Brit couple who had baby via surrogate in US aren't recognised as lawful parents

Two dads are fighting the good fight when it comes to awkward parental rights in the UK.

Adam Frisby and Jamie Corbett welcomed their daughter, Leven, via US surrogate (using an egg donor) in January of this year, but upon attempting to enrol her in the British medical system, they hit a bit of a brick wall.

Under current UK laws, Leven's biological mother remains her legal parent until a 200-page parental order can be approved, which typically takes up to 12 months.

Frustrated with the way things stand, Frisby and Corbett launched a petition to change this particular law, which was debated in Parliament yesterday (7 September).

Joining Sky News presenter Sarah-Jane Mee on The UK Tonight, the pair opened up about their rocky road.

First up was Corbett, who revealed that the doctor's surgery receptionist immediately wanted to know who Leven's mother and father were.

"So I went in and said, 'Well, we're a surrogate family, she has two fathers.' And they said to us, 'Well we can't put that on our systems in the NHS, so we need to know who the mother is.'

"I explained again the situation: she has an egg donor, and we went back and forth for a while with them and in the end the doctor's surgery were actually very good, and she was very understanding," he continued.

But when he and husband Frisby next took their infant to the doctors', there were notes on the system mentioning how they weren't Leven's legal guardians in the UK.

"It's one of those situations that when we go into the doctors' and when we call them, they'll say to us, 'Who's the biological father? We need to know, because we have to have consent.'

"But then because of this grey area around the parental order, even though one of us is legally the biological father for Leven, we're still not classed as her parents in the UK because our surrogate in the US is."

Chipping in, Frisby highlighted the 'mental' and 'emotional' strain the whole ordeal has put on them.

He told interviewer Mee: "When we had the call initially to fight with our lawyer to sort of be told, 'This is what you can't do when Leven's here...', [Corbett] came off particularly emotional and I did aswell.

"We were both kind of like, this isn't how it should be, this is our daughter, we planned her for many many years and actually, we've got all these issues that we may face and you know, God forbid, touch wood, if ever Leven was in need of medical attention in hospital, we'd have to go and get consent from the High Court or from our surrogate and it's just not how it should be, really."

Whilst all this is going on, the couple have even had to endure visits from social workers.

"It just feels wrong in the circumstances," added Frisby. "I always say this, but, a surrogate child isn't an accidental child. They are planned for many years, and so wanted, so to have social workers assess that we're fit enough to be parents when we already are just feels very off."

His other half then rightly pointed out that if social workers are indeed necessary visitors in their home, then surely they should be completing such assessments prior to a surrogate child's birth.