By Erin Renzas
When Julie Roads and her wife Patti first decided to have kids, they both had such a strong desire to carry a child that they alternated attempting to get pregnant. How did they decide who got to try first? They flipped a coin.
Patti won.
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"I was going to try first, and I was thrilled. But it was really, really hard because it was devastating for Julie," says Patti. "It was hard to win, but it would have been hard to lose." Patti struggled to conceive, and Julie began to try.
"When it was Julie's turn to try, it was just really, really hard," says Patti. "Julie got pregnant first, and I was happy, and it was great that she was pregnant, but I was also a little devastated inside. I really wanted that to be me. It was really hard dealing with that."
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Julie suffered a miscarriage. They moved. They reevaluated.
We were just like, 'This is ridiculous,'" says Julie. "People have twins all the time, and this could be really cool, so let's just both try. We were just going to let the universe decide what would happen, but at least we were both going to get to try and feel really good about that."
After more than a year of struggling to have a baby, the two women decided that they would both begin trying to conceive. Predictably, everyone around Patti and Julie had an opinion and didn't hesitate to question their decision: "One baby is hard enough, why make it even harder?" "Who is going to take care of you?" "What happens when one of you is postpartum and the other has a brand new baby to take care of?"
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"I really had to look inside and not worry about what everyone else was afraid of. I just asked myself, 'Are those things true, or is this just going to be a challenge?'" says Patti. At first the negative reactions deterred the couple from trying to get pregnant at the same time. "But then, once we finally made the decision to just try, it felt like a relief," Patti said.
Julie got pregnant with Sophie in March 2005. On the day of Julie's baby shower, Patti found out she was pregnant with Jack. Sophie and Jack were born seven months apart and share the same donor father.
It was incredible to be pregnant together, the couple says. They read baby books, did prenatal yoga, and fed each other foods that would help the babies develop better.
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"Once we got solid about what we wanted, it didn't matter what everyone else thought. We've done it, and if I do say so myself, we've done it quite well," Patti says. "Did we add a little stress by having more than one? I guess so, but we also get double the joy and double the satisfaction from it. It's been just amazing to watch our children so close in age and growing and loving each other."
Julie says the experience has been amazing, despite the fears of the people around them.
"What is stereotypical, anymore?" adds Patti. "There was just something inside of me where I felt, 'How amazing would it be to be able to be pregnant with your best friend and go through all of this together?'"
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