Fridae

Gordan Lake, an American and Manuel Valero Santos, his Spanish husband have won a custody battle that saw them unable to leave Thailand for over a year.

The central juvenile and family court on Tuesday ruled in favour of Gordon Lake, an American and the biological father of 15-month-old Carmen.

In January 2015, the surrogate mother of their baby girl Carmen refused to sign papers that would allow the child to obtain a passport after discovering the parent's sexual orientation. The two men have been living in hiding in the city with Carmen and their two year old son.

"The court has granted legal custody of Carmen Lake to Gordon Lake, my client, and (said) that my client is her only guardian," said the couples lawyer Rachapol Sirikulchit.

"Yes, we won!" Lake said after the ruling, which granted him legal custody. "We are just overwhelmed with emotion. We always knew our story would have a happy ending and we just can't wait for the four of us to be together again."

Santos emerged from the court smiling and with tears in his eyes. "We won," he told reporters. "We are really happy. ... This nightmare is going to end soon. After 15 months, Carmen will fly to Spain," where the couple lives, Santos said.

According to the couple, Patidta Kusolsang, the Thai surrogate, initially handed baby Carmen over to the couple on the day she was born, but changed her mind and refused to sign the required documents.

Lake is the biological father of baby Carmen, while the egg came from an anonymous donor. Kusolsang claimed she did not previously know of the parents' sexual orientation.

The pair's case is especially tricky as a slew of recent surrogacy scandals in Thailand prompted the country to pass a law banning foreigners from engaging in the practice soon after Carmen was born.

See below the couple's full statement on their Facebook page BringCarmenHome:

"There is no way to express with words what we are feeling! We are crying, our family is crying, our friends are crying, and we are sure all the Thai people who showed their love for us during this time are crying too. Today is a huge day for love, for family and for truth. And it is also a big day for LGBT rights.

Carmen will grow up with her family, with her brother, in her home in Valencia. We could have never have gotten to where we are today without the help of so many people from this incredible country. There are so many people to thank, you all know who you are, but we will write a big thank you post when we are safe and sound in Valencia.

We love Thailand and we promise that we will come back often and we will teach our son and daughter to love this country too. Carmen is half Thai and we are very very proud of that.

The book about this crazy experience will reveal everything we went through--everything--the bad people we encountered, and the good ones, the bad experiences, and the good ones. And the WHOLE story will be told...including all the things we couldn´t talk about...until now.

Right now, we just want to go back to our normal lives and try to rebuild what we can, so that Álvaro and Carmen can have the wonderful lives that they were always meant to have.

We are so so happy to be able to change our hashtag to: #carmensgoinghome!"