about us

We’re a happily (and legally, though that part isn’t recognized in our current state) married lesbian couple. We met in Charleston, South Carolina in April of 2007 over an Ernest Hemingway lecture (J’s first word to R was “hypermasculinity”), and – though it took us awhile to act on it – it was an intense connection at first sight.

In May of 2008, we moved from Charleston to the Midwest for more graduate school, which J finished in May 2011. R is currently a dissertating PhD candidate (using post-colonial feminism to trace empowerment within the self-abnegating actions of female literary characters); J works at a small, liberal arts college (where the benefits are pretty cushy compared to those offered by the public institutions we’re used to). We live in a small cottage with our two black, Japanese cats. We share one car, and hope always to do so, or (even better) to move to a city where we can rely solely on public transit. We packed our TV away last summer, though we still have laptops, so we’re not total Luddites. We take lots of walks, which double as therapy sessions. We love cooking, but we’re lousy gardeners. We think a lot about ethics (the food we eat, the products we buy, the relationships we cultivate). R loves overcast weather, and J is a total nerd for spreadsheets. We’re basically quite dull.

We were married in December of 2009, and we conceived our first child – our daughter, Emmett Ever – the following October. We lost her in the second trimester, which changed us in ways we’re still trying to understand. We conceived our second child on May 2nd, 2011. That little guy was due on January 23rd, 2012, but he came – after a seventy-one hour labor – on January 19th, 2012: one year to the day after his sister’s arrival. We named him Abram Adrien (honoring Bram Fischer and our dear friend Adrienne) and call him Bram. R carried Emmett; J carried Bram, but we refuse to cede to the notion that biology is what unites a family, and we look forward to proving all that silliness wrong. We hope to bring home at least two more children, which we’d love to do via adoption.

We’re happy to share our journey with such a thriving parenting community, and we’ve been blessed by the connections this space has brought us.  Now that you’ve found your way here, let us know who you are!