Between 6 and 10 million children of lesbian, gay and bisexual parents currently live in the United States. The number of unmarried-partner households has increased 72 percent in the last decade, from 3 million in 1990 to more than 5 million in 2000. One-third of lesbian households have children.

This Sunday is Mother’s Day, and as children all over the country, regardless of race, gender, age, religion or sexual orientation, take time out to celebrate their moms, we thought we would tell a few remarkable stories of our own.

Meet Lauren and Carole (last names withheld upon request). More specifically, meet Jan, 8, and Ian, 4. Lauren and Carole are both in their early 40s. Both have successful careers. Lauren is her daughter’s Classroom Lead Parent Helper. Carole is more likely to spend late hours at the office.

“The fact is, we never even considered having children,” says Lauren. “From a practical standpoint, how could we?”

For Lauren, that answer would come in a strange way. Her gay brother was adopting.

“All he could talk about was how much he wished it could be his own baby,” Lauren says. “He kept begging me and Carole for Carole to have it. I remember the first time it was proposed. I thought, ‘Wow, there went mom’s plans for a quiet Thanksgiving.’”

Lauren and Carole graciously declined Lauren’s brother’s request, but the proverbial seed was planted. The question still remained: how to go about it? On the one hand, unlike gay male couples who are essentially left with the option of adopting or surrogacy, one of the women in a lesbian relationship could have the baby, leaving many of the legal and social uncertainties out.

“Here’s where it got tricky,” says Lauren. “We didn’t want to adopt. We didn’t want to have some complete stranger show up years later and make a claim. And we wanted both of us to be a part of the process.”

So Lauren and Carole did what any self-respecting lesbian couple would do: They called in a team of experts. And this is their remarkable story of reproductive technology.

Lauren and Carole decided to go with insemination. Lauren agreed to carry the baby. And Carole, being the “resourceful one,” found just the right donor – herself. That is, Carole provided the egg which was harvested and fertilized, and it was implanted in Lauren to carry to term.

This method, argues Carole, allowed everyone to be a part of the process.

“It allowed me to be a part of Lauren’s experience in a way that was meaningful and beautiful,” says Carole. And so, meet Jan, named after Carole’s grandfather. “It was meaningful for us to name our daughter after my grandfather because of the juxtaposition of the whole thing. It just made sense,” Carole said.

It was a bright August afternoon when Lauren went into labor. Jan was 7 pounds, 6 ounces, and, said Lauren’s brother at the time, “was the spitting image of her moms.”

Naturally, the chromosomes are what matters in the genetic makeup of the child, but for Carole and Lauren, they believe they can see a little of both of them in their daughter.

Several years after Jan was born, discussions of being an only child began. Carole was an only child, and said the thing she wished she had had most of all was a brother or sister to play with. But Lauren was not interested in having another child. Her career as an attorney was taking off, and the thought of another pregnancy was not appealing.

Carole persisted. Lauren resisted. And then, in the midst of a heated discussion, a plan was hatched. This time, Lauren would donate the egg and Carole would carry the baby to term. Fair was fair.

Unfortunately, biology was not on their side. No less than five failed attempts and tens of thousands of dollars (and many emotionally-charged days and nights) later, Carole and Lauren came to a terrible realization: Carole’s body would not accept the in vitro procedure.

So Lauren put her career back on hold, and they returned to the original plan. After just the first try, Lauren was pregnant again. This time, it was a boy, Ian.

Carole and Lauren live with Jan and Ian in La Mesa, and realize the uphill battle they face.

“The truth is that our kids have a battle to face ahead of them,” laments Lauren. “We know that at school, they are already learning to be careful about what they say. What we have gained as women, they lose as children.”

What Lauren means is that when she and Carole had Jan, they “immediately stopped being known as lesbians and immediately were known as moms.”

It has had both its ups and downs. On the one hand, having children is an unmatched glory, says Carole. On the other, they have suffered the frustration – and often alienation – of their friends.

“My friends are hardcore feminists,” explains Carole. “They simply couldn’t understand what would be so important that would cause us to reduce ourselves to trying to fit into society rather than rally against it. It’s impossible for them to understand until they experience it themselves.”

Meet Becky (née Burkley, age 36) and Kathy (age 37) Sangha. More specifically, meet Leilani, their 17-month-old daughter. But when Becky and Kathy first met, and later had a commitment ceremony in 1999, the idea of a baby was nowhere on their radar screen.

“I had always wanted to have children,” Becky says. “But Kathy was more hesitant. We just didn’t think about it for the first few years.”

Instead, they focused on their careers, which for Becky and Kathy meant Sun & Moon Video Productions.

“We did our first documentary, called Youth Out Loud,” Becky explains. “It sort of started the conversation, I think, about what it is like to have kids. When we did our second documentary, Creating a Place at the Table, we began to think about creating our own family. It’s a documentary about lesbian families of different cultures. I guess in many ways those first few documentaries mirrored – or guided – where we were in our own family’s process.”

One interesting element that Becky says many people pointed out is that Becky and Kathy are a biracial couple. Becky is Caucasian and Kathy is Japanese-American. For them, it wasn’t an issue. But it became one when the discussion of children came up.

“Both Kathy and I had worked with youth before,” Becky says. “Kathy was a social worker, and I had worked at The Center and come in contact with a number of foster care and adopted children. We felt that there are already a lot of kids out there, so we really should consider adoption.”

And while the reproductive technology of in vitro can be expensive, the process of adoption can be long and stressful.

“There is so much more planning that goes into adopting,” explains Becky. “When you want to adopt, you go through a series of classes, you maneuver the county system, do a home study, become foster-licensed and then, once you’re finally ready to adopt, you sit in the pool and wait.”

But that wait ended one afternoon shortly after 2:00 p.m.

“I got a call from the social worker who said, ‘We have a baby for you,’” Becky recalls. “We were actually very open about the adoption. We didn’t have any restrictions on the age, race or gender of the child. Kathy wasn’t here, so I put a call to her, but she was in a meeting. I paced for a long time waiting for her to call back. Finally she did, and I said, ‘I think we’re moms.’”

Kathy rushed home, and together they flew to the hospital.

“Leilani was so beautiful,” Becky says. She was 4 pounds, 15 ounces, and a month early. But she was so healthy. And the most beautiful thing happened that day. We got to meet the mother that night. You know how you have this preconceived idea of what kind of person would give up their baby, that they must be some sort of loser or whatever? Well, that is just so far from reality. Here she was doing the thing she believed was best for her child’s future.”

Unlike Carole and Lauren, Becky and Kathy are completely open to the idea of Leilani meeting her birth mother.

“My brother was adopted, and I think he would have liked to have [had] more information,” says Becky. “I don’t think my parents were hiding anything, per se. I just don’t think back then you shared that kind of information. And we’ve interviewed people for films who are adults and were adopted, and they wonder what kind of relationship they might have with their biological parents.”

And how was Leilani’s biological mother with the idea of two lesbians raising her baby?

“Oh, she totally knew we are lesbians,” Becky says. “That was part of what was so beautiful about meeting her at the hospital that night. She asked the social worker to pick a suitable parent. She said her only request was that she wanted her baby to have two parents. She had grown up in a single-parent household, you see. But what was amazing is when the social worker asked her if she minded it being two lesbians, she said that didn’t bother her a bit. And, honestly, she was just so glad that the social worker was able to find a couple where one of the individuals was Asian. That tie made her happy. It was our greatest joy getting to meet Leilani’s biological mother. It may have been one of the most difficult things for someone to do, to give up their own child, but we understood how difficult that must have been, and we were honored.”

Becky and Kathy had to wait until the next morning to take Leilani home, though. So that night was a night of racing around getting everything they needed: a bed, a car seat, a stroller, diapers, formula, etc.

“When you adopt, you don’t have a baby shower,” explains Becky. “So it’s all really quick and on the fly. But all of our friends came together. One friend called who said they had all their preemie clothes, one called with a bed, Kathy’s sister had a car seat.”

More importantly, though, were the droves of people, says Becky, who came by in the months to follow to bestow blessings upon Leilani and her two moms.

Whether a lesbian couple decides to give birth or pursue the adoption process, one thing remains common in their experiences: The minute there is a child in the picture, the primary reference point becomes being a mom, not a lesbian.

“Anywhere you go, you can strike up a conversation about being parents, about being a mom,” Becky says. “Even when they realize you’re a lesbian – because I certainly don’t hide it – people are more accepting about my sexuality because you’re a mom, too. Actually, it’s more like you’re a mom first. And from the moment Kathy and I met Leilani at the hospital that afternoon, we were moms.”

Carole and Lauren agree.

“The moment we announced we were going to have a baby, we stopped being treated as lesbians and we started being showered with familial references,” Carole says. “But the change isn’t just in title alone. The change is within, too. The moment I learned Lauren was pregnant, even I changed the way I thought about her. She became the mother of our child.”