The Parent Trip: Beverly and Naomi Socher-Lerner of Center City

Naomi, the oldest of six, always assumed she'd have a bunch of children. In her community of Modern Orthodox Jews, that's just what people did.

She just didn't figure on having them with a female partner.

Then Beverly crossed her path. The two were sophomores at the University of Maryland; one afternoon, as Naomi was leaving a grueling three-hour Hebrew class, Beverly approached and spontaneously offered her a Fig Newton, which happened to be one of Naomi's favorite cookies.

"I thought, 'This beautiful human,' " Naomi remembers. They didn't meet again until the following fall, when a mutual friend from Hillel reintroduced them: "Oh, you're the Fig Newton person!" They began spending time together, gathering groups of friends for informal getaways and potluck meals.

"There was a definite romantic vibe I was trying to deny for a while," Naomi says. "I wasn't even out to myself yet. I knew I definitely loved Beverly, but I wasn't sure if I should."

Beverly didn't share those hesitations. Raised in a Reform synagogue that welcomed LGBT members, she was out to herself at the age of 14 and told her parents when she was 18. "They didn't have a model of how you could be an adult and be gay and be happy, but once they figured out I could be happy and have a fulfilled life, they were all right."

Beverly and Naomi's first actual date involved a faulty Ferris wheel at a ramshackle carnival. The ride got stuck just as the women's cart hovered at the top. Other passengers were yelling, "Get us down!" while the carnival staff below hollered up, "We're working on it!" But the pair remember it as a calm interlude, just the two of them gently swaying over the hubbub.

Still, there were ideological hurdles to mount before they could call themselves a couple for life: Could Naomi imagine not being part of an Orthodox community? And would Beverly, who planned to be a teacher, consider homeschooling any future children, the way Naomi and her siblings had been educated? The answer to both questions was yes.

They married in June 2013 in Fairmount Park, a wedding rich with religious symbolism, though not legally valid; it would be another year before marriage equality came to Pennsylvania. Both women walked down the aisle; they used a "queer-friendly" version of the customary seven blessings and exchanged vows they'd written themselves.

They were momentarily stumped about who should break the glass; in a traditional Jewish wedding, it's always the groom. "We decided the person wearing flats would do it, and Beverly ended up in heels," Naomi recalls.

Their courtship had lasted seven years, and their engagement 18 months - sufficient time for both families to embrace the idea of their marriage. In fact, Beverly's dad greeted Naomi's father at the end of the wedding by saying, "See you when there's a baby!"

The pair thought they'd wait a while, especially because Beverly was about to launch a Jewish after-school enrichment program. But they soon realized that their attitude toward friends' children had changed; after babysitting stints, they no longer wanted to hand the kids back.

They considered using a known donor but recoiled at possible legal complications. "We didn't want any mistaking of a donor for a father. Our kid has two parents; we thought that was enough," Naomi says.

Choosing a donor from a large national sperm bank was strange and overwhelming. "There's all this information you don't necessarily care about - is he a dog-person or a cat-person; what's his astrological sign?" Naomi says. They narrowed their selection down to a non-Jewish donor - better for gene-pool diversity - with curly hair like Beverly's.

And after innumerable blood draws and 7 a.m. doctor's appointments, Naomi was pregnant. She describes the next nine months as "normal, healthy, with all the normal complaints," including the sometimes-intrusive curiosity of colleagues and strangers. "I had several people get offended that I wasn't letting them rub my belly."

The pregnancy put their egalitarianism to a test; as Naomi became more tired, Beverly picked up more of the cooking and laundry. "We'd remind each other: We're on the same team," she says. They chose Pennsylvania Hospital's midwifery practice because they hoped for a natural birth, with hospital backup in the event of complications.

Labor took three days, beginning at home on a Sunday and ending Wednesday morning. Beverly recalls seesawing between amazement - "Holy cow, that's a head!" - and admiration.

"I was absolutely in awe of Naomi's strength," Beverly says. "I caught Selah and got to say, 'Welcome to the world!' " The name, which appears frequently in Hebrew psalms, is a musical term meaning to pause and reflect on what has just been said. "She came out screaming and bright red," Beverly says. "She came out singing. The sound of her was as shocking as the sight of her."

Naomi remembers "a little, slippery, red infant on my tummy," looking around with alacrity, just as the baby books had predicted.

Their daughter remains opinionated: a baby who, from the time of her birth, did not like to be swaddled or contained. She hums when she eats. "Lots of eye contact. Lots of smiles," Naomi says. "She's very aware of what she wants and how to tell us."

They came home from the hospital on Friday, the Sabbath eve. Relatives weren't yet in town, so it was just the three of them. "It was magical," Beverly recalls. "And crazy. All of a sudden, there's a person in the world who wasn't there before."

The women lit candles and recited the traditional blessing over children: a hope that they will emulate Biblical ancestors. "May God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah" - and the male figures, Ephraim and Menashe.

Then they added a new line, a text their lives have taught them: "May you be like yourself."

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