About Isabella

"Before I met Lisa, I was a career woman," Janet recalled. "I wasn't about having kids . . . I was looking to change that. She was a great cook. She loved to bake. I love to eat. I love children. She always said she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and raise children . . . I loved her."

Janet's father, Bucky, recalled his daughter's relationship with Lisa as having a rocky start. At one point, "they had some kind of a spat," he said. "Janet said: 'I'm going to kick her A-double-S out. I'm going to put her clothes on the curb.' My answer was: 'You can't do this. The kid has no place to go. You've already said you'd allow her to move in. You can't put her out on the street. You don't do stuff like that.' " Looking back now on all the loss and sorrow that eventually flowed from Janet and Lisa's relationship, Bucky sometimes wishes he'd kept his fatherly advice to himself.

Lisa later testified that Janet was physically and emotionally abusive to her -- allegations Janet denied under oath. Lisa stayed with Janet, she later testified, because "I did not think I could make it on my own."

"I don't think that I ever truly loved Janet," she said in an interview. "I don't think I knew what love was then."

Nevertheless, the women eventually decided to formalize their union. As symbols of their commitment, they exchanged homemade art projects: Each woman traced her hands and drew hearts in the center of each palm, Janet recalled. They executed wills, powers of attorney and health-care surrogacy documents formalizing, as best they could under Virginia law, their commitment. "We knew we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together," Janet said. "We knew that we wanted to have children. Early on, I knew it was going to be challenging in Virginia."

THE WOMEN INTERTWINED LIVES AT A TIME when options for gays and lesbians trying to form legally recognized families were expanding. In Vermont, a new law recognizing civil unions between same-sex couples went into effect on July 1, 2000.

On December 19 of that year, Lisa and Janet took a brief vacation to Stowe, Vt., to enter into a civil union there, even though their home state of Virginia would not recognize it. Snow blanketed Stowe. The resort was decked with Christmas greenery, as was the home of the justice of the peace where the ceremony was held, Janet recalled. "It was Norman Rockwell," Janet said. "It was beautiful and very low-key. I never wanted a big wedding. It was all about the commitment and the lifestyle we wanted to have."

Lisa recalled being uncertain about taking such a monumental step "because of the way the relationship was going," but she was hopeful that getting hitched might help her and Janet get along better.

Back home in Hamilton, Va., the women ran a day-care business in their home. They joined a Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Sterling. Janet and Lisa helped run children's church services and were named to a committee to make the congregation officially welcoming to bisexuals, gays, lesbians and the transgendered.

In early 2001, the couple decided they wanted to have a baby. Lisa, who was four years younger, would get artificially inseminated. The women decided to find a sperm donor whose physical traits -- such as green eyes -- would be a close match to Janet's, both later testified.

By late August, Lisa was pregnant. To Lisa, getting pregnant was a religious experience. "I thought it was a miracle," she said. As her unborn child grew and stirred, she said, so did her faith.

It was a difficult pregnancy. Lisa's doctor ordered her to stay on bed rest to try to stave off premature labor. Janet recalled trying to support Lisa every way she could. "I had to take care of her 24 hours a day," Janet said. "I was running a [home] business, as well as getting up and making her breakfast, making her comfortable, making sure she had magazines and books . . . I would leave her in the living room, and then I would go run my business. We had walkie-talkies so we could communicate. If she needed anything, all she had to do was hit the walkie-talkie."