  urlLink The New York Times > Magazine > The Other Mother : "...Something in the eyes of one twin, in the curve of her smile, resembles K. The dark curls on the other are identical to K.'s brother's. And no wonder: K. provided the eggs for their conception. Those eggs were fertilized with anonymous donor sperm in vitro and implanted into her partner's uterus. On that much the two women agree. They also agree that they were in love at the time and for nearly six years were immersed together in the sweet banality of child-rearing. They even agree that on the day K. began injections to stimulate her ovaries at a San Francisco infertility clinic, she signed a consent form, which, among other things, waived her parental rights. Where they differ is over the meaning of that document, whether it trumps both genetics and K.'s personal relationship with the girls.
E. says that her daughters have just one mother. K. insists that they have two; she has gone to court to prove it. When I met K., a county judge had ruled against her petition to be recognized as a parent, and she was waiting for a decision from the state court of appeals. She hadn't seen the twins, who were living in Massachusetts, in a month, and then only for eight hours.
For her, the issue was simple: she wanted her daughters back. But in this age of conceptions that can be simultaneously multipartied and immaculate -- using egg donors, sperm donors, embryo donors, surrogates, even posthumous sperm -- defining parenthood has become dizzyingly complex. For gay parents, who don't have the same legal protections as heterosexuals, the issue is even more complicated. Cases like K.'s will decide their future, determining what rights, if any, they and their children will have..." 
