I have two mothers.  No, I wasn't raised by a lesbian couple.  I have two mothers, but I only have--and will only ever have--one mom.  She's not the one who gave birth to me, and I'm not "adopted" exactly, so suffice it to say that it's complicated. 

My biological mother (my relationship with her was as clinical and antiseptic as the term implies, so it's very apt) married my dad, whose apartment and office were serendipitously next to hers, a year before finishing her dissertation.  Three months after that, she found out she was pregnant, about six weeks along.  Two months after that, she and my dad rather amicably separated, then quickly and still amicably divorced.  I think she was feeling stuck, resentful that the jet-setting life she had so hoped for was a seeming impossibility now; my dad was tired of her new mean streak directed at him, and her apathy and maybe disdain towards the little blob that would soon be me growing inside of her.  I honestly don't know why she didn't have an abortion--I love my life and am happy to be here (probably because she didn't raise me!), but I would not have begrudged her decision to do so.  She clearly didn't want to be a parent, and one of the few things I remember is that she made sure I knew that she hated being pregnant with me.  

Four months later, my dad has fallen head over heels in love with another woman.  My bio mother doesn't really care, and I imagine she felt relieved at the possibility that someone else would take on what she saw as the onerous and distasteful burden of raising a kid.  She's civil to this other woman, friendly even, invites her into the delivery room with my dad as she's in labor.  The woman makes her very first sacrifice as a mother for me: she shrugs off the awkwardness of helping her boyfriend's ex deliver his baby and steps right up.  She holds her hands, rubs her back, and slips ice cubes into her mouth as my mother pushes; she's the second person, after my teary-eyed dad, to hold the infant that slips out.  "Oh my god, isn't this the most beautiful little baby in the world?" she coos.  "Here, you have the most wonderful baby," she says, leaning over my mother, "She's adorable, and she looks just like you!"  "No, no, I'm too tired," my mother says, waving her arm and making the IV tube wag, rolling her sweaty head to the side.  "I'll look at her later."  My dad's girlfriend is bewildered, but content to stick with him and the baby, watching my father wrap me in a blanket, running her finger reverently over the soft tufts of black hair, admiring the simple perfection of each tiny fingernail.

My dad and his girlfriend married six months later, a simple and sweet ceremony in the rose garden at Madison's Olbrich Park.  Wrapped tightly in my dad's arms, I got to go up on the chairs with them during the Hava Nagila, and my parents keep a photo of it in their room, on their dresser.  What happens with bio-mother after that is for another post, because this is a tribute to my real mom.  

She's an amazing woman, but people underestimate her.  She doesn't wear makeup, or dress fashionably, or use what she calls "hair shit" to amplify her straight, light brown locks.  A born-and-bred Madisonian, she has an accent like Sarah Palin, but unlike Sarah Palin her voice isn't grating--a soft, low murmur, almost musical.  She has a medical degree in epidemiology and a master's in psychology, but despite her keen intelligence and education she's plain-spoken and doesn't pepper her speech with words you have to look up in a dictionary. 

Her love for me astounds me more than my biological mother's disinterest.  She was the one who assiduously kept a baby book, who knows over two decades later what I had for my first solid meal, my first words, and the exact date I first grasped at midline, passing one of the dogs' squeaky toys from left hand to right.  As much as my dad, she delighted in every development in my brother and I, patiently soothed every squall.  She's apologized--apologized--for not being able to breast feed me.  Imagine how ridiculous!  She said yes often, but when she said no, she meant it--this is probably the best parenting advice, besides love, that I've ever learned from her.   She was endlessly patient when it came to us.  When my brother and I were young and threw temper tantrums when a request for a toy or a privilege was denied, she'd take us away from other people, wipe our tears, and gently explain, "Well, now I really can't do this for you, because if I do you'll learn that you get your way by throwing fits, and I'd be a bad mommy for teaching you that lesson."  She only had to explain that a few times, and then the temper tantrums mostly went away.  

When I was a teenager, starting at 12 and lasting until around 15, we had trouble.  I resented her for not being my "real mom," and she was dismayed and shocked that the kid she'd raised, the baby she'd rocked at night, the toddler who she snuggled, the little girl whose hair she'd braided every morning was rebelling so forcefully against her.  She knew too much about kids' reactions to loss to feel annoyance towards my ingratitude, or even to see it as such; she knew that kids don't really want different parents, what they want is for their "real" parents to love them and care for them.  I will never forgive myself, though, for that phase.  I rejected one of the two people who love me most in the whole world; I tried to separate myself from the woman who wanted, adored, what this so-called "real" mother couldn't bring herself to even like.  And she loved me anyway!  I got angry, yelled at her, told her she wasn't my real mom and that it was her fault my real mom was gone, as she'd scared her away.  I made her cry; I hurt her to the marrow of her bones.  I can spend the rest of my life apologizing and loving her and trying to make up for it, because I understand, I understand now, she is my real mother, but it will never be enough.  And funny thing, she begrudges me none of it, forgives completely.  This woman is a saint.

And then I got older, I think a little wiser.  And we grew back together.  I devoured every book she recommended and loved spending weekends in Vietnam--where our family lived for two years when I was in high school--reading with her in the hammock under the palm trees in our yard, tall glasses full of ginger limeade that we'd made from scratch that morning and the dog at our feet, or digging around in the garden and trying to get our tiger lilies to grow.  When I was 17 and we came back to Madison for good we met for lunch on campus, where she taught and I took cello lessons, and I helped with her autism play group.  We read Savage Love together, and I delighted in her matronly, well-modulated, Midwestern-accented voice saying things like, "How do I get my girlfriend to let me cum on her face?" or "My boyfriend says he wants me to buy a strap-on and fuck him in the ass..."  She loved Dan Savage's snarky, no-BS responses, and used the articles as a jumping-off point for discussions with my brother and I about sexual ethics, about demanding respect from and giving respect to one's partner.

Today, I live in the same city as my parents, about a mile from their house.  We see each other roughly once a week, and it seems like we can never stop talking.  I love their relationship--they clearly adore each other, and the solidity of their household, their deep love and respect and passion for each other is yet another gift they gave their children.  I will never get married until I know that I can have a relationship as joyful as theirs.  My mom teaches at the university now and has opened a small private psychology practice, focusing on kids and teenagers.  My dad is retired but has started teaching part-time at UW too and is a volunteer tutor at my old school; she comes home exhausted to a warm, delicious meal, errands already run, house already cleaned, dog already fed.  They will take a long vacation together this summer, two months, backpacking in Yellowstone and camping all over the West.  She's grown spunkier, or maybe that side has emerged only now that she has no young children or teenagers for whom to be a role model.  She likes reading Savage Love and The Onion still; her language has gotten more coarse, and I think she sort of enjoys my shock when she says things like, "How did John McCain become such a fucking douchebag?  What?"  she'll continue, "you think I never heard the F-word before I had you?"

She talks about having me, and it's true.  She didn't carry me in her belly, she didn't give birth to me, and I look nothing like her, but she was there, and she was the second to hold me, and along with my dad the first to love me.  She adored me when my own mother couldn't.  So that's why I have two mothers, but only one real mom.

And I know who that real mom is.