Melissa Etheridge’s Secret

Bailey races into the room. “Look at me!” she cries, hurling herself onto a beanbag chair. “I’m just a laughing frog!” One-year-old Beckett, meanwhile, is being fed by a nanny. The children, whose faces are sweet and apple cheeked, could be lifted out of a Victorian postcard. “Beckett looks just like David, doesn’t he?” says Etheridge, looking on happily, a rock-chick mom in a blue corduroy jacket with silver studs. She produces Crosby’s autobiography, which contains a baby photo from back in the day. The resemblance is eerie.

The pair continues the tour upstairs. “Here’s the bedroom,” says Etheridge. Sun streams onto the floral carpet, a pair of cats sleeps in a chair. “Look at this!” Etheridge says, grabbing a remote control. With a barely perceptible hum, the curtains whiz shut and the room darkens. “That’s our favorite thing about the Four Seasons in New York.”

They pass a home gym (with a chandelier) and head to Melissa’s office. “Look what Julie gave me for my birthday,” says Etheridge. “She took a lot of my T-shirts and made it into a quilt.”

It is a patchwork, says Cypher, of places they’ve been, “places where we’ve had too many cocktails.”

Huey Lewis, says one square. “That was one of my first tours,” says Etheridge. “I opened for them in Europe.” She gazes at it. “I love this,” she tells Cypher.

They head downstairs and plop down on a couch in the kitchen. The kids are off to take a nap, and the women are ready to tell their tale.

It all began in Hawaii, they say, where the two were vacationing. They dropped by to visit David Crosby and his missis, Jan, whom they had met a while back at a show. “We’d see them every now and then at a party, stuff like that,” says Etheridge. As the group chatted, the subject of children came up, and Etheridge and Cypher mentioned their dilemma: Eggs they had. Sperm was another matter.

“And Jan said, ‘What about David?'” says Etheridge. “It came from her, which was the best, most perfect way.” They thought it over for a year before they made the call. “For one, he’s musical, which means a lot to me, you know, and I admire his work,” says Etheridge. “And he has his own life, has his own family.”

A few questions:

What do the kids call you?
“I am Mama, Julie is Mamo,” says Etheridge.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but how did the fertilization occur?
“It was artificial insemination, done privately,” says Cypher.

“We did not use a turkey baster,” adds Etheridge.

“No kitchen implements were involved,” says Cypher.

It was decided that she should carry the babies because of Etheridge’s work. “I was more the homebody, so to speak,” Cypher says. “And I’m a health nut, a fanatic, so I was really good at making babies.”

Are the Crosbys the kids’ godparents?
“No, that would be our dearest friends,” she says, pointing to a picture of a smiling man and woman. “Beckett’s role model,” she says, pointing to the man.

“For people who are worried about the male role model,” says Etheridge. “So many people are worried about that male role model.”

“Sometimes they have a hard time wrapping their head around the fact that this can work,” says Cypher.

Some more questions.

How do your families and friends feel about this?
“Both of our families are so cool about it,” says Etheridge.

“They’re grandkids,” says Cypher with a laugh. “They don’t care how they get ’em — they just want ’em.”

When the couple told Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw, with whom they’ve socialized on both coasts for the past two years, “I thought it was fabulous,” Capshaw says,” after I said, ‘Who’s David Crosby?'” She laughs uproariously. “The name rang a bell! Oh, God. As they sat there with their expectant faces, right? I’m like, ‘I know he was part of a big group that did well.'” She laughs again. “I was listening to Claudine Longet back then, let’s be honest.”

Does Crosby share parental duties?
“It’s not a parental thing for David,” says Etheridge. “David and Jan totally understood that we are the parents.”

“So we see them every once in a while,” says Cypher.

“Julie is adopted,” says Etheridge. Coming from that place — wanting to know who her real parents were — she felt it was important that her children know where they came from.

“Four or five months ago, when she was two and a half, Bailey said, ‘Do I have a daddy?’ I said, ‘Well, yes, you do.’ Pause. ‘Well, who is he?’ I said, ‘You know our friend David, with the funny mustache?’ “Satisfied, Bailey moved on to the next subject. Relieved, so did Cypher.