We were as much on show as any of the exhibits. As it was early January, I suspected London Zoo might not be crowded.

'Are they identical?'

Topped by quizzical brows, the brown eyes were kind, concerned, curious as they skimmed one russet, one pale ginger and one strawberry blond head, uplifted for inspection at my request. I should have put them in their winter coats instead of the three olive green woollies they had received from a cousin that Christmas, but it was a mild day and, as they not been out dressed the same before, I had not anticipated the attention we were receiving. Already in peering mode, those at the zoo were fascinated by these three small people. A pattering of footsteps behind us quickened to overtake and then faces turned, smiling, and, curiosity satisfied, moved off. This visitor had stopped to articulate her interest.

Different hair, different shaped heads and faces configured in quite dissimilar ways, I looked again at my three sons to see if I had missed something. No, they really were as different as when I had last looked at them critically. I would have thought the question as redundant as the answer. Maybe this was just a way to explain the backward glance or merely to make contact. But it was a question and it begged an answer. 'They're completely different...' Was I being too dismissive? '...As you can see.' An inconsequential conclusion seemed called for. 'Say good morning to the nice lady, boys.'

I hadn't been to the zoo for years. Hadn't been anywhere near anything resembling an amusement. How my life had changed in the last four years. As my three boys observed a kindred spirit in the massive silverback gorilla in front them, I paused to reflect on my own journey to this point.

‘I wonder’, I mused aloud, ‘if there are any surrogate mothers on the web.’

‘One way to find out,’ said my friend, another Ian who was standing behind me as I tapped at my keyboard..

I placed the magic word into Lycos. There they were smiling out at me from cyberspace. None was in this country. Most had addresses in Texas or further west. I wondered how they went about surrogating. What was surrogacy about? How did you get started?

The only agency the search engine I was using came up with was in Los Angeles. The site was attractively presented and clearly written. Its title was a clever one—’Growing Generations’. Even I could understand that it was done by artificial insemination, either with the surrogate’s own egg or with one bought from an egg donor. I gathered it was run by gay people, but it seemed to exist for all single people as well as gay singles and couples.

‘Make a date for an appointment,’ Ian suggested. He had seen the smidgen of optimism through the sorrow that the day had brought. ‘We’ll have a trip to California. You’ve got nothing to lose.’ I e-mailed for literature and phoned for an appointment. It all seemed so easy. I felt I was getting somewhere without being quite sure where.

The Growing Generations receptionist was coolly efficient over the phone. The date arranged was Friday 12 November 1999.

Ian decided to come along. If nothing else resulted, we would have a pleasant enough long weekend break in California. I employed a carer to look after my father at home for a few days. On the Wednesday before, we flew to Los Angeles.

I did not know it at the time, but in a process during which there were several dates when conception in one way or another occurred, Friday 12 November 1999 was to be the first of them.

I reached California full of trepidation about the enormity of what I was about to undertake. The clear blue skies and brilliant sunshine of Los Angeles airport did not make it any easier.

It was the awfulness of the Avis rental car that unsettled me first. There it sat with slanted headlights and deep ribbed panels along its flanks, lurid in metallic jade. The smell of vomit-mixed-with-apple-blossom that characterises American plastic exuded from its interior. East? West? Where was the sun setting? Grid-like and logical the American road system may be. Well-signed it is not. All the directions were to go east or west. OK if one knows which way east or west is. There were some hills in the distance, so I guessed the Beverley Hills Hilton lay among them. I headed for them through the evening rush hour traffic, past Hispanic areas and run-down ghettos. At least the Pontiac did not sound as though it was about to break down in one of these very grim and destitute-looking neighbourhoods.

By the time we reached the hotel, I had worked myself up into a panic. ‘It’s all horrendous,’ I said. The huge, gothic limos, the garish buildings, the noise, the truncated staccato speech patterns, the busyness, the vulgarity of it got to me. ‘I can’t do it.’

Ian brought me back to reality. ‘You haven’t done anything yet’. He went out to explore the hotel. Rather than listen to the nasal inflections of the arguing couple in the next room, I busied myself calling reception and requesting a change of room. It was handled with the mechanical efficiency that I had become used to. By 8 o’clock, I was ready for bed. I woke at 2 and watched ‘The Wonder Years’ until dawn, waited for the breakfast room to open at 6.30 and prepared for the day ahead.

‘We do not validate parking’ said the instructions on the Growing Generations fax telling me where they were. It was a foreign language. I drove east—or was it west?—until I failed to find Wilshire Boulevard as the first intersection. Had no one noticed the missing ‘t’, I thought as I three-point turned against the traffic?

Wilshire turned into La Cienega, which turned into something else and back into Wilshire. Fortunately I had allowed two hours for the few minutes’ drive and arrived at San Vicente with an hour to spare.

I found that ‘we do not validate parking’ did not mean that it did not exist. It was just that I had to pay for it. As everywhere in Los Angeles, underground car parks support each building. To kill time, we walked the immaculate pavements, the only pedestrians, expecting a soaking from the hidden sprinkler systems keeping each verdant lawn from succumbing to the constant heat.

At the appointed hour, we entered the Growing Generations building. It was starkly modern and meant business. I realised that GG was a gay-run operation. Ian and I had wondered if we would be taken for a couple. We idly speculated that it might make life easier if we were taken as one. Neither of us is into that sort of deception, though, and while we did not state that we were not linked—the question did not arise—we did not announce our status on arrival. I thought that in California anything goes. How wrong I was.

We were greeted by Teo Martinez, a tall, bronzed young man with a gentle handshake, and ushered into a room dripping with photos of happy parents and babies. Single men, single women, single babies, two babies, two men, two women. We got the picture. The two founders of Growing Generations, Will Halm and Gail Taylor, entered.

They were charming, informative, announced their gay and lesbian status and talked through their programme. I had no idea why a woman would wish to become a surrogate and I am not sure that their explanation made me much wiser. That would come later. They described their surrogates as ‘mavericks’, leading lives that were unconventional with relationships that could be complicated, but all of whom, it seemed, loved babies.

What was necessary, it was stressed, was to build up a relationship with the surrogate. To meet and meet again, to discuss every aspect of the pregnancy before and during it. To come over to renew the relationship, to deliver fresh sperm, to maintain the interest, to support the woman at every stage. It sounded like hard work and the element of angst was never far away. My suggestion of frozen sperm was met with a reasoned comparison of the virtues of fresh versus frozen rather along the lines of carrots. Fresh was determined to be far better. I could never taste the difference.

There was then the question of the egg. The surrogacy could be the insemination of a surrogate or it could be gestational with the surrogate being implanted with a fertilised egg that came from another woman, an egg donor. After the description of the average surrogate who had been presented as leading a life of near-lawlessness on the wrong side of the tracks, I had quite decided I did not want to take a dive into that gene pool. A college graduate egg donor was infinitely preferable. It did not appear that I would also have to strike up a transatlantic relationship with her.

Then it was my turn. I was asked how many children I wanted. ‘Oh, the more the merrier’, I ventured. I had thought the light-heartedness had been evident in my tone of voice. Not in California.

More angst on the perils of a multiple birth for the surrogate. OK, I would be thrilled with one. What sort of business did I run, what could I offer a child? They were building up a picture of me as someone they either would or would not welcome on their programme. All was going well.

‘In eighteen months or two years, you’ll be a parent,’ said Will Halm. ‘You’ll make an excellent father.’

I thought the deal was done.