What To Expect When You're Both Expecting As A Lesbian Couple

Do you speak the language of diversity? Learn More.Kate and Emily had been married for two years when they decided they wanted to have a baby. When they both went to a fertility clinic to choose their sperm donor, both women, in their 30s, decided they wanted to try together with the same donor.What they discovered in their most modern of pregnancies in tandem is that they were exploring the frontier of dual motherhood without a guidebook. Their challenges? Both were beset and exhausted by pain and the flood of emotions brought on by hormones, so neither could entirely be there to coddle the other person.Both women also found themselves falling into a culturally sanctioned behavior for women: comparing themselves against the other person and feeling she was coming up short. Kate and Emily took turns feeling bad that her pregnancy wasn't as easy or good as the other or that one person was better at breastfeeding. And another novel challenge: feeling as invested in the baby they didn't carry as the one they did, and the issue that Kate's baby looked Asian and Emily's looked white.At sparks & honey we talk a lot about the morphing of the modern family, and Kate and Emily's pregnancies and challenges are about as modern as they get. But as expanded ideas of gender and sexuality re-shape the modern family, communication about what a family looks like and what its challenges are will have to reflect its continuing diversity. Subscribe to n2 now and receive daily trends, direct to your pocket