000 on the surrogacy process, was one of the last to leave Thailand with their children before the Thai military government closed the doors on the surrogacy program. 

This followed a series of international media scandals, including the heartbreaking story of WA couple David and Wendy Farnell, who left baby Gammy with his Thai surrogate because he had Down syndrome.

Chris and Michael’s journey into parenthood started after watching a TV commercial featuring parents playing with their children.

Michael turned to Chris and said: “That’s one thing we’re never going to experience. I wonder if it’s all that it’s cracked up to be?”

Six weeks later and the couple was at an IVF centre in Bangkok.

Now their living room is taken up by four cots – one each for babies Melanie, Megan, Jake and Logan. The twin boys are 11 weeks old and the twin girls are two weeks younger.

The couple had never intended to have this many children.

“Four was a bit of an accident,” Michael admitted.

“But that feeling when we got the first email about the boys and it said two heartbeats was just amazing – I was literally jumping up and down.”

It was a special moment for Chris, who had long ago resigned himself to a life without children.

“I realised I was gay at about 25, and straight away that was the first thing that hit me – that I would never have kids.”

Under mounting pressure from the Thai military government, the two surrogacy agencies Chris and Michael visited collapsed.

Success came with the third agency, which suggested they increase their chances of conception by doubling down on four embryos in two separate surrogates.

 Such an approach would have given them an 85 per cent chance of having one child. But, by some miracle, all four of the embryos took hold.

“I thought four was going to be chaos,” Michael said. “But Chris always wanted a big family.”

The couple was in a hotel room in the Thai capital when news broke of a Japanese man, Mitsutoki Shigeta, who had used the Thai surrogacy program to father 16 children. 

Speculation was running wild and people began making the mental leap from IVF surrogacy to neo-colonialism and human trafficking.

Meanwhile, in Australia, the story of David and Wendy Farnell was also gaining publicity.

Chris and Michael’s dream was becoming a nightmare. “It hit as soon as we got there,” Chris said. “All of a sudden, having four babies was incriminating.”

Surrounded by four sets of children’s equipment, the two men were acutely aware of how they would look to a suspicious local eye. 

They fled the room as Thai military police conducted raids down the street. The Thai government has now enacted laws meaning that other couples desperate for a family cannot experience Michael and Chris’ joy.

“The laws here in Australia are so draconian, and that’s why people are going overseas,” Michael said.

“That’s why all these problems are happening.”

Chris and Michael are semi-retired now and they feel being older will help them to be better parents.

“We’re not giving up anything, we’ve just gained something,” Michael said.

“We don’t mind if we spend the whole rest of our lives just focusing on the kids,” Chris agreed. 

For now, the loving couple has only one plan for the future – to dedicate themselves to raising four beautiful and happy children.

“We bought a year’s supply of everything before we started – hundreds and hundreds of nappies, all the clothes that we’re going to need for the next year,” Chris said.

“But you can’t plan everything.”

The babies are already showing off their own unique personalities.

“They’re completely different, but the boys are more trouble,” Michael laughed.

“But they’re beautiful, they bring so much love into your life.”

After a lifetime of dealing with other people’s prejudices, Michael and Chris are optimistic that Melanie, Megan, Jake and Logan will be part of a more accepting generation.

“It was very difficult to come out as being gay, or even realise that I was gay,” Chris said.

“I’m just hoping that our kids have a much more open environment to be whoever they want to be.

“We want them to be happy, and to just follow whatever they want to do.

“As long as they’re brought up in a loving environment, they’ll be able to withstand all of that negativity.”

It will be a long journey, but Chris and Michael are looking forward to the challenge.

“There’s no such thing as a normal family anymore,” they said.