Family Values 

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Beverly received both her boys through Lutheran Family Service's foster-to-adopt program, a service that matches medically fragile children with foster parents prepared to deal with the children's special needs. Children within programs such as this are largely unadoptable through mainstream adoption agencies -- unhealthy and usually from ethnic minorities, the children lack the mainstream, picket-fence appeal of healthy white babies. Beverly and Sonja's brood, three of which are black and the oldest of whom is only ten, have faced a brace of illnesses that would have discouraged all but the bravest and most giving of prospective parents.

Joseph, a plump and active boy of 3, has a rare gastrointestinal disorder affecting his body's ability to process waste, and he spent most of his first two years of life in the hospital. He had gone through six familieshis birth family, relatives, and several foster homesbefore coming to live with Sonja and Beverly on his second birthday. All of the children are drug and/or alcohol exposed. Some were exposed to a host of STD's, both in utero and during the birth process.

Aside from the children's medical problems, there are legal problems Beverly and Sonja must face, problems specific to parenting in a gay relationship. In North Carolina, same-sex couples cannot legally adopt together as co-parents. Since Jordan is legally only Beverly's, Sonja cannot sign Jordan's legally binding school forms. In the absence of domestic partner benefits and dual-parent adoption legislation, gay and lesbian co-parents must either develop extensive legal documentation delineating a medical "chain of command" in the event of a child's illness, or simply hope that such drastic measures won't be needed. This lack of shared power to authorize healthcare is made more worrisome to Beverly and Sonja because of the children's health problems. Should Beverly become unable to care for her adopted son, he would not necessarily remain with her partner Sonja -- an unheard-of consequence within a marriage.

Married couples have it easier when it comes to names, too. Both boys have the middle name of Austin, Sonja's last name, in an attempt to unify them as a family and tie them to Sonja in name. The women considered hyphenating the boys' last names, but are not yet comfortable in having Sonja change her last name, or legally changing all of their last names to mark them by name as a family unit.

Unlike Rory and Frank, neither Beverly nor Sonja had dreams of childrearing.

Beverly says she never envisioned herself as a mother "because I was a lesbian. I just never thought it was possible." She says she had no role models, "nothing to look at." Sonja concurs, saying it wasn't in her realm of possibility until, ten years ago, she and her former partner "saw that couple at church."

The "couple at church" Sonja and her former partner saw was a lesbian assistant pastor and her partner who were caring for an infant with full-blown AIDS. The baby was from a group of parentless HIV+ babies being treated at Duke University Medical Center, babies who were dying without knowing, even in their last days, the loving care that only a parent can provide. Social workers and clergy were mobilizing to find homes for these children, specifically seeking gay people to serve as foster parents. Gays are themselves a disenfranchised group, and so were the babies. Gays are themselves scourged by AIDS, and so were the babies. To all involved, it seemed a natural fit. "We got to know [the baby], and we were just enamored with him," says Sonja.

With seeing and holding and knowing this child, Sonja's worldview grew wide enough to admit an infant into the life of a lesbian woman, wide enough to allow a lesbian to assume the role of mother, even without the act of childbirth. Having found a role model, Sonja and her then-partner wanted a baby of their own. The girls arrived in their lives not long after that, and the two women raised them as co-parents.

After fifteen years together, five of those years spent raising the girls, the relationship ended. "We managed, even through the roughest times, to have a stable co-parenting relationship," says Sonja. "The kids are what matters."

Sonja had known Beverly socially, and the two women were good friends and attended the same church. Friendship deepened gradually into love, and the two women moved in together. They co-parent the girls, who spend equal amounts of time with both sets of moms. Beverly attends their school sports events with Sonja.

"People say, "You are one of the four moms!'" she says, "and we say, "Yes!'"

After barely a year together, Beverly and Sonja decided to make an addition to the family, fostering and eventually adopting a boy, Jordan. Joseph arrived two and a half years later.