Finding Our Way to Family
This Pride Month, Lorna and Emily share their story… Emily and her wife met in the summer of 2020, got engaged in the gardens of Shibden Hall — the home of one of history's greatest queer trailblazers — and in spring 2026, welcomed their daughter Rosalind into the world.
Emily and I met in the scorching summer of 2020 during the brief respite of lockdown - I knew immediately I had found someone special. Our second date was at Shibden Hall, the home of the 19th century lesbian Anne Lister and her wife, and it seemed especially poignant to start our relationship in the home of one of the great queer trailblazers. With lockdown being reinforced only a fortnight later, we were forced to choose whether to bubble together or wait in limbo until it was lifted. We both took the leap and bubbled together; it may have seemed quick even by lesbian standards (!) but we have been together ever since. In 2022, I managed to screw all my courage up to propose in those same gardens at Shibden Hall and reader... she said yes.
Emily and I married in 2024 and decided to take a year to enjoy married life together. Then we decided to explore our options in making our family. We chose to pursue IUI with donor sperm, which at times could be a surreal experience - flicking through the online profiles of donors seemed like a bizarre version of tinder at times! When it came to deciding who would be the birth mother, we decided to metaphorically and literally (!) to split the labour in carrying our children and I was up first. We were lucky to conceive our daughter through IUI quickly, although it turned out that that was the easy part - pregnancy and birth proved to be far more metal than I had ever imagined! Nevertheless, we welcomed Rosalind in spring 2026 and our little squidge has changed our lives more than we could ever have imagined.
Like all new parents, the early days passed in a haze of dazed 4am feeds, catastrophic poonami explosions, frantically googling and fumbling to unfold the expensive new pram which seemed to have been designed specifically as a particularly sadistic intelligence test. Whilst we were both fortunate enough to have supportive friends and family nearby, we nevertheless felt the lack of contact with other queer families. We felt welcomed at other baby events and made friends with other new parents, but nonetheless it felt like we were missing being able to connect with others whose experiences mirrored ours. Luckily, through Proud2bParents, we have been fortunate enough to meet other queer families at meet ups and events to make friends and connect with our community. We both feel it is so important as Roz grows up that there is more than one way a family can look.
Having grown up with a loving and close family, I had always wanted a family of my own. However, when I realised I was gay in my early 20s, I assumed that would be the end of that dream - despite growing up in the gay mecca of Manchester, there were no real role models for queer families in either media or real life. But our community has fought and struggled for decades for our rights to build the families we deserve, and I am in awe even today of the progress we have made. As a teacher, seeing the openness and pride in the LGBT+ young people I teach is a wonderful experience and it humbles me to be able to provide, even in a small way, a role model to others of the family I never thought would be possible.
