"If we had known earlier that the clinic would help us to have a baby, we would not have tried it on our own," say mothers from Frýdek-Místek
Right at the beginning I was greeted by a meowing cat - how many do you have?
Jana: Five: four cats and one cat. And they all kind of found us on their own. Foundlings.
Renča: I didn't really want cats.
Jana: Neither did I. (laughs)
Renča: But now they're an integral part of the family.
How long have you lived in Frýdek-Místek?
Jana: It will be four years in the summer. We moved here together.
How did you meet?
Jana: (laughs) Through the internet! We wrote to each other on a dating site, but then Renča didn't answer me. Well, exactly a year later I ran into her there again, so I tried to write to her again and we kind of stayed together.
Renča: We stayed on each other, well. (laughs) I didn't write back, I just always wrote back in a shortened version and in one sentence, because I was very busy at the time and I wanted to have my evening off. So the madam here probably decided at the time that it wasn't worth it. A year later, that time had passed, so we got together and now we've been together for almost six years.
Which one of you is in charge?
Rencha: If someone doesn't know us, they must think we're at each other's throats, but we just have a very specific humor.
Jana: Exactly. In general, there are things where I'm more dominant, and other things where Renča is more dominant. We complement each other.
And how is it in terms of housing?
Jana: We have very similar tastes. One of us comes up with something and the other usually agrees that it's a good idea. But it's true that I'm usually the one who knocks Renča to really make the change.
Rencha: It's true that it takes me a while to get the hang of it. But it's also because it's not our apartment. We're renting. If we had our own house, it would look different. You don't want to invest as much money and energy as you might need.
Jana: We would like to own our own place, but the real estate prices and mortgages... It's going up so much. Who knows if we'll be able to afford it. We had a baby three months ago, so now we're putting our money elsewhere. However, we're looking at something bigger - we live in a 2 bedroom, we're with a baby and cats, so sometimes it's a lot.
What's the last makeover you did in this apartment?
Renča: I recently painted the hall. Luckily I didn't have to scrape, sand or plaster. It lasted one more coat. It will be much worse in the living room, because we will have to scrape here for sure. We do everything ourselves.
You're working on this together?
One of us will think it up, and the other will do it. I'm the other one! (laughs)
Jana: I happen to be a fast learner! But before I met Renča, it's true that I hadn't done anything like that before... However, for example, the wall in my bedroom I not only invented, but I also did most of it myself. I made the pattern with duct tape and then painted the shapes. I saw it on the internet and I really liked it, so I wanted to do it.
I was just looking at you! I invented yellow!
Jana: But I glued it!
I helped you!
Jana: We worked on it all day to make it straight, precise... We tried hard.
What was the first thing you changed in this apartment?
Jana: When we moved in, the kitchen was completely red. A really "screamed" wall. That had to go immediately. The kitchen was different too: the top cabinets were white and the bottom cabinets were red, so I repainted them when I was pregnant last year. We did the table and shelves differently, too.
Renata: We never had a company for anything. Even if we ended up getting a house, we would have done a lot of it ourselves.
Is there anything else you'd like to change in the apartment?
Jana: I would like a different floor, but I don't think that's going to happen. It's not that we can't agree - it's just not our apartment, so it's more complicated and a big investment.
Otherwise, do you always agree?
Jana: Actually, yes. When we did the kitchen, we agreed. It was my partner who came up with the idea that we could do a colour stripe and I thought it was a good idea.
What style of living do you like?
Renča: Totally different than what we have now. (laughs) But with the animals, you can change your mind about a new couch.
Jana: We like a modern, understated, minimalist style. Now we mainly miss storage spaces where we can close things. That's also why we want more space. And we don't know how long we'll be just the three of us.
So you're planning more kids?
Jana: We'll see in maybe two years. We still have two frozen embryos. But we have to consider the overall economic situation so that we can give both children not only everything they need, but also everything they want.
When did you decide to have your first baby?
Renča: It was about three years ago that we said we wanted to. But it took a long time before we were able to conceive - almost two years.
Jana: We spent a year trying on our own and a year at the clinic. We lost our first baby.
I'm sorry...
Jana: Then we had to wait until I got pregnant with Elena. It wasn't an easy journey, but it was worth it.
What does it mean for two women to try to have a child "on their own"?
Jana: It means that we found a donor through the internet who we thought was doing it out of the goodness of his heart. But in the end we were very glad it didn't work out with him because we found out that he was trying to impregnate half of the lesbian community in the Czech Republic. I know of at least four other couples of women. We always met somewhere in a hotel where he left biological material that we injected ourselves - without him, of course. But in retrospect, we know it was stupid and we're glad it worked out with the clinic. Otherwise, Elena might have had a lot of siblings.
Rencha: We were really lucky at the clinic - just the way the little one looks.
Jana: It was great. Even the attitude after we lost our first baby was very empathetic: they helped, advised, took care of us... If we had known earlier that it was possible for us to go through the clinic, we would have gone there right away and not tried our own experiments.
