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Catherine Bainbridge had been sure it would all go well.

When her friends Linda and Mona, who are a lesbian couple, decided that they wanted to have a child, Ms. Bainbridge, a documentary filmmaker, wanted to tell their story. "I thought it would be interesting to follow them on their journey," she says. "I thought it would go swimmingly, but right from the get-go, it was hard."

The documentary, Mommy, Mommy, is about the lesbian couple's struggle to become parents. The special airs on CBC Newsworld tomorrow night.

For Ms. Bainbridge, 45, the experience of following the story, which covers the women's hopes, efforts, disappointments and eventually, after four years, happy ending, shook her assumption that Canadian society is as tolerant about the issue of same-sex parenthood as most people believe it is.

Her enthusiasm for her film is like that of a forensic investigator who found something she didn't think she would, and who now feels passionate about pointing out the issue she uncovered.

While Canadians accept gay relationships, the breakthrough in legalizing marriage of same-sex couples "has not helped tolerance of gays and lesbians having children," Ms. Bainbridge believes. "Lots of people say, 'Well, children need parents of both sexes,' and I would say, 'Yeah, you can find [male and female role models] in your child's extended family and among your friends.' If you are a parent, and you want to be a good parent, that's a pretty good start."

Linda and Mona, whose last names are not revealed in the film and which Ms. Bainbridge refuses to divulge in an interview - she says "they were worried about retaliation" - are a well-established couple living in Montreal.

"They had been together for 10 years. They had a cottage, a house, two dogs and, like a lot of women nearing 40, they wanted to have kids," Ms. Bainbridge says.

She and her husband, Ernest Webb, broadcaster, filmmaker and co-founder with her of Rezolution Pictures, had known Linda and Mona for a long time. "My husband and I and our three kids have shared a cottage north of Montreal with them for over 12 years. They are like aunties to my kids."

At first, the women attempted to have a child naturally. But after a friend offered to donate his sperm, they could not find a fertility centre that would perform artificial insemination because they were a same-sex couple. They were about to give up when a clinic finally agreed to artificially inseminate Linda with sperm they obtained over the Internet.

After several failed attempts at conception, the doctor suggested they pursue adoption. "They were devastated, in part because they weren't sure if anyone would let them adopt a child," Ms. Bainbridge says.

The decision led them into the complex world of adoption, a journey made more onerous, at certain stages, because they are a same-sex couple.

Canada allows same-sex couples to adopt children within the country, but the wait time at that point was estimated to be 10 years. They didn't want to become parents in their 50s.

A friend of theirs, a single woman, had successfully adopted two Chinese girls. But China will not allow gays or lesbians to adopt children. Linda and Mona refused to pretend not to be a couple in order to facilitate adoption.

They investigated alternatives through the Secrétariat à l'adoption internationale, or SAI, the government organization in Quebec that sets out the rules for international adoptions in the province. They also travelled to Toronto to meet author and playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald and her partner, playwright and theatre director Alisa Palmer, who found their two children through a California agency.

But each province identifies only one adoption agency they are willing to deal with in different countries around the world - a practice designed to streamline the procedure, Ms. Bainbridge discovered.

Quebec's SAI had chosen a U.S., Christian-right adoption agency, based in Tennessee, that did not allow same-sex adoption. When Linda and Mona, through a lawyer, asked the SAI to approach a different agency, it refused, the couple told Ms. Bainbridge. (Ms. Bainbridge says the SAI declined her interview requests, and it also refused to comment on the case with The Globe.)

Linda and Mona filed a human-rights complaint with the Quebec Human Rights Commission; the decision is pending. In February, 2006, the government agency changed its U.S. adoption policy.

Finally, fate intervened in the women's favour. Linda read a notice about a half-Inuit, half-Caucasian infant boy, David, who was in temporary foster care.

Since she works within the aboriginal community, Linda was known by people close to the boy. It also helped that Ms. Bainbridge and her husband, who is part-Cree, are deeply involved in the aboriginal community, both as documentary filmmakers and as co-founders of The Nation, a newspaper on aboriginal issues in northern Quebec.

After 18 months as his foster parents, Mona and Linda were made legal guardians and will soon complete the paperwork for a full-fledged adoption.

Then, with the same father, the birth mother had another child, a daughter. "They saw that Linda and Mona were forming a nice family and asked if they wanted another baby," Ms. Bainbridge says. "Mona said she could never have told David that they didn't want to take his sister."

When intolerance of same-sex parents occurs, she believes, it is often a reflection of our own fear about being perfect families in a time when home life is under siege, as a result of high divorce rates, the need for dual incomes and modern time pressures.

"Maybe we worry about the wrong things sometimes," Ms. Bainbridge says. Rather than concern ourselves with the traditional father-mother model, we should recognize there are more fundamental principles to being a good parent, she says: "Do your kids feel loved? Do you spend time with them?"

shampson@globeandmail.com