[78][79] The relationship was not made public until May 2017, several months after his presidency had ended.[79]

Obama poses in the Green Room of the White House with wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia, 2009.
In June 1989, Obama met Michelle Robinson when he was employed as a summer associate at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin.[80] Robinson was assigned for three months as Obama's adviser at the firm, and she joined him at several group social functions but declined his initial requests to date.[81] They began dating later that summer, became engaged in 1991, and were married on October 3, 1992.[82] After suffering a miscarriage, Michelle underwent in vitro fertilization to conceive their children.[83] The couple's first daughter, Malia Ann, was born in 1998,[84] followed by a second daughter, Natasha ("Sasha"), in 2001.[85] The Obama daughters attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. When they moved to Washington, D.C., in January 2009, the girls started at the Sidwell Friends School.[86] The Obamas had two Portuguese Water Dogs; the first, a male named Bo, was a gift from Senator Ted Kennedy.[87] In 2013, Bo was joined by Sunny, a female.