Joy for gay radio host’s twin news

JoyFM radio personality Adrian Perillo has announced he and his partner are expecting twins.

The co-host of the Andy & Adrian show has a surrogacy arrangement that will see the couple become fathers to the pair in June this year.

“Ralph and I are pregnant, we’re going to be Dads,” Perillo said on his radio show yesterday.

The couple, who have been together for seven years, used an agency to find an egg donor and a separate surrogate, both overseas due to the restrictions on commercial surrogacy in Australia.

They travelled to meet the surrogate and her family in India last year.

“There are so many people who are doing it; you’ve got the names like Elton John, Ricky Martin and Nicole Kidman, but there are a whole lot more people doing it that aren’t names, like us,” he said.

Perillo said he and his partner talked at length about whether to discuss their new status as parents on radio, eventually agreeing it would be a good thing to do.

“It seemed natural to do this and we want to talk about it. I want people to know what’s possible” he said.

The news comes a week after a Melbourne gay couple, who paid an Indian surrogate mother to give birth to twin girls, won a major legal case for parenting rights in the Family Court.

It is expected that approximately 350 babies will be brought to Australia in 2011 having been born through international surrogacy. It is currently illegal to enter into a commercial surrogacy agreement within Australia, however most states allow altruistic surrogacy.

The NSW Legislative Council is currently debating an amendment that would criminalise overseas commercial surrogacy arrangements.

For more information on surrogacy for gay men, visit: gaydadsaustralia.com.au