Learning to let go of pregnancy and embrace motherhood

We wanted a baby, but I couldn't get pregnant. So my girlfriend started trying.

Embracing motherhood.
(Image credit: Illustration Works / Alamy Stock Photo)

When my partner Abbie and I decided to start a family, we were confronted with a question straight couples never have to answer: Which of us would get pregnant? We both wanted to have a biological child of our own. But how would we go about that? Who should try first? This dilemma ballooned, and after 9 months of my trying to conceive, Abbie announced that she was going to start inseminating too.

I had wanted to have a baby since I was a girl. I was 3 years old when my sister was brought home from the hospital. My mother made sure I had a little baby doll of my own to care for and love, as she cared for and tended to my baby sister. And so the seed was planted. That desire became a certainty as I passed through my teen years into young adulthood. Although in 1979, it was impossible to predict — and seemed almost impossible to imagine — that lesbians would one day raise children in families of their own creation, I knew nothing could stop me from having children. I told my friends when I was ready I would ask a male friend to help me get pregnant and that this person could be involved if they wanted.

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Lisa Arnone

Lisa Arnone is a Smith-educated Clinical Social Worker with over 30 years' experience as a psychotherapist working with adults, children, and couples, as well as running support groups for women, divorcing or divorced, grieving, or just trying to find their way. She is the mother of two boys and a dog. You can find her driving around the city, honking and yelling, with her eighty-year-old Italian father looking for delicacies to bring home to her boys. She writes every free minute and, like Lena Dunham, has opinions about everything.