David Strah was living in Amsterdam, running philanthropic programs for Nike, when he started thinking about kids. He had been living with Barry Miguel, now executive vice-president at Ermenegildo Zegna, for several years. “I was turning 30,” says Strah. “I just started asking what had given my parents meaning in their lives, and, of course, it was me and my sisters, and that’s when I started thinking about being a dad.” Miguel was less certain about it, but eventually the couple decided to try to adopt in the United States. Contrary to all expectations, the process moved at a dizzying speed. After assuring them that their being gay was not an issue, the first agency they contacted quickly found a birth mother who appeared to be a match. “The first call! It was very unusual,” Strah recalls. Seven months later, Zev was born. By that time, Strah had given up his job with Nike. “Having a child was too precious to work again; it was too much fun. And frankly, one of us had to get a good night’s sleep.” Sleeping was a serious issue, because Zev was six weeks premature and needed to be fed every two hours. “He didn’t grow out of that sleep pattern until he was about 9 months old. Did both of us need this?”

Not unusually, Strah and Miguel found that it was at the moment of collection, rather than any time subsequently, that they encountered discrimination. When they arrived at the hospital, Strah says, “the nurses wouldn’t speak to us, and the doctor wouldn’t speak to us for about a week. Neither would the social worker. I said, ‘Listen, lady, I don’t know who you think you are, but we have been working with this birth mother for seven months, and we are not leaving without this baby!’ ”

Three years later, determined to find Zev a sibling, they went back to the same agency, which hooked them up with a pregnant woman in Nevada who delivered three weeks later. “They handed me this sleeping six-pound baby, and she woke up and looked right at me and I just knew she was my daughter,” says Strah. Again, there were some initial wrinkles. After Summer was born, the couple’s paperwork was not entirely in order, and the baby was handed over to foster parents. Suspecting his and Miguel’s sexuality might also have become a problem, Strah swung into action with their lawyer. Five days later, they took Summer home, and a few months after that Strah started writing Gay Dads (published by J.P. Tarcher), a book encouraging other gays to take the plunge.

The prize for determination to have children should go to Stephen Davis and Jeffrey Busch, who’ve been together for fourteen years. Davis, who runs the digital-library program for Columbia University, is 51, and Busch, a judge in the Bronx, is 40. “We were from the generation of ‘It’s not possible to have kids, and you don’t want them anyway,’ ” Busch says.

For a while, the issue divided them. “For Stephen, it was really not part of his plan,” says Busch. Part of Davis’s hesitation had to do with his own troubled childhood—after his parents broke up, he was left at a young age with the responsibility of raising younger siblings. He also suffered under a stepfather he describes as brutal. But Busch was adamant. “He just wanted a baby, and that’s it. That’s what it really comes down to,” says Davis. “I just concluded that I loved him and I was going to try.” They moved next door to Busch’s parents in Wilton, Connecticut, and decided to find a surrogate mother.

The first attempt failed after the surrogate miscarried at two and a half months. “It took us about a year to decide whether we really wanted to go through that again,” recalls Davis. But they pressed on. As is most often the case, it was a bifurcated process—one woman donates eggs, and another agrees to carry the child. They found an egg donor in Indiana, who, says Davis, seemed “smart and athletic.” Her eggs were then frozen while the two men hunted for a surrogate. Finally, they found a young woman living outside Chicago. Two viable embryos were ultimately produced, one fertilized by each man. Both were implanted in the mother, who carried one to term.

Once again, things got unexpectedly complicated. To prepare for the birth, the surrogate went to her local Catholic hospital and, to avoid any later confusion, explained that the child was going to two gay fathers. The hospital turned her away. Another hospital nearby agreed to deliver the child, but after the birth, confusion still arose. Busch recalls arriving to collect the child: “The social worker said, ‘You understand that you are going to be adopting this child,’ and I said, ‘No, I am the biological father.’ ”

The surrogate mother FedExed them breast milk for six months. “She altered my view of what it means to be emotionally generous,” says Busch, who declines to say how much the couple paid her. Another detail also remains unclear: When he told the social worker he was the biological father, he was trying to make a point, but he wasn’t entirely sure of his ground. Since both men fertilized embryos, but only one survived, he didn’t know who had actually fathered Elijah. Even now, eschewing DNA tests, the couple has no desire to find out.

Amy Zimmerman and Tanya Wexler know precisely who the birth parent is. They have taken turns having their three children and are planning a fourth. They chose a sperm bank in California, because the law there allows children to find out who their father is when they turn 18. After researching the backgrounds of several anonymous donors—paying close attention to their medical histories—they settled on one and had his sperm cryogenically frozen and shipped to New York. They dip into the supply whenever they need it. Wexler got pregnant first and had Jerry. Then, a year later, Zimmerman produced Ella, technically his half-sister. Wexler is now nursing Ruby, who arrived in July. “It works very well. I really had a rough pregnancy this time, so I am glad that next time it will be Amy,” she says.

Whether one is straight or gay, there are few more life-changing experiences than having children, but ostensibly the changes to a gay lifestyle are more dramatic. “Your radar suddenly changes,” says Davis. “It goes from ‘gaydar’ to ‘kiddar.’ ” Strah says he last went to a bar in the summer of 2001. And, of course, it’s farewell to sex. “Sex?” Amy Cappellazzo asks incredulously. “You make love like you’re running for a bus!”

Schutte and Levy—who found a child for adoption by placing a toll-free number in papers upstate—have determinedly held on to as much of their previous lives as possible. Ethan, their son, has become the “mascot” of their Chelsea neighborhood as well as Fire Island. “I will tell you how to get attention in Chelsea,” says Schutte. “Boy-plus-boy-plus-stroller on Eighth Avenue!” With mock sadness, Levy adds: “They are looking down, and we think they are looking at our crotches, but they are not. They are looking at our stroller. They never looked before!”

Like other couples, Schutte and Levy report that support for them has come from both gay and straight friends. Certainly introducing Ethan to Fire Island was not a problem. “He’s easy compared to some of those high-maintenance queens out there!” says Levy. “He goes to bed at nine, he sleeps, he doesn’t take any drugs, and he doesn’t complain or schmutz around the house. And he meets the cutest men, too!” But there was an inevitable shake-out of friends. “Our circle has shifted,” says Levy. “When we got Ethan, some friends we got closer to—and other people drifted away.”