Betsy Cohen remembers the days when she and other lesbians taunted heterosexuals with the words, "breeder! breeder!"
Times have changed. Ms. Cohen now has a child of her own, as does Ann Pongracz, her partner.
The Baltimore couple is part of what many gays and lesbians call the "Gayby Boom" -- the growing number of births and adoptions by homosexuals, who are forging long-term partnerships and becoming parents through artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood or adoption.
At home, Ms. Cohen is "Mommie" and Ms. Pongracz is "Momma." Their household -- two women and two children -- never has had a "daddy."
If in the past homosexuals accepted the social edict that to have children you had to be married or at least be in a heterosexual relationship, then those conventions are beginning to change.
"In the last five years, as members of the gay community have developed a more positive self-image, they have begun to have better confidence: They know that they, too, can be good parents," said Marla Hollandsworth, a University of Baltimore law professor who has written articles about gays creating families.
The spurt of births and adoptions has been accompanied by a sprinkling of court cases -- a reflection of the legal system's struggle to accommodate the notion of homosexual parents and the nontraditional families that they are forming. Among these cases are:
* In Wisconsin, the state Supreme Court upheld last summer a lower court's denial of a woman's petition to become the legal second parent of her female partner's child. The court ruled that, unless the biological mother relinquishes her legal rights to the child, a second individual not married to the first cannot simultaneously adopt the child.
* In Massachusetts, in 1993, the state Supreme Court allowed two women to adopt, saying that it was "in the best interests" of the child. One woman is the child's biological mother; the other is the mother's domestic partner.
* In Washington, D.C., the Superior Court denied a petition last year filed by two gay men to adopt a child. One man is already the child's legal parent. The court ruled that under the law, multiple unmarried individuals may not jointly petition to adopt a child. The case is being appealed.
While some courts try to establish parameters for these nontraditional families, others are dealing with their occasional disintegration.
In New York, California and Mew Mexico, "there have been cases of couples who are breaking up. It's a very tragic state of affairs as courts try to figure out what to do," said Tim Fisher, director of the advocacy group, the Gay and Lesbian Parents Coalition International.
"In most cases it is a disaster for the nonbiological parents."
Only two states, Florida and New Hampshire, have laws expressly barring homosexuals from adopting children. In Maryland and elsewhere, issues of adoption by gay couples have been decided state by state, court by court -- sometimes in a contradictory fashion.
"The current laws were drafted to grant adoption by married couples and single heterosexuals. Those same laws are now being interpreted by lawyers and judges in different states to include other types of relationships including lesbian and gay families," said Baltimore attorney Lina Ayers, who is a lesbian and specializes in civil rights.
The desire to have children has led gays and lesbians to develop variations on the traditional model of the family.
Baltimorean John Glorioso, for example, is gay and -- through artificial insemination -- is the father of two children, each of whom has a different mother. The mothers are long-time partners.
The women, who declined to be interviewed, are members of Mr. Glorioso's church.
One Sunday, they approached him and asked if he would consider helping them have a child. He was surprised, but not hostile to the idea.
"I am happily gay. I had never entertained the idea of having children, but I've always liked children," he said.
After meeting with the women several times and comparing philosophies on topics such as parenting, religion, morality and education, Mr. Glorioso, who is 38 years old, decided that he liked the two women and the idea of having a child.
The three adults signed a document in which they agreed that Mr. Glorioso would have visitation privileges, no financial responsibilities and never would make any other legal claims to the child.
"Basically we agreed that the two of them would be parental figures. I would be acknowledged as the father. But who knows if [the agreements are] binding -- there is no legal procedure to recognize this," said Mr. Glorioso, a pharmaceutical technician.
The relationship among the three adults worked so well that they decided to have a second child and to forgo the written agreement.
"It works for us, but we don't make any claims for anyone else. It couldn't have worked out better," Mr. Glorioso said.
Now their eldest child is 4 years old. Mr. Glorioso visits his children about once a week, attends their preschool plays with their mothers and occasionally baby-sits.
Though he plays an avuncular role, he said, the children know that he is their father.
But legal confusion could arise if one of the women died or if Mr. Glorioso changed his mind and petitioned -- as the biological father -- for custody of his children. For these reasons, many homosexuals hope that in the future, legal precedent for dealing with these questions will be set.
Gays and lesbians also argue that it is in the best interests of children to develop laws that uniformly allow them full adoption rights. "A lot of people feel like it's time to go to the courts to protect the children," Ms. Hollandsworth said.
But critics of these nontraditional families say that same-sex households present "a distorted view of sexuality" to children.
"Kids have it tough enough in single-parent families in learning gender identity," said Bob Knight, director of cultural studies for the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
"With the millions of people willing to adopt children and put them in 'Mom and Dad' families, there is no excuse whatsoever to put them in homosexual families," he said.
However, many child care professionals say that the quality of parenting rather than the gender of parent makes the largest difference in child-rearing.
And, though providing gender role models for children is recommended, thousands of single parents successfully raise children.
"It would be very helpful to find a male or female role model, depending on what was needed for the child, but there is no good reason to argue that there is a desperate need," said Dr. Leon Rosenberg, an associate professor of psychology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Medical School.
It is a widely held belief among the general public that children growing up in gay families will also be homosexual, he said.
"It is a perfectly reasonable concern, but we don't have any data to support it. . . . You could also say that the great majority of gay people came from heterosexual parents."
In Maryland, homosexual parents, unwilling to risk the public attention that might come with a high-profile court case -- are hoping that someone else will petition the courts as a gay couple -- and set a favorable precedent.
"We are all waiting for a test case to go through so the kids can benefit," Ms. Pongracz said. "They will benefit with health NTC insurance, taxes, inheritances. Right now, if one of us dies, there's no assurance that the other will remain our child's mother."
In part, a love of children was what drew Ms. Cohen, a 34-year-old Pikesville native with waist-length brown hair, to her 32-year-old partner, Allentown native Ms. Pongracz.
The women met as students at Hofstra University in New York and were friends, but didn't date for several years.
Back then, remembers Ms. Cohen, most gays and lesbians thought that having children was an unattainable dream.
But after getting settled in their careers and buying a house in Baltimore, the two women decided that they would have children.
"We had common goals from the beginning, like a committed, monogamous relationship," said Ms. Cohen, a hearing specialist who runs her own business.
"That included home and family," said Ms. Pongracz, who is an editor.
The couple decided Ms. Cohen, as the elder, would have a child first. They chose artificial insemination via an anonymous donor so "we would be our own nuclear family," Ms. Cohen said. Besides, an anonymous donor could never make a legal claim to their child.
With the coaching of their doctor, she said, "we became pregnant together."
After their son was born, the women decided to have another child -- this time with Ms. Pongracz as the biological mother.
Now the women, their 3-year-old son, 17-month-old daughter, three dogs and a cat, share a midsize house decorated with photographs of grinning children and fingerpainted pictures taped to the walls. However, they're in the process of moving out of the city to a house in Harford County.
Life in nontraditional families such as theirs is not always easy.
The women often field questions from heterosexuals about whether their children will grow up gay. "We were both socialized to be straight and you see what happened," Ms. Cohen said.
"You just can't change what people's chemistry -- for lack of a better word -- is."
They are aware that their relationship causes comment at their son's preschool.
They have declined to have their photographs taken as a precaution against those who might disapprove of their lifestyle.
They recognize that one day their children will ask where their fathers are.
And they're not 100 percent sure what they'll say.
"I would like them to know there is a daddy -- that he doesn't live here with us, but he gave a seed so that [the children] could be born," Ms. Pongracz said.
"Betsy feels that is disingenuous. That the children will think they'll walk down the street and bump into their father one day."
The women's philosophy is to deal carefully with such questions as they arise.
"We stress what we have in this household," Ms. Cohen said.
"Some kids have two moms, some have a mom and a dad, some have two dads. We have no daddies in this house. We have two moms."