The Parent Trip: Terinae Holland and Aniesha Herder of West Oak Lane

THE PARENTS: Terinae Holland, 29, and Aniesha Herder, 29, of West Oak Lane
THE KIDS: Qaaniesha Loris Herder, 13; Josiah Titus Riel Holland, 10; Justus Eli Holland-Herder, born June 6, 2016
WHERE THEY GOT ENGAGED: In the gazebo at the Fairmount Water Works, when Terinae was about four weeks pregnant.

The first time Terinae got pregnant, she was a stunned 18-year-old in her second semester at Kutztown University. She remembers bolting out of a class in order to vomit. She recalls a two-hour talk with her parents, when her mother advised against abortion and her father told her not to worry about the deadbeat boyfriend.

She also remembers the anguish of labor, so fierce that she hopped off the delivery table in the middle of pushing. And the first few nights at home with Josiah, when she slept with one hand between the bars of his bassinet.

Suddenly, she was no longer a naive freshman excited about on-campus housing and intimidated by her parents. "Having Josiah changed my life around," she says. "He changed me into who I am."

Aniesha had a similar story: an unintended pregnancy at 15, after her first sexual encounter. "I was so young at the time. I was never really taught anything about sex," she says. When she first glimpsed Qaaniesha, after a healthy nine months and an easy birth, "I couldn't believe that she came out of me, that I'd had her and she was really mine." She stayed up until dawn that first night home, watchful and mesmerized by her daughter.

When the two women met - initially online, then during a four-hour date at the Olive Garden - they discovered their lives had covered much common ground. Both had complicated dating histories: Terinae had been married to a man for three years, but was attracted to women and wondered whether she might be bisexual. Later, she lived with a female partner. Aniesha, who came out to her family at 12, had lived with one girlfriend and dated others since Qaaniesha's birth.

This time was different. "The first time we saw each other, we fell in love," Terinae says. She was captivated by Aniesha's habit of reciting lyrics - her own and other people's - and writing soulful love letters.

"It felt natural. It wasn't forced," says Aniesha. "From the time we went out for our first date, we've never spent a day apart."

The two soon found themselves talking about living together, about marriage, about having more kids. And not just talking. Within six weeks of that Olive Garden dinner, they were driving to New York to meet with a sperm donor they'd found through an online site. Both women wanted to be pregnant, and they fantasized about raising "twins" who would share a biological father and be born about the same time.

Twice-monthly car trips to New York (they ovulated on different schedules) initially felt like a bonding experience. After two failed inseminations, disappointment started to cloud the adventure. When Terinae became pregnant on the third try, they decided one baby at a time would be more than enough.

"Something made me take a pregnancy test at 4 o'clock in the morning," Terinae says. "It didn't look like anything was coming up, so I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning, ready to throw the test in the trash . . . but, lo and behold, I saw a faint line. Aniesha was still sleeping. I went over and jumped in her face. Then I took three more tests just to confirm it."

The older kids, at first nonplussed by the idea of a new sibling, grew excited as the pregnancy became more tangible. They began talking eagerly about "when Justus is here," Terinae says.

But those nine months were turbulent: morning sickness so constant and severe that she lost weight, instead of gaining it, until her third trimester. The smell of food, any food, nauseated her, and she felt easily irritated by a wayward comment or a look.

"It was difficult on Aniesha," she says. "Everything bothered me." As her pregnancy neared its end, Terinae did everything to urge the baby out: She bounced on an exercise ball, sipped herbal teas that were supposed to kick-start labor, and tromped up steps instead of taking the elevator.

At work one Thursday, her contractions were 30 minutes apart; by late that night, they came every two minutes. "The only thing I feared was giving birth at home," Terinae says. At Lifecycle WomanCare in Bryn Mawr, she just couldn't get comfortable. "My eyes were burning. I was trying to eat my graham crackers, drink my water. Then I was throwing up. At one point, I jumped off the bed and said, 'I can't do this. This is not for me. Take me to the hospital now.' "

A midwife offered a mirror so Terinae could see evidence of her progress. "It took everything in me to try to figure out how to get the baby out," she says. "Eventually, I gave birth, and what I really loved about it was picking him up to bring him to my chest."

Aniesha remembers feeling intensely curious about whom the baby would resemble. When she glimpsed Justus for the first time, her only thought was: "He's beautiful.

"The donor is Italian and Latino. Our son has dirty-blond hair and gray eyes. He looks like himself."

She calls the early weeks of parenting a "beautiful nightmare" - challenging because they are still a new couple, figuring out boundaries and parenting styles; sweet because Justus greets her with coos and smiles when she walks in the door from work.

"One of the biggest things I've learned is that life is greater than just myself - it's so much greater with people you love, and who love you," she says.

When Terinae tells the story of their first meeting, there is one other thing she mentions. It was Aniesha's baldness - from alopecia, she soon learned - that caught her eye. Aniesha sometimes wore hats to conceal her bare scalp, just as Terinae used makeup to cover the patches on her face from vitiligo.

But quickly, both women shed their masks. This time, there was no need to hide.

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