Paula and Laura: Loving Lesbian Mothers

I have wanted to be a Mother as long as I could remember; I just never wanted to give birth. When I met my wife, Laura, eight years ago, we discussed children and came to the conclusion that we wanted children and would be mom’s together someday. I remember Laura saying, “if you don’t want kids, don’t be with me because I AM HAVING KIDS”! Wow! I felt the exact same way. I knew we were destined to be moms together.

Somewhere down the line we changed our minds about having a biological child. I was meeting my maternal needs caring for developmentally disabled children and we spoke of fostering and the possibility of having a group home for special needs children. We saw a need to care for children that were already here and needed love. I worked with children afflicted with autism and mental retardation and one young boy stole my heart immediately. He was isolative, highly aggressive and had very poor social skills when I first met him. I was drawn to him. I would joke with Laura that one day he would live with us. Albert was 12 at the time.

Albert has lived with us since April of 2005. He is now 16 and flourishing. We started as his foster parents, and ended up so much more. Albert has made us feel like a true family. He has a mother who is not able to care for him and she was brave enough to place her son where he could get the treatment he needed. We have since added another child afflicted with Angelman’s Syndrome into our family. He has a wonderful mother and father. They refer to us as his other moms.

We both are happy to be mom’s and love our boys as if they were are own. It is awesome to be a mom and to care for these children that have made us one big and happy family. Being a gay parent is awesome, but being a parent to a child with special needs has been happily life altering. We wouldn’t change a thing. Except for maybe having 20 more kids.

—Paula and Laura Smith

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