TIMES TWO

An unexpected double pregnancy surprises and challenges a publishing executive and her rock-guitarist girlfriend.

The importance of starting a family became paramount for Ellis, vice president of marketing for Real Simple, and her girlfriend Henderson shortly after the New York couple met at a Manhattan lesbian bar in the mid ’90s and began a relationship after reuniting there years later. Ellis recalls growing up business-minded at a young age, eager and determined to leave her Staten Island roots. Once her career took off, however, she struggled with the constant cloaking of her sexuality. Henderson was drawn to music early and enjoyed forming girl bands in high school. She experienced a Lilith Fair performance in college and, together with all-girl rock band Antigone Rising, was signed by a major label in 2003. Both writers braved a series of unsound lesbian relationships before embarking on their own together. Soon committed to each other and carefully contemplating their future—Ellis in New York nurturing her publishing career, Henderson on the road with her band—talk of children surfaced as both yearned for a child. The authors describe their misadventures in ovulation cycles, sperm donors and the clinical insemination process, which was decidedly unromantic and highly stressful as false positives and a heartbreaking miscarriage crushed their hopes. With determination and the aid of medical science, both conceived simultaneously. After the births, they faced complex legalities regarding adoption and religion. Ellis warns: “When you’re a gay woman contemplating motherhood, you will be affected by politics—whether you like it or not.” Undaunted, Ellis and Henderson remain bright, engaging narrators, each evoking separate histories and private sentiments in alternating chapters that differentiate and complement each other. The book is dedicated to their children Thomas and Kate, “our perfect storm.”

A spirited portrait of an unconventional family.