Throuple Adopted a 3-Year-Old Daughter and Want to All Be Legally Recognized as Her Parents: ‘Three Times the Love’

Jonathan Bedard, Éric LeBlanc and Justin Maheu all live together as romantic partners — in what they call a triad or throuple — in Montreal, where they realized their dreams of raising a child last month when they adopted their 3-year-old daughter.

The journey was seven years in the making, but they say it isn’t over. Now they want to see the definition of family expanded.

“We’re not objective, but she’s a dream, really,” LeBlanc, a 33-year-old author, tells PEOPLE about their daughter, whose name they wish to remain private. “We can’t wait to see how she’s gonna grow.”

Their story, which has made headlines in Canada, is unique because in Quebec, no more than two people can be legally recognized as a child’s parents, though families with more than two parents have legal standing in other provinces, including British Columbia and Ontario.

Maheu, Bedard, and LeBlanc want the law changed where they live, too, and families like theirs are making progress in the court system.

In April, a judge ruled that the civil code in Quebec is unconstitutional. The local government was given a year to modify its civil code, according to CTV News, but the decision has been appealed by Quebec’s Ministry of Justice.

The three men have hope the law will change and that LeBlanc will be legally recognized as their daughter’s third parent soon — as of now, it’s Maheu and Bedard — and that in sharing the everyday details of their unique-sounding relationship, they can help change hearts and minds.

Despite the questions and criticism they have faced, they say they want the same thing any parents do: to ensure their child’s well-being.

“Our main goal was to raise awareness around our situation and multiple parenting in general,” LeBlanc says.

Maheu, a 40-year-old management consultant, and Bedard, 44, a music teacher, first met in college 20 years ago and became a couple.

About a decade later, in 2018, Bedard met LeBlanc, who was then introduced to Maheu.

As for how they decided that a three-person relationship was for them, they say they’d all had similar non-monogamous relationships in the past and “as we got to know each other, we understood we wanted something more than just friendship.”

For Maheu and Bedard, who were already together, coming to that decision meant having to “evaluate if it [was] something they both wanted,” while LeBlanc was looking to be in a more polyamorous relationship and made it clear that this “was something he wanted to share with them.”

Ultimately, a three-person relationship felt like a “natural extension of the relationship we had already started building,” LeBlanc says on behalf of the group.

Though their relationship was long-distance at first — LeBlanc lived about three hours away before he ended up moving — they did their best to make time for each other.

“We rapidly established that the relationship would be equal … so everybody was on the same level. As any other love story, it is important to talk to get to know one another, but it’s also something you feel, and it felt right for all three of us,” they add.

Although their relationship isn’t easy for everybody to understand, speaking for the group, Bedard tells PEOPLE that “having come out as gay, it may be easier to imagine new models of relationships since traditional models no longer suit us.”

As for why Maheu and Bedard are their daughter’s recognized parents, LeBlanc says that by the time he entered the picture, the other two had already started the adoption process and it “was way easier to just continue through that path.”

The actual adoption process wasn’t always easy.

In April 2022, LeBlanc says, the Integrated University Health and Social Services Center of South-Central Montreal — an agency that delivers health and social services as part of Quebec’s ​​Directorate of Youth Protection (DPJ) — halted their application after the men said they wanted to parent as a throuple.

Following the DPJ’s rejection, they filed a legal complaint, arguing that Quebec law doesn’t prohibit a child from having more than two parental figures, their attorney, Laura Cardenas, tells everything

The agency’s decision was eventually reversed, and the DPJ directed the trio to another agency so that they could undergo a required psychosocial evaluation, one of the final steps in determining whether a family can foster a child, their attorney says.

“They asked a lot of questions about us and our love and work,” Maheu recalls. LeBlanc agrees that “it was a very thorough evaluation process.”

After the second agency determined the group’s home would be a “safe environment” for a child, LeBlanc says they started fostering their daughter, then 1, in November 2023.

After enough time had passed, their adoption became official in September.

Three families are involved in the court case that challenged local laws in Quebec, according to Canadian Affairs — and while the three men aren’t among them, their attorney argues that the current law in Quebec is “harmful for both the parents and the children involved.”

“These children deserve to have those relationships recognized and protected—for the child’s own well-being,” Cardenas tells PEOPLE. “Conversely, when the system only recognizes two out of three or four parents, then the parents whose status is not legally recognized are in a precarious situation: they have less rights when it comes to making decisions for the child (e.g., medical decisions, decisions about schooling, etc.) and they stand to lose much more if they separate or have a falling out with the other parents.”

A spokesperson for Quebec’s Ministry of Justice tells PEOPLE they cannot comment since the case is in court.

Separately, a spokesperson for the Integrated Health and Social Services Center of Montérégie-Est, the agency the men used to adopt their daughter, says they are also unable to comment due to confidentiality.

But in a statement, the spokesperson talked generally about the law — and the process they use to evaluate families, saying “the best interests of children guide the entire process.”

Since going public, LeBlanc, Maheu, and Bedard say they have received a mix of support on the one hand but disapproval, and even hateful and homophobic messages, on the other.

Maheu says that, of course, some people have also had broader issues with their decision to coparent as a group — some of it borne from unfamiliarity. People may see it as odd or unusual.

But he sees it another way: Their daughter has three fathers to care for and support her; it’s not so different, really, from children in blended families, with stepparents and other parental figures.

The trio push back on arguments against throuples with kids — and in the conversations that play out in real life, Maheu says that most people do “understand that [multi-parenting] gives more financial and emotional support.”

“It’s been 20 years since I’ve been with Justin,” adds Bedard, “and it’ll be almost 10 years with Eric. So we are really stable.”

“We’ve always split everything very equally,” LeBlanc says. “Even though I’m not a recognized parent, on a day-to-day basis, I don’t feel any difference.”

Their daughter doesn’t see a difference between LeBlanc and her recognized parents either, says Beddard.

Although they’re not enthralled with the term “throuple,” — they prefer triad — Maheu, Bedard, and LeBlanc have all come to accept it and say that having three parents isn’t just easier on them, it’s also beneficial for their little girl.

“The main thing is that there’s three times the love, three times the income, three times everything,” says LeBlanc. “It’s a story made out of love. And like any other family that has a child, we put the child forward. She’s the most important part. And we’ll always make sure that she has everything she needs.”

Maheu adds, “We have a lot of love to give.”