Lesbians Adopt Each Other’s Daughters

When a visitor came to her Long Island house Friday and asked, “Is mommy home?” 4-year-old Chelsey Hoole-Shlakman replied, “Which one?”

Introducing her biological mother, Dee Hoole, Chelsey said, “There is Mommy Dee.” Then pointing to her mother’s lesbian partner, Chelsey said, “And there is Mommy Robin,” referring to Robin Shlakman, who Friday adopted Chelsey.

Suffolk County Family Court Judge William Kent allowed the women - who used the same sperm donor - to cross-adopt each others’ daughters.

“This is the first cross-adoption in the United States by two lesbians whose children are half-sisters,” the women’s lawyer, Dominic Barbara, said Friday.

The women, both 33, have been living together for the last six years. They petitioned for the cross-adoption, they said, to make sure if either of them dies, the other would care for Chelsey and her sister, 19-month-old Sidney.

In light of New York’s highest court ruling that allows unmarried couples - whether homosexual or heterosexual - to adopt children together, the women did not have to argue the case in court. A Court of Appeals ruling 18 months ago made New York the third state, after Vermont and Massachusetts, to recognize the right of unmarried couples to adopt children.

Hoole and Shlakman want to marry, but New York does not recognize same-sex marriages.

The girls’ biological father, who agreed to the adoption, wanted to remain anonymous, the women said. But he called to congratulate them.