16 I Caregiving and Family Pt 1: What It's Really Like To Receive Long-Term Care When You Have a Disability

In this episode we meet Kathleen Downes- a 31-year-old woman who lives with her parents and dog in New York. Kathleen has cerebral palsy, which means she needs constant care to do daily activities. Kathleen talks about the complicated relationship between care recipients and their families, the broken policies that force impossible choices, and the radical act of finding joy despite a system designed for isolation.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: I’m Julia Winston and this is Refamulating, a show that explores different ways to make a family.

When we started planning this season, we knew we wanted to do a story on caregiving. A friend who had been a caregiver to her father suggested it, and we liked the idea since so many families deal with caregiving at one point or another. 

Our original idea for this episode was to feature what it's like to provide care for a family member. That’s what we were looking for when we did a call out on social media. 

Kathleen Downes: I am a 31-year-old lifelong care recipient with cerebral palsy. I have always needed near total assistance with all activities of daily living. 

Julia Winston: This is Kathleen Downes. She lives in Floral Park, outside of New York City, and she emailed us after seeing our Instagram post looking for people who deal with caregiving. 

Kathleen Downes:I saw on IG that you were looking to talk about how caregiving shapes families. I rarely, if ever, see care recipient narratives told although needing care shapes my every relationship both with my family and my paid caregivers. All of my ideas about what a family can look like for me are also shaped by this reality given that I can’t marry or cohabitate without risking the benefits that fund my care.

Julia Winston: When we heard from Kathleen, we realized how important it is to center the experience of receiving care, as well.

Most of us avoid the topic of caregiving. Think about it, when you picture your life's last chapter, what do you imagine? Is it you and your partner, gray-haired and holding hands on your front porch? Or maybe it's living in a fabulous house with all your closest friends, trading jokes like the Golden Girls. Few of us imagine spending years with limited mobility and depending on others to make sure we eat and use the bathroom. 

It feels scary, but here's the thing – if we're blessed with a life full of deep connections, giving and receiving CARE is going to be part of our story. And not just in our later years – it shows up throughout our lives in all sorts of ways. Sometimes it's the care we expect, like having a baby or helping aging parents. Sometimes it's unexpected – an accident, an illness, a child who needs extra support. This is all just part of being human, we all have bodies that will eventually break down. When it comes to giving and receiving care, it's not a question of if, but when and how.

Right now, one in five adults in the United States is caring for a loved one – that's 20% of us stepping into a role that nobody feels totally prepared for, but one that represents some of the deepest expressions of love we can offer each other. 

Another reality of caregiving is it often falls on family members to do it. It’s expensive and logistically difficult for most people to get outside help, so caregiving often ends up having a massive impact on family dynamics.

Kathleen Downes: we have a real culture of fear and disdain towards needing help with things, especially in America. And there was sort of that realization that I represent, some people's worst fear for themselves.

Julia Winston: Today's story looks at caregiving from a perspective we don't often hear – what it's like to be on the receiving end. As you listen, I invite you to notice your own reactions. Where do you feel resistance? What makes you uncomfortable? Because let's be honest – caregiving can be scary to think about. 

But when we open up these conversations, when we make space for all kinds of care stories to be told, we're doing more than just sharing experiences. We're helping build a society that's more honest about what it means to care for each other, and maybe even one that's better equipped to support us all when we need it most. 

Kathleen Downes: I have a brain injury that occurred at some point in utero. So Basically, cerebral palsy is the functional consequence of that brain injury. the communication between my brain and the rest of my body is, you know, not wired correctly. I have very limited movement. Um, And I have a lot of spasticity, meaning that all of my muscles are unnaturally tight.

Julia Winston: For Kathleen, this muscle tightness means she often feels like she's fighting against herself. Because of that she mostly moves around in a power wheelchair and needs help doing most physical activities. 

Kathleen Downes: So getting dressed, going to the bathroom, taking a shower, setting up food. Um, I have some use of my hands, but not enough to, um, you know, complete most tasks independently. the CP, it's been a huge shaping factor in the person that I became. So I don't. I don't really see my CP as a, um, you know, as a positive or a negative. It's just something that is, like, you know, like my hair color or whatever. Obviously it has a much bigger impact on my life than my hair color and it shapes everything. But it's not something that I see myself as battling against or, you know, an opponent of any kind. 

Julia Winston: This is Kathleen’s relationship with her disability. And I wanted to know, what was her relationship like with her family? 

Kathleen Downes: I live with my mom and my dad and then I have an identical twin sister whose name is actually Claire, um, and she lives in Manhattan, and I have Um, and an older sister. She lives outside of New Orleans in Louisiana. 

Julia Winston: What have your relationships with your siblings been like through the years when it comes caretaking and the roles they've played or just in general,

Kathleen Downes: They never provided much physical care to me growing up. I don't think my parents ever wanted them to feel like they had to be the physical caregiver. But having a twin is a lot of fun, and contrary to what a lot of people think in, in popular culture, I'm sorry to say that we don't have   . but it's also hard sometimes because you're pretty much seeing an exact parallel life, like, she looks exactly like me, but walking. So it's complicated. 

It's hard sometimes to have somebody who's my exact age, but able bodied, and I want all the best things for her, and I want her to do all the things that she loves, and I want her to go get the job, get the apartment, get the cat, do everything, because she's the best. But at the same time, it's very difficult to know that she has her own apartment, and a job that pays enough to live on her own and she can travel on her own and choose where she wants to go. And knowing that there's only one thing preventing that from being the truth for me. And I'm sure she feels sad about that sometimes too. 

Julia Winston: I want to learn about your experience being the recipient of caregiving through different stages of your life. Starting when you were a child, did having a disability and needing care make you feel different? What was your relationship to these circumstances when you were a child?

Kathleen Downes: I've never known a life where I didn't need an extreme amount of help. So it's not like there was ever a time that I was completely independent. But when you're a little kid, it's less isolating because everybody is being taken care of by their parents.

And then when you start to hit like, you know, middle school especially, and people are starting to become physically independent and obviously they're dressing themselves, they're going to the bathroom on their own, they're doing all that on their own and you're not, that's sort of, I think one of the first big realizations that you, you're not like everybody else .

And at some point, My life really diverged from my able bodied peers because I still needed help with all the other things that they were able to do.

Julia Winston: What was Caregiving like for you when you were a child and then what was it like to receive care during puberty? And when you became a teenager.

Kathleen Downes: So when I was little, it was mostly my parents. Yeah, and then in elementary and high school, I had, like a one to one caregiver in school But when you're little, it's much easier to find people who will do it because you're physically easier to move. You're cute. you're not bothered as much by having a person glued to you. And then when you get older, when I hit high school, it's like I started to not want somebody attached to me because it really drives people away from talking to you. When you have, like, this adult just there all the time. The average tenth grader does not want to talk to you if you have, like, you know, a middle aged mom following you around and it's It's a real skill to just learn how to be a shadow and essentially act as a person's arms and legs without interfering with their ability to make choices, even if those choices are bad, without interfering in their conversations. but a lot of my aids in high school, they just didn't know how to do that. T hey would butt into my conversations or they would, you know, just be too there. 

Julia Winston: Kathleen and her parents struggled with the aides she had in high school. Some were too involved, but others were neglectful, leaving her alone so they could take a call or talk to other adults in the school. Some refused to lift her up and many just didn't give her the physical support she needed.

Kathleen Downes:Sometimes they just wouldn't even show up. which part of me loved because I would just sneak around on my own. But, you know, sometimes it was a real problem. It got to the point where I stopped drinking in school because I just wanted to dehydrate myself as much as possible cause it was just, I felt it was easier for everyone if I just didn't pee because it was like, well this person's gonna drop me, this person really doesn't want to do this. and it's just easier for everybody if I don't. So I would come home, like, enormously dehydrated. It was almost like an eating disorder, but with fluid.

Julia Winston: The aides at school were Kathleen's first experience in realizing just how much of her quality of life depended on the quality of the people taking care of her. So after high school, she wanted to go to college like other students. But she also knew she'd need constant care- which made the college search more specific.

Kathleen Downes: I knew when I graduated high school that I didn't want to the only visibly disabled person in the school anymore. It was too hard to do that again because everybody knew who I was, but nobody actually knew me. I always equated it with being like a mascot. It would be like, oh, everybody knew like, yeah, that girl in the wheelchair, but very few people meaningfully engaged with me.

Because even when I didn't have the aid on top of me anymore, when you need care, you just get left out of things. Because teenagers start driving on their own in inaccessible cars, and they don't want to wait for you, for your mom to drive you in your accessible van so you can meet up with them. And then, it's like, no, no, no, no.so I specifically sought out a college that was disability friendly, which is surprisingly difficult to find, especially for physical disability.

Julia Winston: Kathleen ended up enrolling at the University of Illinois at Champagne because it has a specific program for people with physical disabilities. One thing the program offered was accessible dorm rooms on the first floor.

Kathleen Downes: So we lived in a regular dorm with the other kids, but, but our floor was like wheelie land and the students could get a job to take care of us.  and all of a sudden my parents were 900 miles away, so if somebody didn't show up, it's not like I could just, you know, call them and have them take over. Um, And in retrospect, it was really, it was really selfless and courageous of my parents to let me go, because I know that it must've been hard for them to, to let go. Because sometimes there would be times where somebody didn't show up and I would have to find a sub at the last minute or somebody would abruptly tell me they were going home for the weekend and I needed to find coverage for the shift. 

It’s the hardest thing. I've ever done it , because it's like running a softball team while you're also going to school. It's like the eternal group project, except the group project never ends, and you, you are the group project. Like, if somebody doesn't show up the consequences you don't get out of your bed.

Julia Winston: Kind of like building a plane while in flight, these student caregivers were learning on the job as they took care of Kathleen and other students with disabilities. 

Kathleen Downes:  At one point when I was in college, I literally had to make a sign which I printed from my computer, Please wipe from front to back. Because a lot of people just did what was convenient for them based on the angle that they were standing at. And I get it, it's like, it's tough to hold a person up and use your other hand to, you know, really get in there. But, it's like, how many UTIs can I get, man? And they, especially the guys, they would be like, oh, it's front to back, I never thought about it before. 

And I think another skill of being a caregiver, you just, the best ones just melt into the background and only intervene when you ask them to. 

But some people Don't know how to do that at first, so I've had to work really hard to be up front about my expectations and be like, look if I come home and I am You know crying on the phone or something or Gossiping with one of my friends. If I want you to be part of it. I'll let you know

I was like I was at school with One of my student caregivers, the morning that my grandmother died, and it was just like, you, you, obviously you grieve like everybody else does, but I didn't get to do it with any degree of privacy, and I still had to move forward and take a shower. And normally in a situation like that, you would cry in the shower by yourself. But this person has to be with you and they're forced to be a witness sometimes to the worst moments of your life. And paid caregivers come in and out of your life, but they get weirdly, you know burned into certain memories.

Julia Winston: Kathleen studied social work in school, but never got a job that utilizes this degree. Because here’s the crazy thing… If Kathleen wanted to go get a job as a social worker, she would make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, which is how she currently pays for all her medical needs. And she also needs constant care, which is expensive if you’re hiring outside caregivers - too expensive for a social worker’s salary, and too expensive to be covered by Medicaid. It’s a catch 22. So the most optimal situation for Kathleen at this point is to not work, and to receive care from her parents.

In fact, right now Medicaid pays for a caregiver to come help Kathleen 35 hours a week. The rest of the time her parents, who are in their 60, do the caregiving.

Kathleen Downes: I feel that I will always be much more connected to my parents than I would have been otherwise because, I mean, I think needing help from them all the time has brought us closer and forced us to spend a lot more time together than we would have. 

My mom and I joke around, but we're not really kidding, that sometimes it's hard to know where I start and she ends and vice versa. And we're in such a routine that like, it's, it's almost robotic, like the way that she puts my shoes on. Nobody is ever going to do it as automatically or with as much attention to detail as she does. 

So I feel that, you know, my parents and I are very intertwined. And sometimes that's a scary thing because, you have an outsized level of terror about what will happen when they die. but at the same time, I feel grateful that we've gotten to be with each other in this way, and that I have a natural understanding that bodies are not infallible, and that we all need each other in some way. 

Julia Winston: Just like her relationship with her twin sister, Kathleen has complicated feelings about how much love and care her parents have given her throughout her life. 

Kathleen Downes: I feel tremendously guilty sometimes that they can't just go do the things that other people in their golden years are doing. And they've, they've never made me feel bad about that. But still, because of the culture that we live in everywhere around there's messaging that disabled people are burdens and it's hard not to internalize that and feel guilty sometimes.

But I certainly wish sometimes that it was easier for me to do things on my own and that my parents could do what they wanted and they could just be my parents without having to worry about who's doing what. my next shower, and they're getting older too, and there's going to come a point where they may need care of themselves.

And I struggle with knowing that I can't give that to them. So I always tell them I'll do their paperwork. I'll make their calls for them.

Julia Winston: Through her own experience and through connecting with other people with disabilities, Kathleen has learned a lot about the systems that support, or, frankly, don't support, people with disabilities.

Kathleen Downes: In this country, we don't treat these things as policy failures. We treat disability as like, oh, that's a you problem, and your mother will just continue to take care of you even if she's 95 until her heart stops beating. And it causes parents of kids with disabilities to feel like they can never die because the system has a lot of cracks in it. 

I wish the system would update itself to reflect that we are still here. I think it's very much formatted on old fashioned ideas that nobody with a disability was going to live for very long, or that, you know, that they would have no pursuits beyond sitting in their house with their parents and There's so many more opportunities for people with disabilities now, and we are living to the old, so the system needs to catch us. 

Julia Winston: In addition to being a licensed clinical social worker, Kathleen also has a certificate in patient advocacy. She spends a lot of time advocating for better policies and helping other people with disabilities navigate the complicated systems they rely on to get care.

Julia: What are some policy changes that would change your day to day life of past?

Kathleen Downes: So, right now, the only, like, ongoing funder of custodial care, so, Showering, bathing, hair brushing, going to the bathroom. All the things that you need to do to maintain a body. The only major funder for that is Medicaid. Private insurance does not cover that. Medicare does not cover that. So, it's Medicaid or it's out of pocket. And Medicaid requires you to be very poor. Like, not poverty line below it. and As a result, it affects your access to careers and to being able to, to have money for other things. And it, it sort of relies on the idea that your family will just provide for you financially forever. And I'm very fortunate that my parents are able to provide for me financially.But it doesn't feel good to have to be financially dependent on them because I'm in the care system.

The people who write these policies, they don't think it matters for us to have any pursuits besides just existing. So, I wish that Care services didn't have to be tied to Poverty. It's a strange thing to me To put an income cap on a disabled person and essentially punish them for the type of help that they need. If I chose to just say, fuck it, I'm going off Medicaid, I don't want to deal with this anymore, I would literally spend every cent I made on medical stuff, so it's like there's no point.

We've got no problem funding a A bunch of other things, even in the healthcare sphere, like if I tomorrow needed a surgery that cost 100, 000, they would likely pay for it, but if I approached them and said I need 100, 000 worth of 24 hour care, they would be like, LOL no, here's five hours and your aging mother can do the rest.

Julia Winston: Ok… this is just absolutely insane. Are we serious?? How can we allow our system to be so unreasonable and uncaring? We spend so much energy avoiding unpleasant topics like illness, injury and caregiving that we miss the chance to CARE about each other.  To create real change. To contemplate how we might build the kind of support networks and policies that could help people who need help simply live their everyday lives.

It goes without saying that Kathleen is extremely passionate about advocating for change, especially because the way it works now puts a ton of pressure on families. Kathleen’s parents have been physically and emotionally supporting her for most of her life. That takes a toll on them, but it also takes a toll on Kathleen. 

Kathleen Downes: We talk a lot about caregiver burnout. We do not talk about care recipient burnout. It is so stressful to need help with everything because you're constantly thinking about someone else besides yourself and am I hurting their back? Is it an inconvenience for them to drive me here? And then with the paid people, it's like you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop because these jobs unfortunately don't pay well, because again, not valued culturally. So you're just like, Oh God, please don't quit. Please don't quit. If I have to search for another person in six months, I'm going to scoop my eyeballs out because it is so much work to hire and train someone new.

And we talk a lot about the sandwich generation of caring for an elderly person and children and the, and you know, the woman caught in the middle of the sandwich, which is you know, I have an elderly grandmother and then my mom has me and she's in the sandwich. But what if you are one of the slices of bread? I don't think that people think about that it's hard for us too. And I think sometimes we  position the care recipient as burden to the caregiver, and we position the care recipient as feeling bad about needing all the help.

But what if we reframed as a, we're, we're all in the same struggle here. We've all been collectively failed by bad. policy. and at the root of all of it is ableism because when we don't value people with disabilities, we don't value the people who take care of them either. Because I think there's this resounding idea that our lives just have no value. Nor do the people who do the work of keeping us alive. 

Julia Winston: When you think about creating your own family and your future, what is possible and what isn't?

Kathleen Downes: Oh, see, that's a tough one. if I got married, I would lose Medicaid. because they count your assets together with whoever you marry. And I would also lose my cash benefit. So I know I can never get legally married. Which is, I know marriage isn't everything and you can still love someone without ever marrying them, but not having the choice is a sad thing. I have struggled with a hesitation around romantic relationships in general because there's always that question in your head, like, how does the care play into this? Like, if they're able bodied, they're going to have to adjust to these extra people, these caregivers being a big part of your life, and more than likely they're going to have to be comfortable giving physical care to you.

And then if you're with somebody who's disabled, it's like you can't provide care to each other, so you have to think about how to coordinate care for both of you, and there's, at least for me, there's, I've just always had this sense of, let me just isolate myself from this to protect myself, um, because just even, even diving into The dating world is incredibly complex when you need as much help as I do.

Julia Winston: I want to pause for a second and just name what’s happening here. Kathleen is  literally being forced to choose between having healthcare and having love in her life. And that's not a personal failing - that's our system actively pushing people into isolation, it’s a symptom of our epidemic of loneliness. We know that human connection is essential to human life and we live in a society that glorifies romantic love, yet we've built systems that actually punish people for seeking it out. That's not right, and it's not Kathleen who needs to change - it's these broken systems that need to change.  

And I would love to have my own children, but medically, I just don't think that it would be a safe thing for me. And I'm speaking for myself. I'm not at all speaking for all people with disabilities. Um, and also I'm so restricted financially that having my own kids just doesn't feel possible. So I've had to work really hard to nurture people in other ways, and I, I think you can totally have a fulfilled life without having your own kids, but again, policy has kind of made the choice for me. And I do grieve sometimes when I see other people my age that have their own house and three kids and all that. 

Julia Winston: The biggest question Kathleen has about her future is what will happen when her parents can't be her main caregivers anymore.

Kathleen Downes: I very much fear the day that my parents die. It's my biggest fear. And it's a hard thing knowing that your biggest fear is a certainty. But my mom always says that you will be okay because You're the best at all your administrative stuff, and you're a strong person, and people will help you. But it's scary because the systems that are supposed to help us, they don't always. And my older sister is chronically ill and not able to care for me physically.

And a lot of my friends are also disabled, and we're living with the same fears. We talk a lot about, okay, are we going to help each other? I'm so scared about all of It's scary winding up in a nursing home, but at least we'll be together. 

Julia Winston: These policies prevented her from accomplishing certain things an able bodied person could. But her life experiences have given her insights that most of us don't have because the world is designed for us and our bodies. 

Kathleen Downes: Culturally we're supposed to feel ashamed when a body can't do everything on its own, but That, that's the nature of a human body, especially over time. And again, this is very woo woo, but I sort of feel like I've already seen the truth. Nobody is really independent, and nobody's body works perfectly forever.

And it's really hard to develop like a positive sense of self when that's all around you, even if nobody says it to you directly. I resent when people say things like, Oh, if I wind up needing care that will be the loss of my dignity. Because they are implying that I don't have any dignity. It's true that if you have, you know, bad luck finding a good caregiver, they can put you in some undignified situations, but I don't think needing care itself is undignified.

I think the lack of support that Our government gives towards people who need care it certainly reinforces the idea that you don't matter very much and that the people who care for you don't matter very much either. So it's always felt like a mission of mine to be happy anyway. Uh, even when it's challenging.I think that's been the battle of my adult life, is trying to make peace with who I am. 

Julia Winston: It almost seems like an, an act of, uh, like a radical act to be joyful.

Kathleen Downes: Yeah, it's like, of course I have my moments where I wish I could do more on my own. But the truth is that most of the time I'm a generally happy person. I think that this is probably part of my purpose.

A lot of people are, oh you'd still be the same person if you weren't disabled. Really? Uh, I don't, I don't think so. It changed the kind of life I could have. It changed the kind of life that my parents and my family could have. It, it changed, it shaped everything that I am and that I'm going to be.

It's very much a mixed blessing. For all of the things that it's made hard and challenging for me, I think there's also been a million good things. I think I'm probably a way more empathetic person than I would have been. I certainly wouldn't have all this nerdy interest in policy if I wasn't disabled. For all I know, if I wasn't disabled, I could be in, into something that would horrify me in my present life, like football.

Julia: laughing, 

Kathleen Downes: And I've always felt that disability brings me much closer to the truth of life, that Everybody needs each other in some way. The whole idea of independence as a concept, it's false. It's a myth. Um, we, we sell it to people, especially in America as like, you are the pinnacle of success if you're independent, but everybody is interdependent.

Also being in disability world, you see how fragile life is. I have a lot of friends that, because of circumstances around their disability, have not gotten to live for a very long time. I have to be accepting of that and be joyful anyway, which I feel like is a nice hearty fuck you to the long term care system because they don't want you to be happy. and they don't think you can be.   I think it is my mission to be joyful anyway, and that doesn't mean you're happy all the time, but it is You still have a worthy life.

Julia Winston: Kathleen's story challenges us to face a truth we often avoid: care connects us all. What if we saw care not as a burden, but as a bridge between us? What becomes possible when we stop fearing dependence and start embracing our interconnectedness?

As millions of baby boomers age into needing care, these questions will become more urgent for all of us. But perhaps instead of seeing this as a crisis, we can view it as an invitation - to reimagine how we support each other and to reshape how we think about care. Not as a loss of dignity, but as one of the deepest expressions of our shared humanity. Or you could be like Kathleen and treat it like a big FUCK YOU to the system! at the very least – a fuck you to the long term care system. 

By having these conversations now, by hearing stories like Kathleen's, we can begin building the kind of society that honors both caregivers and care recipients. Because, let’s get real - ultimately, most of us will be both.

15: Family Preservation in Foster Care: Building a bridge between two families through radical compassion

Aaliyah and Jamyla have three moms - their birth mother Nicole, their foster mom (soon to be adopted mom) Chalice, and Chalice's fiancée Rachel. Chalice and the girls met eight years ago when the girls needed a foster parent. In the eight years they’ve known each other, Aaliyah and Jamyla have learned how hearts can expand to love many parents in their blended family. 

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: I’m Julia Winston and this is Refamulating, a podcast that explores different ways to make a family. 

Aaliyah and Jamyla are two sisters who live in Charleston, South Carolina.

Aaliyah: Hi, I'm Aaliyah and I'm 14 years old. 

I really love drawing. Like, it's so fun to do. And I also love reading, like on my free times and playing video games.  

Jamyla: I'm Jamyla and I'm 10 years old.

Jamyla: well at school I really like focusing on what the teacher says. But at home, I usually just spend a lot of time outside sometimes. I really like biking. And sometimes when I'm in the mood, I like coloring.  Um,  and I really like playing with my dogs. 

Julia Winston: In fact, when I asked them to describe their family, they started with the dogs..

Aaliyah: We have Wonder. She's, um, a golden doodle. And then we have Charlie.  His breed is… 

Jamyla: He's a Catan Catooli. 

Aaliyah: And then we just got a new puppy, and her name is Evie, and she's a husky, and   she's so cute.  

Jamyla: But she can be very, very wild. Yeah. 

Julia Winston: And…they have three moms. Two that they live with…

Jamyla: it's kind of hard because everybody is like saying, why do you have two white moms, or what happened to your other family or something like that. 

Julia Winston: And, yeah, what do you usually say when people ask you about, why do you have two moms? You know, what do you usually tell people?

Aaliyah: I usually like tell them like, my mom couldn't like take care of like all of us so she had to like Give us a safe place for us to live you know, 

Julia Winston: The girls’ live with Chalice and her fiancé, Rachel. These are the white moms Aalyiah referenced. But the woman who gave birth to them is Nicole. They call her Mommy Cole. 

Nine years ago, when Aaliyah was five years old, Nicole couldn’t care for her, so she entered the foster care system. A year later, Chalice became Aaliyah’s caretaker and has been ever since. Not long after that, her sister Jamyla joined her to live with Chalice. 

Today we’re going to tell the story of how Chalice and the girls became a family, and the bridge they’ve built between this family they’re creating and the family the girls came from.  

Just a note- that Nicole was not available to do an interview, so we will be hearing the story from Chalice, Aaliya and Jamyla’s perspectives. But as you’ll see, Nicole is a very important part of their lives. So we’ll be holding her experience with love, knowing that everyone’s voice matters.

Julia Winston: We’ll begin this story with Chalice, the girls’ second mom, who met them when they were placed in foster care. Chalice grew up in the South, and always imagined herself as a mom. 

Chalice: I was raised in the church, in a very conservative family, and so I just always assumed it would be me and a husband,and I would have biological children, many of them. I always wanted children. From my youngest memory, I remember thinking like, I think being a mom would be like the truest expression of who I am.

Julia Winston: When she was a kid, her aunt and uncle adopted two children from Romania, and Chalice formed a close bond with them. 

Chalice: watching them come home, needing so much repair and healing and watching my aunt and uncle walk with them and love them to life was really beautiful. And so I started to notice other adoptive families, whether it was in our church or in our community. And I think I was a young teenager when I was like, I think I'm going to adopt one day. And that was when I had very rose colored, like, Oh, I want, I too want to be a hero and take a little child who needs me and love them to life.

Julia Winston: And this idea of helping kids stuck with her. 

Chalice: I did a project on high school and the invisible children of Northern Uganda, and I really wanted to go to Uganda. I just felt like that's what I have to do. I have to go to Uganda and, um, help these child soldiers and these kids. So I, I did, when I was 21, I went to Uganda for about six months. But I went and worked at a special needs orphanage and  the kids were so Either scared of me or enthralled by me. And none of those things are helpful in a child healing and, um, from trauma. But when I would watch the Ugandan mamas, that's what they called them all, like the mamas or just the women who worked at the orphanage, they were so intuitive. They spoke their language. They made them feel at home. I mean, it, it was just so clear, like everything was right about Ugandan women caring for these children. And everything was weird about like white people coming in and out, um,  taking lots of pictures and trying to help these kids. And the biggest thing I learned in Uganda is that Africa does not need me.  And there are so many beautiful, restorative NGOs, you know, nonprofits, charity efforts that are happening there. And what they need is American support monetarily. Like they need money to keep going. They need resources. 

Julia Winston: Chalice also learned that she wanted to help children closer to home. So when she returned from Uganda in her early 20s, she moved to Alabama and signed up to provide respite care. What this means is that she helped foster parents by watching their kids for a day or weekend to give them a break. 

While Chalice was dipping her toe in the Alabama foster care system, her friend Joy was fostering children in Charleston. One of the kids who came to stay with Joy was Aaliyah. Aaliyah was in and out of Joy’s house for a year. It was during this time that Chalice met Aaliyah, when she was visiting Joy in Charleston for Easter.

After that, Chalice started checking on Aaliyah, asking Joy how she was doing and if she’d found a permanent place to live. This went on for a year.

Chalice: My friend Joy had actually just adopted two children. And so she was fostering Aaliyah, but she was realizing, uh, her needs are really beyond the scope of  me being able to care for her.

Julia Winston: One day, Joy asked Chalice if she’d consider caring for Aaliyah. It was a huge ask. Chalice was 24, single, and working as a full time nanny. But Chalice says she felt called to working with and caring for children. So…she considered it.

Some of us might not relate to this at all, because when we were 24 we were partying or traveling or throwing ourselves into a career. But Chalice calls herself a boring 24 year old, and says at the time she wanted to settle down. So moving to a new city to take care of a child felt right.

Before the move, Chalice talked to Nicole on the phone to learn more about why Aaliyah was removed from her home. In that conversation, Chalice learned Nicole has four kids. Aaliyah, Jamyla, and two boys. One of the boys is Jamyla’s twin. Chalice also learned that the Department of Social Services, or DSS, had gotten involved, and that all four kids had been in foster care at different points.  

Out of respect for Aaliya and Jamyla, we’re not going to share exactly why DSS got involved. All you need to know is that they were in a situation that was deemed unsafe. 

When Chalice spoke with Nicole on the phone, it became clear that Nicole needed help. She had four kids, mental health struggles, very little support, and felt like she was drowning. And she was asking for someone to help her by taking care of her oldest, Aaliyah.

Chalice: She was really, like, devastatingly honest about that. She's like I'm kind of done. All I knew was that, this woman is at her max. And for one reason or another, she doesn't feel like she can care for this kid.

Julia Winston: Chalice looked at this as a temporary situation, Nicole just needed help, and right now that meant giving Aaliyah somewhere safe to live. 

Chalice: What if I can care for Aaliyah for the next year while she goes through kindergarten and mom can stabilize and maybe get some support and some therapy or whatever she needs, and then maybe a reunification can happen.

When I became her caregiver, she was five years old. And man she's just the best little thing. She was like, she was funny. She was animated. She was like really, really sweet. Um, and those things are not typical of kids who have, you know, come fresh from a lot of trauma, but she was so dear. She had these big two, I got to show you a picture of these buck teeth, big old teeth that stuck out of her mouth. And I just thought she was perfect. She's so perfect.

Julia Winston: Aaliyah, what do you remember about being five and going to live with Chalice for the first time?

Aaliyah: I think that my other house that I like lived in, it was kind of like dark all the time. Like the windows were shut, the like, I don't know, the blinds were shut and everything. So it was like, we didn't get any light in the house. But like, I think when I came to Chalice's house, it was just so bright and welcoming. And I just felt like it was, I don't know. It just brought me to a good place.

Julia Winston: What did Chalice do to make you feel welcome and safe at her house? You talked about the light in the house. What else did you like?

Aaliyah: I think she knew what was going on at our other place. She was like, very comforting, and like, keeping us safe, and like, was saying like, how can we help you guys, and stuff like that. So she was like, she knew what was going on, so she just was, Like, I don't want anything ever happening to you guys like that again.

Chalice: You fight for the reunification. You fight for the family being back together. I even told her if Aaliyah comes back to live with you in a year, like I can still take her on the weekends, like whatever it, whatever it takes to like kind of make this work. The kid's fathers were gone. Her biological family, Nicole's family was pretty uninvolved. People need help. Like you don't have help. You don't have resources. 

Julia Winston: When Aaliyah first moved in, she needed to process some heavy stuff that had happened at her first house. 

Chalice: Aaliyah had very conscious, very recent memories and recollections of trauma. And so our first probably six months together were really, really sweet. It's a time I really treasure because over the course of the last nine years, as she's worked through different trauma, there have been seasons of rage and seasons of just deep, deep pain. Um, and we've been through so much together, but the first, the first six months, I really got to watch her kind of exhale and watch her nervous system like stabilize. 

And so I started to see her come alive and that's where it starts getting really tricky, right? It's like, I know in my heart, I am fighting for unification. I am fighting for unification and also This could not feel any more like my child, you know, like every maternal instinct is like, how do I care for you and love you? And prepare to release you like these two things don't go together. 

Julia Winston: That feeling was something Chalice wrestled with on and off for years. But most days, she was focused on everything she had to do to take care of Aaliyah. Chalice was just a 24-year old working as a nanny, and living far away from her parents, so now she needed to find some support as a single mom. She moved in with her friend Joy, the one who’d first fostered Aaliyah, and who had also adopted two children while fostering.

Chalice: And over the two years that we were with her, I think we had maybe 12 or 15 other kids come in and out that were technically under Joy's like legal care. We were kind of operating as one big family. That could go a lot of different ways, but it really worked for Aaliyah. And I think it created this safe place of getting to see all these other kids in unconventional, conventional, hard situations, you know, like it's not just me. I'm not the only one. There's so many kids in need of care and that looks like so many different things. And maybe we'd have a kid for a week or we'd have a kid for two months or a year.

Julia Winston: For 15 months, Chalice and Aaliyah figured out their routine together. Aaliyah would see her Mommy Cole and other siblings sporadically during this time. And then…something else happened at Nicole’s house. And Aaliyah’s sister, two year old Jamyla, needed a new home.

Chalice: For Aaliyah, she was doing some home visits on the weekends at that point. Right before Jamilah came to live with us there's some really unsafe, really tragic things that had happened on one of her home visits and so that's when DSS intervened and removed her sister as well and she came to live with us.

Aaliyah over the course of the first year that she was with me, we immediately got into a lot of counseling and different therapy modalities. And, she did have a really tough first year, but when Jamila came to live with us, like her eyes were brighter, she was breathing deeper. She immediately like took on this really, um, like beautiful caretaking role of Jamila and she was just at ease in a new way. The sisters being together, It was so good for both of them. It was everything that they needed given the really sad situation they were in of needing to be from their first mom.

And Jamyla was also very dear, but she had mastered the eye roll at two years old. She was unimpressed with everything about me. 

Julia Winston: Jamyla was only two, but she does remember what she felt in the first few years she lived with Chalice. 

Jamyla: When I went there, I was like, What is happening? Why am I here? And, I kind of missed my mom. But, I knew it would start being a little bit more safe around Chalice and stuff. Once I got used to being at my mom's house, Chalice, I kind of, I started really liking it there.

Julia Winston: Chalice was so happy to bring the sisters together, but she was also overwhelmed about having another kid. 

Chalice: Two was really scary. One to one is one thing, but being outnumbered, was scary. I Mean, Aaliyah had become my full time job. She was in multiple speech therapy, occupational therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy. Um, it felt like my full time job just to walk with this little girl towards healing and meeting all of her needs. 

And so Jamilah was two and a half, fairly nonverbal at that point. But, um, Jamyla, I think, like, God knows me well, like my favorite thing about life is laughing and like, My favorite people have a good sense of humor and Jamyla was so weird and hilarious that like, she just made it fun. Even when it was really chaotic. Um, like she was just odd in all the best ways. And I, to this day, I tell her you are so weird and wonderful. And it's like the highest compliment, like he's like spunky and confident and like full of so much personality. Again, it was the comic relief we needed as shit got really real with the court systems and with the whole next many years of Drama back and forth the court 

Julia Winston: So you were a very young person. And that's an age when a lot of adults are still figuring out how to be on their own and who they are. What was your experience of getting to know yourself and growing up, you know, as someone in your young 20s while parenting? And did you imagine that this was a long term situation or that it was temporary?

Chalice: All of my friends were wanting to get married and wanting to be in relationships and I couldn't really relate to that. But I wanted, like I said, more than anything to be a mom. And so when I got Aaliyah, I did feel like I am doing what I was made to do. And so it was really hard, but as soon as she came to live with me, I'm like, I had so much confusion when I was 18. I like went to college, found out college wasn't for me, But I kept feeling like none of this fits. I can't think of a degree that I want. I can't think of a, like, I can't think about what I want to do, but I love children and feel like called to, um, nurture children, um, specifically like children from hard places.

When I started mothering Aaliyah and caring for the other kids in our house, I just remember feeling this relief of like, Oh, I, like, I'm, I think I'm good at this. Like, I, I love this work. This is so fulfilling. It's so hard, but it's the right kind of hard, you know, like you can do a million hard things that just feel pointless. But when you're doing what you're made to do, the hard will feel like, okay, this is the right kind of hard.This is like the rightest thing I've ever done.

Julia Winston: One question I have about this whole time is what kind of financial support did you have? What was the situation that you were in that enabled you to support, you know to support not one but now two girls?

Chalice: Yeah. Oh, I did not expect this to be such like an emotional trigger, but, um, I worked full time as a nanny. Um, being a single mom is so hard. I never felt like we had enough. I think the first year with them, I made like $26,000. The next year I made like  $28,000, like slowly, very incrementally. But like, we were, I was definitely under the poverty line I had to turn in all my financials to DSS. So they saw but they were like, all right, good enough is good enough. Sounds like you can like put food on the table. We'll see you at our next check in. 

Julia Winston: And Chalice had no help from the state. She wasn't an official foster parent because she’d been connected to Aaliyah through a friend. She was considered a kinship placement, which is what they call it if someone like an aunt or grandma steps in. So she had to provide for Aaliyah and Jamayla all by herself. 

Chalice: That has been one of the hardest parts of my past nine years with the girls is constant hustle. I started as a nanny and then I did a nanny share to take on more kids. And so, um, I usually had between four and five kids with me every day, you know, from eight to five.

I would babysit in the evenings and take the girls with me and put them to sleep on the couch, wake them up at midnight when the parents got home. So, um, I was tired. I was tired. And I remember thinking like all throughout that journey with them and feeling like, Oh my gosh, can I, am I going to be able to like, is this sustainable? I just feel like, as I tell the story, I'm like moment of silence for Single parents, because the stress of the financial needs is pretty relentless. Um, and it feels miraculous that we've, we've made it like we've kept making it. 

Julia Winston: Chalice, Aaliyah and Jamyla learned a lot together as they created their family. The girls did tons of therapy. Some forms were related to their development, like speech therapy or occupational therapy. They also did therapy to process the traumas they experienced. 

Jamyla: It would kind of change my life when I went to therapy, because they just listened. The therapist would just listen and they wouldn't like get in a fight with you. They would just listen and that felt really good to know that someone was actually listening to you.

Aaliyah: I would say it really helped me to like Think about things that it's like not my fault, like of some of the things that's happened to me, and that like, I'm okay, and I'm in a really good place now.

Julia Winston: Chalice was also educating herself. She had to learn how to work with kids who had complex trauma.

Julia Winston: How did you educate yourself to be a foster parent. how did you educate yourself about the system that you were a part of and what your place was in that and how to support these girls through a transition that involved trauma?

Chalice: So a funny part of having ADHD is like, I am not interested in anything unless I'm interested in it. So I was really interested in this and so there was no Podcast, no book, no stone left unturned. Like advocating for Aaliyah and Jamyla became my full time job.

I knew they may or may not stay with me. The goal was reunification with their mom. If their mom can complete the treatment plan, then they will go back to live with her. And so that was the goal. But in the meantime, I was their mom and it became like my joy and my hyper focus to, um, find out what resources they needed.

Julia Winston: I do want to ask you about the transracial element here. The girls are black and you're white. Can you tell us how you've educated yourself and what you've learned about parenting kids of color and, you know, how have these dynamics played a part in your family?

Chalice: I have to be honest and say that like, I wish I knew what I knew now before I started parenting them, but I didn't. I had to learn with them. And I wish it did not take me parenting black children to see the reality of being black in America the way that I saw it. I hate that that's true, but that's my story. As I started raising Aaliyah, especially that first year, I just had to start leaning into, the black friends that I had and I needed to to learn not only how to care for something as seemingly like simple as her hair, but like, how do I care for this young black woman? We are growing up in the same place. But she is having a totally different lived experience than me. And I'm raising a child who I cannot prepare for certain realities that will be present in her life. 

Julia Winston: So Chalice was reading books and listening to podcasts, but she was also seeking out adult adoptees on social media. She wanted to hear directly from people of color who’d been adopted or lived with white people to learn how to best care for Aaliyah and Jamyla. 

She also realized she could only do so much as a white parent. So she leaned hard on her Black friends. 

Chalice: One of the sweetest years we had together was my friends, Erica and Desiree, who are both black, lived with us for a year and we all moved to this downtown apartment and it was the five of us and it was so cool to watch them like auntie, the girls. That was the pandemic year. All along I had been learning, but suddenly being the minority in my own house, it felt like the sacred space that I got to be a part of. They would have like jokes and interactions with the girls that I was kind of on the outside of. And that was cool to me, like to see the girls just have this like joy and comfortability in their blackness with these two black aunties that they lived with. 

Julia Winston: The girls have also had to navigate being in an interracial family. One challenge has been explaining visible differences to other kids. 

Aaliyah: Like at school, there's this one year when I was having like a really awful time. There's this girl and on my birthday, she was like saying, like, I think her birthday wishes to find her birth mom. I just ignored them. Cause it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter what your family is.

Julia Winston: What does matter to Aaliyah is that she’s found love and support in Chalice. 

Aaliyah: She's been through those hard times with me. I don't know. It's just, she's really awesome and special. And even though she might not be the same color as me, I just love her so much.

Julia Winston: What do you love about her?

Aaliyah: She comforts me, when I'm going through a hard time. 

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Julia Winston: While Chalice and the girls were in therapy, learning together and trying to create a cohesive family unit, there was an elephant in the room. They still visited with their first mom, and reunification was possible if Nicole could meet certain goals laid out by the state. 

Julia Winston: I want to talk about the plan for unification with Aaliyah and Jamyla's mom. So tell me about the plan for reunification and the eventual custody agreement that you made with her. What was happening there?

Chalice: That was really tricky because that kept changing so many times. The hope was always Reunification. So we were back and forth to court for four years. It was every three months for four years. I Had this really felt like an impossible role sometimes my little one, Jamila is two, three years old, four years old. She is just kind of living in like, The beautiful oblivion of being a tiny kid, you know, she, she didn't have to hold quite as much.

But Aaliyah knew every time I was going to court. That is so much of the trauma of all of those years was how do you go to kindergarten, first grade, second grade, third grade? How do you like, Make friends and have a, like, childhood of vitality and joy when you're constantly holding, like, Where am I gonna be? Who is my mom, ultimately? What's happening next, what's coming and the tragic reality of foster care is like the court dates, especially I was preparing her for those things, but those things could happen at any time. I mean, in foster care, sometimes decisions are made in court and then sometimes decisions are made outside of court. 

Julia Winston: I know that you went back and forth for a long time to know, you know, where was home So Aaliyah, what was that like for you?

Aaliyah: I felt confused, but I also felt like kind of sad because it felt like I was going back to the same place, like dark, scary place. And it just brought some back, some dark memories and stuff like that. 

Julia Winston: Jamyla says it added a lot of uncertainty to her life. 

Jamyla: I found it really annoying sometimes and I felt like I felt I didn't really like going back and forth because like I just like staying at one place and then like moving slowly I don't really like I don't like busy things and I just thought it was kind of scary because like I sometimes I finally felt like good at one place And then I have to go to another place, which I didn't really like.

Julia Winston: The girls didn't always want to go back to Mommy Cole's house, but she was also their first mom. They loved her. So it was confusing sometimes. One of Chalice's jobs as their caretaker was to help them process these complicated feelings. 

Chalice: It's always been so important to me to frame Their mom's experience in a way that leads them to compassion. There's this part of them. Yeah. We want to go back to mom. We want to go back and live with mom. But then there's also like a, wait, they have a bad experience with her on a home visit. Now they don't want to, they don't want to. 

And that's tricky because you always want to also say like, you get to be angry and you get to be hurt and you don't have to forgive anybody unless you want to, but also keep a tender place open.

And I would say, here's the thing. Mom has a broken heart, something broke her heart. And we don't know what it was. We don't know how it happened. Um, we can make some guesses, but we don't know for sure. And mom acts this way or that way towards you because she has a broken heart and she never got the healing that she needed. So we're going to keep hoping that she gets that healing, but it's not you.

This is mom's broken heart. You're not the problem, you know? And so they kind of adapted that language and could frame like, Really hard interactions with her through, okay, that's not me. That's not my fault. That's mom's broken heart. Mom was not the only abuser in their life.And again, like some people have been really angry with me, even friends about my framing of this. But that is the only way I found to explain these things to kids. It's like big, evil monsters and perpetrators they weren't born like that. 

You know, you want to just like get on their side and be like, yeah, they're terrible. They're awful. And you should have never had to experience that. And I've had those moments, but it's like nobody dreams of growing up and abusing their kids. Nobody dreams of growing up and having their family torn apart. And so it's like something happened, many things happened and their hearts were broken and they didn't have someone step in and say like, what's happening to your heart? That must've really hurt. You know? Um, we don't know all of the things that happened.

Broken hearts are a really big deal. And our responsibility is to make sure that we keep pursuing healing for ourselves. Um, Because when you heal, then you get to be a healer to other people. And when you don't heal, you run a very high risk of hurting other people. So I feel like even now, as I'm talking to you, I'm not meaning to talk to you like a kid, but like, this was our language for so many years. 

Julia Winston: No, I'm so glad that you shared that. I mean, that specificity, it's just like radical compassion, like the deepest kind of healing work. 

Chalice: I was so committed to like, I am not the good guy and your mom's the bad guy, like that is not what this is. I am the person who was given resources to be able to love you well and your mom was not given this. And so their mom did terrible things and would say terrible things to them and would say terrible things to me. But I think the beauty of having this obligation and this commitment to teaching radical compassion was that it forced me no matter what was said or done. It's like, I don't want to raise kids that sort good and bad people. I want to raise children that are emotionally intelligent and are able to see bad behavior and bad choices and think, I wonder what happened to you?

I do know specific incidences of things that have happened in their mom's life. Let me tell you who I would be if I lived her life. I would be her. I would not magically do things better if I was treated the way that she was treated and went through some of the medical trauma that she went through. And if I was a black woman raised in the South in Charleston, South Carolina, it's a lot of really intense, um, racial history and devastation and inequity, obviously. Like if I was her and I was raised that way. This is what would have happened, but I wasn't. I was raised in a stable, loving, loving family. Mostly a little bit jacked up Christian family situation, but I had resources and I had tools and I had materials and I had people and I had books and I had opportunity for healing and I grabbed hold of that and that was not ever, ever anything that was within reach for her to grab hold of. So that is the difference.

Julia Winston: For four years, Chalice, the girls and Nicole were in and out of court trying to figure out a permanent custody situation. The two brothers, including Jamyla’s twin, were living with a different foster family, and the judge’s reunification plan gave Nicole the goal of getting all four kids back. 

Julia Winston: Tell us about the conversation with Nicole that led to you getting full time guardianship.

Chalice: our relationship over those four years was really up and down. And depending on the day I was either like, you know, thank you so much for all your help, or you're the reason my family's separated, which very understandable. And so it was really up and down and you know, she would confide in me and say, I don't think I can do this. DSS wants me to complete this parenting plan and get all these kids back. And that terrifies me. But if I say I can't, then, then I'm a terrible person. So, you know, she would be going along with the plan with DSS and then be telling me, like, I don't know how to do this. And so all along I would try and say you know, I'll be there with you as much as I can, but also like, I understand, cause I'm raising two of the four, we're both single moms, like, I don't, I don't know how you would do all four of these kids, but I can help as much as you're able and as much as you're willing to let me.

You can tell that she has not had a lot of people to trust. And I was probably the least likely person that she could trust in a lot of ways. Um, because out of my protection for the kids, I had to stand in opposition to her many times. She didn't know whether or not she could trust me, but my hope was that over all these years together that she could see that like, yes, I'm fighting for them, but I care deeply for you.

So a lot of conversations came up where I would say I'm willing to raise these girls and to do it with you. We live 10 minutes apart. I live on the side of the city and you're over here. And if you can try and be creative with me, like we can make this work. And that was just too scary for her for a long time. It was like, no, I can't do that. I can't do that. Which I understood. And so I would say, you don't have to, I don't have to adopt them. So we'd have these really honest conversations but then, you know, this person or that person would get in her ear and say, you know, that woman's just trying to take your kids from you or who gives up on their kids. She had a lot of shame from her family, which was really sad. And so the conversation went back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. it would keep coming down to was like, Nope, I need my kids back. I just got to get my kids back. 

Julia Winston: Four years into living together, Chalice, Aaliyah and Jamyla were back in court to talk about reuniting with Mommy Cole. 

Chalice: And she came to me, minutes before we went into court and was like, would you still be willing to raise the girls? And I was, Like shell shocked. I had initiated these conversations so many times. I couldn't have ever imagined her initiating the conversation.

I just said, yes. I don't know how to explain like the tumultuousness of all of these years. I think she really believed, I think Chalice is going to do what she says she's going to do, which is like not take the kids away from me, but provide a safe space for them to grow up where I can still be their mom. 

So that day in court, in front of the judge, she told the judge Change the whole plan. All the caseworkers, the guardian ad litem, everyone's looking around like, what is happening? And she tells the judge like, I'd really like to give it a try with the boys and see if I can be successful with them and the girls are doing really well with Chalice. And so I'd like for Chalice to keep them with, legal and physical custody, not an adoption arrangement. Her parental rights would stay intact. She would hold the right to visit. She would, she holds a lot of rights with her parental rights intact, but they would live with me and she was voluntarily giving legal and physical custody, which was crazy and amazing.

Julia Winston: What was it like to tell the girls?

Chalice: I have a picture of when I went and told Aaliyah. She just like leapt into my arms and it was so beautiful because it wasn't I won in court. It was, let me tell you what your mom's idea was. Your mom loves you so much and knows that you're doing really well and that life is good for you right now and she wants it to keep being good for you. And so your mom asked the judge if you guys could stay with me. And if we could keep being a family. 

Aaliyah: I remember when my mom told me I gave her a big hug and I squeezed her and I was like, mom, really, really? I was so excited. I just felt happy. It's like the best day ever

Julia Winston: how about you Jamyla?

Jamyla: I also felt really excited. Like to stay at one place and like stay somewhere more safe. At my Mommy Cole's house her house was really dark and I felt really scared sometimes And then when I found out I was like Yay, that's gonna be so fun. I felt good, like, that we wouldn't, like, be scared anymore, and we wouldn't, like, have to be, feel, like, anxious and sad. I felt like I was going to have a really fun time.

Julia: The girls and Chalice celebrated together that day, but they also had mixed feelings about what this decision meant. 

Aaliyah: I think that I felt like a little bit sad for my, um, brothers.

Jamyla:When I found out I, I was sad too for my brothers.

Julia: Their brothers were going to live with Nicole for the first time in a few years. 

Chalice: Cause they were with a foster family that we knew. Once they went back to live with mom, you know, that was a big transition for the boys. They had now been away from her for three years. so they had a lot of transitioning to do, and there was a lot of confusion. Where are our sisters? Why aren't our sisters coming back? You know, they thought that was the plan. So all along these like victories, there's like, you hold this heartbreak. My girls were celebrating, like, we get to stay at our school, we get to stay with, you know, this mom. Our life gets to stay the same, and the boys are grieving, and so we're having to be sensitive to that. 

Julia Winston: It's been four years since Chalice got legal and physical custody of the girls. In that time they've been able to settle into a new chapter of their lives, including all the complicated family dynamics that come with it. 

Chalice: I just have had to like make friends with awkward. With my own family of origin, like there are beautiful, wonderful times on family vacations, and there are times when you're like, Get out of my face. You're the worst person ever. I consider Nicole like an extension of that in a very real way. Like she makes me really mad sometimes and she cracks me up sometimes. And I'm so endeared by, you know, the little card that she sent or the new school outfit that she got for Jamila, like the ways that she's thoughtful. And I'm also really pissed off because she forgot this or that. And she certainly feels that way with me, you know, like I can be very intentional and inclusive. And then there was a mother's day that went by that I, I forgot, I forgot to reach out. And that was so painful and how could I, you know, and so that's very real. 

Julia Winston: How have the girls brothers and Nicole been sort of integrated at this point? What does the family look like?

Chalice: We had already over the past four years, as tumultuous as it was, we were doing Christmases together. We were doing birthdays together. we were hanging out, we were going and getting pizza. We were meeting at the park. We were, so I was establishing along the way, like, this is what it could look like. One of our favorite memories every year, thing we look forward to. I always host like a Christmas brunch in the morning. They come over, like we open our presents, do our thing. And then the boys and their mom and usually their mom's mom Would come over and we'd have a big feast. And that got really cool through the years because you know, the first year would be mom and the boys. And the second year was mom and grandma and the boys, and then their aunt and uncle would catch wind of it.

And there was one year, I think we had like 14 or 15 people from their biological family that just showed up because they heard there was going to be pancakes on Christmas morning. And so, yeah, that's been really, really special. Um, we always celebrate the twins birthday together and we'll have them over or we'll go to the pool or something.

We're in pretty constant communication. Um, and yeah, it's, it's, it's pretty unconventional. Like we, on the one hand, we're living these little separate lives, but there's an open door policy. They're always welcome here. They're always wanted here. And we get to go there too. We love going to their apartment and hanging out with them. Even after all of these years, it's beautiful and it's hard. It's beautiful because they know their mom and, and she can write them birthday cards and she can love them in the best way she knows how. And there are still very real scars from wrongs committed against them. And so we just keep going a day at a time. There are seasons when the girls are wide open to her love and, um, when Christmas morning is really special. And there are seasons when it's not that way. And that's in every family, right?

Julia Winston: So that was, I think that was two, two and a half years ago. How have things felt different?

Aaliyah: well, obviously our family has grown like so much and Some family we've lost but like it's been Really happy to like see our family grow in different ways.

Julia Winston: How have you seen your family grow?

Aaliyah: um, our other mom, Rachel, our mom's fiance, , and I mean our dogs, obviously.

Julia Winston: Rachel was a big addition to the family. Chalice was single for a long time, focused on raising the girls. And Rachel was just a “really close friend”. 

Chalice: So all those really, really, really intense years felt that felt really solo. She kind of came in at the tail end of that and I just thought we were best friends, sisters. We have our whole crazy story of four years of repression and denial and all of this. It was mostly my denial and she, she knew what we were and she knew what we could be and she stood with us and she has loved those girls with everything she has and, now we all live together and it's wonderful. In the last couple months, even she's always been Ray Ray and both girls of their own have Uh called her they start calling her mama. So we're just a big mother trifecta. 

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Julia Winston: Tell me, tell me about when you met Rachel for the first time.

Aaliyah: Um, I think at first for me, since I've been with Chalice for a long time, I got the jealousy feeling that she was, she was going to like take her away or something like that. So I obviously felt really jealous. Jamyla felt like it was the best thing ever.

Jamyla: I felt like Rachel was really fun and she like did a lot. She was like understanding and it was really fun to have her around us. And I really liked her attitude.

Aaliyah: I think I want to share one more thing. Um, ever since, like, my mom is lesbian, she's, uh, queer. And, um, I would say there's, like, kind of a lot of people who just don't accept her for who she is. And it's just Like makes me frustrated because for me, I think it's the best thing ever. Like having two moms, like it just is amazing. And yeah,

Julia Winston: Yeah. What do you, what do you love about having two moms? 

 Aaliyah: I mean, both of them, they are very talented. Like my other mom, she like built my bed and she's so good at cooking. Like her food is just the best thing ever. And I think it's just like girl power around this house. Like, it's just amazing. And we can do whatever we want. Like it's girl power. 

Jamyla: It's like a, it's like a restaurant in our house. Like she can cook so good. And every night there's just a great meal for us.

Julia Winston: What's your favorite thing she cooks? 

Aaliyah: she makes these like bagels and they have like cream cheese in them and she puts like this rosemary thing on top of it and it's so good. So good. 

Chalice: It's a lot of frozen pizza before Ray Ray came.

Julia Winston: When Nicole voluntarily gave up her legal and physical rights over the girls, it did give them some permanency. But Chalice says even after that decision, Aaliyah wanted more. 

Chalice: Over the course of all of these years of back and forth to court, um, that really took a toll on Aaliyah, especially Aaliyah was always the oldest and the most cognizant of everything that was happening. She was constantly being interviewed by this caseworker and prepped by the guardian and light him about this and talk to with this therapist and that therapist. And so she, had to learn to hold Maybe this will happen. Maybe that will happen. Even as I told her, even as we were celebrating after court that I had custody in the back of her mind, she knew enough about the court system to know what custody can be changed. Custody placements aren't permanent. 

And so she never let go of the desire to be adopted. Since we were friends with so many foster families, she would see kids go through foster care and get adopted or kids go through foster care and get reunified and both of those are, you know, permanent situations. So that was always Aaliyah's deepest hope and dream was that she could be adopted.

Aaliyah: I think I just was like, okay, we need to stop going back and forth, back and forth and I think I just want it to be like, I want to have a life with her, you know, cause she's like a really special person and I want her to be there with me in my life.

Julia Winston: What made adoption the answer to you for that? Just to, to know that it was official. Like what was it that was important to you? 

Aaliyah: I think I just wanted people to know that like, she's my mom, you know, even though like I have a birth mom, I just wanted people to know that like, this is my mom and I'm proud of that. 

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Chalice: Over the course of the next couple of years, I would go to her mom and say, Hey, do you see how we're doing this? I'm not leaving Charleston. I'm not packing up the girls and taking off like. Would you reconsider adoption? And it was just absolutely not. No, no, no, no, no. And so Aaliyah and I kind of had this contingency plan that when she was 16, um, she could get emancipated or when she was 18, she could change her last name. That's kind of what we looked forward to is like these, this sense of permanency is so important to you.

And I've fought for that as much as I know how, um, but I, I can't do anything else except take their mom to court and try to terminate her rights was, was completely off the table. Like We had gotten to a point where I'm like, we will only do this peacefully or we won't do it at all. I would tell Leah, maybe when you're a little older, you can talk to mom. 

So she was 11 or 12 when she's like, I'm not waiting anymore. I'm talking to my mom and I'm like, I want to talk to my mom. I want to tell her I want to be adopted. Rachel and I and Aaliyah and her mom all sat down. And Aaliyah just said, Mom, I really love you. But I want Chalice. She said, Mom, I love you, but I want Mom to adopt me.

I really want to be a Howard. My last name's Howard. And her mom, again, just like that court day where it was like, no, no, no, no, no. She just looked at her and said, Is that what you want? And Aliyah said, It's what I really want. So she said, I can do that. I'm like, what? Like, what? I can't, it's like, even in telling the story, I cannot convey, like, The impossibility of that situation and how in the right time from the right voice from the non threatening voice of her daughter. I actually think it was really healing for, for Nicole that Aaliyah could come to her and say, this is something that I want. Can you do it for me? And she could say, yes, because she, Aaliyah had been hurt by her so many times and there have been major fractures in that relationship. 

I could see in Nicole's face when she said yes to Aaliyah. It was like one of the most deeply maternal moments I've ever seen. My child is coming to me asking me for this thing and it means that I have to step down and say yes for her good and the way that she, the ease that she said yes to that, it's like, I've always known that was in her, despite just the horrible, rotten, no good days I've known that there's care and love, and I saw that, and so she said yes.

Julia Winston: Two years later, the adoption still isn’t finalized because the girls’ birth fathers need to complete the process of signing over parental rights. 

Julia Winston:  When the adoption is finalized, you plan to change your last name to Howard tell me why you want that.

Aaliyah: I would say I'm not really like proud of my last name because it reminds me of my birth dad Who's in jail right now. And, um, he's like the one who keeps like trying to like stop the adoption or like try to hold it back. That's why it's taking like a long time for it to happen.

Julia Winston: what is it about sharing chalice's last name howard that's important to you?

Aaliyah: Our family, like the Howard family, they're like so kind, and like we just, I love them so much, I have so many awesome and wonderful cousins, I just like, I feel honored to share the last name.

Julia Winston: Jamyla also wants to be adopted by Chalice, but has a different plan for her name. She's going to hyphenate her current last name with Howard. 

Jamyla: My twin, um, Jamar, he has the same, he's going to have the same last name as me. He's really special to me. And I really felt like I really, I still wanted my, my last name. So I just hyphenated it because my birth family, are still very special to me and I really felt like I really wanted to keep their last name.

Julia Winston: The adoption will also allow Chalice and Rachel to focus on solidifying their roles in the family. 

Chalice: Once the adoption finalizes, Rachel and I will, can legally get married and we'll hopefully be getting married in the spring. Um, I would love for Nicole to be my maid of honor. Like I, there's nothing I could hope for more than that. I hold her in such a place of honor.

Julia Winston: When Chalice was younger, she looked up to her aunt and uncle who had adopted kids, found them inspirational. She saw the situation from the adults’ point of view, that they were helping kids who needed a new home. But she didn't always see it from her cousins' perspective, the adopted children, about what they’d lost. Now, Chalice sees the situation with a wider lens. 

Chalice: Part of the reason I wanted to tell my story is because I've met a lot of people who want to foster, adopt, or meet the girls and I, and think like, Oh, that would be so cool. And it's so important to me that people understand that by nature, adoption and foster care are birthed out of tragedy. It is not inherently beautiful that a child needs a different mother than the one that they were born from. It's devastating that for whatever reason, someone's not able to, to care for their child, especially because most of the time that is the desire of the parent, right?

I was this person at one time, thinking there's saving to do,and if we can start from the vantage point of like, wow, there was this family that existed apart from me and I'm being given the honor because of my resources to come in and to maybe help with some mending that is the vantage point that I hope that can start to shift. 

The work of foster care and adoption in my life and in my heart is family preservation. It is still my role as another mom to keep preserving this family unit, to keep drawing them back to each other, to keep helping them see each other. And so I hope that I hear that in the years to come as like more of a theme is really, being a bridge and not being a savior. Like these girls need their mom, their first mom. They need me too, but it has been out of my love for them that I fight for their relationship with their mom, um, because she deserves that and they deserve that.

Julia Winston: What advice would you give to other kids who are going to live with a new adult or guardian like you did?

Aaliyah: I would say that can be like hard sometimes, but it can also like, if you're coming through like a hard place in your life, it can be like, really like, joyful and exciting. don't know, just feels really safe. It's like a safe environment. 

Jamyla: Yeah, um, I, I really agree with Aaliyah too. When you're going to a new person, it can be really hard. But also, if person, if you think they're safe, then I think that could really change your life, and Be a lot more better for you

Julia Winston: What do kids need from adults in this kind of situation?

Aaliyah: Um, especially like need comfort because they're coming. They're probably coming through a hard, um, place. They also might need, um, I don't know, I don't know how to explain it. But, um, with Chalice, she like did a really good job. And she just like, I don't know, did her best that she could and like everything was good.

Jamyla: First of all, I think they need a lot of love and I think they really need to listen to them. And Like, if they're having a hard time, you should, like, say, like, what's wrong, like, can I help you? And, like, really try to help them, and make them feel comfort.

Julia Winston: Aaliyah, Jamyla and their moms have been refamulating for many years, and their story continues to evolve. Like all refamulating journeys, theirs is one of inner and outer transformation. The structure of their family is still changing on the outside, and the love inside each of them continues to grow and deepen.  For Chalice, becoming a mother has been the biggest transformation of all. 

Chalice: I love my life. Like, I love my life as the mother of these two girls. They are The best things that have ever happened to me. 

14: The Single Greatest Choice: Embracing solo motherhood

Katie Bryan grew up in a nuclear family in Texas, and always dreamed her future family would include a doting husband, a beautiful house in the suburbs, and of course, children. She spent almost 20 years searching for the right partner so she could make this dream come true, but at 39 she was still single and child-free. That’s when she realized she didn’t have to wait for a partner, she could have a baby on her own. In this episode Katie shares her emotional journey of releasing the idea of what a family should look like, and building the family of her dreams. 

Learn more about solo motherhood by choice at Katie's website.

Listen to Katie’s podcast, The Single Greatest Choice.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: Refamulating is not just a podcast, it's also a word, and I define it as a process of inner and outer transformation: the way your family is changing and the way it's changing you. Because when your family situation is changing on the outside, it’s likely that powerful shifts are happening on the inside, too. Usually those shifts have to do with mindsets and expectations around family.

Katie Bryan: I'm Katie Bryan. I live in Austin, Texas, and I, oh my gosh, I forgot how old I was for a second. I'm 43. I just turned 43 last month.

Julia Winston: Katie is someone who's experienced a huge transformation around her mindsets and expectations around family. For most of her life, she imagined her future family as…

Katie Bryan: married, white picket fence, you know, two or three kids, golden retriever, like the traditional picture of family. That's what I grew up with. It never even occurred to me that I wouldn't have that, that it would look any different than that because that was just kind what it was supposed to look like.

Julia Winston: But life doesn't always unfold the way we want to just because we made a plan. Katie is not married. She doesn't have a home with a white picket fence, but she does have a kid, just one. The biggest departure from her dream though is that Katie is a solo mom by choice, meaning she decided to become a parent as a single person. She used a sperm donor to get pregnant and made the choice to start a family on her own.

Katie did not ask for this situation. In fact, for a long time, she looked down on the idea of becoming a solo mom by choice and thought it was sad or indicated that she'd failed somehow. 

Katie Bryan: I had a lot of shame around what other people would think. But I still didn't want other people to know about it because I was so worried that people would pity me.

Julia Winston: When push came to shove, Katie's desire to be a mom overrode her desire to have a traditional family. She's now the mom to a three and a half year old little boy and calls this the family of her dreams, even though it's not the picture of what she imagined for most of her life.

Today, I want to tell you Katie's story of accepting her deepest desires around family, shedding expectations around how to get there and how she functions as a solo mom by choice.

Julia Winston: When we launched the first season of Refamulating, a few people suggested I reach out to Katie. We both live in Austin. We're around the same age, and she is also talking publicly about her non traditional family. Katie hosts a podcast called The Single Greatest Choice, and it's geared towards people who are interested in solo parenting, specifically women, and also coaches women who want to be solo moms by choice. Katie and I have another fun thing in common.

Julia Winston: You have like a Texas gay blended family just like me

Katie Bryan: yes. 

I didn't grow up with a gay dad. I grew up with a closeted dad who had his own demons because he was, you know, not living his truth. And there was a lot of, negative impact of that. When one person has a secret that big, there's no way to not have that kind of infiltrate the atmosphere. And I think though we might not have known what it was, I think everybody kind of had a sense that like something was not authentic or not right. We were a pretty traditional nuclear family. I would say there was a lot of laughter and like it felt good some of the time. And then there was a lot of like weird silence and distance.

Julia Winston: Katie's dad didn't come out until she was in her late twenties. So this traditional - and emotionally distant - nuclear family was the only model she knew, for a long time. So that’s what she internalized as “normal” and “right.”

Another thing that was modeled for her was religion. Her mom was Christian and went to church most weeks. So when Katie was in high school and college, she became more religious too. Church became her community, and everyone there had families that looked pretty similar to the one she grew up with.

Julia Winston: What were your dreams during that time? In early adulthood, You know, what did you see for yourself? What did you want?

Katie Bryan: Like if I could have a Christmas card that looked the way it was supposed to look and, you know, by 30 for sure. then, then I, I think that that was my goal. I didn't really have career ambitions. Um, I went into education because it seemed like a good career for a mom. 

So I Think in college, I sort of made an unspoken agreement with myself that I was going to apply all of my perfectionism to this family unit versus career. And I feel like there's like a whole or friendships or travel or like any of the other things. Right. And so I think my personality was just like wired to like, Go hard on something.

Julia Winston: The most important part of the equation was finding a husband, because the cute house and 2 or 3 kids couldn't happen until she got that piece first. When Katie was a sophomore in college, she met the guy. 

Katie Bryan: here's this guy and he's so cute. And we're like, we're kind of like flirting and stuff. And then he asked me out and we were supposed to go out, um, September 11th, 2001. And we kind of watched the world fall apart together that day. I really feel like that fear was the like connecting point for our whole relationship. He ended up enlisting in the military in response to September 11th. And so much of our five years prior to marriage was long distance. And we were allowed to really like romance this fantasy of what it would be like to be together without actually having to, like, be in the thick of actually being together.

Julia Winston: Katie got married when she was 23, after almost five years of long distance. Once they were married, they were still kind of transient because of the military. They lived briefly on the East Coast, far from friends and family. 

Katie Bryan: And I think any kind of Difficulty that we had or loneliness that we had or, or struggles that we had, we were just like, well, when we get back to Texas, it'll be better. 

Julia Winston: They moved back to Texas a couple years later, when Katie was 25. And finally, things started clicking into place. She was married. She was building a career in education, which she thought was perfectly suited for her life as a mom. And they’d found the perfect house. For the next five years they built the future she’d been dreaming of. 

Katie Bryan: We lived in Cedar park. We had a new construction home with a white picket fence. We had a golden retreat. I mean, we literally were building the life that I thought that I wanted, but completely out of just like, maybe I'll feel safe and secure if it looks this way on the outside. Um, and then he started to kind of push against that and just feel not ready for that. And he was turning 30 and just kind of like going through all kinds of emotional processing and like that life so far hadn't been what he had hoped. And he decided at that point that he didn't want kids. 

Julia Winston: This was a shock to Katie. They had talked about having kids. She had made sacrifices like moving from one place to another so she could build a life with this man. And now he’d decided that traditional family life was not the life he wanted.

Katie Bryan: And even though we'd been together 10 years and five years married, he just was like, I have to. I have to go out and figure out what else I want. He thought he wanted to be a rock star. He, I mean, he was just like, you know, kind of spun out. And, um, I think it's interesting to think back because I was devastated about the loss of the relationship. But I also just was so frustrated that he wasn't cooperating with my plan because it just, it felt like it really set me back. And it's so sweet to look back and know that like, I was only 29, like I was a baby, but I felt like now I'm behind, like I was. I was ahead and now I'm behind and that's kind of how I was thinking about life and family at that point. 

Julia Winston: Katie's divorce was the first in a series of events that started to shake her idea of what her ideal family should look like.

Katie Bryan: I was the very first divorce in my entire family lineage that I could trace, like no one had been divorced. And I joke that I kind of opened the floodgates because there have been many since. But, um, I got divorced at 29 years old in 2010. And that same year my dad came out, my parents divorced and my dad was already in a relationship with his current husband. Um, and so that kind of came to light at that point as well.

Julia Winston: The divorce also forced her to look more critically at her faith. Because being married was part of her image to be a “good Christian girl”, and now that was gone.

Katie Bryan: I think religion played a big piece in it because around the time that we divorced was around the time that I started feeling major doubts. Um, about like,  I don't think I actually believe any of this and the implications of not believing like my entire world will shatter. And so it was kind of making the decision with myself at that time to stay in a marriage that didn't feel right. And to  stay in a religion that didn't feel like just to pretend, which is very much what my childhood looked like. Right. Like just, just fought, just play, play the role.  And make it look okay on the outside and that's how you're going to be okay. 

Julia Winston: So what happened after you got divorced? How did it change your perspective?

Katie Bryan: Um, I was devastated. I mean, absolutely devastated. I really deeply loved this man and he really loved me and we were a terrible match for each other. Like we would not have voted the same in any election that has happened since we've been apart. We like our, our values somewhat overlapped, but our, the way we,  Like I would not go on a first date with him if I encountered him now. And I kind of knew that,  but I thought,  I don't know. I just, I thought we would somehow, it looked okay on the outside.

Julia Winston: After the divorce, Katie was really focused on what she’d lost: the chance at a family. 

Katie Bryan: And was feeling a lot of pressure about the clock, I was 30 and 30 was scary. And then I was 31. 

Julia Winston: Her way of dealing with that pressure was to really put herself out there so she could meet someone.  

Katie Bryan: But mostly I was just hustling. I'm an introvert and I have a very like extroverted job. And so what I wanted to do was like come home and recharge. But what I was doing was driving from where I lived in like pretty far North Austin down to downtown Austin to do like run clubs with rogue running and like charity events. And like I was at some sort of like social or charity event most nights of the week thinking, Maybe I'll meet someone or maybe I'll make a girlfriend who connects me. Like I was just, I was networking for my worth and networking for my relationship status. Like it felt like I had to, right? So I would work my job and then my second job was like, get back to where you were with like, The white picket fence and the partner and, you know, but do it better this time. 

Julia Winston: While Katie was busy hustling, she was surprised to meet someone much closer to home, at the elementary school where she taught. This was the last place she expected to find a single man. He was a divorced dad of one of the kiddos, and she saw him every morning during drop offs.

Katie Bryan: And then somehow we were chatting at some point and found out we were both training for the same marathon. So we started doing runs together. There were red flags all over the place, but I so wanted the outward appearance of the family and I felt very behind because at this point I was 34 I think and Lots of my friends had young kids and some of their kids were Kindergarten first grade and here this guy has a first grader. So I went from being single to dating this guy were like, I was showing up at the family barbecues and I was bringing like a first grader with a lightsaber. And I was like in the game. Like I got, I felt like I got to like skip, skip a step, um, and get right back to where I had hoped that I would have been at that point.

So we actually got engaged. We planned an entire wedding. And we got pretty close. And so I really ignored all kinds of red flags until I just couldn't. And then I was like, you know what? I, this is, I can't, I can't do this. So, um, I ended it with him.  

And I think at that point is when I really learned this cannot be about what it looks like on the outside. It has to be deeper than that. Um, so I think that was my big lesson of my like teens to mid thirties. I wish it hadn't taken that long to learn, but it did. But from then on, I just honestly like, didn't give a shit what it looks like on the outside.

Julia Winston: I want to go deeper into that for a second. What are some of the stories you were telling yourself in your twenties and thirties about marriage and children?

Katie Bryan: I really thought that being chosen meant a lot about me. And I think I had like decent self confidence. I think, I don't think that I truly was needing another person for me to feel worthy. I think I felt like I needed another person for the rest of the world to see my worth, um, that I had been chosen. And I really think it was about kind of matching what so many of my peers were doing, what my sister was doing. I think I just wanted to look the way that I thought that I was supposed to look at that stage in life.

Julia Winston: When Katie ended her engagement, she was 34 and once again lost the opportunity to have a family. And this is when Katie’s mindset started to shift. It didn’t happen overnight, but ending her engagement helped her start to realize that the standard she’d been holding herself to might actually be holding her back.

Katie Bryan: I would say that the end of that relationship also marked me truly saying out loud and letting go of my religious  ties. Um, and so that was a huge turning point to me, um, because those were the things like being like a quote unquote, good Christian girl and being like a mom and a wife  that those were what I was using as the marker for like,  And, and really like more so than success, safety, like emotional safety and just like, I'm going to be okay.  So when I was letting go of the religious piece, I was still very interested in locking down the relationship, but my relationship that I ended was pretty unhealthy emotionally. And there was some definite emotional manipulation and just some really unhealthy patterns, um, in that relationship.

Julia Winston: She was starting to accept that settling for the wrong person just because she wanted kids was not a good plan. So she tried something new, something she never dreamed of. She embraced her single life as a 34-year-old woman. 

Katie Bryan: I was so relieved I think to be out of that situation that there was this sense that like the world is my oyster. I also moved closer to downtown Austin. I started like hanging out with other single people in their thirties versus like all my friends who were like married with kids in their thirties and just realized like I'm not alone. And there was still always this desire and this hope that I would find my partner. That didn't go away. I mean, it never really went away. I just, I think it got less intense and I, I got a little bit more, um, open to a different timeline. And I remember saying out loud at some point, I thought that I was going to get divorced and like quickly remarry and that the singleness was going to be this like blip in my story that was like barely detectable. And at this point I remember, and I don't remember how many years in it was, but I remember thinking now singleness is a significant part of my story. And whether or not I couple and parent and all of those things with a partner, like I will always have to acknowledge like this chunk of time that as an adult, I was single. And I just never thought that that was going to be. Like, I was the girl that got married at 23, so I just thought, like, we'll just insert different husband and carry on, and that's not what happened.

Julia Winston: But the single, fun loving Katie was only a detour. She still knew she wanted to be a mom, and she was starting to feel more and more pressure as she got into her mid 30s. 

Katie Bryan: My fertility clock is is ticking and i'm still not coupled. I really started to believe to feel a lot of shame around it and to believe that maybe there is something wrong with me and the way that I'm going about d ating and relationships. And, and it was both like a lot of self compassion and, and like understanding, like I'm trying so fucking hard. And I, I see that in myself and I know that I'm someone worth Worth dating, worth loving, worth marrying. And also what, why is this so hard? Why can I not find this partner?

Julia Winston: When she was 37, the pressure she’d been feeling started bubbling to the surface. In the back of her head, she started thinking about solo motherhood. But she really hoped it wouldn't come to that. So once again, Katie threw herself into dating. 

Katie Bryan: I did decide in 2018, maybe I'm just not focused enough, which is a weird way to think of it. But I decided in 2018 to make it my goal that that would be the year that I would find my partner and to really be almost like systematic in my dating and I started going out on a minimum of two first dates a week and like cataloging each date and like really trying to be reflective about like not liking someone's teeth is not a reason to not go back out with them or like, not like, like not like being more aware of how I was being, how I was screening people, right.

I went on 50 first dates in six months and was starting to get really burnt out on that. And on the 51st, First date. I met an incredible guy who is just so dear to me. And I thought, okay, this is it. I was right. I just had to, I just had to be diligent and stick with it. And it was, it was, To this day, best first date I've ever been on. Um, I felt all the butterflies and, and so did he, and I think we were both just like, yeah, this is it.

Julia Winston: So Katie has this great first date, and the same week she meets that guy, she got the results of an at-home fertility test she’d randomly ordered online. 

Katie Bryan: And that fertility test indicated that I was like, right on the line, the line between average and diminished ovarian reserve. And so that really, like, sparked this realization that it maybe isn't just all going to be okay. And maybe I don't have all the time in the world. But at that point I realized like, I really do need to freeze my eggs. I really do need to see a doctor and start thinking about this, but it was all in the context of that relationship that was brand new at the time.

That really made it difficult to be present and be someone that someone wanted to be in a relationship with, um, in that brand new relationship. And so essentially the relationship imploded. I don't blame myself. I don't blame him. I just think like, gosh, that was so hard. And I have so much compassion for both of us and where we were in that. Um, but it just like the, my fear, the relationship just couldn't hold it. Like I would just, I had to get out and start trying to be a mom.

Julia Winston: After that relationship ended, Katie fully admitted to herself that she was gonna try to have a baby on her own. It wasn’t her first choice, but she realized she couldn’t wait around for the right relationship at the right time if she wanted to be a mom. 

The first step she took was freezing her eggs. She was 37. She also started meeting with doctors and thinking about a possible sperm donor. 

Katie Bryan: Even as I was gradually coming to the realization that like I do think I'm really well suited to parent solo and there are a lot of advantages to parenting solo. I started to decide that it was something that I really was excited to do, but I still didn't want other people to know about it because I felt so much shame and I was so worried that people would pity me.

Julia Winston: But she reluctantly kept moving through the process. The desire to have a baby was starting to slowly overtake her desire to have a traditional family. The next step was choosing a sperm donor. She first explored the idea of a known donor. She knew someone who seemed like he'd be a good fit. His sister had been a surrogate, so he'd seen this kind of situation up close and he was open to it. But…she ultimately decided against it.

Katie Bryan: I worried about boundaries. I worried about me resenting him. I worried about me being confused about his role, even if we agreed about what his role was going to be. He's already a dad and I worried about the dynamic of this man is a dad, but not my dad for my child. And I just thought it would be tough to navigate over time because we're in the same city because we're friends, because he's someone that naturally I would invite to my child's first birthday party because he's my friend. But like, now is he coming as the kid’s dad?  Like I just, it just felt like too much. 

Julia Winston: So she decided to go with a donor from a sperm bank. And once she had a donor, she started the IUI process. This is what Katie calls.

Katie Bryan: a medically supervised turkey baster situation. 

Julia Winston: The way it works is that a doctor inseminates her with the sperm in the clinic. It’s not as accurate as IVF, but much cheaper, so it’s where many fertility patients start. Katie had to do a few rounds of IUIs before anything happened.

Katie Bryan: I did get pregnant in June of 2019 and was devastated. Um, had so much regret, was so upset. just was not ready. 

I just sort of thought that a baby would trump any other emotion that I was feeling or any doubts that I had, because I knew the one thing I really, really knew was that I wanted to be a mom. And ultimately that did not end in a successful pregnancy at a very early miscarriage. So it felt so like, right, right. Like I needed that experience. I'm so thankful to my body and the universe and you know, all the things that conspired to like, help me see how unready I was, um, without the implication of like, it actually being a pregnancy that was viable.

Julia Winston: Katie wasn’t ready because she hadn’t truly embraced the idea of solo motherhood. It still felt like a backup plan. Getting pregnant filled her with sadness because she still wanted things to be different than they were. She got what she wanted, but not in the way she wanted. That’s a complicated feeling, but she confronted it head on. 

After the miscarriage, Katie knew she needed to fully embrace this choice if she was going to try and get pregnant again.  

So she took a few months off from IUIs to let her body heal and recalibrate. During this break, she also found a new doctor who made her feel much more comfortable and capable. She started to feel more confident in the choice to do it alone. 

The new doctor told Katie she should do another egg retrieval and start considering IVF, a more scientifically accurate way to try and get pregnant. It’s also a much more expensive endeavor. Katie was prepared to go into debt to do IVF, but in the end she got some help from her family. 

Katie Bryan: I did another egg retrieval. I got similar results. I had seven eggs. And so I, I, um, thawed the, the original seven eggs, which was a really hard decision for me because I wanted to preserve those for a future relationship. but my doctor was just really frank with me about, you know, seven may not give us. What we need, 14 may not even give us what we need, but I think cost wise it makes the most sense to like have those eggs thawed and fertilize all of them at the same time because you're it's going to be the one cost for all of the fertilization and the monitoring and the, Genetic testing versus like doing one batch and then need like will very likely need to come back and do the second batch So that's what I did.

I used my frozen eggs. I brought them over from the other clinic I did a second egg retrieval. I ended up with 12 eggs in total because two of the originals didn't thaw Um, uh, all of them fertilized. Eight of them continued to develop into embryos and at day five they biopsied those eight embryos. They sent them off for genetic testing, and I got five genetically normal embryos, which is statistically completely unheard of. 

And so, um, I'm very thankful for those results of those embryos because it gave me something I hadn't had in years, which was a fucking break. Like it gave me the ability to take a deep breath. Step back and not try to get pregnant.

Julia Winston: And that's what Katie did. She took a few months off from thinking about pregnancy and doing IVF. COVID started around this time, which further solidified her choice to chill out. Then, by July 2020, she was ready to schedule her embryo transfer. She was 39. 

Katie Bryan: And that was such a gift because I got to go into my embryo transfer so excited and so clear and so ready. And I love looking back at pictures of myself. I took like some selfies that day and I like got dressed up and I put on red lipstick and I was just like, I was there for it and it didn't have at all the same feeling as all of those IUIs where I was like, I guess this is just my lot in life that I like have to do this or else, you know, it was like a thing that I absolutely could choose not to do that month or that year, but I was wanting to do it. So I think that freedom was everything to just get to choose the timing. 

Julia Winston: And this transfer worked. Katie got pregnant in the summer of 2020 and felt like the timing couldn't have been better. 

Katie Bryan: And so my pregnancy was all like, I was working virtually. I didn't have to put on real pants the whole time. I watched the entire, um, series of Jane, the Virgin, they're like a hundred episodes. It's so good. Um, I ate grilled cheese. That's like a big part of the show. And I just like laid in bed, eating grilled cheese and watching Jane, the Virgin and like growing a human. And it was like, so fun to just get to like, rest. Like my whole pregnancy was just full of like rest and reading and nurturing myself. And like, meanwhile it was a very scary time because like, we weren't sure what was happening with, with COVID and you know, I was worried about my dad and his health and my grandma and you know, just, it was a scary time, but it was also just like a really sweet time.

Julia Winston: It was during lockdown that she also started her podcast, The Single Greatest Choice, to talk about her experience becoming a solo mom by choice.

Katie Bryan: And I was connecting with women online who are pursuing this path. And that was really opening my eyes. And I was really excited. Just shedding all of those layers of shame around the decision that I made and, it was like, okay, I can have thoughts about women who have to have a baby on their own because they couldn't find a partner and all that in air quotes, right? I can have thoughts about what that means about us. These women, but I'm sitting here pregnant as a woman who did that. And so those thoughts don't serve me at all. And so like, what else is true? And the more I talked with other women, it's like, Oh fuck. Like we're the women who didn't settle. We're the women who let our bar stay high, even if it meant letting go of everything we thought our life was going to look like, like we have so much like integrity with ourselves for like not settling. And I was so proud to be part of something that like, the more women I met, the more I could see that, like, it doesn't even make sense to hold on to any of that shame because they're also badass. And I can't be the one woman in this pool who isn't a badass when like, I, all of them are, you know what I mean? So I just, I feel like I found my people and I found so much solace in like other women's stories and so part of my pregnancy was like really owning that this didn't happen to me. I chose it and I'm so proud.

Julia Winston: Wow. I don't even It's just so like, what a,  that transformative, that transformative realization inside your own, it's like a blooming inside your own heart, mind, body, soul. That of pure acceptance and self love and stepping into and choosing. That is so empowering. That is so different.

And you had to go through everything you went through in order to get there. And I hear your gratitude for everything that you went through in order to get to that place. We just don't know how the pain and the trials and tribulations that we're experiencing are lending themselves to something that we do want. It's just like, the mystery is so profound.   

Julia Winston: Katie had a healthy pregnancy, full of grilled cheese and dreams about what life would be like when her baby arrived. Her birth went well, really fast in fact, and she gave birth to her son.

Katie Bryan: It was beautiful. Best day of my life. So much fun. I would absolutely do it again. I immediately thought I'm definitely gonna have another kid and I would totally be open to being a surrogate if I ever had that opportunity because I just loved pregnancy and birth so much.

Julia Winston: When we come back, Katie begins her life as a solo mom.

Julia Winston: When Katie was pregnant, she knew the first major choice she'd make as a parent would be finding childcare for her infant. She knew she'd have to go back to work three months after giving birth, so she quickly found a daycare that fit her budget. This was in 2021, when we were masking to avoid major COVID outbreaks at schools and daycares.

Katie Bryan: And my dad and his husband came with me to the orientation. We, you know, had this tiny baby. We're all wearing masks. We did the tour and I was feeling so self conscious with my dad and his husband, like walking through the school, because on the one hand it was like, it was one of the first big, big decisions I'd made as a mom independently. And also my resources financially are like somewhat limited. So I chose, The best school that I found that was in my budget, knowing that there were places that I would have been much more excited about that just were outside of my budget.

And so I felt a little bit self conscious like doing this tour of this center with them, even though it was a lovely place and I was happy to have my child there. But, uh, we did the whole tour. We got back out to the parking lot. And I was like, so what did you guys think? And my dad was like, it was great. And I w I was like relieved. And I think I started to cry and he's like, Oh, he's not going there on Monday, but it's a great place. And I was like, what? And I just started bawling. Cause I thought, I felt like it was like a judgment of this decision or that I wasn't being a good mom. I was still very hormonal and emotional and going back to work and all the things. 

And he's like, what's he going to do? Lay and like stare at the ceiling and these women and masks and faces he doesn't know. We'll take care of them. And I was like, what? Um, cause it wasn't anything we had discussed. I think that was maybe a Friday and he was supposed to start on Monday to like, all of a sudden they were full time. Like I went back to work and they stayed at my house and took care of him all day. Just two men who had never changed a diaper, had no idea what they were doing. We had a little whiteboard where I would write down all the instructions. I think they texted me like, you know, 20 times a day. And, um, but they stayed they did that. About until he got to where he was crawling. And then they were like, this is a lot. We're exhausted. And so I, I, at the time I knew I couldn't afford a nanny cause nannies are like double daycare. But then I was like, Oh wait, hold on. I can afford half a nanny cause I can afford daycare. Right. And so I was able to get a nanny to come for the first few hours in the morning and then they took the afternoon shift. And so we did that all the way until he was almost a year. 

Julia Winston: The support of Katie’s dad and his husband that first year helped her get on her feet as a solo parent without the cost of full-time daycare. But after a year, they were tapped out and it was time for more support. Since then, daycare has been the biggest financial burden for Katie as a single mom.

Katie Bryan: Daycare is expensive. My daycare cost more than my mortgage. So that's not fun. But, it's an ongoing cost, but it's also a temporary cost. Like I'm two years away from not needing to pay that. so it's, was just a reality that, like, I won't be saving during these years. That money will be going straight to daycare. There's a lot of reallocation , right? Like I'm not ever going out to, to, you Brunch or I'm not like a lot of the money that I was spending on, like fun, um, is now fun in a different way. Cause I'm buying tickets to like a dinosaur park or, you know, different types of fun.

Julia Winston: During her first year of parenthood, Katie was working for the school district. Her salary hadn’t changed much since she’d been a teacher, but she had a little more flexibility, so she started a coaching business to work with other women considering becoming solo moms by choice.

Katie Bryan: So my business was a complete accident that kind of just unfolded through hosting a podcast and having lots of people DM me asking, um, all kinds of questions. But I think the underlying question to every question they asked was Am I going to be okay? And is there something wrong with me for, for ending up here? Like those are the two big things women want to know. Can I do this? And what does it mean about me that I've found myself in a place where this feels like the best choice for me when it's not the life that I dreamed for myself. The women that I work with are typically the ones that came here, you know, kicking and screaming. And this was not even plan B. It' s like, I don't know, X, Y, or Z like somewhere down the list, you know, but it was just slightly more desirable than, than missing out on motherhood. Um, So I think like talking with so many women, um, has just like the need was so apparent that I just couldn't deny it.

Julia Winston: Through her coaching, Katie helps women adopt the right mindset to take on pregnancy and parenting by themselves.

Katie Bryan: Like if you think it's going to be miserable, it absolutely will be. Okay. Right. You can be a mom or you can never be a mom, but you can, if you're, if you're going to be a solo mom who constantly notices the deficit of the extra help, the extra parent, like you will be resentful, you will be miserable. And it's the same way you can remain childless and be so happy with your decision. You can acknowledge there maybe is like this alternative life you would have enjoyed or this longing that maybe, you know, is never going to be satiated in a way that like a motherhood might've, but that, but you can still be so, so happy because of what you choose to think about it. 

I would say our goal in our coaching sessions is for them to want, to want, to be a solo mom. Like they are so kind of defeated and sad and depressed by the idea that it's like, let's just, let's work on getting to a point where you want to want that. And then we can work on you actually wanting that. And then maybe you will want it. And then we'll talk about how it's going to be right. 

Julia Winston: Katie's son is now three and a half, so she's deep in the reality of what it's like to actually be a solo parent.

Katie Bryan: I think every season has had, it's, it's different hard parts. Um, at first it was sleep. Um, I always say it is so good that my son is so perfect in so many other ways because he is like the world's worst sleeper. And I'm not sure I could have done it if, if I hadn't just like been so in love with him during the waking hours because he just didn't sleep. I mean, he just like for two whole years, sleep was really, really, really rough. Um, to the point where there were times where I like, I don't, I don't feel safe getting behind the wheel. so that was like super, super hard and I had to really get good at asking for help and um, and I wasn't great at it. I mean, I would, I would wait until like the resentment and the just like complete, depletion bubbled up to a certain point and then I would just kind of like melt into that victim mode of like someone has to take this kid for one night so I can sleep.

So I'm not super proud of how I navigated that, but I did learn quite a bit about asking for help before you get to that point instead of like waiting around for people to step in and offer because the reality is a lot of people were willing to help me. So I think just being really clear about what our needs are and like asking for help and just knowing that it's like someone's prerogative to say yes or no. But like, if you don't ask, then they're, They don't even know the need.

Three is no joke. He has got some big feelings and it's, it's tough. He is still the sweetest, most snuggly, funniest, like most incredible little human. but three is just big feelings. And so I would say right now the hardest part of being a solo mom is, um, my own emotional regulation. Like when I am frazzled because We're running late or the dog peed on the rug Like I'm I'm up to here because of something else and then you're getting that Like just the incessant need Or they're just like doing the exact wrong thing at the time when you just like, can't take one more thing.

And also they're three. So you like can't lose your shit on them like that is really, really, really hard. And so, um, learning how to manage my own emotional regulation needs in my like nervous system and how to like, there are times pretty frequently where I step out onto my back porch and shut the door and just take two or three deep breaths. because it's just really hard when there's no way to like tap out even for five minutes and the things that you did pre baby aren't accessible. You can't go for a run. You can't call a friend. You can't like, none of those things work in the moment. You have to stay You still can have them, but you kind of have to like schedule them. so that I think is the hardest part is just the relentlessness of it's never your turn to be having a bad day because you've got to be there for somebody else

Julia Winston: It can be hard not having an extra set of hands But Katie has found unexpected benefits to solo parenting.

Katie Bryan: I love that I get to parent without Like watching and having an opinion about how I'm doing it. Um, it's just, there's such freedom in parenting solo. There are a lot of things that are hard about being a solo parent. It's not harder And in a lot of ways I think it's easier. And so I'm, yeah, I'm really thankful. I love parenting solo.

Julia Winston: One thing she loves is that there’s no one around to judge or question her parenting style. She can quickly make decisions about her son without consulting someone else.Which frees her up to focus on him during an age where he needs a lot of attention. 

Katie Bryan: I had this realization one time when I had a friend over and I noticed that in the time That she was over at my house, my son, who was so sweet and fun and funny just minutes before she walked in the door was like kind of being a nightmare when she was there. And I was like, what is going on? Like, is he hungry? Like what is happening? 

And I realized the dynamic when there are two adults is that the conversation is up high at adult level and we only really like look down and acknowledge needs like, Oh, can you open this package? Can you fix this toy? And I would imagine that in, in a, in a two parent household, a lot of the conversation is happening up above. And I just had this, this recognition of the fact that my household, the default is like this diagonal down from me to him and him to me and the communication that we're having. I just think there's so much benefit. And it's so interesting because I worried so much about, um, depriving him of a second parent. And that's one like huge daily way that I feel like he really benefits from. the attention that he's getting because my attention is not split. 

Julia Winston: And Katie's also learned that she might be the only parent to her son, but she doesn't have to carry the full burden of parenting alone. She's learned to ask for support when she needs it, and she gets it from more than just one person. In the last three years, she's met other solo moms in Austin and built a whole community of women who show up for each other and each other's kids.

Katie Bryan: I just think it's, it's so important to feel that connection and that community and that sense of family. I do think of my solo mom community as my family and something that I get asked frequently is, should I do this? Should I make this decision, a parent solo, if I don't have a strong family support system. I don't live near my parents or my parents are much older or my family's not supportive of this decision or we just aren't close. And what I usually tell these women is, you know, I'm very lucky that I do have that supportive family. And if something were to happen today, my first phone call likely would be my dad because he's supportive and he's local.

And he's someone that could help me in a pinch, but my next three phone calls. would all be people I did not know before I got pregnant. They would all be other solo moms that I've, that I only know because I went down this path. And so I just think the idea of like family and connection and community, it's like, it's, it's always evolving and you just never know. I think you have to have the faith that it's going to unfold and the identity of like, I am someone who connects. I am someone who creates and I don't know what that's going to look like. And I don't have to know what it's going to look like in order to take the next step. But I do have to like have the faith that it's going to be there.

Julia Winston: I often think of this metaphor of a school of fish swimming next to each other. And we don't know that we're in a school of fish. We feel alone. There's just a deep blue sea in front of you and like a deep blue sea behind you above you and below you. But if you could swim out ahead just a little bit and turn around,

Katie Bryan: Yes. Yes.

Julia Winston: endless school of fish right next to you. And I think that's, that's like what, I think that's what both of our You know, callings are really like this work that you're doing and the work that I'm doing. And this interview is part of that. This conversation is part of that. It's of, um, it's of us swimming ahead just a little bit and turning around and saying, look, look at all of these people, just like you, just like me who are navigating, but we are together if can see it, if we can open our eyes to it, if we can welcome it in. And you did that. 

Katie Bryan: I really feel like I'm parenting in a village. I feel like I'm parenting in the way that it was always meant to be. And kind of like going back to like a more tribal way of like just doing it in community. I get excited when my son outgrows things. I'm saving a lot because I do plan to have a second child, but I love passing on things that I've spent money on that are good stuff to other moms so that they don't have to. And honestly, I, I just, I'm so content. Like making my way through this world and like navigating all of the things with my my community of women that I really don't feel like there's a Not only do I not feel like there's a deficit of not having a partner for parenting. I feel like I'm at an advantage. 

I mean, I have solo moms whose kids I think of like nieces and nephews or like family, where I just know that like In their teen years when there's something uncomfortable that maybe they're not quite ready to talk to their mom about, or that's just a little awkward, like that they might come to me and that my son might do the same. And just that there's this whole kind of network. And because we're not putting it all on one person, like it's just spread a little bit more. Manageably. Right. Um, and so it's not that I don't want partnership, but I don't actually want parenting partnership. I'm actually kind of hopeful that I will find the love of my life once I'm past like the bulk of the parenting years, I would be open to finding that person, um, at any point. But I, I kind of would love if it was like when my son is like, 10 or older, you know what I mean? Where of like established like some of the, um, patterns and I've done kind of the laid the parenting.

Julia Winston: It's just so striking to me that so much of the fear that you experienced was, Oh God, I'm going to be alone and all stigma and shame around being alone. And what you're finding is you're more connected and there is more abundance than you could have imagined. 

Julia Winston: Katie would like to keep growing her family. She still has four healthy embryos and loves the idea of having a second baby. But she's held off because she knew she couldn't physically and financially handle a second child while her son is still so young.

Katie Bryan: Like I just couldn't imagine a scenario of affording two kids in daycare at the same time. I didn't really know what the financial, uh, realities would be of parenting solo until I was in it. And now that I can actually see the breakdown and the numbers, it just is not mathematically feasible. But I have made some big changes in my career that I hope will increase my earning potential. And so it's possible that I may find myself in a position where it feels more feasible to afford two kids. And. My son is eventually going to go to kindergarten, right? So he's not going to need daycare. One of those two things will happen and then I will be ready. I really, Long to be a mom of two. I would love to have two boys. I did not want them to be five years apart and I would rather have them five years apart than not at all.

Julia Winston: What about romantic love? What role has partnership, dating played since you embarked on solo motherhood. 

Katie Bryan: Not at all. is one of, to me, the biggest shockers because I was so, I dated Hard, you know, like I dated a lot and I was very, very focused on, um, relationship for decades. I mean, it was the thing, it was the problem and also the solution. And I mean, it was everything that I was focused on far more than career friendships, travel, finances, like any of it. And so there is so much freedom. In just shedding that, like, I think I would be totally fine if I never found, like, a life partner. Now, I certainly want to have intimacy. I want to flirt. I want to have, like, that side at some point. Uh, but it may never look like someone living in my house, like, like being my family.

Julia Winston: When Katie got married at 23, she thought she was giving herself security. But there’s no such thing as security when it comes to family. Families are messy because people are messy. We change, we evolve. 

In the 20 years since Katie got married, she’s experienced a total transformation.  She no longer thinks she needs a romantic partner for her family to be complete. She doesn’t care what others think about her choices. What’s important to her is that she has a loving family, which is really what she’s always wanted. 

She wasn’t always confident in the decision to be a solo mom, but she kept following her gut. And when she embraced the unknown, a new version of her life opened up. She became a mother. She started a business. She gets to travel and host retreats with other women. Her life has been filled with opportunities she never could have imagined. 

Katie Bryan: my whole life just feels like this, this openness and this abundance and this adventure. It's so different than like the, the clinging and the like fear of the life that I lived before, where it was like, I just need these certain things so that I feel okay. And then I know that I'm going to be okay. 

For years, it was about finding my partner and creating the family that I had always dreamed of. That I would end each journal entry with the statement, um, this or something, I can't even say it without crying, like this or something greater for the highest good. And I could not imagine that that would not be me with the husband and the kids and the white picket fence. Like if I could just have that, I mean, I would have given anything to have that, but I was willing to kind of leave that space. And I honestly don't think I believed that there was anything greater than just like feeling that sense of like home with my family, but that openness of like this or something greater, I cannot even tell you the lives that I've touched the daily DMs and emails and phone calls and. Like the women who are like, I would not be holding my child today if I didn't have the confidence that I gained through the work that you're doing. 

Like this could be the super sad story of how I ended up here, but like, why would I tell that story? Right. Because what's also true is how much I've learned and how much I've grown and how much freedom has come from, um, This life that I've chosen. And that's why my business and my podcast and everything is called the single greatest choice because we're, we're single mothers by choice. Right. And I used to hate that label.

I hated it so much. I could not own it because I wanted the world to know I am a single mother by necessity. I did not have a choice. There was no other option for me. Had I had like the other door, I would have gone through it. Right. did, I could have, I could have settled. I could have lowered the bar. I could have tricked some guy into knocking me up. Like there were a million other options. And I did choose this and I'm proud that I chose it. And so I think that the single greatest choice is this idea of becoming a single mother by choice, but it's also the choice that we're talking about the lens through which you view the moment and like the big picture story. It's like you get to choose. 

13: Don’t Tell Mom: Grieving the “living death” of family estrangement

When Emily was a child, a family member abused her and told her to keep it a secret. She kept that secret until she was 34, but her family didn’t react well. Eventually Emily chose to stop talking to them, and in this episode she explains her choice to be estranged from her family and why estrangement was important to her healing.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: We opened the season by exploring the idea that the American Dream, especially when it comes to family, doesn’t work for everybody. Today’s episode is an example of that. This story talks about childhood sexual abuse. Please listen with care. 

Julia Winston: I'm Julia Winston, and this is Refamulating, a show that explores different ways to make a family. 

This week is Thanksgiving. In the U.S., this is the unofficial start to the holiday season. For the next six weeks, we will all be running around preparing for whatever holidays we may celebrate between now and the new year. For many of us, this is a frenzied time of year as we try to get gifts, plan travel and navigate all the family dynamics we'll be dropping into. 

This can also be a tough time of year for people who have complicated relationships with family. Whether they see their family or not, the holidays can be a reminder of what they don't have. Emily is someone who won't be seeing any blood relatives this week. 

Emily: Unfortunately I am estranged from my immediate family at the moment. I think for me estrangement is kind of like a day to day decision and I'm not ready to not be yet if that ends up being an option at some point. 

Julia Winston: Today we’re gonna hear the story about why Emily is estranged from her family of origin, and how the choice to distance herself has thrown her into a journey of refamulating. 

I've seen Emily's estrangement unfold up close, in real time. I’ve known her for more than 20 years. We went to college together and she’s been one of my best friends ever since.

Emily: I feel like we've really like watched each other grow up, which has been such a delight. Um, but also filled with, you know, real life. So it hasn't all just been like fun and giggling. Although there's been plenty of that. We've also seen each other cry a lot.

Julia Winston: A lot. And we've cried together a lot with and for each other.

Julia Winston: One of the things I’ve cried about the most with Emily is the reason she’s estranged from her family, and the fact that she’s lost one of the most important people in her life.

Emily: I haven't talked to my mom since like 2017, 2018. 

Julia Winston: But before we get into why, let’s start from the beginning. 

Emily : My dad was an English professor and they got married and they were like, totally like mismatched. Like my mom was like really fun and my dad was like very serious and like academic. Um, so they had my older brother and then four years later they had me. So I was four, they got divorced, um, which I think was like great for my mom. She was like a single mom in the late eighties. Um, what, you know, really hard decision to make and really difficult time in her life, I'm sure.

My dad was extremely bitter about the divorce. Extremely bitter. And my childhood was very much like him yelling at my older brother to like excel in school and like be perfect and very much ignored me. Like 100%. I was just a ghost. He had a lot of rage and I was just always kind of thought he was going to like kill me. Um, like when I would, uh, go to sleep for a certain period, I would really try to get him to say, I'll see you tomorrow because I was sure he was going to kill me overnight. 

Julia Winston: Did he ever, um, direct his anger towards you? Like why did you think he was going to kill you?

Emily : He was just so mad, like all the time, just like cursing under his breath, like a lunatic. Just, clearly needed some SSRIs, you know what I mean? And didn't have access, so, or didn't know about them, I don't know, it was so early. But I interpreted a lack of love as the presence of, like, murderous intent. Um, and a lot of the time at my dad's house, he would just like, get drunk and go to sleep. He ended up dying when I was 15 from cancer, and I was so relieved. I was so relieved when he died. It was, there was not a single part of me that was sad. I was waiting for it. I'm like, get out of here, man. Yeah, it wasn't until like 20 years later that I felt sad that my dad died.

Julia Winston: So that was your relationship with your biological father. Yeah. And what was your relationship like with your mom, your stepfather, and your brothers?

Emily : Yeah, so my mom married my stepdad a year after she got divorced, so I was only five, so my stepdad was in my life you know, from when I was really little. And they together had my little brother. So then we had this, you know, family where my older brother and I would go to my dad's every other weekend and every Wednesday night, like that kind of nineties divorce pattern, which I think you

Julia Winston: Oh, I know it well. Yep. Yep.

Emily : I lived with my mom and stepdad full time with my brothers in the suburbs. So, and I was like, a tomboy with ADD, so I was always like, climbing the tree, or riding my bike, or dribbling the basketball, like I was so hyperactive, um, and spent a lot of time outside at the park. So that was like the setup was like two brothers, divorced parents and kind of going back and forth and like really hated going to my dad's house like every, every Tuesday night and every Thursday night where I'd have to see him the next day I would cry, cry, cry, cry, cry so much to my mom. She was really there for me. And she did the best she could. 

Julia Winston: Something happened when you were a child that led to the estrangement. So what happened, Emily, what happened when you were a kid?

Emily : I think because I was so, like, rejected by my biological father, I had a stepdad. And I'm like, great! You know, another chance at a relationship with a father, kind of a thing. Um, and so he had all these like hobbies and stuff and I would kind of just like tag along and join him and you know, it took a dark turn. The way I describe it is like the nicest thing I can say about my stepdad is he didn't rape me. 

But he definitely molested me when I was I don't know how old I was, but I would think like nine, 10, 11. It was him trying to like get me alone and, and play quote unquote games where he would touch me inappropriately. 

Julia Winston: Like many kids who are abused, Emily didn't really understand what her stepdad was doing. It took many years of therapy as an adult for her to understand that what he’d been doing was sexual abuse. 

Emily : I was just too young. I didn't know what sex was, I didn't know what pleasure was. You know as a child you, you don't know your own body, you don't know what's happening yet. I was eight years old, nine years old, I barely knew my own, you know, private parts, and certainly not male, you know, a male body. Like, I didn't know. So I really interpreted it as like, I felt like special and like the chosen one. He was grooming me. You know, he would bring me presents a lot. And I just felt like, oh, good. You know, I had one dad who ignored me and one dad who didn't ignore me. So like, the world in my head kind of balanced itself. And one night he did, he touched me and I left his room to like, you know, whatever, go to sleep or whatever. And he came in my room and he said,  He said this whole thing has gone too far. Don't tell mom. 

Julia Winston: And Emily didn't. She didn't tell her mom or anyone in her life. She kept that secret for the rest of her childhood. 

Emily : And then from that point on, really, really, really treated me like an ex girlfriend. Like, was such a bitch to me. Was so mean. We fought all the time, like, very inappropriately. Just kind of like a teenager who just didn't have control over his emotions. Imagine  if you were 15 years old and you were living with your ex girlfriend, you'd be mean to them. And so my mom was, like, pretty confused, I think. And she would just, like, watch us fighting all the time.

And he absolutely hated me. He hated me. I had two dads who really didn't like me. But my stepdad, I mean, there was a whole other level to his, like, hatred. Because I used to have to drive him to the train station in the morning before high school, and he just wouldn't say a word, and he would just be seething, seething with anger. And I just remember we would just drive in silence, we'd get to the train station, he would get out of the car, he wouldn't say thank you, he wouldn't say goodbye, he would slam the door, and then I would see him at dinner that night, being an asshole.

Julia Winston: When the abuse started, Emily didn't realize that what was happening was something bad. But as she became a teenager, the demand to "not tell mom" made her feel uneasy. And yet she still couldn’t see the abuse for what it was. Her brain went into protective mode. 

Emily : I put it into a part of my brain that I never looked at. Like I was really good at compartmentalizing, putting it in a box and making sure that I never swiveled my head to that direction. You know what I mean? Like it was just off limits. I love writing my diary and I have since I got my first diary in 1991, and actually one of the first entries in my diary was, I hate my stepdad. And I have no idea why I wrote that. And I wrote, I hate my stepdad. I'm scared for my future. Which is such a sad little thing to see in, like, kid handwriting. Um, but that's what I wrote. And then it's like, you know, I went to the mall today. It's like, it's just like so unhelpful. I'm like, what happened, Emily?

There's an entry when I was in, like, the seventh grade, later, like after it stopped, probably a year after it stopped, where I wrote, like, what's the point of my, of my parent, my stepdad? Like, what's he ever done for me? You know, just like kind of read, like beginning to like rage. And I wrote down, um, I wrote down, he molested me, but then I crossed it out so deeply. I was like, no one will find this out. You know, it was a secret. Don't tell mom went to my bones. I was like, this is going to the grave with me. Like looking back and just being like, why was that a secret? Um, I think it was as mundane as like, did I tell my friends I played video games with my brothers? You know, it just was so part of life. It was not a momentous thing until I realized what it was. 

Julia Winston: Yeah, it's it's almost like it didn't have gravity until he said this has gone too far. Don't tell your mom.

Emily : Yeah. Then it became like, oh, now it's not happening anymore and now instead I have a massive, massive secret and a huge burden. I grew up having to keep a secret from everyone. And what's weird about that kind of creepy, gross secret is the only other person who knows it is your abuser. So you share this incredibly strange, uh, intimate Illegal, criminal activity with someone you hate. And he's the only one in your family who knows. So it kind of bonds you to them because he gets to exist in this family structure because I've listened to him and kept the secret. I didn't know that it was wrong. I was treated like a special friend. And I thought, you know, God was smiling on me., I wasn't religious, but I thought, like, oh, I'm the chosen one. This is a good thing. I did not interpret it as abuse because I didn't know. I was too young.

Julia Winston: Yeah. How did, as you got older, you know, you're going through your teenage years, how did what happened affect your sexuality and your, Your intimacy.

Emily : Yeah. Oh, so, okay. This is an important piece to know. When I got to college, I was like, actually, I want to kiss girls. but I came out when I was 19. But I still felt sexually I was really numb. I was really numb because I was not yet living in my body with all the feelings. 'cause the feelings were attached to memories I didn't wanna look at. So it took a lot of un. earthing feeling in order to get past a lot of the bad and, and start to like date in a healthy way, which I honestly couldn't really do till at my mid thirties. 

Julia Winston: Emily started to heal in her mid 30s, because that's when she started going to therapy and talking honestly about what happened. 

Emily : So I was in therapy three times a week and I had really good therapists and they kind of like slowly just chipped away at this fortress I had built up around the secret. So a therapist one time said to me, like, you know, when people go home for Thanksgiving or whatever. Like, a lot of people have crazy families. He said, you don't have a crazy family. When you go home, you're not going to a home, you're going to a crime scene. And it just hit me in my gut. I was like, It's true. My childhood home doubles as a crime scene. He would have been arrested. Uh, and he wasn't. And it continued until it stopped. So, I had another therapist who, who encouraged me to write a letter to my stepdad and not send it. And I think that was really, really important that she said, no, you know, no pressure to send it, print it, take it to the middle of the forest and light it on fire, like, do whatever. But get it out of your brain onto paper. So I did that exercise. This is all, like, part of the massive unraveling that happened, like, right when I told my older brother. And so I spent time. writing that letter. Like, what would I say to my stepdad if I could? 

Julia Winston: curious about the language that you used. It's so stigmatized and so taboo that like, what language do you even use to bring such a thing to the surface?

Emily : Oh my God. How did I write this letter? This is why I was having like a complete nervous breakdown. Like I remember walking down the street and just like crying because I was, it was just all coming apart and I just could not, you know, that box I put it all in, like it was exploding. And what do you do with that? Like it was too much. 

Julia Winston: When Emily wrote the letter, she ended up sending it to me and a few other close friends. She wanted to unburden herself and share what she was going through. During our interview she got in her email and found what she had sent us back in 2017. 

Emily : I started it: I'd like to open up a conversation about what happened when I was younger, specifically what you did. It has been exhausting to keep a facade up for so many years that you didn't hurt me. It has been such a heavy emotional burden to carry and I'm writing you to hand it back.

I said, like, you know, I wasn't in a position to decide whether or not to trust you and you took advantage of that. It goes on and on. I said, I ended it with, He had a horrible childhood, and I just wanted to acknowledge that. I said, your childhood was horrible, and you didn't deserve what happened to you either. You deserve to live an honest life as much as I do. The lies and secrecy have made me sick, and I want to bring it up because silence isn't serving me.

Julia Winston: When Emily wrote the letter to her step-dad, she didn't plan to give it to him. But once it was all on paper, something shifted. "Don't tell mom" was the mantra she had been given as a child. And finally, it stopped holding power. 

Emily : I was so tightly bound up with this secret. Don't tell mom this is like gonna explode the family. It was like a nuclear bomb that I had in my pocket and What happened I guess first was my brother got married and His wife got pregnant and I was like I can keep a secret from me because who cares But I will not let this happen to my nieces. So I knew I was just up against it. It was like suddenly I just had to tell. Like it was over. And so, first person I told was my older brother, and he, because I was like, you have got to know this, because, you know, I will, I will not let this happen to them. Ugh, sorry.

It's just like, it's, it's very sad to hear myself say words that I wish someone had said, you know, to protect me. But, they weren't said. So, I told my brother and he had no idea, like truly had no idea. And he was like really devastated for me, but I felt like that devastation was like kind of short lived, like it, it kind of just life went on.

Julia Winston: But life didn't go on for Emily. Something had changed and she couldn't keep pretending.

Emily : I went home to a bridal shower or something from my high school friend. And I saw my parents and I, I just remember looking at them and being like, I can't do this anymore. You know, it was over. The ruse was up. I had been sending my dad, my stepdad father's day cards, birthday presents. Like I was so invested in making sure that no one would ever find out that I was like, we are a perfect family. We are a happy family. And I just remember seeing them that day and being like, you know, it's, it's done. And I went home, I went back to my house and I got the letter. I found the letter. I copy pasted it, emailed him, sent it. I remember pressing send and calling my mom at the same second. And that was the beginning of the end.

Julia Winston: When Emily decided to finally share the secret that her stepdad molested her as a kid, she was 34. She'd been processing this in therapy for years. But it wasn't just the abuse that she was untangling, it was how this abuse had affected her self-esteem. As her friend, I watched Emily do really hard work as a result of therapy to show herself more love, to value herself more. And I think as her self-esteem improved, that's how she got the courage to confront her mom and stepdad.

Emily : A lot of the decision to like myself came because I want to have children. And I started to realize that I have this feeling that kids don't necessarily do what you say, but they definitely do what you do. And I knew in my heart I wanted to have kids who had self esteem. And there was just absolutely no fucking way I could raise children to like themselves when I was sending my abuser father's day cards. No way. It was like, there was just not a chance. I just looked into the future and saw these kids looking at my behavior and thinking that was something to model. And I knew I had to make massive changes to become a person I would want them to be.

Julia Winston: And that's an unbelievable level of courage, especially because you knew that it was possible for you to lose it all.

Emily : Yes, it was a massive trade off. It was like me or them, and I reached a crossroads, and it was like, okay, yeah, I've given, I've given you the rest of my life, it's time for me.

Julia Winston: So then you made this bold move where you sent the letter to your stepfather, you called your mom. You said, tell dad to check his email. 

Emily : He actually wrote back, Do and say what you feel you need to do and say. I feel for mom. Um,

Julia Winston: He took no ownership.

Emily : Yeah, what an absolute idiot. And then, he said, sorry, oh he did say, sorry this has caused you so much grief. I understand and feel horrible for you and mom. I am devastated and feel I may lose mom. I do love you so much, and as I told you one night, I love you too much to continue this.

Julia Winston: What? Oh,

Emily : Yeah, that's real pedophile.

Julia Winston: oh my God, like he was in love with you. And that's why it had gone too far?

Emily : Yeah, like the pedophile brain is like, you're You're not right, you're, there's some, there's a major thing that is not right, like, he thinks we were in love, like, that's why he treated me like an ex girlfriend. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't know what the hell was going on, I was a child, you were an adult, you took advantage of me, let me spell it out for you, it's over.

Julia Winston: The response that came from Emily’s stepdad was deeply disturbing. And her mom’s initial response was devastating- asking if Emily had instigated the abuse. 

Emily : she later did apologize. She said she was in shock. You know, did you instigate it? She had absolutely no fucking clue what to say to me. But this goes into like a deeper thing of like, did she know it was happening at the time? Which she claims she didn't, but many therapists and I have now reached the conclusion that yeah, she definitely knew that there was a strange relationship between us and my stepdad was so immature. Why were we fighting so much? Why was it so contentious? Like there was just so much more to the story than she was willing to dig in to. 

I thought my mom might leave my stepdad, because I'm like a normal person, and I thought, oh, you know what, who would want to be married to someone who had done that to their child? Um, she didn't. leave him. She, she was like, he's not a bad guy. Um, she really jumped through hoops, I think, to maintain this sense that he made a mistake. It happened a long time ago and there's nothing they can do about it now. 

But what, I'm upset about now, or like I think the reason for the estrangement actually is not that she stayed with him because we all have to make our own adult decisions about who we decide to be in partnership with. But my stepdad has never apologized to me, and that is what I can't accept. Is that she can maintain a marriage with someone who didn't spend the rest of his life apologizing.

Julia Winston: What was your brother's response?

Emily : So my older brother had already known because I wanted to protect my nieces and my little brother was a horrible, horrible conversation because I knew I had to call him. I had to tell him something that would really change his relationship with his biological dad. And that was one of my least favorite calls I've ever had to make. Probably second to like telling my mom was telling my little brother. He didn't know. He was shocked. You know, he was really supportive of me. But I think that my brothers also really felt for my mom in that situation because they didn't live it. They didn't see how she behaved towards me, him, us. Um, and I think they felt a little bit defensive of her pain and the situation that she was in. And that's, that was really hard for me to be around honestly. Like I, I actually really understand why people would not want to be very angry at their mother and maintain that incredibly important relationship, but since it blew up for me, it was really hard to watch them have a relationship with her.

Julia Winston: The estrangement didn't happen immediately. Emily waited to see how people would respond once the immediate shock wore off. She’d hoped there might be a little more care for her experience and how this abuse had affected her. Instead, the rest of the family seemed to want to keep the status quo.

Emily : My stepdad never apologized to me Or he did in that, um, stupid email, essentially, like he said, you know, I'm sorry I caused you grief, I'm afraid I might lose mom. But then he kind of changed his mind later on and he wrote an email to his son, um, my brother, my little brother saying like, I can't believe you believe your sister. I thought you were smarter than this. So he, he very much just did a 180, and it's like, what are you talking about? 

But, who cares? Someone who's so ill, mentally ill, that like, I can't spend time like, deciphering his, his words, because he's so off. But, the reason for the estrangement really is because my mom stayed with someone who didn't apologize to me. That was my bar, It was not leave him, obviously, I think that'd be most people's bar, but mine was even lower.

I'm like, have your dumb relationship, but let's live in reality. Let's like deal with what happened. Let's heal together. And we couldn't do it. And so I did end up going to therapy with my mom for three sessions, um, that weren't super helpful and actually were like pretty damaging. And she would just tell me that like, uh, Basically, like, I ruined her life, uh, or that her life was ruined. She told me a few times that she wished she didn't know. And she kind of blamed me in a way that felt like, you know, she would say, like, what did I miss? What was I supposed to have seen that I didn't see? And it's like, what, all of it.

Julia Winston: That's when Emily decided that having contact with her family was actually harmful to her. She couldn't heal and move past the abuse if the people closest to her couldn’t acknowledge the pain.

Julia Winston: Do you follow them on social media? Because I've gotten the sense that you've seen or heard things that have happened, what's that been like over the years?

Emily : Yeah, that's a good question, because I think there's like different levels of estrangement. So there's like absolutely no contact, like you have no idea what's going on in the other person's life. And then there's like the kind of estrangement I have, which I think is just like one little teeny level up, which is like, I follow, you know, my mom and I are Facebook friends, which is so lame.

Uh, but you know, I can kind of see what they're up to. That's how I know they sold my childhood house and moved to a different state was through Facebook. Which was like, really shitty. Because I had stuff in my room that I wanted that I just have to assume is in a landfill now.

You know, it's not a death. It's, these are living people who I do not have contact with, even though they live like two, like less than two hours away from me. my mom and I text like on our birthdays and some like Mother's Day, you know, so it's not like, it's not no contact, but it's, it's a meaningless relationship. There's nothing to it. It's just happy birthday. Thanks. Happy birthday. Which is crazy. Cause if I scroll up, you know, it's goes from happy birthday, happy birthday to like, what do you have for lunch today? You know what I mean? Like, we had a robust relationship until we didn't. So it is wild to kind of see that, like, one day it just literally stops and it's just happy birthday once a year.

Julia Winston: When we come back, Emily starts rebuilding her life after estrangement. 

Julia Winston: Being estranged from her family brings a lot of challenges for Emily. Of course there's grief about what’s been lost. But it's also hard to explain this choice in the course of her day to day life. Think about it, how often do you ask an acquaintance about their family. Do you have siblings? You going home for the holidays? Questions like this come up a lot, and Emily has found that people don't easily accept "i don't talk to my family" as an answer. 

Emily : I have to tell people why we're estranged. And that is, That's a bummer. You know, it's like, oh, we're all having fun at dinner. Not, not quite. You know, like, oh, should we do another round of cocktails? So maybe when Emily's done sobbing, we can look at the appetizers. This is why I'm like, maybe I'll just post this podcast on, like, LinkedIn, so I never have to have this conversation again. It is hard work. And so sometimes I just like let myself not tell people and just lie. Because I'm like, I don't want to cry again today. when I tell people, they are pretty much focused on two things. It's a very uncomfortable thing, estrangement. It's uncomfortable for me, it's uncomfortable for them, they want it to end. There's two main themes that come up, and one is reconciliation. That is probably the biggest thing. What's it gonna take to get back in touch? Because people want it to end. They don't want to sit in the discomfort of this, like, purgatory. Where it's a living death. I, um, Always get like kind of annoyed when people want to talk about reconciliation because I'm like, I don't think you're seeing the full point, which is I'm so hurt.

There has been no group healing. And by the way, a lot of that's on me because I was the one who backed out of my family. I was like, I'm out of here. Like this isn't working for me. And I think I could have done more to be like, let's all, let's try again. Let's come together. Like, and I just, I, I couldn't. I reached a point where I, I bounced.

So when people ask about reconciliation, it's like, you're not seeing the fact that I really tried. I got on the bus at 5am to go to my mom's city to go to therapy close to her. I did that because I couldn't bear the thought of not having a relationship with my mom. And now we're here. So, reconciliation says more about your intolerance for this pain than anything about me.

The second thing is forgiveness. People love to talk about forgiveness as if they are Oprah Winfrey. Everyone has a damn opinion about the way you are supposed to forgive people and, like, it makes them feel and sound so wise when they say forgiveness is not for them, it's for you, and, bitterness is whatever, a poison, drinking poison and hoping the other person dies, like, all these dumb ass, like, I'm like, put that on a pillow. Um, that sounds great your life, but it really isn't working for me. And let me tell you why. There is a cult of forgiveness. It is like, the only way people know how to frame trauma is to overcome it. And I'm like, actually I'm having a pretty good damn time being angry.

Like, forgiving to me sounds like you're telling me not to be angry, which by the way, is what I was told until I was 34 years old when I decided to stop listening to the command to not tell mom. So leaning into this anger is part of freeing myself from a secret. So no, I am not forgiving people who don't know deserve it, who didn't earn it, who didn't go through the million steps it takes to make me feel like this was not something I deserved and this was, you know, a really horrible part of my childhood that you just get to have a great life and you don't have to tell your friends why Emily's not around for Christmas or Thanksgiving and never comes to visit. Like, they just get to live a normal life. And I'm not following that path. I do not think forgiveness is for them. If I'm forgiving anyone, it's myself for waiting until I was 34 years old to come up with the self confidence to not listen anymore. And that's where I want to put my energy.

Julia Winston: When you and I were preparing for this conversation, when you talked about that point, it really was like, Oh, it really struck me because you said that for you, the goal is not forgiveness for you. The goal is healing. And That forgiveness is not part of your healing journey, at least not right now.

Emily : Yeah. My goal is not retribution. It's not putting him in jail. A lot of people Love to talk about that too, like why isn't he in jail, I can't believe your mom is still married to him. I'm like, you know what I'd rather do? Not talka about them. Like they sucked up so much of my mental space and my energy and my goodness for such a long time. Me tap dancing to make everyone feel comfortable that we can keep this family intact. It's all because Emily's being a good girl who listened to her stepdad one night. And, you know, the healing for me has really been watching this explosion that I started. You know, I, those words were due to my decision to end this secret. And really trying through the haze, through the grief, crying, depression, to appreciate this glorious explosion and mess that I'm in has resulted in my freedom?

Julia Winston: Emily is able to say all of this with confidence and strength today, but it took years and years of therapy for her to be able to talk about the abuse and the estrangement without crying. And the most heartbreaking part of the whole thing wasn’t just losing her mom, it was the fact that her mom chose to stand by her husband instead of her daughter. 

Emily : I had a fantasy that it would be her butterfly moment. You know, it would be her like, Joining me in reality over here, where we talk about the truth and we do cry and we, we heal and we, we do the best we can to pick up the pieces and, and move on together. But the blast was too strong and we just ended up on different sides. So I had a fantasy that she would, I guess, leave him and We would be closer because I felt chosen by her and I wasn't. So that was a massive period of grief. I mean, three like major depressions, like the only thing that gets you through that kind of level of, of sadness is time. And I hate that that's true, but I feel a lot better today than I did five years ago. My God, I was like, didn't know which end was up.

Part of telling my mom was knowing that I might lose it all. I might lose the whole family. And I remember therapists would be like, You won't. You know, that's not gonna happen. And it's like, no, it literally did happen. So, there's a massive risk in Deciding to unburden yourself, but I also don't regret it, you know. I needed to do that. Thank God I did.

It was really devastating for me to realize that I was failed on that level from my mother because I always held her up as like the good parent and letting go of that like fantasy I had that like at least I had one and in many ways I did have a really good parent in my mom. She she came to all my games she packed my lunch she wrote me notes in my lunch there was a lot of good a lot so I don't want to say like the whole thing was bad but Obviously, like, a pretty big, important thing happened that colored it all, even the good. 

I'm really mad, I'm really at my mom and I feel like, I guess kind of like pathetic, but I miss her even though she put me through like complete bullshit. I like, I miss my mom. You know, I miss the relationship that we had and all the joking we did in the, just the, we're just fully aligned on so many topics. And she really put me through so much, and I rejected it because I chose myself. And this, this is a hard thing to square with self confidence, is missing someone who treats you like shit. But, that's where we're at. She's my mom. And I'm, you know, I'm not like, I'm gonna reach out to, uh, to get rid of that bad feeling. It's something I sit with.

Julia Winston: What are some of the unexpected ways that you feel the loss of not having parents?

Emily : Okay, so, it's actually really interesting. There comes a time in your life where you go, you transition from being taken care of to taking care of others. And I am really blessed in many ways in my life and I have been successful in my career and I would love to have parents I could spoil. I would absolutely love that. And I feel like part of estrangement that sucks is I don't have anyone to take care of who is older than me, you know, who raised me. Giving back. That's been a really sad thing for me. And thank God I have amazing in laws and I really want to spoil them. Like sometimes my girlfriend will tell me where she's at. She's like out having a drink with her parents and I'll like call the bar and like pay for their tab 

Julia Winston: Oh, that's so classy.

Emily : It's just like so fun to be like, and this one's on me, you know, and I would do that for my parents. I would like buy them a vacation or whatever, but I can't. And so I'm glad that I want kids because I clearly have this, like I want to give. And when you don't have parents, there's a real hole. There's a real lack of the ability to give back to people who gave you so much. And that makes me sad.

And then there's the everyday, like, birthdays, holidays, you know, just the relationship. I had a really fun friendship with my mom. Like, I really did. Clearly, she didn't know everything about me, and you could argue that a lot of it was surface level, but the way that you connect with your own mother, like, you are on the same wavelength in a way that is kind of impossible to have with anyone else, even really good friends, you're just, you come from her. You're She made you. And my mom's really funny, and so we, we would laugh a lot. So, there were so many jokes, there were so many times we were like, doubled over laughing. And that's a loss. That's a really big loss. Because you're kind of losing, like, a lot more than, you know, a good friend. It's like, the deepest kind of friend you can have. It's not there anymore.

Julia Winston: Yeah. Is there some part of you that still does hope for a relationship in the future? Or are you, have you made total peace with estrangement as being the sort of end state for you?

Emily : No, this is interesting because, again, going back to like, what kind of model do I want to be for my children? Estrangement isn't fun. I don't, and there are many times when I've thought this isn't working for me. You know, like, I gotta change this up, this is too painful. I'm being stubborn. You know, I don't think I handled it perfectly. When I decided to leave the family, I wasn't like, these are the four things that need to change before I can come back. I just left. So I imagine that my brothers feel really abandoned and really hurt, and I needed to leave to repair and heal on my own because I was not, I what? It was not possible to do in that structure. It was not possible. And I worry about regret. You know, any one of them could die any day, and this would be our final, the final chapter? It's not great. It's not the final chapter I would write if I were writing a book. And this is how it ends, everyone. It's completely open ended, and there was no contact made ever again.

Like, that's not a good movie. So, I treat estrangement as a day by day decision. I'm not ready today to reach out. And it makes me sad, you know, my nieces have grown up. I've often thought about like, do I buy them a birthday card for every year I've missed, you know, and just start putting them in a drawer just to tell them like, I missed your childhood or like a portion of your childhood, but I really thought about you a lot, you know that's the hardest thing, I think. Is the kids. But they have a relationship with their grandparents. So that's really hard. Because, what's the story they're being told? I don't know. I don't think this is the end state, but I cannot predict the future. I hope I don't regret it. But this is my decision today. just like it was yesterday and the previous seven years. 

Julia Winston: It’s been incredibly painful for Emily to distance herself from her family. But she knew she wanted to be a mom one day, and one who sets a healthy example for her children. She wants to be a role model who loves and values herself, not someone who punishes herself to make others more comfortable. Today, Emily is in a relationship with an amazing person who loves and values her, and they’re engaged to be married. She and her fiance want to have kids and are making all the plans to start their own family.

Emily : I would say like for my kids, future children, hopefully knock on wood, they exist one day soon. I want two things for them. Every parent will say they want their kid to be happy. So obviously I want happiness for my children, but I want something else that I don't often hear people say, which is for my children, I want them to have clarity. I want them to have a robust vocabulary for what they experience, and I want them to be able to connect it to how they're feeling in real time. I am not a secret household. We will not have a secrets household. Um, I want them to be able to discern what's happening and describe it. It's the opposite of my childhood in many ways. And that's a gift that I can only give them because I suffered.

Julia Winston: Just the idea of you being a mother is like incredible. I mean, you're just, the way I hear you talk about your children, it's like fills my heart with hope and excitement because you're going to be such an amazing mother and you have had to go through so much shit to know exactly what kind of parent you want to be.

Emily : yes. you Know, straight people can just, like, have sex and have a kid, and gay people have to go through, like, a lot more effort, and I think that's also kind of a gift because it's given me the opportunity time to really reflect on what kind of parent I want to be and to become the person I want to be to ensure that that is possible. So, God bless egg freezing and embryo creation because it's given me time and space to, to change, which I needed to do. I used to absolutely hate myself. I had such low self esteem. And I still do struggle, but not like I did. Oh my God. Going from Don't Tell Mom to being on your friend's podcast and announcing it to the world, like, that's a huge change.

Julia Winston: What role have friendships played your journey you As you've navigated estrangement?

Emily : Yeah, I imagine for, for everyone who's estranged that their friends suddenly take up a larger emotional role than they may have otherwise. Not to say that people who aren't estranged, like, have, you know, surface level friendships at all, but it is true that when you're estranged, your, like, partnership, I think, became like much more important to me because.

What would I do on Christmas and Thanksgiving? Like be in my apartment alone? Like I, I didn't want that for myself. And so now always having someone else's family who is so amazing. I have the best in laws in the world and having that and having a partner who like can accept all of my grief and like lift me up and bring me so much joy. And for me, that has been huge. And, my best friends, like, I have so many amazingly smart, deep emo you know, the EQ of our friendship group is amazing off the charts. Just the depth of your love has been so powerful because I was broken and I needed help and you were there. 

Julia Winston: Years ago, when Emily told us what happened and sent us the email she’d written to her step-dad, it broke my heart. It crushed me to know that someone I love so much had been hurt, and was hurting. As she's gone through this whole process, an excruciatingly painful journey of refamulating that she never asked for, I've been watching from the sidelines. And I am sooo inspired by the love she’s found within herself. Emily lost everything when she stood up for herself. And yet...she gave herself exactly what she needed to make a loving family of her own. 

Emily : Child abusers are incredibly short sighted. They're dumb because what they think they're doing is abusing a child. But what they're actually doing is abusing a future adult. And worst case scenario for them, it's not just a future adult, it's a future adult who likes themself.

When you're a kid,  the adults around you control everything. They control your bedtime, your diet, the activities you do, the friends you're allowed to see, the school you go to, the neighborhood you live in.  But there is one thing that they do not control, and that is time.

So, it really is playing with fire when you abuse a child because you don't know who they're going to become. They're actually not frozen in a state of childhood forever. When they grow old, we grow up. So, they're losing power, we're gaining it. We're stepping in when they're on their way out. You know? And it's like, that is the ultimate retribution, is like, you're an old man now. And look at me on a podcast. Don't remember you getting invited to a podcast. Your child abuser, You know what mean? Like, go away. Like you're, you're so obsolete. And he didn't, he just couldn't see when I was nine years old and it started, he couldn't see that I would one day go to a lot of therapy and become a person who likes myself. He just didn't have the imagination and neither did I. I thought, Oh God, my life's, you know, that that's just going to be, have to be something that I ignore because it's too painful. Well, I have the last word here and that's the joy of stepping into power and realizing no one's going to give it to you.

Julia Winston: and just seeing how happy you are in your relationship and you're now you're engaged. You're getting married soon You're in a loving relationship. You're flourishing in your career like you're not about them anymore. Like your life is really about you. What are you proud of? 

Emily: For me to like myself, that's what I think I'm proudest of, is, is realizing that I have the power to decide how I feel about myself instead of listening to criminals dictate, you know, my worth. Like that was a huge, huge, I mean, Herculean effort to, To change as an adult. 

We know which path to walk down to feel happy You And then there's another path that is extremely painful for a very long time, but at the end of it is freedom. And so many people just choose to walk down the path of denial because who wants to cry for four years? I mean, it was, it was unbelievable. It was so exhausting. You've seen me sob, like, on vacations. Like, it was so awful. I can't even put it into words how hard it was. But the fact, now that I'm on the other side of the biggest barrier possible, losing your mother, uh, exploding your, the closest relationships in your life, so that I could potentially feel better and have it come true that I actually feel better, what a gift. Thank God. Thank God I didn't go through all that and regret it. I mean, there's no way. I'm so proud that I cried for four years.

12: Reframing The American Dream (Pt 2): Communal Living Makes a Family

What happens when you expand beyond the nuclear family home? In this episode, we meet people who've chosen to share their daily lives with others in unconventional ways - from two married couples buying a house together to raise kids, to a man who's spent 14 years living on a hippie commune. Their stories challenge our assumptions about what makes a successful adult and show how living communally might be an antidote to America's epidemic of loneliness.

Additional Resources: 

• "Everyday Utopia" by Kristen Ghodsee

• Learn more about Twin Oaks in Virginia

• Learn more about The Radish in Oakland

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: When Etosha Cave thinks about her college experience, she looks back on it fondly. 

Etosha: I went to a school where everyone for the most part was living on campus. It’s effectively an intentional walking community where you're surrounded by people who are engaged in similar but very different lives. And  you all are sharing those experiences. You're sharing food, you're going to activities together and you're meeting each other's families. You're just really engaging in, in deep conversations.

Julia Winston: After Etosha got her Bachelor’s degree in engineering, she got an internship with the National Science Foundation in Antarctica, where she once again lived communally- just like in college. 

Etosha: I was stationed at McMurdo, which is one of the largest stations on the continent of Antarctica. And it's a US base. It's about a thousand people there over the summer.  You know, I, I loved it. I had an amazing time. There’s only two bars and it was, there was one coffee shop and you'd go and you'd just talk and you'd get to know each other.  And so you would, yeah, you just have these amazing conversations and really get to know people and feel part of a group.

Julia Winston: After Antarctica, Etosha wanted this kind of living experience again. So she lived in a dorm type situation in grad school. When she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area for work, she looked for communal living homes. For the last 15 years, she’s lived in a larger community on and off. 

What that’s looked like for her: organized homes in the Bay Area that bring together a group of unrelated people who share their home life together. 

For a while, Etosha lived at The Radish. The Radish is an intentional community in Oakland, where 20-30 people live in a few homes near each other. Each person has their own room but shares living spaces and kitchen with the group. They all rotate chores and obligations. 

Etosha:  People either jokingly or maybe not so jokingly, um, will say, Oh, it's like kind of like a hippie compound or cult.  A lot of people just don't know how to place it and they think it's very radical.

Julia Winston: It’s not any of that. For Etosha, living with a larger group of people just works for her lifestyle. As a single person she gets to share the obligations and costs of a home with other people, which gives her more time for her work and hobbies. It also gives her a built in social circle.

Etosha: I consider myself introverted and I would say half of the people in the communities I've lived in tend to be introverted as well.  I think as an introvert, I still like being around people. I just don't always like interacting with them or talking. And so like if I can just be in a room with like 10 other people and be quiet because every, you know, the more extroverted, egregious people are talking, I'm in my happy space.

Julia Winston: I'm Julia Winston and this is Refamulating, a show about different ways to make a family. 

Living communally is a way that Etosha built a support system in her adult life. But like she said, many people have assumptions about what that means, they think it’s very radical. And that’s because many of us have a story about how we should live: You’re allowed to have roommates when you’re young, but as you get older that’s less acceptable. Living with your spouse and kids is normal- living with other people and their kids is not. 

In part one of this episode, we explored how the American dream and the nuclear family might be making us more lonely. In this episode, we're going to explore what it could look like to expand our families in our day to day lives. Itasha's story is just one example, and now we'll hear from others who've found different ways to live more communally.

In part one of this episode, I interviewed author and professor Kristen Ghodsee, who wrote a book called everyday utopia, which talks a lot about the benefits of communal living. If you didn't hear it, I suggest you go back and listen. Kristen gave us so much good information to chew on when it comes to the nuclear family and how that's influenced the way we live here in the U. S. and why communal living seems so weird to many of us.

Kristen Ghodsee: We live communally when we're young. And we tend to want to live communally when we get older in retirement communities or golden girl type houses. But precisely in these middle years when we need the most help from allo parents, it could be godparents, friends, colleagues, neighbors, we tend to isolate ourselves in the nuclear family. 

Julia Winston: FYI- Alloparents are people who help raise kids they aren’t related to.

Here in the US, we’re facing an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Kristen believes that communal living is one tool that could help some of us feel more connected. Think about- we’re told to aspire to homeownership or at least to live with as few people as possible. That’s success. And many of us have internalized that- a third of Americans now live in a home by themselves. I’m one of them. 

Kristen Ghodsee: This is a very American thing. People associate Autonomy and privacy and Lack of connection with success. 

Julia Winston: And that’s the story I’ve been telling myself, but honestly, I long for more connection in my day-to-day life. I’m childfree, but people with kids have a whole other set of challenges. Most people raising kids don't have a strong enough support system, which can be extremely isolating. Our housing is one of the things making us lonely. So why aren't more of us considering a new way of living? Well...like I said earlier, we’ve attached how successful we are to our living situation.

Kristen Ghodsee: And so, so much of what we need to do, if we're talking about expanding our families, if we're talking about expanding our communities, if we're talking about living more collectively, is redefine our definition of success in the world, of what it means to be an adult. 

Julia Winston: That's what today's episode is all about. We're going to hear from five people who choose to live with more people than just themselves and their immediate family members to have more community in their lives. And they all do it for different reasons: it saves money. It makes parenting easier. It makes them feel less lonely. I talked to people who do this in a smaller town and a major city. No one I interviewed is in a cult, and they all say living with more people makes them happier. 

Julia Winston: The first group of people we’re gonna hear from are two married couples. The first... 

Deborah: My name is Deborah. I am 46 years old and I live in Washington DC. 

Luke: And I'm Luke and I'm 41 years old and I also live in Washington DC

Julia Winston: Deborah works for an Anglican Church. Luke is a pediatric oncology nurse. And here’s the other couple…

Bethany: I'm Bethany. I'm 35 

TJ: And I'm TJ and I'm 36 

Julia Winston: Bethany and TJ are college sweethearts who got married in their early 20s. By the time they met Luke and Deborah, they'd been married for a few years. So how did these two married couples get together? First let’s clarify one thing…

Luke & Deborah: Yeah. I think before we, uh, shacked up, um,  we're not swingers. 

Julia Winston: Actually, they were all members of the same church and met regularly with a small group of friends from church for a supper club. Here's Bethany:

Bethany: Once a month we would like rotate houses where we would all have dinner together. And then we started having dinner with Luke and Deborah on the side. We were like cheating on supper club. And so, we started hanging out, um, and just became really good friends, like, through that. 

Julia Winston: During this time, both couples were independently talking about their futures. Luke and Deborah had been married for a few years, and were starting to explore what family meant for them. 

Deborah: When we got married, I was older and so we knew we probably were not going to have kids. I'm six years older than Luke is. For some people that would be a sadness ,for us that was not a sadness. I think we kind of knew going into it that that, ship was sailing or had sailed.

Luke: We got great advice from our pre marital counselor when we were dating. He was like, if you're not going to have kids, that's fine, but you need to, you need a third. You need something outside of yourself that the two of invest in that keeps you from just completely, uh, turning inward and being just classic dinks, um, just spending all of our money on ourselves and totally focused on ourselves.

Deborah: And I think I felt like after we got married, I just had this feeling of like, okay, this is great. I love being married to Luke, but I just, I'd like more people to be around. And so I started sort of floating with Luke, like, Hey, you know, we could, Buy a house invite people in to live with us.

Julia Winston: Luke didn't love this idea. Both he and Deborah grew up in big families with lots of siblings. Because of that, Deborah finds comfort surrounded by lots of people. But for Luke, an introvert, all those people just made him want to live alone as an adult. Which he did for many years until he met Deborah. 

Luke: Getting married and just living with one other person was quite the adjustment. That was one of our early struggles that we had to work through was our introvert, extrovert difference. So I felt we had reached a nice equilibrium on that, finally, a nice understanding and then Deborah is wanting shake that up a bit by living with other people. I said, no, of course, immediately and vehemently, but I thought about it. And I think I was listening to a podcast with a random pastor. he was talking about he and his wife, they were empty nesters and kind of reaching retirement age and that they actually were making the decision to sell their house and move into community with other people, anyway, he just kind of sold it, and, and I was like, oh, interesting. 

Julia Winston: Meanwhile, TJ and Bethany were also having a conversation about family. For them, that meant having kids. They both wanted to be parents, but like many Millennials, they also both wanted to have careers. And that felt daunting while living in DC.

Bethany: I grew up in Alabama and a very conservative environment. And so people got married right out of college and started having babies like right away. I didn't see myself in that situation. I always imagined myself with a career and like, and I would have kids and I would have a partner who, you know, we like equally participated. 

TJ: So I think that's where like we had the shared vision is like, we both love people. We both want community. So I think we've always thought about raising our kids and having a family in that context. 

Bethany: And you know, we were living in D. C. And our families didn't live anywhere near there. And we knew that we wanted to stay and live in D. C. And have our kids. And, you know, we were trying to figure out how are we going to do that, With the two of us and, doing all the things we wanted to do.

Julia Winston: So the four of them are becoming close friends. They're all thinking about the future, and then comes New Year's Day, 2018. 

Luke: We invited them over for a New Year's Day brunch. We were having, pancakes and bacon and, mimosas.

Bethany: we were like, two bottles of champagne, and, and Luke is like, what if we live together? We were like, what? what if we did?

Luke: And, uh, I actually forgot to ask Deborah, talk to Deborah about it beforehand. So it was a shock to everyone at the table. 

Deborah: No one was more surprised than me when he asked them to live with us. 

Luke: TJ and Bethany are great. We have so much fun together. They're so thoughtful. They're kind. They had lived with several other people in community before, like renting, group house situations in DC. And I was sort of like, wow, like we love TJ and Bethany. Like, why not? 

Bethany: and TJ and I just looked at each other, and we were like, sure, yeah, we could, we could think about that.

Julia Winston: This was not a strange possibility for TJ and Bethany. Because they got married young, they had lived with a lot of friends as a couple to save money. 

TJ: But we had actually, to that point, actually lived longer with other people than separately in our marriage. So that's important context. We weren't just like, yeah, this sounds awesome. Like we had experience doing it. 

Julia Winston: TJ and Bethany said yes, and the next step was talking out the details.

Bethany: We decided to start meeting weekly, like we had weekly dinner, and during that time we would talk through things that we thought you should know about someone if you're going to live together. So, I mean, we talked about finances. We talked about what we would want in a house.

Julia Winston: One thing they all agreed on, was they wanted to buy a house together. Luke and Deborah had only rented and were ready for something more permanent, and to start building equity in their home. 

Deborah: I think we thought like, okay three to five years feels like we'll get our money back if we do it for that length of time. And so I think that was part of the calculus too, is that this wasn't just like a one year decision that we were willing to commit for at least a few years, and so it seems like, let's just go ahead and buy a house, be investing in an asset together.

Julia Winston: But they all agreed there was a psychological component too. If they all co-owned the property, their commitment to their arrangement would be as serious as their commitment to the home. 

Luke: when you're a rental, like your commitment to each other is only as good as your lease, right? We didn't want to just have a one year sort of casual, like let's live together and have fun. We were looking for something kind of more significant with more staying power.

Bethany: A lot of people ask us, or they assume that like one person, one couple owns the house and the other couple rents. And we made that decision pretty early on that we would buy the house together. There's four of us on the mortgage because we didn't want that power dynamic. We wanted, you know, everyone needed to have an equal say and what was going on in the house.

Julia Winston: The budget for their house was the first of many logistical conversations the two couples would have. It was also the first time they let each other into their lives more than just typical friends. 

TJ: they knew how much we had in every one of our bank accounts and savings and retirement accounts. We knew how much they had.

Julia Winston: During their home buying process, the four of them encountered a lot of pushback from people in their lives. Most people didn't understand why they wanted to share space with another couple. They also got a lot of pushback about buying with other people. Deborah said she heard a lot of fears- fears that apply to a couple that live together by the way. 

Deborah: What if they get a divorce? What if Someone has a mental health breakdown. What if they're actually don't have financial integrity or, you know, all different kinds of things that could happen. 

Bethany: Our families didn't think it was a good idea. I think people were worried about the money thing with like splitting the mortgage and like, it's a lot of money. Do you really trust these people? 

Deborah: Ppart of that is that this is not, um, modeled in our culture. Right. And so I think people were like, this is really strange and it feels like really, like you're putting a lot of money and risk on the line. 

Julia Winston: Of all the people who were skeptical about this working, their realtor came up with an idea for addressing some of the fears they might have. 

Luke: When the four of us sat down with our realtor, actually, the first thing he said is, I think this is a really terrible idea. So, like, How about you guys convince me that this is actually a good idea? And, uh, something he encouraged us to do, is to actually sit down and  assume that this fails in a year. Like, all of you should write down, like, why did it fail?

Bethany: Like what we are the worst case scenarios of what could go wrong and like talk through them.

Luke: And really just some of the like most vulnerable things that you know, like you, we have a kid, and you actually hate our kid. Or like, um, yeah, someone's mentally ill. Our marriage falls apart, or all sorts of just all sorts of fears about like, what might happen. It was really an amazing experience. That sort of skepticism really forced us to talk about and consider potentially really hard things and I think that actually made our relationship stronger.

Bethany: And we did that exercise. Everybody cried, you know, we made it through.

Julia Winston: After a lot of logistical and emotional conversations, and some house hunting, they bought a three bedroom home in DC. In some states the laws make it easier to live communally. Washington, DC is one of those places. But like we mentioned in part 1, there are places like Shawnee, Kansas that have actually banned co-living for more than 3 unrelated adults. 

The two couples told me that when they talk about their house with others the first question is usually: is the house a duplex? It’s not - it’s a traditional single family home. 

Deborah: When you walk in, an open floor plan, kitchen, living room, upstairs, three bedrooms, two bathrooms. We did each want our own bathroom. That was critical. And then in the basement we ended up converting it into basically office space post pandemic. And so Bethany, TJ and Luke all had offices in the basement.

Julia Winston: Because their home ownership looked a little different than other people, they did create some paperwork to formalize what they were trying to do. 

Bethany: So we have like a document that we did get notarized But it's probably not legally binding, but it's like a contract between the four of us. And so in that we had a three year agreement But like we would, you know, we wouldn't buy or sell for three years. 

Julia Winston: Once they closed on the house and had a move in date, they all rushed to get settled in the house. And then on moving day…

Luke: I think Bethany was eight months pregnant.  She was not carrying a lot of boxes in. 

Deborah: When we started talking with TJ and Bethany about buying a house together, they were not yet pregnant, but we knew that they wanted to have kids in the near future, that they were getting ready for that. And so, we knew that was part of equation that we would be buying a house that would have, children in it, and that would have rooms for children in it. And they became pregnant while we were searching.

Julia Winston: When we come back, we hear about co-living with four adults and two kids. 

Julia Winston: When Deborah, Luke, TJ and Bethany all moved into their new house, Bethany was seven months pregnant with her and TJ's daughter, Mary Haley. 

Bethany: it was exciting to move into the house and we were about to have, we felt like we were all about to have a baby, right? And so we were preparing the house for the baby. And so there was a lot of anticipation for that, but none of us had ever had kids. We never lived with a kid. So we didn't know what it would be like, you know, we could guess, but we didn't know what it would be like. 

Julia Winston: Before the baby was born, they all talked about what Luke and Deborah's roles would be: 

Luke: early on, they, they, decided that we would be the kids godparents. We take a vow to be part of their like spiritual upbringing and to see them raised in the faith and to be models and in the faith for them. 

Bethany: Luke and Deborah are there like aunt and uncle. They don't discipline our kids they can like remind them of the rules, right? Which is a role that they are very comfortable in playing. But TJ and I discipline our kids.

Julia Winston: TJ and Bethany had another baby a couple years later, their son, Pax. And the kids actually ended up being a big reason why communal living worked so well for these adults. For TJ and Bethany , it’s easy to see why. They had double the amount of adults on hand to help juggle parenting, work and keeping house.

TJ: Our daughter greatly benefited from spending the first five and a half years of her life With four adults versus two. And just like, yeah, they talk about the 30, 000 words thing or whatever. 

Julia: TJ is referring to research suggesting that kids should be exposed to 30k words per day to improve their language and reading skills. 

TJ: Like she got hers by the time she's like, whatever, she probably got it half twice as quick. 

Bethany: Yes. Yeah. Luke's vocabulary 

TJ: and Luke has, Luke has an amazing vocabulary. E very place she's been like in school or pre preschool or whatever she just like talks to the adults and like, basically has conversations with them. 

Julia Winston: At one point, TJ started a three year MBA program while working full time, with two toddlers. If he and Bethany had lived with only each other, in a city far from family, this could have been incredibly stressful. TJ would have been gone all the time at work and school, and Bethany would have been trying to juggle her job and most of the childcare. Instead...Deborah and Luke stepped up. 

TJ: Like they would go on evening walks with Our daughter, Mary Haley, when she was, you know, two or whatever, and I was away at class. All summer basically, like, Deborah was doing breakfast with them. Like, she was cooking eggs and sausage and, like, they, like, loved it. It was special breakfast.

Bethany: They were like, can you make me some of what you're having?

TJ: And that's just, like, something organic that just happened. When we went into it all, we were like we're not co parenting. Like we're going to try to like have boundaries and, you know. We're not expecting any of this from you guys. Whatever you give is great. But they're just great people. So they 

Bethany: love our kids. They're really generous with their time. The relationships that our kids have with them. It's just really beautiful. They have like, you know, deep relationships with like a bunch of adults that care a lot about them. 

Julia Winston: Even though Luke and Deborah knew they'd be living with kids when they started this arrangement, they were surprised at how much they liked it. 

Deborah: I would not consider myself to be a kid person, but I'm crazy about those kids and like became so attached to those children. I think I was surprised by how much they just captured my heart. The kids were such a joy watching them grow up, watching them learn how to walk and talk and being part of their day to day lives. That was such a joy, such a privilege to be part of their lives. Um, and also that's challenging, you know, the kids, kids are, kids are kids and they're. Messy and loud and they kind of take over the house.

Luke: Deborah's a little bit of a, a little bit of a neat freak, little OCD around crumbs and stuff like that. And the kids know, like, Auntie Deborah doesn't like crumbs. And so Mary Haley, you know, would be sitting at the table and she's like, Deborah, I'm going to sit next to you. But don't worry, I won't get any crumbs. And then you like, look over and she's, you Scraping crumbs off the table to make room for Deborah because yeah, you know, You're like, oh how sweet she's gonna have crumb issues now. Great

Julia Winston: She's, they're, the children are taking on your neuroses and their parents neuroses.

Deborah: That's right, they've got four sets of neuroses to take on 

Julia Winston: One of the things I was most curious about, and I think most people are, is how do the logistics of living like this work? Does it feel like a college house with five roommates and carefully labeled tupperware? How do finances work? How did they divide chores? 

Deborah: we didn't come into it with a strong plan of the logistics and how we would live together. Yeah. But very quickly, we realized that it was just a lot easier if we could share everything basically. So share cooking, share cleaning, we chore chart, um, share groceries. We ended up going on a family phone plan. 

Bethany: we shared all of our groceries and so it wasn't like, Oh, this is your shelf. This is our shelf. We all are committed to tracking the spending and, T. J. and Deborah would settle up at the end of every month about who owed who'd what and they put in the spreadsheet. 

Deborah: It was not a financially driven decision, but at the same time, there were these kind of like wonderful financial implications. Like we had to repair the roof and we had to repair the deck and we had to like, yeah, buy new appliances that you're just splitting that cost. It makes it a lot more manageable. We brought in a house cleaner every couple of weeks and we were splitting that in half. And I don't know, just everything suddenly becomes more manageable when you're splitting with other people. 

Julia Winston: They also found the right roles and tasks for each person. Deborah was the house manager. 

Deborah: I was the one who managed the house inventory And so I always I don't know. It's not um Is that a virtue? It's just actually innate. I just know. She 

Luke: can't help herself.

Deborah: like know everything that's in our house at all times. All 

Luke: of the cans are facing the same direction in the cupboard.

Deborah: I do have OCD tendencies. Yes. 

Luke: we were really good about having a weekly meeting, usually Sunday night, where we would, you know, sit down after the kids went to bed and, um, talk through the logistics, you know, logistics of the week. Who's, you know, who's eating out? What night? What night is TJ cooking? What night is Deborah cooking? Etcetera. That sort of thing. Um, what do we need from the store? And then also the sort of more emotional or relationship aspect of things like what's working, what's not working. 

Bethany: We would always start with like, what's working, not working. And it's just really important to like, for everyone to go around and name something that's not working, especially early on so that when, so you get a lot of practice with like low level conflict. 

Deborah: Those things are pretty minor. It's like, you were on trash this week and you just let it really overflow a couple times, you know, 

Julia Winston: There were challenges too, of course: Luke sometimes struggled with how much noise the kids made. They had to communicate between four busy people. And there were four adults all weighing in on big decisions. Deborah says they developed a tactic that worked well for making decisions: 

Deborah: if you have a strong opinion, voice it. If you don't have an opinion, then don't voice an opinion, let the person with a strong opinion make that decision then. There's no reason to like overly complicated decision. 

Julia Winston: She says that splitting the housework, the cooking, and the costs to maintain a house made living communally very practical. One person was never overwhelmed or carrying the burden because the other three adults picked up the slack somewhere else. But sharing so much of their daily lives also brought them closer. 

Julia Winston: The integrated lives eventually led to a stronger support system for all of them. They had dinner together most nights with the kids, and often hung out together after the kids went to bed. 

Bethany: When you are living with your best friends, you can like talk about at dinner like how much you hate your job. And we can all like put our heads together about what you could do. And you've surrounded yourself with people who love you and care about you and can just encourage you. And see the things in you that you might not see in yourself at that moment, because You're in a low spot. 

TJ: And it doesn't just put all the burden on like one spouse, right? Like it's great to like share that with other people like in the same breath that you're talking to your partner, you're able to share with two other people, right?

Julia Winston: Something that struck all four of them about this experience was the vulnerability of living with other people. You can't hide your emotions or bad days when you live with someone, you just have to let them in to witness all of you. 

Deborah: I can think of several situations where, you know, you walk into the kitchen and someone is crying and sometimes that's someone else and sometimes, you know, that's me. Someone else walks in and I'm just sitting at the kitchen table crying. 

Julia Winston: And they also had a front row seat to each other's habits, marriages, and parenting. 

Deborah: TJ and Bethany are such good parents, and they're so intentional. I think I just learned so much watching them parent. Parenting is so hard, it's so hard to be consistent, to follow through on consequences. Kids will just push all your buttons. And so they, I really admire them for being willing to do that with an audience basically 24 7.

Luke: There was one memorable night where Deborah and I were fighting about something, and it's dinner time, so we all sit down at the dinner table, and Deborah just stops and goes like, T. J. and Bethany, I want you guys to know, Luke and I are fighting right now. And Bethany said, T. J. and I are fighting as well. We all like split up, and I think they went on the front porch, and we went on the back porch, and we all got our fighting out of the way, and then like, came back and had dinner together. But like, that's the kind of thing that you don't get that if you're just having dinner together once a week.

Julia Winston: They lived together for six years, three years longer than they planned. But it did come to an end recently. Earlier this fall, TJ got a job offer in Orlando, where he grew up. He decided to take it, and so he and Bethany moved out of the house in DC and moved to Florida. Now they’re living near his blood-related family, but in a house with just the two of them and their kids. The only life their kids have known is life with Luke and Deborah, so they've all felt a void. 

Bethany: It's hard. It's really hard. Moving from DC to Florida, that was a really big transition, but I think Even in just like our daily rhythms have just been interrupted and part of it is the move, right? but Another big part is that Luke and Deborah aren't here. And so weekly tasks that a household would do, we divided between four people and now there's two, right? When you live with other people, they're more like moments for like connection and, or that is like spread out across a lot of people. And so, yeah, we just, we miss them. We miss them a lot.

Julia Winston: Deborah and Luke have also been struggling with the transition. Their house in DC feels too big for them now. And they want to have more people around, but they know they had something special with TJ and Bethany. 

Deborah: I Think before we lived with TJ and Bethany, we would have said they were really good and close friends, and that we just loved spending time with them. They are such a good time. They're both really, really fun. And I would say after living with them, I would say the same thing there. They were so fun to live with, but I would also say that now it does feel like they're family.

Julia Winston: Recently, Deborah accepted a new job in South Carolina, so she and Luke are leaving DC too. Living closer to TJ and Bethany was actually a factor in deciding to make this move. Soon they'll be just a few hours away from TJ and Bethany in Florida and are excited to see them and the kids more often. And they all said they would love to live with each other again someday. For now, they’ll sell the house they bought together and work out the finances together.  

But all four remain huge advocates of living with your friends.

Bethany: I would just encourage people if they wanted to do this to like have a have a period of discernment where you where everyone involved is really thinking about if this would be a great decision for everyone. And like, what is it? What is it that you're hoping to get out of communal living? And if you have a shared vision and a shared value system and. You, um, you talk, you know, ahead of time how you're going to work through conflict or how you're going to work through money stuff and, um, how you are going to be intentional with your friendships and living in community. And you find that you're on the same page, like do it. It's really beautiful. It's really rewarding. It's so much fun.

Julia Winston: When we come back, we take you from living with your friends to a real life hippie commune. 

Julia Winston: The way that TJ, Bethany, Luke and Deborah created a communal living situation is something a lot of us could replicate. They found an already existing single family home and turned it into a co-living space. There are definitely logistical challenges and financial hurdles in that kind of situation, but it’s the most accessible way to create a more communal day-to-day life based on the way our systems are built in this country. 

But I also wanted to talk to someone who lives in a more official communal living situation.

Adder Oaks: I'm Adder Oaks. I'm 36 years old and I live at Twin Oaks Community in Central Virginia. 

Julia Winston: Twin Oaks is an intentional community where 100 people live in 6 large houses on farmland. Adder has lived there for 14 years. It was started in the 60s and might be what you picture when you hear the word “commune.” 

Adder Oaks: I think a lot of people that come to Twin Oaks come because they're connected to alternative culture in some way. They're sort of groovy and weird and, and seek out, uh, community living because they have some connection to it. 

Julia Winston: The community is self sufficient- they run multiple businesses for income and share their profits among the community members. Adder joined when he was 22 after graduating from college while he was searching for a job and living with his parents. 

Adder Oaks: I Googled one day, do hippie communes still exist? and I found it. I wanted some place where I would show up and they'd say, here, we've got work to do. All your needs are taken care of. I went and did our three week visit. And I just fell in love. I think during that, that three weeks, I finally got a call back about a computer programming job. And I was just like, no, thanks. I think I know what I'm doing.

Julia Winston: tell me about Twin Oaks, like paint a picture for us of Twin Oaks. What is Twin Oaks? How does it work? 

Adder Oaks: So the way Twin Oaks works is you come there, you work your work quota, which is about 40 hours a week, you know, including the work business work and domestic work, right? Taking care of the kids, cleaning the house, doing the dishes, working in our communal garden. You do your work and then the community takes care of all of your physical needs, right?

We share all of our income, our businesses are owned by the community, and then you have a place to live, you have food, you have health care, you've got your personal spending money. So that's the sort of economic unity. And then furthermore, we, we live close together. We live in shared houses, you know, for the hundred or so of us, we live in six different houses. 15 to 20 people in a house. And, and we, yeah, we do a lot together, right? Every day, lunch and dinner are communal meals. We give our labor credits for people to make those for us. And then we all just get to go and eat lunch, eat dinner together, you know, celebrate holidays and just live a lot more closely.

Julia Winston: Would you describe yourself as a hippie and how would you describe the other people that live at Twin Oaks?

Adder Oaks: My name Adder Oaks, it's not the name that my parents gave me, uh, when I was a kid. It was kind of my, the name that I took on while living at Twin Oaks, which is certainly not something like we as a community do institutionally, but lots of people like to take on a new name, sort of living in a new lifestyle.

So I often describe that as my hippie name, right? but I don't really think of myself as a hippie. I don't spend any time gardening. I like listening to our dance music, but whenever we have our Grateful Dead cover band, I'm like, not that interested. My actual day to day life, it's pretty normie in a lot of ways. I like to read. I like to play board games. These are not the most hippie, hippie things. But! The most valuable thing that I think we can take from the hippie movement, I'm doing air quotes here, is, uh, is that living together is valuable.

It's valuable socially because it's really energizing to live around people and it really helps train oneself in compassion and caring and social skills. And then of course it's valuable economically, like it just is more efficient, in terms of resource uses. When we live together in a single house or we have a handful of cars that we share among a hundred people. yeah, that's just so valuable. 

Julia Winston: Twin Oaks owns a variety of businesses to earn income. For a long time they made and sold hammocks, then tofu production became their main income, and now it's selling seeds. 

Julia Winston: So does everybody make the same amount of money?

Adder Oaks: No. So Twin Oaks I think is one of the few communities that has survived because we do make sure that everyone is working and is contributing to the community. Uh, but we have this egalitarian ethos, right? We take from each according to their ability to each according to their need. So some people make more money than others. I mean, oftentimes it's not, you know, it's not even seen because it is working in these community owned businesses and they're just doing what needs to get done to make those businesses happen. But we also have one guy that does software engineering part time on contract and. Yeah, he makes a lot of money, um, more so than, than we have, say, Weaving Hammocks.

Julia Winston: Yeah, the resource sharing is a really interesting angle at looking at value, like value exchange. What about retirement? This is something a lot of people worry about. How does retirement work at Twin Oaks? 

Adder Oaks: We have this labor credit system throughout the working years of a member. And so we offer pension in the form of labor credits. So rather than, you know, working until you're 65 and then stopping, the idea is starting when you're 50, you can slowly reduce your, your work quota. sometimes we have members that get to a point where they can't work and by fiat, we just say, we're taking you off the labor system. And as long as you remain a member, your needs are going to be taken care of. It is challenging, I think, for people who, put a significant portion of their life into Twin Oaks and want to leave in older age because we don't, you know, except for small loans of a few thousand dollars to help people get going, we don't give people money to leave the community with. So Twin Oaks is a great place to retire, but it's not a great place to build a retirement fund to take somewhere else. Like that just won't happen.

Julia Winston: Adder joined Twin Oaks when he was 22. In the 14 years he's lived there, he met his partner and became a father. He and his family live in one of the houses on the property, with their “small living group” or SLG. Their SLG is eight adults and 4 kids. 

Julia Winston: What is your SLG look like? And what is your room like?

Adder Oaks: we've got a couple hallways with almost dormitory style rooms. Um, but then, you know, a shared living room and kitchen, we kind of have an open, open floor plan for the living room and kitchen area. Because this building was built specifically with having rambunctious kids, uh, in mind. You know, the idea was this would be one of our places that is especially conducive to raising kids. I have a wing where myself, my partner, our two kids, we all live right next to each other. We each have our own rooms there.

Julia Winston: So each individual has their own room, even married couples.

Adder Oaks: yeah, yeah, totally. This is really important. I think part of our story and intention about communal living is that, it helps curb the oppression of traditional living structures, as someone who has, been partnered for a decade now and raising two kids together, I do have a lot of appreciation for the value of a nuclear family unit, right?

But we also want to make sure that if someone is in a relationship that isn't working for them, they have their own room to go to, right? They can go to their own place and, and be apart and have their own resources and their own rights. And that couples aren't economically dependent on just each other. We're, economically dependent on the whole community.

Julia Winston: Twin Oaks also looks at parenting a little differently. Adults who want to have kids have to go through a community process first. 

Adder Oaks: This is something that a lot of people find shocking. This is not really an exercise in trying to control people's reproduction. It's really just a process to make sure that Parents go through the steps of thinking carefully about their decision to have kids, because we raise the kids. The community is responsible for those kids and we really do a lot. We put a lot of resources into them, you know, partly money, but mostly time. We really value childcare as work, so we want to make sure that Yeah, that parents are coming in with open eyes and seeing what it's going to be like to raise a kid in community. 

Julia Winston: And he's seen that the community mindset around raising kids has not only helped him, but also his kids. 

Adder Oaks: I think the most enjoyable parts have been the been watching my kids be happy. They just have an amazing life here. It's amazing how much freedom they get and how safe it feels for them to just, run off and play. There are sort of always adults around, but with kids sort of having, yeah, just having a lot of freedom. I think raising kids is also a challenge in community. You know, mostly I think to be a parent in community, you need a little bit of a thick skin. because other people are judging you, right? They see how you decide to parent. and every time your kid has a tantrum, you're like, Oh, like, what does everyone think right now? or the opposite. If you're hard and disciplining your kids firmly and you wonder. Oh, do the other sort of hippie dippie parents judge me for this? Yeah, it is a challenge parenting publicly.

Julia Winston: Wow. Parenting publicly. That is quite a concept. Yeah. I guess that's one experience of being so separated in these single family units that's for better and for worse. People can't see how you're parenting. 

Adder Oaks: I think that is one of the main reasons I like I am here and I am committed to being a longterm member is that it just, it just makes parenting so much easier. I imagine that it's a lot easier than raising kids in the mainstream. 

Julia Winston: Clearly, there are many practical benefits to living communally. Mainstream society doesn’t want us to. Our systems and stigmas don’t incentivize living this way, for all the reasons Kristen Ghodsee laid out in Part 1: like tax breaks for married people, housing designed for smaller groups and keeping the consumer economy going, one fridge at a time. You have to really want to live communally to do it, so it’s considered fringe. But the people I’ve met who do choose to live communally seem pretty, well, normal.

Deborah: I don't like being strange. I You know, like, I'm pretty conventional.

Adder Oaks: My actual day to day life, it's pretty normie in a lot of ways. I like to read. I like to play board games.

Julia Winston: The party doesn’t have to end with college when it comes to communal living. And as we can see, it’s not just about a party or practicality. What I gathered from all our guests, is that living with others is enriching. 

Adder: It certainly made my life better. I have a very rich, fulfilling life. You know, the work that I do, you know, even say the income work that's serving other people I see very locally how it benefits those around me. I feel very, very connected to my day to day work. I feel energized by having you know, having a bunch of interested, energetic, intelligent people around me all the time.

Julia Winston: I know I want to do it again… Maybe living communally is just the medicine we need to heal our epidemic of loneliness and isolation. 

11: Reframing The American Dream (Part 1)

The nuclear family has been held up as the ideal for generations, but it's actually a relatively recent invention. From college dorms to pandemic pods, some of our happiest moments come from living in community with others. So why do Americans cling to independence as a marker of success? In our Season 2 premiere, we explore how our individualistic lifestyle developed, what it's costing us, and how reimagining family structures could create a more connected future.

Our guest is Dr. Kristen Ghodsee, professor of Russian and Eastern European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life.

Referenced in this Episode:

• "Everyday Utopia" by Kristen Ghodsee 

• "Homeward Bound" by Elaine Tyler May

• "The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake" by David Brooks in The Atlantic

• U.S. Surgeon General's report: "Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation (2023)

• Johnson County city bans co-living with four or more people

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: Hey everybody. I know it's been a really big week here in the United States. I think right now we're all going through a big change and we are reorienting around how we relate to each other in this country. it doesn't really matter who you voted for. The stories that we tell here on ReFamulating are meant to be an invitation for you to see yourself through someone else's eyes, to see people that you know and stories that are familiar to you through the stories of others who you've never met before.

Because one thing we all have in common is the ways that our families are changing and the ways that our families are changing us. It's such a human thing to have a family and for that family to be changing, for you to be changing as a result of what's happening in your family. And together, collectively, we're all facing a moment of change. So I hope you enjoy the stories that we're here to tell this season and that you relate to people through the stories that we're bringing you.

THEME MUSIC

This is Refamulating, a show about different ways to make a family. I'm your host, Julia Winston. Welcome to Season 2! 

We’re not the only people talking about non-traditional families. You’ve probably been hearing examples of refamulating all over the place lately. It was a hot topic on both sides of the presidential campaign

Doug Emhoff: Hello to my big, beautiful, blended family up there.

JD Vance: We're effectively run in This country via the Democrats by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they've made.

Newscaster: According to the Pew Research Center, 44 percent of non parents aged 18 to 49 say it's not too or not at all likely they will ever have children

Julia Winston: And not just the news, It’s been all over pop culture…

Lala Kent: I know that this is not the norm. And I just feel like going the donor route is the right decision for me. 

Ali Wong: And now, there's all these men after my divorced mom energy.  A divorced mom is very special because she doesn't want commitment.  She doesn't want to have your kids.

Julia Winston: Refamulating is everywhere. And the examples you just heard are part of a bigger story that involves all of us. We Americans tend to cling to the nuclear family as a beacon of success, but the data shows that most of us don’t have nuclear families. This gap has been growing for quite some time. The definition of family is changing. It’s kind of a big deal, and people are talking about it all the time. So I made up a word for it. Refamulating.

Most of our episodes feature stories about individuals who are making change within their own worlds. And we’ve got some great personal stories coming your way this season. But first I want to zoom out and start with a focus on what refamulating means for us as a society. 

As it stands, our systems here in the U.S. are set up to benefit nuclear families even though nuclear families are not the majority. For example, married couples with kids have advantages that single people don’t, like tax breaks and family insurance plans. Housing is another great example. There’s just not a lot of range. Apartments and single-family houses are designed for couples or small family units, but we don’t see many options for larger groups like multigenerational households or people who want to live communally.

So what would it mean for us to refamulate as a society? 

Today’s guest is going to help us think through different ways we could live - how we could think more expansively about housing, the people we live with and how we raise our children. 

Right now, with so much change in the air, we have the opportunity to write a new story, one that includes families of all kinds. 

And to start telling that story, first I want to take us back in time to 2020. 

Not March, when the pandemic was just starting and we were all terrified. But let’s say….August 2020. When we were five months into lockdown and realizing we weren’t just gonna be staying home for a few weeks. For most people, five months into the pandemic felt like a grind. Our entire lives had shrunk. 

Millions of us spent hours each day working on one screen just to log off and go watch tv on a different screen.

Parents were hanging on to their sanity by a thread after months of remote school and a summer with no camps or activities to entertain their kids. 

It felt like most of us were tip-toeing around each other and judging each other out of fear that we would get each other sick.

We had little to look forward to, our days were bleeding together, and most of all, many of us were lonely. 

I was devastatingly lonely. I was one of those single people who’d had a break up and suddenly found myself living alone in a little house in Oakland with no physical contact whatsoever. There was no one around to hug me, or share meals with me, or even ask me about my day. I had just moved, so I didn’t know my neighbors and my friends were all taking care of their own families. I sat on my laptop all day working, then I logged off and cooked for myself and watched tv and went to sleep and started all over the next day. Every day. 

Everyone had to adjust to a whole new reality during this time. Our weeks had once been filled with so much casual socialization: chats with co-workers, nights out with friends, playdates and babysitters to give parents a break. All of that went away, and when we were left to socialize with just the people in our homes or on our screens, we started getting itchy.

It’s around this time that we started hearing the phrase “pandemic pod.”

NPR 1A CLIP: When it comes to education, there are no easy choices for parents this fall. Well, there's a growing wave of parents exploring a different approach. They're forming learning cooperatives with other families. A handful of families pools their resources to form a so-called pandemic pod led by a parent, a tutor, or even a private teacher.

Julia Winston: Many of us without kids adopted the concept as well. We banded together with friends, neighbors or family members and created tight-knit circles so we could socialize with a select group while socially distancing ourselves from people who weren’t in our pods. We didn’t have a word for it yet, but I think it’s safe to say… we were refamulating a little bit. 

Meanwhile, Kristen Ghodsee was sitting at home watching this unfold, fascinated. These social pods were forming out of desperation, but Kristen saw something different: a return to our natural state.

Kristen Ghodsee: Humans, we have lived communally. Like deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, in our evolutionary anthropology for thousands of years, we've been living this way.

Julia Winston: Kristen, also known as Dr. Ghodsee, is a professor of Russian and Eastern European studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Most of her academic career has focused on the transition from socialism to capitalism in Eastern Europe. But also…

Kristen Ghodsee: I've always been very interested in utopian experiments and  the ways in which human agency and dreams and desires for a different future can actually end up changing the world.

Julia Winston: So when Kristen saw hyper independent Americans sharing resources and helping out with other people’s kids, she felt energized to start a new project. 

Kristen Ghodsee: It seemed the appropriate moment to really think about all of the pandemic pods that people were suddenly spontaneously forming or the mutual aid societies that popped up in Brooklyn or popped up in West Philly. There was suddenly all this energy around communal solutions in what is otherwise a very individualistic society. So I was really inspired by both this idea of finding bottom up solutions, but then also the sort of unique way that the pandemic kind of broke our society and showed us the limits of the nuclear family and the limits of being as isolated as we are from each other..

Julia Winston: That’s when Kristen started working on a book called Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 Years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life. The book, which was published in May 2023, explores different ways people around the world throughout history have structured their homes and families. It’s full of real-life examples about community-oriented ways of living that are very different from what we see in today’s nuclear-family-oriented America. I read this book when I started working on Refamulating, and I loved the provocative ways that Kristen challenges the status quo.

Kristen Ghodsee:  Where do the ideas that we have today come from? Why is it that the nuclear family feels so natural when it's actually such a recent invention? Why are other ways of organizing our lives feel so unnatural when actually they have a much deeper evolutionary anthropological base to them?  And I'm really curious always in the ways in which discourses and ideas and narratives about what is natura   l or unnatural sort of come down to us, how we inherit certain perspectives.  The way we see things in the world, and then we internalize those perspectives. And then we feel like failures if we don't live up to the expectations of those perspectives. So for me, thinking about the family as a, as a feminist and as a scholar, and as somebody who has spent a long time thinking about  people and movements and political projects that really wanted to change the world by, also changing the family and really looked at the family quite critically as a place  from which the world could be changed.

Julia Winston: I want to be clear here that Kristen doesn’t think the nuclear family is bad. She’s just done a lot of research about families around the world and wants us all to know…there are many ways to have a strong, loving family. The nuclear family is not the only way, and for many of us, it may not be the best way.  We have mountains of empirical evidence showing us that human connection is what’s most crucial for health and happiness, yet Americans seem to be more separated than connected.

Think about it, most of us spend our free time tucked away in our own houses with our own stuff, commuting alone in our own cars, rarely interacting with neighbors because anything we could ever leave the house for can be delivered to our doorsteps. 

Humans are not built to be so isolated from each other. This is what the pandemic taught us, but in the years since we’ve actually taken a giant step backwards! In 2023, the Surgeon General of the United States, Vivek Murthy, published a report called “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation” and declared that we have a full-scale public health crisis. All the things we were told to strive for are actually making us sick! We’ve gone too narrow. So now seems like as good a time as any to stop and ask ourselves: is the way we’re living actually working? Maybe it’s time to think bigger.

Kristen Ghodsee: If we're talking about expanding our families, if we're talking about expanding our communities, if we're talking about living more collectively, it redefines our definition of success in the world, of what it means to be an adult.

Julia Winston: To question how we live in America, is essentially questioning the American Dream. This idea that in order to reach our highest potential we’ve gotta get married, have babies, and make as much money as possible. Buy your own house for your own family and own all your own stuff. If you’re successful, you don’t have to live with a roommate, or do laundry with strangers. You can drive yourself to work instead of taking public transportation. These are the goals we set for ourselves. This is the American Dream. 

But what if the American Dream as we know it really isn’t so dreamy after all? 

And more importantly, what would it look like to center connection instead of achievements? This is the question Kristen poses in Everyday Utopia. What would it look like to redefine success? We’d be reframing the American Dream. And maybe that’s just what we need.

When Kristen started writing Everyday Utopia, she viewed it as an academic project. She wrote the first few chapters, no problem. Then she started writing a chapter about the history of the nuclear family…and she was completely blocked. 

Kristen Ghodsee: I could not start the family chapter. And I was like, what's wrong with me? You know, I know exactly what I want to say. I have so many ideas and so many thoughts, but I was totally just blocked. I could not do it.  So I finally called my mom  and I started talking to her about like my own childhood and my own experiences. And that  was extremely painful and extremely difficult,  but  It explained why I was so blocked writing those chapters. I asked her if it was okay and I started writing kind of the story of my own experiences and my own hesitations about, you the idealization that people have about the nuclear family. 

Julia Winston: She realized that her hesitation was coming from a deep seeded belief based on her own lived experience: that a nuclear family doesn’t equal a functional family.   

Kristen Ghodsee: I'll just say that my family of origin was not a happy family. It had all the outside appearances of a happy family. We did the whole suburban  you know, two car garage thing, like most people did in the 70s and 80s in Southern California. My dad was an immigrant, my mom was Puerto Rican, and my mom herself had actually had a very difficult childhood. So there were a lot of complications in that family. And I spent, I would say the vast majority of my adult life not really thinking about it.  

Julia Winston:“From the outside, my family fit every stereotype of middle class America,” she writes. “But those quaint four-bedroom McMansions on the cul-de-sac hide a lot of misery. My mother clung to her fantasies of the 2.3 kids and the two-car garage on the other side of my father’s fists.” 

On the outside Kristen’s parents seemed like the epitome of the American Dream, immigrants who bought a house and raised children in America. But for Kristen, that dream was a nightmare. The fantasy of the American Dream was so strong for Kristen’s mother that breaking up the family wasn’t an option. So she stayed in an abusive relationship, which trapped them all in a cycle of abuse. 

As Kristen wrote this chapter of the book, she realized she wanted to share her own experience of finding love and support beyond her nuclear family. 

Kristen Ghodsee: Betty Olson was my English teacher.  I had known her over multiple years and she had kind of witnessed firsthand the fallout of my parents, partially because we had these extra credit assignments that allowed us to kind of reflect on our own lives through the books that we were reading in our English class. And when I finally couldn't handle my own nuclear family, I ran away from home, found myself quite late at night alone in a Greyhound station in downtown San Diego with not much money and the bus schedule,  wherever I was going, Northern California, I didn't leave until the morning and I needed a place to crash. 

And so I had her phone number because she had actually helped me with the SAT.  She had actually convinced me to go to college. Believe it or not, I wasn't going to go to college. I find that very ironic now that I'm a university professor. I almost didn't go to college.

So she got herself out of bed and came down to a not so savory part of downtown San Diego in the late 1980s, then picked me up.  And I basically lived with her, uh, for over six months, her and her husband, they had their own, uh, children that had all grown and moved out. And so they had their, uh, the bedrooms of their children available and they basically let me move in and they cared for me and helped me sort of get myself on my feet until I was able to, to move away and start university.

And it was an incredible act of kindness and generosity that was, I think, not just directed towards me. I later learned when Betty Olson died, there was one of those online obituary things where people leave comments.  And I went on and was reading some of the comments and there was some other person, I think it was under a pseudonym who said, like, I was a very troubled teen and Miss Betty Olson kind of came in and helped me and kind of righted my life.

And so this was a woman and her husband, Tom, who transformed  the lives of children who were not their own, including me. And I am so grateful to them and I'm so grateful to have had that experience. And I realize only now, I think how rare it is in the world for people who aren't your parents or some kind of blood relation to sort of step in and take responsibility for a young person who is really in need. And I think that's just an incredible gift that I'm really grateful for.

Julia Winston: Kristen stayed with Betty and Tom as she finished high school, and then went to college with their encouragement. Tom and Betty Olson played a very important role in Kristen’s life. She even dedicated her book to them. Kristen refers to people like Tom and Betty as “an extended kin network”: people who are not blood-related but support you like family. Betty Olson is also an example of an alloparent, which is a word Kristen uses to describe another adult who provides parental care for a child who isn’t biologically theirs. 

Kristen’s perspective about the nuclear family struck me so deeply when I read the book and learned her personal story, so that’s where I wanted to start in our interview.

Julia Winston: So I want to talk about the nuclear family for a moment here. How did the model of the nuclear family come to be the default in American society at least? And why is it actually not normal in a historical context?

Kristen Ghodsee: From an evolutionary anthropological perspective, we are cooperative breeders. We have always raised our children in larger groups than just two parents, and that's not just our blood related kin. It's also not blood related kin. This is, you know, pretty well established in the anthropological literature. And from a historical perspective, most historians think that the nuclear family, our model of it, which is called socially imposed universal monogamy. So it's important to understand that mating practices and child rearing practices are separable. So you can be in a pair bond with somebody who is a primary romantic or even platonic partner. Pair bonds, we are pair bonders as humans, but we've always raised our children cooperatively. 

Julia Winston: So how did we end up with this one family structure becoming the norm? Kristen gave me a very good history lesson. 

Kristen Ghodsee: The key thing is that historians suggest that socially imposed universal monogamy comes from ancient Greece and from ancient Greece it jumps to Italy, Antiquity, the Roman Empire, and from there it sort of infiltrates the Catholic Church.

And the historian Laura Betzik makes this wonderful I think argument about why it was that monogamy was so important to the Catholic Church from a financial perspective. And what she says is that in societies where you have a inheritance structure that is based on the doctrine of primogenitor, which means that the oldest son inherits the entirety of the father's estate.

Julia Winston: In this culture the second son often joined the church as a clergy member.

Kristen Ghodsee: And so if the first born son fails to produce a male heir, then upon the death of the father, the estate will go and, and the death of the oldest son, the state transfers to the second son, which means that it goes directly into the coffers of the Catholic church.

So the Catholic church had every single motivation to ensure monogamy. And obviously Catholic missionaries spread out all along, all around the world. And the indigenous studies scholar, Kim TallBear talks about what she calls white settler sexuality, which is this imposition of monogamy on non European populations around the world. 

Julia Winston: Okay, so… how did this practice infiltrate American culture? 

Kristen Ghodsee: It has everything to do with the Cold War, and it has everything to do with in the aftermath of World War II, women's rights, and civil rights were very much associated with communism and deviation as was atheism, right? And so there was Elaine Tyler May has a beautiful book called Homeward Bound, which is all about the ways in which the United States government very deliberately tries to isolate returning GIs into the suburbs where they have their private cars and their wives and children are kind of isolated in these single family boxes and they have to consume all of the products of American capitalism.

Narrator from 1960 government video promoting suburbs: This new age builds a better kind of city, close to the soil one more, as molded to our human wants as planes are shaped for speed. New cities take form, green cities. They're built into the countryside, they're ringed with trees and fields and gardens. 

Julia Winston: This was the lifestyle we should all strive for. A bigger home for our family, more time to focus on our kids, with amenities like washing machines in the home and personal cars that helped us spread out from each other.  

Narrator from 1960 government video promoting suburbs: The daily marketing's part of the fun. In fact, the market's just an annex to the kitchen.  Another chance to chat about the children's measles or the weather.

Kristen Ghodsee: And so, you know, it gets rigidified in the fifties. And then between the fifties and the present day, suddenly people have this kind of historical amnesia and they think this is the way that families are. When in fact, for the vast majority of our history, we've actually lived in much more extended kin networks.

Julia Winston: Remember, an extended kin network is a fancy way of saying non-blood relatives who feel like family. Many of us already have something like this informally - our friend’s kids call us aunt or uncle. We house sit for someone who’s out of town. Or we have dinner every Sunday with the same group of friends.

But when Kristen talks about extended kin networks, she’s encouraging us to legitimize this idea a bit more. Bring it a little closer to home, so to speak. Maybe live with more people or more intentionally look after each other’s kids. Expanding our families in this way is something many Americans consider fringe behavior.  

Kristen wants to educate people about other ways of living because she knows how lonely we are in America.

Remember the Surgeon General’s report I mentioned earlier about our epidemic of loneliness and isolation? The main point of the report is that, and I quote, “social connection is a fundamental human need, as essential to survival as food, water, and shelter.” Social connection means expanding beyond the nuclear family. 

I am also an advocate and educator on this subject. I teach a class at the University of Texas called Design for Human Connection and have my undergraduate students read this report as their first homework assignment. I strongly believe that community is not just a “nice to have” - it’s a fundamental human need that we’re basically ignoring in modern American society. And that’s making us sick. I agree with Kristen that it’s time to expand our networks of love and care.

After the break, Kristen talks about the idea of living more communally and how this can help us combat our epidemic of loneliness and isolation. 

Julia Winston: When I say “living communally,” I’m referring to a group of people who share physical space and daily life in an intentional way. Americans tend to think that if you live communally it must be some kind of cult, and obviously there’s the cult version of that set up- we’ve all seen the docuseries. 

But there are a million other ways to live communally that are not cultish at all: think summer camp, college dorms, sorority houses, and retirement homes. These are all familiar situations where people are sharing space and resources in their day-to-day lives.

But all of these cases involve either young people, or old people. Kristen writes about people who’ve found different ways to live communally in mid-life - in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

Most of us in this age range idolize the dream of having our own homes, with our own appliances and our own cars. It’s so much more CONVENIENT! Here’s a crazy stat: Nearly 30% of American households are single occupancy- meaning only one person lives in them. 

Kristen Ghodsee: Oh, that's a big percentage of Americans who are living alone.

Julia Winston: And I’m one of them.

Kristen Ghodsee: That means heating and cooling individual dwellings, which is completely inefficient as the climate changes. So that's the first thing, is that we know that it's actually more sustainable in the long run. The reason it's more sustainable, obviously, is because people buy less stuff. And if people buy less stuff, that's really bad for the people who sell stuff. I'm not saying that this is a conspiracy. It's not a conspiracy, but, but, but there is pressure on us to live as individualistically as possible, because it increases spending. Two thirds of the American economy is consumer spending. So it's incredibly important for our economy that we all have individual refrigerators and washing machines and dryers and stoves and dishwashers.

So from an environmental perspective, um, It makes sense, but from a capitalist perspective, it's an incredible threat. So of course you're going to say anybody who lives collectively is either a loser or a cultist or some weird hippie, druggie, communists, right? Um, that's the narrative that we have to have about these people. 

Now, that being said, that isn't to deny that some of these experiments have gone terribly wrong in the past, right? There are cults, uh, and there are communes that have not thrived, right? They've fallen apart for one reason or the other. So I'm not denying the somewhat sordid history especially in the United States, but in balance A lot, most of these utopian communities, they either kind of fizzle out of their own accord, or they persist, or they're smashed by mainstream society.

Julia Winston: And it’s natural to be influenced by mainstream society so much that we take on these perceptions as our own. I’m guilty of it as much as the next person. I’ve totally internalized the idea that living alone is a sign of success. A few years ago I bought my own house, which was a huge milestone for me. The fact that I can afford to support myself in this way makes me feel independent and successful. Plus, I love my space. But I gotta admit… something’s missing. 

Kristen Ghodsee: this narrative of privacy and convenience And lack of contact with other people in the world is a mark of success. The thing that makes people most happy at the end of their life has nothing to do with money or jobs or career success. It's relationships. We actually know that really clearly. And yet people associate autonomy, this is a very American thing, autonomy and privacy and, you know, Lack of connection with success. And so, so much of what we need to do, if we're talking about expanding our families, if we're talking about expanding our communities, if we're talking about living more collectively, is redefine our definition of success in the world, of what it means to be an adult. 

Julia Winston: She’s right - we don’t talk about it enough. Because the truth is, I’m proud to be a homeowner, but what I long for the most is to live in community. I went to sleepaway camp as a kid, which is probably where my love for communal living started. Then I lived in a dorm with some of my best friends while studying abroad in Prague during college, then I lived communally on a kibbutz in Israel in my mid-20s, and again with a group of other creatives in San Francisco in my late 20s. In all these cases, I loved being part of a small community where I got to contribute, where I felt like I mattered. It felt so good to belong. But it also felt like a pit stop on the way to something more “mature.” Like if I wanted to become a successful adult someday, I’d need to have my own place. And now here I am, a single homeowner, longing for more community. 

Kristen Ghodsee: The other part of this, and this is the part that I think I struggle with the most, is that some people just don't want to share. In unit laundry is a big thing. People want to have their own washer and dryer. I wrote about, my experience, uh, living on a kind of academic commune back in 2006, 2007, when my daughter was four and five and how I, I lived in a, in a group of, um, through group of apartments where there was a shared laundry and it was pain having a kid, you know, and having to go, you know, And do the laundry and like wait for the machine and wait for the dryer and hang around. And, and yet it became one of the most joyful communal things that I did in the week because I met other people with kids my daughter's age who are also doing their laundry. We, so I often want to give up community for convenience, and I am just as much to blame as anybody else. 

Julia Winston: I can totally relate. My heart wants community and my head wants convenience. Why hassle with sharing when you can just place an order on Amazon Prime? This is how we end up with an epidemic of loneliness and isolation.  

Kristen Ghodsee: One thing that we do have, which I find really interesting, is an obsession with wellness and self care, right? If you really want to be well, true wellness, true homeostasis is only found in community with others. Then we might be able to, to, to, to twist the narrative. And the irony of that, I think is that in some ways, I think that's already starting to be true. That like wealthier people are starting to recognize that community is really important. And it's, it's socioeconomically disadvantaged people that are becoming increasingly isolated. And so that makes me really sad in a way.

But on the other hand, it means that this could become It could become something, right? Like co housing, co living, building, you know collectives of, let's say, older women who are, um, sharing, pooling resources, sort of golden girl style, or things like mom-unes, right? Single moms buying a house together and raising their kids in common. So there's, there's all these, these models that are out disdained, partially because they're associated with, you know, being a loser or not being successful, but also because they actually do represent a real threat, I think, to capitalism.

And so I write in the book about Johnson County outside of Kansas City, where they have banned co housing, right? They've banned more than three non-consanguineous people living together in the same house because they don't want people, especially young people, to do the kinds of things that we're talking about.

Julia Winston: By the way, non-consanguineous is an academic term that means: non blood related. 

But we gotta pause here for a second and talk about this thing in Kansas. Shawnee, a large suburb of Kansas City, passed a law a few years ago that essentially bans roommates. It’s now illegal for four or more unrelated people to share a home. That means no more than 3 roommates. The city said that they were seeing more interest in creating co-living spaces, and they wanted to prevent this type of housing in neighborhoods with mostly single family homes. 

Why does this have to be such a threat? Especially with so many people struggling to afford housing. And because we know communal living can be so enriching!  

Julia: One thing that struck me when I read the book was just like, what are some of the, the best years of our lives as we talk about it in the U. S.? Like college, like, yeah, those are the best years of your life. Why is that? Why is that? 

Kristen Ghodsee: Because we live communally, I mean, obviously, like I work at a university, I see the students. But they eat communally, they walk everywhere, they go to the lectures, they have a gym, they have parties that they can sort of stumble home to, they have all their friends around them. There are events and, you know, cultural activities, clubs, a cappella concerts. There's so much going on and it's all within walking distance and it's all within a very, very tight knit community and all universities, residential universities, at least residential college, the residential college model.

That's the model that people really associate with the best four years of their lives. And they think, Oh, it's because I was young and I was learning and, you know, I was starting out and I didn't have any responsibilities. But if you stop and think about it for a second, it's probably actually because you were living with a whole bunch of people who had kind of shared interests and you were able, you had a kind of freedom of, you know, Moving in a space where everything was interconnected and walkable.

There are examples of people like older little old ladies who are forming kind of grandma communes and living together in their kind of, you know, after their husbands or they're divorced or, you know, widowed or whatever. 

Julia Winston: My college friends and I have a fantasy of living together in our golden years. We call it “Jiggle River” and joke that one day when we’re old ladies with jiggly arms we’ll live in a big house and laugh all day long sitting in lawn chairs down by the river. I love it so much. And I’m also kinda like… can we just do that now? 

Kristen Ghodsee: They're choosing communal ways of living. There are matriarchal eco villages like, uh, Nashira in South America. There are these incredible new communes in even places like China. So there’s an incredible diversity of ways of living in the world that do not replicate this particular model of the nuclear family.

Julia Winston: Yeah, I find it so inspiring hearing example after example of the types of expansive families that exist right now out in the world. And I really love this one line that you say in the book, which is: “it's silly to be dismissive of radical social dreams when there are so many people already showing us how to turn these dreams into practical realities.” And I think These are practical ways of living, they're just not the ways that we see reflected in our media all the time.

Julia Winston: Kristen thinks people are ready to start considering communal living as a viable path. This comes back to what she observed during the pandemic. One point she makes in her book is that living communally or at least with a larger village when raising kids would make parenting so much easier. 

Kristen Ghodsee: We live communally when we're young. And we tend to want to live communally when we get older in retirement communities or Golden Girl type houses. But precisely in these middle years when we need the most help from allo parents, it could be godparents, friends, colleagues, neighbors, what have you, grandparents in some cases, we tend to isolate ourselves in the nuclear family. And there's a real reason for doing that. And that's because parenting in the United States in the 20 First century is a contact sport. There are limited amounts of resources out there and it's very competitive. 

And so the reason we raise our children in isolation from each other is because we believe that in order to maximize the potential of our own children, we have to give them exclusively all of our resources and attention. And we can't squander any of those resources and attention on other people's children, because then we're disadvantaging our own children. And so there is this desire for precisely this moment when we need help from others to isolate, to create the boundaries. And that's what broke down during the pandemic.  

That's what I think was so interesting is that parents particularly mothers who thought they had it all hacked, right? They were paying for, you know, a nanny or an au pair, or they had a really good childcare situation or whatever it was, you know, while they went off and sort of hashtag slayed the boardroom, boardroom or whatever, girl bossed it and we're making an, enough money to hire a cleaner and hire, um, a cook or whatever, there was this way in which that whole system broke down and suddenly they were sort of stuck. Guess what? You got to raise your own kids and clean your own house and cook your own meals and do all of that stuff on your own. And people were like, this is impossible. I can't do this. This is really, really, really hard to do. And so. What do they do? They went out and formed pandemic pods with other people to share the labor. So it was like the most natural thing in the world was to say, Hey, there's another way of doing this. And it's to share it with other people who have young kids. And it took the pandemic to open people's eyes to that reality. 

Julia Winston: And especially during the pandemic, people clung to their pods out of necessity. But once we were vaccinated…everyone slowly started retreating back to their own worlds. And that’s probably because living in a larger community has its challenges

Kristen Ghodsee: If you're in a pandemic pod, you're, you're, you have to nurture these mutual obligations, right? Other parents, and you might actually get attached to somebody else's kid. You might actually not feel comfortable like buying your kid an iPhone 15 when the other kid has like a lame Samsung flip phone or whatever. 

I don't know. There may be guilt associated with Massive levels of socioeconomic inequality in our society that could be uncomfortable, but that not might not necessarily be a bad thing in the long run. I think that the more we expose ourselves and we allow ourselves to open our hearts and care for other people's children, we actually do become a more compassionate and connected society, which ultimately benefits everyone. everyone, including our own biological children. Even, you know, somebody like the conservative David Brooks had this article in the Atlantic called the nuclear family was a mistake, right? 

Julia Winston: Brooks’ point was that nuclear families don’t have strong enough support systems, especially in a world with waning faith communities. If someone dies, gets divorced or moves, the family fractures. We linked to an interview with Brooks in our show notes if you want to hear more. 

Kristen Ghodsee: I mean, this is a, this is actually a well documented historical and evolutionary anthropological argument. I think we just live in a society where we are inundated with nuclear family propaganda. 

I mean, that's what we are fed constantly, a constant diet of this idea that we are not really functioning, reasonable, decent human beings, unless we are in a pair bonded monogamous relationship, hopefully, you know, um, with, uh, a partner with whom you have children. So many of us in the world today are If we don't have it or we don't want it, we are made to feel lesser than those who do have it and do want it.

Julia Winston: Oh, I feel that fully. I mean, that is, that is definitely like where That's where I'm at, you know, and, and part of why I wanted to even create this show was just that I heard the statistic that More than half of all adults in the United States of America are unmarried and I was like, I'm sorry What? How is it that the narrative that we've been fed about what we're our lives are supposed to look like at a certain age is so radically Different than what's actually happening. To me that just means there's a lot of people out there who are suffering and who are feeling less than. I'm one of them As a single 40 year old person without children I am, I mean, this project for me is a way of reckoning with that, almost maybe in a way that everyday utopia has been, you know, was subconsciously on some level for you also of trying to make sense of, well, that's not how my life looks.

Julia Winston: In your foreword. You say, for over two millennia, people have dreamed of building societies that reimagine the role of family. Everywhere you look today, people are exploring new and different ways of organizing their personal lives. Why do you think that is? Why now? And what are some examples that you're seeing that show us that there is this appetite for something different now?

Kristen Ghodsee: In my book, I use the word family expansionism. we should create wider lateral networks of love and care and support. And I think that it's really key to understand that this has so many different permutations. And when we look out, Across the world, we see an incredible variety of practices around mating and childbearing. 

Obviously there are group marriages where you have multiple men and women that are in relationships for one reason or another. We also have polygyny and polyandry. So polygyny would be one man, many wives. And we also have polyandry, which is one woman who has several husbands within that category. Then you have, for instance, in Brazil, you have things called partible paternity, whereby a woman will have a child with multiple fathers and they all feel themselves to be those fathers. Then you have a kind of traditional pair bonding, which can look like heterosexual. It could be homosexual. It could be people of multiple genders. And then there's celibacy and, uh, and what we call asexuality today, but there's a long tradition of people who are unpartnered and who are what we call allo parents.

Kristen Ghodsee: Kristen has written a lot about socialism and capitalism around the world, so she studies family structures through that same lens. Many people throughout history have used the word “utopian” to describe a better society. I asked Kristen what “utopia” meant for her as she wrote this book. 

So many of the things that we take for granted today, free public education in public schools at public expense was the 10th biggest Point of the communist manifesto, you know, people who send their kids to public schools, don't even think about the fact that that was once a utopian demand. Childcare was a utopian demand. No fault divorce was a utopian demand. Same sex marriage, right? Utopian demand. 

These were people who went out and dreamed differently. So for me, utopia is not a point. It is not a place that you get to. It is a constant conversation let's say between where we are now and where we might be in, let's say 50 years or a hundred years or 300 years if we've survived that long. And I, I think that that's the beautiful thing about utopia as a concept. is that it's always kind of pushing us forward. It's kind of pulling us into the future. It's kind of forcing us to reimagine things that we might take for granted in our daily life.

And so everyday utopia for me is this idea that utopia is a big thing, but it's also a little thing. It's also about showing kindness to your neighbors when your neighbors are not being very kind. Sometimes utopia is about imagining that we all have good in us and we have the capacity to forgive and we have the capacity to create unconventional ways of being that, that will help us all thrive in the long run. And I, and I find that like, Just being kind, just sharing sometimes is the most utopian thing you can talk about in the United States. 

Because we are, especially in the United States, an incredibly individualistic and selfish and materialistic society. And so even just saying, wow, You know, a whole bunch of people could live together in harmony and share their stuff and raise their kids. People will go like, you're just the most utopian person I know.

So yeah, it's a, it's, it's an appropriation of a word that some people use as a pejorative to refer to those who are naive. And I think that it's important to Embrace that and say, yeah, okay, fine. Maybe this is a utopian vision that people will be nice to each other in the future, but it's a utopian vision that I'm willing to fight for. And I think that a lot of people will actually benefit from, and I know that there are a lot of people who agree with me. 

Julia Winston: the whole end of the book is really about practicing radical hope and This gives me so much comfort in my heart because it can be overwhelming to think about, Oh my gosh, how on earth, like if we know that we're healthier and happier and that historically it's totally possible and normal for us to live more collectively, for us to help each other, raise our Children for us to have company for us to share resources to share spaces. But oh my gosh, it's so overwhelming. We live in a capitalist society. What do we do? Where do we start? So What is radical hope? And what are some small steps that each of us can take in our private lives to actually have more happiness and connection? 

Kristen Ghodsee: Yeah. So in the book, I make a distinction between hope as an emotion and hope as a cognitive capacity. So hope is an emotion. We know what that is. It's like, I'm hoping that the rain will stop. Uh, and it's the opposite of anxiety and fear as an emotional feeling.

Hope as a cognitive capacity is the ability to imagine a particular future, an outcome that you want to see in the world, and then developing pathways is to get to that goal While recognizing that there are going to be challenges and obstacles around the way and also developing ways to deal with the challenges and obstacles. If you join arms with others, if you create a community of others, that your actions today can actually build that future. That's what radical hope means. This is really a committed form of political engagement with the future. I'm not saying it's easy. I often myself fall into despair. What do I do to get out of it? And that's not always easy.That's where I think the everydayness of my everyday utopia book title is really important.

If you volunteer your time to spend or share your time with somebody else's kids. Take them down to the park, maybe take them to a movie, maybe do Lego with them or do a puzzle. Share one of your passions. That is political work.

We need to support each other, if we're going to make it into the future as a species, the most important thing that we can be doing is creating those communities of trust and kindness, because that's, what's going to sustain us in the long run. And even though I despair, like everybody else despairs, every time I see another headline, I think, Oh my God, how are we going to get through all of this? I think back to all of the examples in history where ordinary people and ordinary acts of kindness and generosity lifted each other up. People lifted each other up and they made it and they survived

Julia Winston: I think what I hear you saying is, Any act, large or small, whether it's like organizing community or just calling a friend outside of your own relationship and spending time together or going and spending time with with children in your community, all of these acts are ways of creating more connection and ways of you don't have to go join a commune in order to be more communal and that even these small things are really acts that can help all of us move more towards a utopian way of being even during a time that feels really dark and really dystopian

Kristen Ghodsee: Exactly. Okay. Yeah, because we are so social, we are so embedded, whether we like it or not, we are embedded in our social worlds. And it's those social worlds that sustain us and that we also have a part in sustaining. sometimes it's as simple as smiling at somebody on the street rather than averting your gaze, right? That can mean the world to somebody who's having a bad day. And you may never realize, you may never know the impact that you've had on that person. But sometimes that can make a huge difference.

Julia Winston: In the last decade, I’ve changed my point of view about family a lot. I started my 30s assuming that one day I’d get married and have kids. Then, when I donated my eggs, it forced me to address my own ambivalence about having kids of my own, and start embracing my life as a single, childfree woman. This path led me to ask myself, “what do I truly want?” Now, at 40, I’ve realized that community is what I truly want. I want  to feel the presence of more love, care and support in my day to day life. I want to share the experience of being alive with a family of friends. I’m trying to figure out what that means right now, and I think it means being in closer proximity to certain friends. 

Another big shift for me has been re-defining what success looks like for me as an adult. I’ve come to this conclusion: Success for me is how connected I feel to the people I share my life with.  When I look back at my life from my death bed, I’m not going to care about money or achievements. I’m gonna care about the quality of the relationships I had.

This conversation with Kristen helped affirm all of these new mindsets I’ve been adopting. And it also helped give me a better framework for how I decide to set up my life from here. Now I’m asking myself, what is my version of utopia? 

In this season of Refamulating, we invite you to imagine your version of utopia. If you allowed yourself to open your mind and remove all judgements or expectations, how would you structure your life? What would your perfect romantic relationship look like? How would you raise your kids? What roles would  your friends play? What is your ideal living situation?           

The more we talk about our truest hopes and dreams, the more we can shed stigmas that hold us back from living more connected lives. Even if it means doing things a little differently.

10: Seahorse Dad: Planning for pregnancy as a transgender man

Liam is a transgender man who has spent the last eight years embracing his true life as a man. He changed his name, took hormones, and got top surgery. But recently he had a big realization. He wants to be a father – and he wants to carry his own child. Now Liam has stopped taking hormones and started preparing his body to do something he never imagined: get pregnant.

Listen to Liam’s Terrible, Thanks For Asking episode here. 

Here is Liam’s YouTube Channel where he’s chronicling his journey to pregnancy. 

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia Winston: Liam Magan knew from a young age that he wanted to be a parent. 

Liam: my sister and I would make PowerPoint presentations of our future families, like husband, wife, the kids, their names, what they like to do. 

Julia Winston: A lot of us had some version of this PowerPoint- maybe it was playing MASH with your friends and seeing if you'd marry your crush from school and live in a shack with 12 kids. Or just using dolls to simulate a family as you played house. Liam used these PowerPoints as a child’s version of a vision board. 

Liam: So I like would find like some redheaded Stock images of children. Those were my kids um I always imagined like a son and a daughter like just Such the traditional like you have one of each kid and then you're good kind of thing.

Obviously being transgender back then I was like growing up as a girl and so I Was the mother in that role and I had a husband and two kids usually. And then it's funny one of my childhood friends growing up we would play like house and I was Mike and she was Kathy and we had like 27 children and we had like a list of them and it was so funny.

Julia Winston: Liam is now 30 years old. He transitioned from female to male eight years ago, and has been living as a man ever since. During his transition, there were moments when he thought he wouldn't, or couldn't, have kids. But recently, that dream of becoming a parent has resurfaced. 

Like many people in their 30s, Liam is surrounded by friends and family who are having kids. And he loves helping out and being an uncle.

Liam: Often times I would hang out with my friend to help her with the kids on Tuesdays while her husband was working and so like she had an appointment, the two year old's sleeping in the backseat, we did a car nap, I'm feeding the baby a bottle on the front seat and I'm like scrolling on Instagram.

And I saw a video pop up of like a transgender man's like birth story, and in the past, like, I would say like three or four years, there's been a lot more representation out there of like trans or non binary people, giving birth and, and being pregnant, and so it had been kind of like something I was like, huh.

I was watching that video and like the baby's like she would always like play with my beard While I was feeding her the bottle and so then i'm just like looking at her and i've just watched this video and I was like I want to get pregnant.  It just like came over me so quickly and I was like, I want I want to do that, too. I want to be a parent and I want to try and get pregnant.

Julia Winston: Today, on the season 1 finale of Refamulating, we share Liam's emotional and physical journey as he prepares for pregnancy as a transgender man. Liam wanted to share his story with us after listening to the show, especially episode 2, the story about Tony the single dad. He told us that story made him feel  more seen as he embarks on his own journey to single fatherhood. 

I got so excited when Liam reached out because the purpose of this show isn’t just to tell stories. It’s to remind everyone who’s listening that you’re not alone. We’re all part of a bigger family than the ones we came from and the ones we’re building. The purpose of this show is to create a sense of connection and togetherness. And we do that by sharing our stories, by being seen and heard. 

As for Liam, the family he envisions these days looks very different from his childhood PowerPoint fantasy- he won't be a dad named Mike, with a wife named Kathy, and there won't be 27 kids, but what has stayed the same, is his intense desire to have children. And now he’s making it happen. 

Liam lives in New Hampshire, where he grew up in an intergenerational home with his parents, sister and grandparents. He officially came out as transgender when he was 22, and started the process of transitioning. But he knew well before then that something in his life wasn't quite right. 

Liam: it was like always like there and I didn't really understand all the different things that I was like doing or, Ways I was self soothing. Like growing up I always wore like a backwards hat so that I didn't see my hair or like I wore my hair in a bun like at The back of my head. That's gender dysphoria Like I was like feeling something figured out a way to correct it for myself. 

When they made you line up boys and girls in school I always went to the boys line and then they were like Go back over here. And I'm like, oh, like it just was like, uh, yeah, I'm gonna line up over here. If someone had asked me then do you feel like a boy I'd be like, "yea!" 

And I think like so many things in my life could have been different if I had access to like the terminology to express how I felt, but I just didn't know. I was like, maybe this is how everyone feels. They just feel like disconnected from their self all the time. And like this little chaotic experience emotionally inside.

Julia Winston: The disconnect Liam felt inside was confusing and distressing. Internally he felt like a boy, but everyone in his life treated him like a girl. 

Liam: And I remember like fifth grade when they teach you like about your own body, I was just like, I feel like I'm in the wrong class. Like, I don't think I should be having this information. But I just had like no way to, to express that and, and to anyone in a way that like made sense. 

Like, I remember as a kid, I would, like, slam my hand in the door, or, like, kick my bedpost, like, a hundred times really hard. Or, like, try and smash my finger with a hammer. Like, anything to, like, output that discomfort I had in myself. High school and middle school sucks for everyone, but like it's more so sucking when your, like, body is starting to change in a way that just doesn't feel like it should.

Julia Winston: Liam came out as a lesbian in high school. But when he went to college, he met transgender people for the first time and finally understood something crucial about himself. That’s when he started to learn about the idea of transitioning.

Liam: Even then it was still like, maybe, but I don't think I could ever do anything about it because my family won't support it. And it was just kind of like, I don't know if I'll ever do it. But finally I decided to shave my head. So I had always had really long hair and I decided to shave it off because I was just like I'm gonna be a cool shaved head lesbian so my friends, we all got together in the lobby of our college dorm and shaved my head and then I went and looked in the mirror and it was like, Oh, yeah, Like it just was like a lightning bolt.

All the like small things I'd said and done throughout my whole life just like made sense on like all of a sudden. Oh yeah I am transgender and like oh shit now I've got to do something about it. I don't know how to describe it, but it was like the first time I saw myself in the mirror and not just like a reflection in the mirror.

It was just like, oh, there you are. Like that's the person like I've always like known was there. Um, and I could finally like see it reflected back to me. 

Julia Winston: When he shaved his head, surrounded by supportive friends, it unlocked something in Liam. He felt brave enough to transition into the man he knew himself to be, and the summer after he graduated from college, he started testosterone. 

Taking testosterone was a major step in his transition. The hormone changed his body to take on more masculine qualities: he stopped menstruating. He started growing more body and facial hair. His voice deepened and most importantly, he started feeling like himself.

Liam: And, then a year and a half later, I had top surgery to have a flat chest. 

Julia: In the early days of Liam’s transition, the idea of getting pregnant in the future would have horrified him.

Liam: pregnancy became something that like was very feminine and only women do it. And so I kind of like disconnected myself from that. And I was like, I never want to do that. I don't want, you know, to be associated with anything female anymore. Especially like an early transition, everything is like much more fragile, because you know so much who you are, but, like, nobody else knows. And, the world is perceiving you in a way that you don't want to be perceived, and so it's like, you kind of have to, like, push from one side to the other, to, tolerate that, I guess?

Julia Winston: One of the challenges about coming out as trans was telling his parents. 

Liam: for a while, it was very much like, we're not going to call you Liam. We're not going to call you he like. We can't support this. You're always going to be our daughter, like. very hard. and there was a period of time where we didn't talk at all. 

Julia Winston: Liam's rocky relationship with his parents after coming out is the topic of an episode of Terrible, Thanks for Asking podcast, another show in our network. That episode is called Liam and the Letters. We've linked that episode in our show notes if you want to hear more about that chapter of Liam’s story. Things were tough with his parents, but he did have support from other adults in his life. His grandparents, who he grew up with and was very close to, supported him unconditionally. 

Liam: they were like, you know we’ve been waiting for you to tell us what’s wrong. And we love you no matter what. My grandfather who has since passed away was a huge advocate. He went to the library and he got as much literature as he could to just try and understand and he wanted to support me the best way that he could. And my grandmother is just, she's come to me to all sorts of different t  rans activism stuff. She calls me my name in front of them, and like, it's just so great. I had asked my grandmother about it like several years later and she was Like yeah, I always wanted to ask you like what's going on. And then my grandfather was always like, no, just wait. Like he'll come when he's ready.

Julia Winston: These days, Liam's relationship with his parents is...better. 

Liam: Our relationship has very much ebbed and flowed and over the recent years and the point that I'm at now with it is like We agree to disagree about like my transition. they still like wish that I was their daughter and that I would like marry a man. They've been in their beliefs for so long that that's just their worldview, and I'm not going to change that in the same way that they're not going to change mine.

And so I try to just, like, meet them where they're at, which is like, they call me a nickname, they call me Red, so that, like, neither side is hurt by the name and use. My parents are wonderful, awesome people, and like, in all other aspects, like, other than this one major thing, but like, my sister has a son, and I see them as grandparents, and I'm like, they're wonderful grandparents, and like, I have a very close connection with my grandparents, and like, I would want my child to be able to have that opportunity to have that kind of relationship.

We're just going to kind of start from where we're at now. We're not going to like think about the last like decade and a half of things that were like really hard between all of us. I just really am focusing more on like, what can I cultivate for my future family? Versus like getting stuck in all the hurt in the past. 

Julia Winston: And Liam is happy to have a loving relationship with his parents, because as he prepares to have a baby, he'll need a support system. 

When we come back, Liam talks about his plans for getting pregnant. 

When Liam started taking testosterone at 22, he was warned it could impact his future fertility. 

Liam: the way that it was posed to me when I started testosterone was like you can either Like preserve your fertility ahead of time or you can choose this testosterone And so being young I was like, well, I don't want to wait any longer to transition to the person I know I am, and I don't really care if I have my own kids and so at that point in time, I was just kind of like i'm okay sacrificing a biological child to pursue what I need to do 

Julia Winston: But we have more information now. Transgender people do not need to choose between a biological kid and gender affirming care. Taking hormones could impact fertility, but it’s a small risk.

Many doctors will advise a trans patient to preserve their eggs or sperm before starting hormones in case they want kids later. 

During his 20s, Liam focused on his transition and creating a life as a man. He also got married, and his spouse didn't really want kids. So he was content just being a fun uncle to his sister's children. 

Liam: So my best friend of Like 13 years. She was pregnant with her first child in 2020 and then my friend had her baby and, I just, again, I loved, like, hanging out and being the fun uncle, and that was, like, still cool and fine for me, it was fun as we were like, oh, she's got, you know, Lindsey's smile and Ryan's eyes and, like, kind of picking out those, like, features where you're like, oh, like, I wonder what my kid would look like and what the features would be And different things like that that kind of started the little wheels turning, And then two years later she was pregnant with her second and they end up having to go to the hospital to be induced And so they needed someone to watch their older kid who was 20 months at the time And so I said, yeah, I can take her for the week. 

That was when I realized like how much I liked Being a caretaker for a child more so than just like I come over and I hang out for a few hours on Monday and we do like really fun stuff and then you go take a nap and I leave, it was like, Oh, I like waking up early with you I like making Your breakfast. I like putting you to sleep and giving you a bath and like all those things. And so then I was like, Oh my gosh, I think I want to do this too. But I'm now in this marriage where we decided not to have children. And, um, there are many other reasons why the marriage fell apart besides just that, but that would have become an issue for sure.

So that was like a pivotal moment where I was like, okay, I want to have kids, but I still wasn't even thinking about like biological kids. I was just like, I think I want a parent. I definitely know that I want to do that whatever that might look like. 

Julia Winston: It was around this time that Liam saw that  video online of a trans man who got pregnant, and he realized he might actually be able to do it biologically. So he started talking to his doctors about what it would take to try and get pregnant.

Liam: first I had to come off of testosterone because testosterone does suppress fertility. It does not make you infertile. I guess technically if you're on testosterone you are infertile, but it doesn't make you permanently infertile. If you come off of it your cycle will come back, and your like egg quality is preserved, like everything is still there. It's just been kind of Dormantly hanging out. When I realized like oh my God, I wanna get pregnant, I was like living in my parents' basement and like just about to get divorced. So it wasn't really like a I'm gonna start doing this yet. It was like, okay, once I get things like sorted out, I'm living on my own again. And like that's something I can start thinking about more. 

Julia Winston: At the beginning of 2024, Liam was in a place to make some decisions. His divorce was finalized, he had his own place, and the first step was stopping testosterone. 

Liam: I started the beginning of this year with the tapering of testosterone. Now there's not really any like, standards of care for this kind of thing. Like I was talking to my hormone prescriber and I was like, is there like a, like, what should I do? And she's like, you could just stop tomorrow. You could, you could do whatever you want. Really. There's no like really like set standards. There's not a lot of research about it. 

And so I had decided to taper my dose by one ML every month cause there were some times when like supply demand I didn't get my testosterone and I would really go through like an emotional little roller coaster for a Couple weeks when I was like having gone from high testosterone down to low it was like, okay I don't really want to just like go through that. If I gradually come off it I feel like that might be easier on the emotions and so that that was just what I decided to do And by February, I was on half of my dose I was normally on.

And then I was just kind of like, I feel fine. I'm really just anxious to like, get to the part where like, my cycle comes back and everything is working. Because it was also like, will it come back and will it work? I don't even know. I could like, go through this whole process and it might not happen. 

So I've been off testosterone now for three months and honestly, I thought it was going to be a lot more of like a jarring emotional transition to go like back in time.

I was like, I'm going to go back to like how it was before, but I've just, I definitely have felt more emotional. Like I can definitely access my emotions more easily. Like I felt like I couldn't like I couldn't really cry that much when I was on testosterone and like things like that But it has not been as kind of dramatic as I thought it was going to be for sure. I went through a period where like one armpit was really stinky and the other one was not stinky at all.

I was really tired for like a month straight because just like my hormones were all wackadoo. 

Julia Winston: Then, Liam got his first period in years. 

Liam: It was very light and my periods before were like so heavy that I was like, is this really a period? I don't really know. I mean, like I'm having cramping and things, but it seems like not that much. And I just kept like waiting for the day you like woke up in like a blood bath, cause that's like what used to happen eight years ago when I had a period so yeah, so it's like okay something something's working I think.

Julia Winston: Which is great news for Liam because you need to have a menstrual cycle in order to get pregnant. But it's also complicated, because all of these changes take him back to a version of himself that never felt comfortable or right. 

Liam: It's very interesting also to like parallel eight years ago I was like, I can't wait to start testosterone and get rid of my period and never have it again and then it's like eight years later i'm like waiting for it to come back.

Honestly thought I would have a greater struggle with my dysphoria than I have been. For most of my life, I really didn't think about, like, anything below the waist about myself at all. I just was like, I just live up here in my head, and I don't nothing else exists. And then, like, after top surgery, I was like, okay, I'm cool with, like, my chest and everything, but, like, the rest, I'm not gonna think about it. But I feel like it's been a journey of like, I guess, re experiencing my body in a way that I have not ever before.

I feel like a lot, in a lot of ways, it's like growing up a woman, it's like, you have all these expectations about who you should be and what you should look like and what your body does or doesn't do and all those things. And then as a trans person, it's like almost the mainstream narrative to like, well, I hate my birth sex and I don't want anything to do with it and all of that. And it's like, now I'm getting to kind of like redefine almost what My relationship to myself is. 

Julia Winston: Part of redefining that relationship is paying attention to his cycle, instead of trying to ignore it or make it stop, which is VERY new for Liam.

Liam: I just started using ovulation tests and I was like, wow, I've never peed in this many cups in my life. Um, a little teeny little. Um, mostly cause I don't really know what my cycle looks like you know, before I did, I just spent so much time in my before transition life, just like ignoring my body and like not tuning into it. So now it's like totally different to be like trying to be like hyper aware of my body in a different way and pay attention. It's like, I don't even know what my cycle length used to be. I just like knew that sometimes I woke up when I had my period and sometimes I didn't, you know, and now it's like wanting to know what my average cycle is so I can out when ovulation will happen 

Julia Winston: The menstrual cycle was a critical step. And the next piece of the puzzle was finding a sperm donor. 

Liam: I think a lot about What the story will be, you know, when my child asks, like, why do I exist kind of thing. I always wanted to use a known donor because I wanted there to be a story. Like, every kid grows up and asks, why, why did my parents fall in love? Why am I here? And I wanted it to be like a meaningful story. I didn't want to just be like, I picked a profile on some website and they sent me a vial of it. You know, that just felt very disconnected and I wanted a To demedicalize the process as much as possible. 

So, that sent me down the road of like, okay, what cis men do I know? That aren't my cousins or like, like other people who are not options.What cis men n do I trust enough? And like, you know, the list was very small.

I remember going through my Facebook like a thousand times being like, what the hell? And I like went back and forth about it for months on end. Like, who am I going to ask? 

My friend was like I'll convince my husband to do it and I was like No, that's way too close of a connection. It's like no, we're not gonna do that so I was like trying to find the balance between like too close and too far away. 

Julia Winston: There was one man who rose to the top: a co worker who Liam really liked. But a co-worker also felt a little too close. 

Liam: He's like the perfect candidate. He's gay. He doesn't want kids. We have a good dynamic, we do drag together. Like we have this like fun story. Then he ended up leaving and then I also left the job this year anyway, but all of a sudden I was like, Oh my god. We don't work together anymore. We're not co workers anymore. Like maybe he would be down for it.

So I just one night was out walking and I was like how do you ask someone to be your sperm donor? Do you like? Like do you propose to them? Do you give them a present? Do you have a conversation in person? Do you send them a letter like all these different things? Like how does one was I just need to him. So I did send him this rambling text. 

Hey So weird question like Um, I want to have a child but I don't have all the pieces, and I was like wondering if I could borrow your little guys for my project, and then when the project's complete, you don't have to do anything else. And if this is weird, just say, that's fucking weird, and we can move on with our lives. and if not, like, let me know if I can answer any questions, and he replied within like five minutes, he's like, hell yeah, I'm flattered, happy to help. 

Julia: How did you feel when you got that response? 

I was literally just like like so excited because I was like, oh my god, like I've been preparing for everything else But like I don't have the necessary other half So as much preparation I'm doing, I still can't really do anything until I figure that part out And so I was like, oh my god, like this is actually happening, I figured out a sperm donor. This is like getting more real like it was kind of like this idea in my head for like a whole year of like what I'm gonna do And now I'm like actually doing the thing.  And then we got his sperm tested just to make sure it was like, healthy, before we wasted either of our times, and it was. 

Julia Winston: They also signed a legal agreement, and came up with a plan for the sperm donor's involvement. 

Liam: He was like, you know, I'm down for whatever, as long as you don't die and they bring me the baby, like, just make sure that doesn't happen.

I was like, do we want it to be like a cultivated relationship where like you're uncle and you're intentionally in the life of my child or like you're just my friend and sometimes you see me out with my baby? Or do you want to just like go into it like you're the donor and like here's this whole special other person. Which is like Honestly, the way I've landed at this point, is just going into it honestly, like, yes, we used a donor to create you, and like, this is who he is, and like, maybe we don't see him all the time, but like, he's, if he wants to be at things, he can be, and if he doesn't want to be, he doesn't have to be. I said, as long as you're, like, willing to answer questions when the child's older and wants to, and like, if you're open to that kind of connection down the road, like, I, don't really expect you to be actively involved if you don't want to be.

Julia Winston: Liam now has all of the biological pieces in place. And once his cycle is regular, he'll start the insemination process. In the meantime, he's been thinking a lot about his lifestyle and what he might need to change in order to become a single dad. 

Liam: I ended up leaving the job I was at because I was like, I have no work life balance how am I gonna fit a child into like, what my day to day life looks like? So I'm in between. I don't really want to long term be a house cleaner, but it's getting me by.

But I'm thinking about, okay, what do I want my ideal job to be? Like, what kind of benefits do I want? And like, things like that. I've worked service related jobs, like forever, never had, benefits, never had, like, retirement or any of that. And suddenly, as I'm, like, thinking of, like, starting down this journey, it's like, all of a sudden, I'm like, I want a job that gives me paid time off, and I want a job that gives me benefits, and like, things that are gonna be good for me, and for, you know, a child. Where I said like, never ever considered it before, I was like, whatever, I'll figure it out, I don't care. And suddenly I care more about like, having balance in my life, I've been trying to kind of like, think about, okay, this what I, need to bring in. And one of my best friends is so supportive. She's like, we're going to sit down and figure out your budget and we're going to get you all squared away.

Cause I don't want you to be so willy nilly when you bring in a kid into the world that I'm like, yes, ma'am. Um, so I've got the fire under my ass for sure. 

Another thing that kind of pivoted my mindset of like, what I want to do for work was like, looking into daycare, so I was like, oh my god, it's so expensive, um, and my brother in law works a remote job, and he stays home with their son for the most part, and they have like a nanny for a little bit of the day, and so I was like, oh, if I could find something remote, I could like, have a pretty similar setup, which would be, A lot less money than sending my child to daycare.

Julia Winston: Liam is unbelievably intentional in his preparation to have a baby. It's something I've noticed with all of the queer people in my life - because queer fertility doesn’t happen by accident, everything needs to be planned. And that leads to a lot of self-reflection.

When we come back, Liam shares about how preparing for pregnancy is challenging his feelings around his gender identity.

After a lifetime of feeling uncomfortable with femininity, Liam says he's surprised at how well he's doing with the thought of having a menstrual cycle again and being pregnant.

Liam: it's been an interesting experience, but it has bothered me less than I thought it would. I was like, this is going to be really hard, but I'm just going to push through it. Like, I even thought having a period again would like really trigger me, because for many years I was like, if my period ever comes back, that's just going to be so horrible. If you had told me like, even like 5 years ago that I would do this, I'd be like, no. I do not want my period, I do not want to do any of that. 

Julia Winston: But as Liam has established himself as a man, he's changed his relationship with the idea of pregnancy and periods. 

Liam: It started with A) seeing representation of other trans people doing it and b) being able to separate my pregnancy from like womanhood and femininity and being like this is a really cool thing that my body can do. And I want to do it and so like able to kind of separate it is a very gendered world to be entering into. Like I for sure know i'm entering into a space where i'm constantly going to be like And me. Even just like prenatal vitamins. It's like good for mom and baby. And I was like, can't we just say like uterus and fetus? like do we have to say mom and baby? if this was me like seven or eight years ago I would have been so like deeply hurt to be like put into the woman category still . But now I'm like what the woman category is stupid. I'm entering the category anyway 

Julia Winston: As a transgender person, Liam has had to figure out the right words and language for his experience. Getting pregnant is a whole new chapter of that. 

Liam: Fatherhood, parenthood, like gestational parent is a term that is used a lot just to kind of like de gender it, especially in like same sex couples. There's always the like birth parents and then the non birth parents. So it's like gestational parent and, non gestational parent, you know, there's so many different words. I want to be seen in the same way that anyone else is seen as when they're becoming a parent. But it is an interesting. like intersection to be like, I want to be obviously acknowledged as the father of my child. Cause that's who I am, but also I want to be acknowledged for the like pregnancy and birthing experience I will have, which is obviously much more women's centric experience.But I mean, I just want really to be seen as someone entering parenthood, in a unique way. I think it'll be interesting to like experience, especially like as a child grows, being a father amongst other fathers, but I have the same experience as the women. And so like, what will that dynamic be like?

And so I don't know if there's an intersecting like way or term or like a way to sum that up. 

Julia Winston: Actually, we’ve got one! As we worked on this episode, we did find a term that could work for Liam: Seahorse Dad! In nature, male seahorses carry the babies and give birth. “Seahorse dad” is a term we’ve seen some pregnant transgender men call themselves.

But giving birth as a man is still new. Liam hasn’t found consistent medical advice, and not every doctor, nurse or doula has worked with a trans patient. So Liam has had to try and find resources to guide him through the process. 

Liam: I found some like good queer resources that are, Good at like, degendering. Like the one, Babymaking for Everybody, I think is what it was called. But it was very much like, if you have sperm, read chapter If you have eggs, read chapter 5.

It definitely feels lonely at times, just, you know, being the only person I know around me that's like on a similar journey.   Um, you? know, it's like as much as people in my life can be like sympathetic and try to understand the experience, they just won't. Which is true of many aspects of my life experience. Like I don't really know anyone else. No one else in my circle's divorced. No one else in my circle's transitioned. So it's Like, I've kind of always been on my own little offshoots, many different offshoots at this point.

Julia Winston: And that loneliness in this experience is a small worry for Liam. While he feels confident about his choice and is preparing himself as much as possible, he knows it will be a little different when other people know. 

Liam: I think for a lot of people, they just think, oh, you're transitioned, so you're not going to get pregnant or have children, you know, it's not like an, um, an option on the list of like things that people do. Um, a pregnant man, it's not like a common sight, and so I think about that a lot, like. What will people think and having to explain myself a lot feels like a little bit daunting like. 

People are always judging what you do no matter what, whether you do or don't do something, they're gonna say something, so like, whatever, I need to just not think about what other people are gonna think. 

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Julia Winston: But people's reactions are on his mind. A pregnant man is not common, and Liam knows some people might not react well. 

Liam: to see someone with a beard and also a pregnant belly. Like those two things clash with each other in, society's view of what a pregnant person looks like and what a man looks like. Those two images don't go together very often at all.

Julia Winston: Most people tend to respond to pregnant women with a warm smile, or patiently slowing down to let them cross the crosswalk, or offering their seat on the bus. Liam can’t help but think about his own safety if he goes out into the world pregnant. 

Liam: Especially in like late term pregnancy where it's very obvious. Um, you know, but I think there is going to be a point where it's like I've crossed the line from just like possibly just being a guy who has a big belly to like, huh, what's going on kind of thing. And so I think about that a lot. 

I was thinking about the other day, I was like, here I am just like in the gas station, like getting the soda. Like, am I going to do this when I'm eight months pregnant? Probably not. Cause I don't want to just be like staying around with all the other like dudes in line, you know, I feel like there's like a safety element that I have to consider. As far as like what the general public will make of me. 

Julia Winston: Liam has been creating videos about his experience trying to get pregnant. He just wants more people to understand the trans experience so he feels less like an anomaly. 

Liam knows how powerful a personal story can be. I mean it was an Instagram video from a pregnant trans man that inspired him to do this himself in the first place. And there are others who came before. Sixteen years ago, in 2008, there was a big news story about Thomas Beatie, a pregnant man: 

Oprah: I thought about seeing everything and then I saw a pregnant man. Thomas and his wife Nancy announced on our show that they were having a girl. They invited our cameras to come along for an ultrasound. 

Julia Winston: This man was also transgender and carrying a child. He was on Oprah and the cover of magazines, and all the stories framed it as a marvel! For teenage Liam, who hadn't transitioned, it was an inspiration. 

Liam: I can remember being a young teen and being like, I wanna do that. I didn't really like connect like those dots, but I just like, I remember thinking that's cool, and I wanna do it. 

Julia Winston: That's why Liam is volunteering his story now, before he's even gotten pregnant. He wants other trans men to know it's possible to have kids, and for other people to celebrate this experience just like they would for a pregnant woman. 

Liam: I just feel like it's either sensationalized as like the pregnant man, how is that possible? Or people just don't think it's possible because again, a lot of trans people don't or they like, they have hysterectomy and they go through all the surgeries and it's not even an option anymore. Back in the day in order to have your like sex changed on your documents You had to have proof that you had fully gone through all the surgeries. And so a lot of people did have to make the choice of like Do I want to be legally recognized as myself or do I want to have kids.

Julia Winston: Liam has told his close friends and his sister that he's trying to get pregnant. He’s making YouTube videos to share with a wider audience. And he’s sharing with us here at Refamulating. But he still hasn't told his parents. They struggled so much with him being trans, that he can't really predict how they will feel about him having a baby. 

Liam: I have a session with my therapist soon because I was like, I don't even know how to tell like how to tell my family what I'm doing. People will always have, will have something to say. Which is, I think, where some of my hesitation towards telling my family lies, cause like, I've always been, like, you know, on my own path, like we've said many times, but like, my sister has followed the exact right path that, like, they wanted her to. Which has its own whole host of issues that she has as a result of, like, being the golden child and I was, like, the problem child. But, I just feel like they're gonna be like, well, why aren't you married, and all the things that they probably wish I would do. 

Because I know that, I'm already like existing as a person that they wish was a different person. So then it's like everything I'm accomplishing feels like, well, we wish it was different, you know, kind of. Just like, if I have a kid, are they gonna be as excited as my nephew when he was born, or is it gonna be like a little bit lower? Cause they wish I was like, married to a man and a woman and doing it in a marriage and all those different things. But I could be surprised, honestly, I might be surprised. Maybe they will be so happy. 

So yeah, I worry about, I guess I worry about people's judgment. As much as I wanna say, I don't care what anyone thinks, but it's hard not to also think that. You know, we're all human beings. 

Julia Winston: Whether or not his parents are on board, Liam does have a support system that is ready to be his village if and when his child arrives. 

Liam: I have many wonderful friends who all have children as well And I know that they will support me in the same way that I've you know, supported them in their parenting. And I've got my sister and I actually just started dating someone in the last couple months and That's been interesting because I embarked on this journey being like, I'm going to be a single parent and I'm totally okay with that. And, um, just kind of just like fell into this relationship that's really wonderful. And she already has a son and I basically told her, I said, This is what I'm doing. I'm not pausing my journey because we're now dating each other. I'm going to still continue to pursue having a baby. But she's like, that's fine. I can't wait to like clean your house for you and rub your feet. So that's been nice because I was, I feel like I definitely was choosing between dating or becoming a parent. Cause honestly, I was like, I don't want to try and date someone to figure out if they're going to be a good parent. 

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Julia Winston: What have you learned that you want to share with other trans people who might be trying to get pregnant? Other trans men who might be trying to get pregnant? 

Liam: I went into it thinking this is going to be so hard. This is just going to be so hard, but I want to do it. And it's just been so much easier than I thought it was going to be. I mean obviously everyone has different experiences because I've read so many different things than other people, it was very hard to be off testosterone and go through the whole process, but I've been surprised by the lack of lows and maybe they're coming for me I don't know. Maybe I'm just still in the high zone of like ask me after a couple of like failed insemination attempts where I'm at You know, we'll see. But yeah. And just like, do what feels best for you. Because like, we've talked about already people are gonna judge you no matter what you're doing. So like, if you know that this is your path to parenthood, then just take it, and define it, for yourself. 

Julia: Liam talked a few times about looking in the mirror at different points in his life and seeing or not seeing the right version of himself. So I asked him to imagine looking in the mirror as a pregnant person. 

Liam:  My belly is super hairy. So I just picture a big pregnant hairy belly. 

Julia: Liam, we are sending you tons of love and good wishes as you try and get pregnant. We hope that you have a big, hairy, belly soon.

09: Sister Moms: From foster care to chosen family

When Lindsay lost custody of her toddler, Gabriel, an acquaintance named Rachel stepped in as his foster mom. As Lindsay worked toward reunification with her son, she and Rachel developed an unlikely friendship. The journey they’ve shared has led them to create a new family unit with Gabriel at the center.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia: On January 19, 2019, Rachel was hanging out at home. She'd just moved in with her boyfriend and his son. The whole situation, living with a partner, having a kid in her house, was new. And then she got a life changing phone call. 

Rachel: I got a call from my boyfriend and he said that his friend was in some trouble. And his friend was asking if we could take Gabriel for some time while they figured everything out. 

Julia: Gabriel was the friend's two year old son. Rachel had only met Gabriel once, when she and her boyfriend hung out with Gabriel’s parents on New Year's Day. But she wasn't totally surprised to hear they needed help. 

Rachel: And I was like, if that's something that you think we need to do, then let's do it. They both were dealing with substance abuse disorder and, it had come down that he didn't have a clean drug test. 

Lindsay: It was really frustrating because I had been in recovery. Like I hadn't used in over a year, but I still wasn't technically eligible to be parenting my son alone. 

Julia: This is Lindsay, Gabriel's mother. 

Lindsay: And I had told my significant other constantly like you've got to stop using like you have to stop using and he had assured me he did and then They did, you know a hair test on him and it came back all kinds of positive. 

Julia: When Lindsay's husband’s drug test came back positive, things moved quickly. The Department of Human Services, or DHS, got involved immediately. D-H-S is what it's called where Lindsay and Rachel live in Iowa. In other places this agency is called Child Protective Services. 

Because Lindsay struggled with addiction herself, and had previous interactions with DHS, she and her husband immediately lost custody of Gabriel. 

Lindsay: It was the worst day of my life. He was already at daycare when we got the call and they said you can't pick up your son and that was so traumatic. I didn't get to tell my son, like, Mommy's not going to pick you up today. Sorry, I get really emotional talking about that. Um, so I didn't get to say goodbye and the thing that I remember the most is having to watch them take apart his crib and take over to Rachel's. You just have to try to cope, and like, as a mother, like, it's literally like your heart is being taken from you. 

Julia: DHS picked Gabriel up from daycare and took him to Rachel and her boyfriend’s house. Rachel had no experience parenting. She is not a mother and she's never cared for a toddler. She had just moved in with her boyfriend and his son. So when DHS showed up with a toddler for her to suddenly take care of, it was pretty overwhelming.

Rachel: they came over with a packet of like, here's all the resources you need. it was a one page piece of paper front and back and really the highest level of logistics.

Julia: Rachel had no training about how to parent, and no guidance about how to parent Gabriel. She had no idea what his routines were. What his favorite toy was or what foods he loved and hated. Rachel was dropped in the deep end, with no idea what to expect. And Lindsay was heartbroken and longing for her child.

These two women barely knew each other that day. But this little boy, Gabriel, would bring them together in a way that would change both of their lives forever. 

Julia: When DHS took Gabriel from Lindsay, she was devastated. Remember, she was sober at the time. Her husband’s positive drug test is what caused all of this. So in the first days after he was taken, she was an emotional wreck. 

Lindsay: the night before, he was in a onesie and I slept with that onesie every single night because it, like, faintly smelled of him. And, like, I would just sit in his room and cry. I just felt incomplete. 

Julia: In that first week, Rachel set up a laptop in Gabriel's room so Lindsay could see him and talk to him on Zoom. 

Lindsay: They immediately set up my son in his crib, um, in front of a camera so I could sit and, like, read him books and just talk to him, which, at that moment, was, like, the only thing that kept me from running out that door and using again.

Julia: But she didn't turn back to drugs. She was laser focused on proving to the courts that she was responsible enough to regain custody of Gabriel. The legal term for this is
“reunification.” And the courts laid out the terms and conditions for Lindsay to regain custody of her son: she needed to complete a treatment program for substance abuse, go to therapy, take weekly drug tests and attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

So where did Lindsay’s struggle with addiction begin? What exactly did she have to overcome to bring Gabriel home? 

Like many people who deal with substance abuse, there was a lot of trauma and grief living inside of Lindsay. She grew up in a tight-knit, religious family that was supportive and loving. But the stability of her childhood fell apart when she was 17, when her dad died unexpectedly.

Lindsay: it just changed everything. The whole dynamic, like he was my person. Um, he was the one I talked to about everything. He was the one who I just felt was my protector in life and Um, everything just fell apart from there. It's such a traumatic loss to somebody who who'd grown up with really the ideal childhood.

I got into a really toxic relationship, and, um, I was introduced to some really toxic things, substances, and it just took my, my life in a totally different course.

Julia: Lindsay became a functioning addict. She went to college. She started working. But then her mom was diagnosed with cancer, and after eight years of being sick, her mom died, too. 

Lindsay: And after that I just really went off the deep end. there was no do not step, do not pass go, do not collect 200. I just, I could not cope. And I think a lot of people that haven't lost a parent may not understand like that absolute sever from like that biological person that's supposed to love you, you know, and just the feeling of emptiness and like having no meaning in life anymore.

Um, and it was a really terrible time. I had come to rely so heavily on substances. I didn't know how to function. To get up in the morning, I would have to use, to go to bed, I would have to use. It was just a constant dependency on needing it to survive. I wasn't really able to function, really severe depression, um, just toxic relationship after toxic relationship. 

Julia: One of those toxic relationships was with her ex-husband, Gabriel's father. Getting pregnant with Gabriel wasn't planned. 

Lindsay: I didn't know if I should have him for a very long time. I kept going back and forth whether this was something that I could do. But it's just something, you know, told me, like, I just, I, I wanted to do it. And so, then I tried to get myself better on my own, which, looking back, was very naive, and it's, it's hard to, You can't do it on your own. Like, I had no support system. I didn't have anybody in my life who wasn't using. The whole thing was terrifying. And so that, that love and that glow that a lot of pregnant women talk about, I just never had. I was just survival mode the entire time.

Julia: The day Lindsay gave birth, the fog and stress of her addiction finally started to clear. 

Lindsay: There's just this something that happens when you have a child, right? The moment that they laid him on my chest, everything changed. I felt like my heart was going to explode. That was the connection that I had been wanting and feeling. It just, I knew from that point on, like, I would do anything to be with him. And to make sure that he was okay. 

Julia: Lindsay had tried to get sober on her own when she’d found out she was pregnant. But without a support system, she wasn't always successful. So because she was still using drugs throughout her pregnancy, Gabriel had drugs in his system when he was born.

Lindsay: My son tested positive at birth and was taken by DHS. And I was still in a toxic marriage, and he used substances as well. Well, then, after Gabriel was born, I just, I went cold turkey. And what your body goes through, I can't even describe the horror. It was really hard, but I had this great motivation. And thankfully with DHS involved, as much as everyone hates DHS, t hey provided me a lot of services. So I was able to go to substance use counseling. I started therapy, which, honestly, the therapy is what changed my life. I started dealing with all the trauma that I'd never dealt with before.

Trying to get off the substances was one thing, but then trying to learn how to live after that. Part of it is you use up so much of the dopamine in your brain. It's all , chemically made at that point because I'd been using for so long. So I just, I, I felt no happiness, even being a mom. You know, and that was probably the biggest struggle I literally thought that I was never going to smile again. And trying to parent newborn during that time is really hard. I didn't know how to pay bills. I didn't know how to, budget or and how to have a normal relationship that wasn't codependent. And so my life, I, honestly, I don't really remember a lot in those years.

Julia: For two years, Lindsay clawed her way through recovery while taking care of a newborn. And it all came to a crashing halt the day her ex-husband tested positive for drugs, when DHS took Gabriel to Rachel's. 

Lindsay immediately left her husband, and made it her mission to get Gabriel back. She wanted to show the courts that she could be the sober, responsible parent Gabriel needed. 

Lindsay: I joined a program called Recovery Court, which is like an intensified program for reunification. So I was going to like three NA meetings a week. I was doing two therapies a week. EMDR and dealing with my trauma. You do, like, two hour court sessions, and then a night session. I started taking parenting classes. I got back into my career in hotels. I had left it for a long time because it was in the way of my using. I did a lot of work on myself. Honestly I wanted to get him back, but in the end it ended up just helping heal me.

Julia: Was all that work enough to bring Gabriel home? Let’s find out after a short break.

Julia: For six months, Rachel and her boyfriend were the legal guardians of two year old Gabriel. Legally, they were called "suitable others".

Rachel: Most people understand the concept of a foster parent, but the concept of a suitable other, which is typically like a sister or a grandparent or, Somebody that is closer. But because I didn't know Lindsey as well, it felt like a true foster experience without the training, which was kind of a problem.

Julia: People who sign up to be foster parents have to take classes and complete training courses. They're a little more prepared when a child is brought to their home. But Rachel and her boyfriend didn't see this coming. Again, she'd only hung out with Lindsay once. 

Rachel: I had my, my first impression of her. She, she was nice. She was lovely. And then the, when the DHS worker came over and explained the situation that Gabriel was in, it was like, Oh. And I wear rose colored glasses. And so it sort of hit me hard. Like, Oh, wow. she had been using for a really long time.  

Julia: So..why did Lindsay choose Rachel and not someone she knew better? 

Lindsay: I tried to see if my sisters could take him, but because they were out of state, they wouldn't allow that. so I didn't really have any options. So, I knew about her, but I didn't know her. And honestly, looking back, It's a crazy decision that anybody, one, would take our child, but two, that, like, we'd, we decided that. But I just didn't want my son to go to some home that could be even more traumatic for him, and at least I knew they had a clean house, and they had another child, so I knew generally who they were.

Julia: The dynamic among the adults in this situation was...heavy. But for Rachel, having Gabriel around was light and joyous. 

Rachel: I love kids. I kind of joke I'm the toddler whisperer so I was excited and I knew that, we would be able to give Gabriel the amount of love that he needed. Gabriel loved, loved, loved dolphins and sharks and anything that was, aquatic. My parents and I, and my ex and his son, went to the Omaha Zoo because we wanted to see him see the aquarium. And it, it was so, it was so fun.

The time that I loved with Gabriel the most is when we would do bath time. In that time, I'm like, Oh, you know, you're a little, a little fish and, and then we could name off the kinds of fish or the type of fish. He's just a, a funny boy, but he was so smart. 

Julia: Rachel was a natural at taking care of Gabriel. And she started to love this little boy with her whole heart. 

Rachel: I attached quickly, very quickly. And, um, here come the tears. And I, I was ready. I was like, if this doesn't work with Lindsay and her husband, if they, if they aren't able to reunite, like I'm, I'm ready to adopt him, whatever we got to do. And I met with a woman for coffee and she had been a foster mom previously. And she was like, unfortunately, the goal, the goal of fostering it is not to keep the child, which is sometimes a common misconception. The courts and everybody is going to be rooting for reunification with mom and dad. And she was the first person to, to really kind of lay it on me like this might not end up the way that you're thinking it's going to end up.

Julia: During that time, Lindsay could visit a few days a week, and Rachel included her in some of the day to day appointments for Gabriel. 

Lindsay: Rachel was great because she would invite me to go to the doctor's appointments for Gabriel. But one, having to relive every doctor's appointment that I used during pregnancy is really hard. Having to tell every doctor what could be possible complications, it's just, it's really hard. Um, but then when they ask the questions about what he does now, um, like behaviors, does he eat normally, does he eat vegetables, you know, I couldn't answer any of those and that was really hard. 

I remember one particular appointment, Gabriel just wanted Rachel, you know, and that's really hard. He would just reach for her and I would try to hold him and he would try to crawl to her and um, she was so good because she would try to like hand him off to me and, because I'm sure that was really uncomfortable for her too, but, that was really hard and just having to like accept it is a really huge humbling process. 

Julia: While Lindsay was focused on getting herself healthy, Rachel was focused on Gabriel. All of this trauma caused the two year old to start acting out, and she was trying to help him through it. 

Rachel: I could understand what he was going through. I knew, um, you know, where he struggled and when he got angry, I could, I could see that and respond to it. Obviously there, you know, we've got a discipline is discipline. You can't grew up biting people, but, but just having that, that understanding of he was, he was going through it and he couldn't talk about it. 

Julia: While Gabriel was in Rachel’s care, Lindsay would come over for weekly supervised visits. This was when Rachel and Lindsay slowly started to get to know each other. 

Lindsay: And she would just ask me small questions like, what is an NA meeting like? Like, what does this feel like? And can you tell me a little bit about addiction and what that is? And, you know, how I can help? And it just made me look at her like, wow, like what an amazing human being. You know, I had been in addiction for so long that you don't meet people that are like that, you know, you don't meet people that are just selfless and loving and caring.

And I just remember thinking, you know, if my son isn't gonna be with me, this is somebody I would want to take care of him. And, you know, as a mother, that's really terrible to ever think, but, You know, there were moments when I thought maybe he would be better off with her, because she's just this amazing human being.

Rachel: I also didn't have anybody in my life that had been dealing with substance abuse disorder in a way that was transparent to me. And so Lindsey taught me so much about what that meant. I did a good amount of research too. Um, but even to this, to this day, I, I learned so much from her about what it is like to live with substance abuse disorder.

Julia: They were starting to develop a friendship during these visits, and it kind of surprised both of them. 

Lindsay:   And you know, it's really intimidating when you meet someone like Rachel, who is just, Beautiful inside and out. I have so much shame and guilt and self doubt and it was really intimidating, but she would just ask questions and we'd joke around and we talked a lot about theater and things that we liked.

Julia: It would be very easy to villainize Rachel. But the more time they spent together, the more Lindsay loved her. And one of the reasons was because she was so good for Gabriel. 

Lindsay: She cuddled him and loved on him and he, he felt safe with her and I could tell that and it made it okay for me to recover. Because as a mom, you just can't focus until you know your child's safe and like the more I started trusting Rachel with my son, the more I was able to let go a little bit and work on myself. It's hard to explain, but when you see them together, the hugs he gives her are not the hugs he gives to anybody else. And like, there's this pull, this magnetic pull between them. 

Julia: That magnetic pull between Rachel and Gabriel was getting stronger every day that he lived with her. But Rachel knew it probably wouldn't last forever. Lindsay was working her programs and staying sober. And after six months, the courts decided that reunification was on the table.

Rachel: The new DHS worker said, We're going to start doing Two or three nights a week overnights with mom. And so we did that for a few weeks and it went fine. Obviously any time that Gabriel was with mom, that it had to be supervised. and I was, bummed out that overnights were happening. It just started that like, okay, I'm going to have to separate.

I'll never forget the morning he had come back from an overnight with mom and I opened the door early in the morning and I was like, Good morning, Gabriel. And he had a big smile on his face. And then he saw that it was me and it wasn't mom. And he broke down crying. And I thought, Oh my God. Reunification it's what has to happen. And, so how are we going to do it in a way that was going to ensure Lindsay was successful and Gabriel was successful too.

Julia: After a few weeks of supervised visits and overnights with Lindsays, DHS said they could go to court to start the legal reunification process. 

Lindsay: So it was the day after my birthday, actually, and I was telling everybody, like, this is my birthday present.

Julia: And that day in court, the judge declared that Gabriel could officially come home. The first thing Lindsay wanted to do was pick him up from daycare, something she hadn’t been allowed to do when she’d lost custody. 

Lindsay: You're not allowed to drive your child, you're not allowed to be alone with your child, um, and that's super traumatic in itself, being told that, like, you're not safe enough to, like, be in the same room with your child alone. And so walking into that daycare, like, was, The most amazing moment because his, like, face lit up when I picked him up. And I just, I was so happy. , there's no words to describe, like, that feeling of just, like, seeing your kid when you pick them up. And even now, like, I will always be happy to have him run and jump on me. You know, because he, to me, that's something that I treasure, because I, I took it for granted.

Julia: While Lindsay was picking up Gabriel from school, Rachel had to pack up his things. 

Rachel: We coordinated getting his clothes to her and, toys and books and those things. I remember in the courtroom it was really challenging for me, knowing that one of us was going to walk away upset was hard. It's also easy to be like, well, who did what wrong? And are you sure this is the right decision? And can you believe that, you know, they, they eat fast food three nights a week, or, you know, all of those kinds of things. It's like, what is this, what is the life that Gabriel is going to have? 

Julia: As Lindsay prepared for Gabriel to come home, she knew the situation would look totally different than before. She wasn’t with her husband anymore, so she’d be a single mom. She had more responsibilities that all fell on her, and the transition was tough.  

Lindsay: I was terrified. I didn't know what to do. DHS had previously been paying daycare and they're like, Oh, well, you know, today's the day we're cutting off daycare now too. So I immediately had to try to find financial, you know, assistance for daycare and, it was just a lot of you know, the small things trying to work out. And I would wake up super early because I was so scared. I thought that I had to get ready before he was up because I was so scared. Like, I didn't know how to be a mom, right? 

Rachel: In the beginning, it was a little, a little bit awkward with shifting. we had put together a Google doc of like, here's what Gabriel's routine is and the things that he likes and so on and so forth. And then as he was transitioning out of my home, it was, okay, here's what, here's what we're doing and how do we keep that consistent? One, so she, she has some success and to, to, um, keep it easier on, on Gabriel. Cause that's a, that's a huge transition. 

Julia: Gabriel was only two when he moved in with Rachel. So the six months he spent with her was a huge chunk of his life. He changed a lot, and Lindsay had to learn these changes on top of everything else. 

Lindsay: The whole messed up thing about this system is, you know, they take your kid and then you're supposed to work on yourself, right? You're supposed to get yourself better and so you can be better for your son. His dad had lost custody, so he was just coming back to me. So I'm going to a single mom, just trying to stay in recovery. And, uh, you know, I have a child with special needs and behavioral issues and, um, it was a struggle. And I just remember him crying in his crib for for Rachel. And, like, that It hurt so much that he was crying for her, but it hurt even more that he had to feel that loss yet again from somebody else.

And I, I ended up texting her and I was just like, Rachel, I am so sorry, but like, I don't know how to calm him down. Like, can you tell me some things that you do with him at night? You know, because I, I was new to this, you know, I, I hadn't done this with him. 

And you know, the day that they gave him back to me. You know, she came up to me and gave me a hug, and I will never ever forget the look on her face. She was so loving and happy for me, but the pain on her face was just like, I will never forget her face. Because she just looked like I felt when he was taken from me. And like, I don't know that anybody could understand, like, she was his mother. And like, the pain. Now she was losing him, and so I was so happy to get him back, but it's also that, like, how do we do this? 

Julia: Rachel was starting to ask herself the same question: she was in love with this little boy. She was starting to form a friendship with Lindsay. But spending time with the two of them was so painful, because it was a reminder that she was no longer Gabriel's caretaker. Around this time Rachel's relationship with her boyfriend started to fall apart, and now she was the one who was watching her world change. Now, it was Lindsay who started showing up for Rachel.

Rachel: It was such an emotional thing for me and she was so supportive and quite frankly, the one that could relate to me the most with all of it. Lindsay was always very kind and, considerate. I think she's one of the first people that taught me about boundaries and they were boundaries. Um, but she was so respectful of the feelings that I was having, especially as we were transitioning Gabriel back. And then after a while I was like, I've got to pull back from this. 

Julia: Rachel couldn't hang out with Lindsay and Gabriel while she grieved this loss, and Lindsay understood. She had gone through this same heartbreak and knew how painful it was. But she also realized she and Gabriel didn't want to lose Rachel forever.

Lindsay: And I had said, hey, I don't want you to think that you are not a part of his life at all. I told her like he loves you, and I don't want to take that away from you. So, if you want to be in his life,  I want to open that door for you. So if you are willing, we will work it out.

Rachel: I realized I want Gabriel in my life. And if, if it's not in a, in a mom role, like, how do I allow that to still happen? And Because Lindsay and I both love Gabriel, like what a bond. And my family loved Gabriel and it's like, how do we become her village so that he has the best life ever?

Julia: When we come back, we'll hear about the village they've created.

Julia: When Gabriel moved back with Lindsay, she had her hands full. She was a single mom. She was deep in the process of recovery and working a full time job. She was also trying to help Gabriel adjust. It was a lot to juggle. 

Lindsay: He was just, he's a lot, and he had a lot of behavioral issues, so he would throw things, screaming. But um, It's tough trying to go from one thing to the other. There were many times I just felt like I wanted to run away and, you know, relapse because it's hard and it's a selfish disease, right? And so when you feel like you're not doing the best, you just feel like maybe I shouldn't do it at all.

Rachel: I've never been a single mom. But I've been in a household with an eight year old and a two year old. And if I were going through recovery and trying to be a parent, a single parent, it's like you're treading water and then they're throwing a baby at you to tread water with.

Julia: When Rachel felt emotionally strong enough, she started helping out again. She would babysit Gabriel on Tuesday nights so Lindsay could go to NA meetings alone. She also recruited more help from two other people who loved Gabriel: her parents. Tim And Therese. 

During the six months Gabriel lived with Rachel, Tim and Therese spent a lot of time with him too. When he was reunified with Lindsay, they didn't quite know if that relationship would continue. 

Rachel: There was one week that I had gone to Mexico for my best friend's wedding and so they had babysat and like grandma mode kicked in and my mom and Lindsey had started a, friendship. As Gabriel was transitioning out of the home and back to Lindsey, she still had to do all of these meetings and all, all of these different things. And so between myself and my parents, we were watching Gabriel in the evenings.

Lindsay: I had never really met them until, um, after Gabriel was reunited with me. Rachel had actually facilitated and said, Hey, you know, my parents would be willing to, to help you out. Would you be comfortable with that? And I remember thinking, like, oh no, like, I don't do well with parents. I just had so much trauma. Also, what could they think of me? You know, I was the drugged out mom who lost her son, and now I got him back, and now I can't take care of him myself. You know, it's how the self talk went in my head. Um, and so it was a very slow building relationship with them. 

I'll never forget, there was a day that Therese had stopped me it was probably a year into them being in our lives very consistently every week. And, She had said, I hate to ask this, but would you, would you mind if he called us grandma and grandpa? 

And like my heart was so full because one of the biggest regrets that I have is I can't provide that for my son. You know, my parents are gone. His dad's parents are gone. I was so lost that like I didn't have parents that could help me through this. He loves them so fully. I mean, just loves them, and he doesn't know any different. They are grandma and grandpa. From there, it was just, they started cooking me, like, they make my lunches for work. And, you know, they take him every Sunday. They have just shown me so much love.

Rachel: I'm so proud of my parents because this is, it's a big thing to take on and they, they love Gabriel. And they care for Lindsay so much. And that was a little scary for me. It's one thing for me to be like, okay, if something goes wrong, that happens to me, fine. But , if my parents heartbreak over any of this, we're going to have a problem. And so it took me a little while to, to trust Lindsay with my parents hearts. but oh my God, like she, she is so wonderful to them and she's so grateful for them. 

Her parents passed away when she was younger. I can't imagine being an adult without being able to call my mom and my dad and say, something's gone wrong. I need your help. And she has that. And Gabriel has that. And I have that. And, it's really wonderful. It's been a really beautiful thing to see just family becoming more than, than what you were born into.

Julia: Gabriel is now seven years old. Lindsay describes him as a spitfire.

Lindsay: He loves to fish. He loves everything outdoors. He loves anything, um, to do with, uh, I would say reptiles, and you know, fish, amphibians, um, just a very he's super smart. Super, super smart. Which is, um, double edged sword a lot of times. Um, he's very, huge sense of humor. His favorite person in the world is his papa and, uh, that's Rachel's dad. 

Julia: Lindsay has been clean and sober for seven and a half years. She, Rachel, Gabriel and Rachel's parents have created a new family unit and family routines. Rachel and her parents are the default babysitters. Rachel's dad regularly takes Gabriel fishing. Tim and Therese have a standing date with Gabriel on Sundays, and often, Lindsay and Rachel join. 

Rachel: My parents have a wooded lot that they live on and there's frogs everywhere. We catch frogs and then when Gabriel leaves, the frogs go back to where they were caught before. It just feels normal.

Julia: Something that feels extraordinary, though, is the bond between Lindsay and Rachel. After they both ended their relationships with the men who introduced them, they started to lean more and more on each other.  

Rachel: Lindsay and I joke now, like we had to have some crappy significant others to, to find each other. But you know, here, here we are. She had also seen my relationship with my ex in a, in a way that was different than most people. And so as that dissolved, she's been really kind of a fantastic partner and angel and in just knowing what I need and, and really understanding what I've been through.

Lindsay: I always call her my sister. We may not talk for a few weeks, but like, when I have a bad day or when I want to vent about something, I'm gonna, she's the one I'm gonna do it to. It's a totally different relationship. Like, I can talk about Gabriel, we talk about a lot about what we've been through and how we want to change the world and, make sure things are different for other families.

I love her goofy soul. But we understand each other on a level that I don't think most people will ever get to, you know, because we have such a deep relationship and she's been such a huge supporter of my recovery. I mean, she's never made me feel bad about myself in any way. And now I know, like, our family is meant to be together. 

Julia: By many definitions, this is a foster care success story. Lindsay changed her life in a way that allowed her to get her child back. Rachel was a loving, safe person for her child to live with. But that's not how it always works out. And that's something Rachel and Lindsay have talked a lot about- how to make foster situations more empathetic to the people involved. They agree that the most opportunity for change lies in the way that birth and foster parents first meet: 

Lindsay: I would see her at court and, um, that's just not a way to introduce parents, right? We're gonna be co parenting my child, like, You need to have that trust. And so, honestly, Rachel opening that Zoom session was a huge lead in. So, I actually use that as a reference of like, hey, like, this is a great way to start an introduction. As soon as baby's taken, do a pre removal conference so they could meet prior to that and say, you know, I'm, I'm gonna be a safe space. 

The best thing for a child is to be with mom. But if a child can't be with mom to be with a safe support, that's not trying to take your child. They are trying to be there for your child in a time of need. Um, and so really there's so much work to be done around, like, fostering that relationship first. 

I think the biggest thing lacking in our world is empathy and understanding that, um, you know, I'm not just some drugged out person that could have stopped whenever. there's just such little understanding for the disease of addiction in general. Especially of what it does to our families and, and our kids. There's just a lot to be said about what that journey is like and the things that did work in the system, things that didn't work.

Julia: These days, Lindsay volunteers with a non-profit called Zero to Three, which aims to improve the child welfare system. She speaks to groups at the national level about her experience and how birth parents and foster parents can work together to support children.

Something Rachel is passionate about is how to be a supportive foster parent.

Rachel: I would hope any future foster parent would consider becoming that village for children. the success of the child is dependent on the parent and that parent's success is not going to happen without a network of good people that love them and love that child.

Julia: Meeting and loving Gabriel shaped how Rachel now thinks about what she wants from family in the future. 

Rachel: I want to foster in the future. And when I think about do I want kids and I want kids, but not necessarily in the traditional way. And I think that there is space for me to love kids and their, families. And that's the impact that I'll have on on the world, it can be really beautiful, and kids need it. And for parents who are going through it, for them to, to be able to focus on themselves and know that they've got a cheerleader and not, not somebody that's trying to, to take their child. Like that's, that's what it's, what it's about. How do we serve each other?

Lindsay: It takes a village to raise a child. I think that's such a lost, guiding compass for our communities. We're all so, siloed in life, and I think it's so important to remember that, like, we can't do this without each other. And what got me into substances was feeling alone. I think there's so many people that feel that way. There's just so much love and care in the world that I have seen and it's funny because prior to meeting You know Rachel and her family. I would not have had the same view of the world But now I really do because there are good and wonderful people out there.

I honestly was terrified of family. Um, I withdrew a lot from my family because it hurts so much to lose my parents. Um, and it cost me so dearly to lose them, it cost my soul for a very long time. When I was meeting Tim and Teresa, I kept them at arm's length for a very long time because I was so afraid to lose more people. And I didn't want my son to feel that, that loss. It's really scary, to be honest, to love somebody so much. I lay awake at night thinking about it because when you've gone through what I've gone through and you've seen what I've seen, it's really hard to not know about how that's going to feel when that relationship has to come to an end. But it would be a tragic loss not to be able to be loved.

Rachel: Love is going to come, from all of the non storybook, ways. I, I think that embracing the suck of heartbreak or potential heartbreak or, giving people the grace and the understanding that being human isn't easy.

The woman that I met with, that I had coffee with who told me that my job was to make a build was to build Gabriel's network. She also told me that people are their own best problem solvers. And that was the best advice that I could have ever received, particularly at the time in ongoing that, um, I don't have to solve people's problems.

Julia: When I interviewed Rachel and Lindsay, the thing that touched me the most was the mutual love and respect they had for each other. After each interview, my heart felt so full that I’d burst into tears. At first I thought it was because the pain of what they’d both experienced was so sad and intense, but then I realized it was because the love between them was so pure. How brave they were to let each other in! Looking at the whole story now, I can see that the relationship between these two women is the real love story in each of their lives. 

A theme that runs through all our stories of refamulating involves letting go of expectations around what a loving, happy family can look like and opening to new possibilities. In this, Rachel and Lindsay are role models for us all.

Lindsay: I had this idea of what my family should be when I had my son. I May not have been in a happy marriage and, You know, we were both using, but I thought that I had to stay because that's what, what was good for my son, right? He needs a mom and he needs a dad. And, you know, we have this, such a weird little family now. My son is so loved and that's really what's important is that this idea of what family is doesn't have to be mom, dad, baby. It can be, Mom and her sister mom and her parents. It's just wonderful to know that families can be made out of anything.

08: The Childfree Life Is The Life For Me

For many people, “starting a family” includes having kids. But we know that not everyone wants to be parents, and in this episode we hear from a handful of childfree people to celebrate that choice. 

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.
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Julia: I'm Julia Winston, and this is Refamulating a podcast that explores different ways to make a family. Often when you hear the phrase “make a family”, it's kind of assumed that you're talking about having kids. But not everyone has kids. In fact, a lot of people don't, more and more so all the time. And that's what today's episode is about- being child free.

Now I want to talk about words for a second here. When I say child free, I'm referring to people who have intentionally chosen not to have children. That doesn't mean they don't like children, though that may be true for some. It just means they've made a conscious choice not to become parents. Childless, on the other hand, childless, is a word that describes someone who wants kids but doesn't have them or didn't have them.

Childless is about lack - an unfulfilled desire - and childfree is about choice. We've all been told that having kids is the normal path, but for the first time, many of us actually feel like we have a choice. And the whole point of this show is to normalize whatever choices you make when it comes to your family. 

So the choice NOT to have children is the perspective we're going to dive into today on Refamulating. and we're going to hear from a handful of different people who fully own and celebrate this choice. 

First we’ll hear from a few childfree people in their 30s and 40s. Meet Lyz…

LYZ: I always knew I didn't want to have children.

Michael…

MICHAEL: I like to rent a child for a little while and then like, go home. 

Julia: And Gabby…

Gabby: I think that while I  would be a good parent, could be a good parent, I don't want to. And so, how well am I going to do something that I don't want to do? I mean, how well do you do a job that you don't want to do? I think it's a scary conversation to have and people are just starting to have it more. 

Julia: And then, we’ll get a fresh take from someone who’s been there and done that. 

HEIDI:  someone asked me what my word for the sixties, my sixties would be. And I said, it's just pure fuckin joy.

Julia: That’s Heidi Clements, a 63-year-old social media influencer who's oozing with confidence about her choice to be child free.

HEIDI: even if I was the only single child free woman in America, I would not feel alone. It makes me feel different. What's wrong with being different. I think it's cool that I didn't choose the same path that everybody else did. Makes me unique. Doesn't make me alone.

Julia: This woman is such a badass, I can’t wait for you to hear everything she has to say. 

Before we hear from these folks, I want to bring another voice into the mix. Someone very special, who you may be familiar with: my producer and partner in Refamulating, Claire McInerny.

Claire: Hello.

Julia: Claire and I are both child free, and neither of us are sure if we want kids. It's something we talk about a lot. So Claire, in three words or less, what is your stance on having kids?

Claire: I don't know, I think would be my answer.

Julia: Yeah, me neither. That's my three. So Claire made a terrible thanks for asking episode last year called, should I have kids? 

 Claire: One of the intrusive thoughts I kept having was, if I have kids now, will I be setting them up to be soldiers in the water wars? Will they ask one day, why did my mother have me when she knew humanity was going in such a bad direction? I was in this position of, I kind of want kids, but should I have them? Is it responsible to have children with the knowledge I have? Is it selfish to have kids if their lived experiences will certainly be worse than mine? 

Julia: Claire, I think so many people can relate to you about this questioning. This is a topic that's on everyone's minds in one degree or another. And when it comes to having children, you know, I think that it certainly is a factor that plays into people who are doubting. Are there other reasons that you consider not wanting to have kids?

Claire: Yeah, I mean, the climate anxiety, what the future will look like is a very real fear I have, but it's probably the most extreme. I also look at parenting as a really intense job. And I think if I did it, I'd want to do it well. So I know I'd give up a lot of my life and what it looks like right now. And then like the logistics, things like money, childcare, having support, I see how hard that is for other people and I know that that would also feel like a huge life change. So those are kind of the things that hold me back. And I just sit so squarely in the middle knowing that I think I would like many parts of it. I think I could have a great life without them. And that's my struggle is neither side pulls me super hard.

Julia: you know, One thing that's just interesting about what you're saying and where I am is the different phases of life we're in and the different life circumstances. So you're younger than me. You're also partnered. You're 33. You are in a relationship. I am 40. I'm single.

For me, It hasn't really been a question of whether or not I want to have kids as much as it has been who is the person I want to have kids with if I end up having kids. I have always been sort of like, if I have children, I know I want to do it with a partner and I haven't met a partner that I would want to do that with yet. 

I froze my eggs when I was 33 and it was honestly the most empowering decision I've ever made. It enabled me to freeze time. So in a way there is a part of me that's not really worried about having kids because technically I can do it with my 33 year old eggs anytime. Like I can do it.

Claire: When you and I started making this podcast, the topic of child free by choice was something we knew we wanted to talk about and tackle right away because we are in our thirties and forties, everyone around us is either like they're having kids or not, it's the time. And so I feel like this conversation is happening around us. So it was really important for us to make an episode that celebrates the child free life. Even though you and I aren't cemented in that camp, we just are hanging out there right now.

Julia: It's sort of a medicine that we're wanting to take of like, Hey, show me what it's like to embrace the choice not to have kids. I need to see more models of people who are like, yeah, I don't want children and I'm fine. I want to see more of that. I want to hear more of that. And I know more of that is happening all the time. So that's what today is really about. It's us. you know, opening that door and seeing what's, what's there.

So this episode includes a handful of voices of people who are child free and they each have different reasons and reactions to what their child free life has looked like. But before we get going, I want to be clear that we're not here to say that one choice is better or worse than another.

Each of us is on our own unique path. The way I think about that is that there is no right or wrong. There's just right and left. There are many ways that things can go when it comes to having kids or any other decision, and only you can decide which direction works best for you. There's going to be amazing things and there's going to be horrible things in either direction because that's just life.

But we hear a lot about the amazing things and the horrible things about being a parent. We don't really hear that about being child free. So let's get into it. 

So I interviewed three child free people for this next segment. Liz, Michael, and Gabby are all in their 30s and 40s, they're all married, and they've all decided against having kids.

Lyz Nagan: Hi, I'm Liz Nagan

Michael Ventura: I'm Michael Ventura.

Julia: and there's Gabby.

Gabby: I live in Texas and I do not want kids.

Julia: Gabby is a pseudonym. She wanted to protect her identity because of her work. 

Claire: We wanted to ask these child free people all the questions that might feel rude if we just met at a social gathering. Here's what we wanted to know. How did they make the choice? What do they love about it? And what's hard about it?

Julia: Let's start with why, like how did they all choose to be child free? 

Lyz Nagan: the idea of a family was just one person who I loved and loved me.

Julia: Liz is one of those people who always knew she didn't want kids. What she wanted was a partner and the freedom to travel. 

Michael and his wife Caroline actually did try to have kids in the early years of their marriage. 

Michael Ventura: We were 20 something kids that like hadn't questioned the norms. And as we started to question the norms and also come into really who we were going to be as adults, we realized that a different way forward was, was likely to be for us.

Julia: The thing that made it clear was when Michael's wife actually got pregnant, and they realized they didn't want to have a baby. So they terminated the pregnancy.

Michael Ventura: It was a real galvanizing moment for us to, to mutually decide that we were going to have an abortion. And after making that choice, really feeling clear that this was the right choice for us and what we wanted.

Claire: Gabby's decision to be child free was more of a slow burn. She started her family when she met her husband and got married.

Gabby: Being a spouse is really important to me because I love my husband and, uh, he's the coolest person in the world. I think that was part of my initial pause was I'm not sure if I want to share this time or compromise the way that we do things.

Claire: And it wasn't just wanting to savor this life that she's creating with her husband. Her job also played a huge part in her decision. She is a social worker in the ER at a children's hospital, which means she gives a lot of energy and emotion in service to others, and kind of describes it as, not seeing herself having energy for children at home.

Gabby: So I think in A maybe harsh, but real summary, I spend most of my time with kids who have been hurt or violated, who want to die, who spend most of their time wanting to die, or who are killed in some horrific accident. And that feels like something that I don't need to take on at home as well.

Julia: Something that both Gabby and Michael mentioned that I want to highlight is their desire for community and how having kids would have taken away from that for them. They both told me that they want to nurture and teach lots of people, whereas other people choose to channel that energy into their children. The energy required to parent can take away from friendships and other ways of having a community. We only have so much energy.

Michael Ventura: It felt to us like we would rather be out in the world doing what we do with lots of groups with lots of families with lots of people with lots of interests. And then over time, starting to see that one to many was really the way I liked to be in the world to now being very clear that that is how I show up. Along the way making the decision to have, dogs in our life was kind of the, the right level of, of one to oneness that allowed us the freedom we still wanted. 

Claire: The way he talks about that really reminds me of you, Julia. I feel like you also thrive with a really big social circle around you.

Julia: Yes, that really spoke to me. And I feel like even, I don't know if I'm going to have children or not. And if I do, of course, they'll become My priority but because I haven't had children and because I am such a community oriented person I really resonate with what Michael said and I just feel like I could see my whole life being About large groups of people and not a smaller unit Um, actually in episode one of this podcast my mom told me that If you don't have kids, you still have some obligation to leave a little bit of yourself behind and bring hope and repair to the world in some way.

And so I feel like I try to do that in a lot of different ways, including this podcast. And for me, that feels a little bit like what Michael is talking about. And for me, it's, it, it really could be enough, you know, that could satisfy this nurturing part of me.

Claire: Yeah, totally.

Julia: One way that Michael shows up in his community is supporting other people in their lives who have kids. 

Michael Ventura: I have loved being invited into their lives and to be a uncle who can provide something to that child that helps them have more of a communal upbringing than just one with their, parents. 

Julia: This one is one I know you're You and I can both relate to.

Claire: Yes. I really love all the kids in my life, whether it's Brits nieces and nephews, my friend's kids. I love spending time with them and having a special relationship with them. I think that's a really fun role to be celebrated. You know, even if I have my own kids one day, yes, it's been, you know, fun practice to be around kids more and learn more about them. And if I don't have my own kids one day, I really like being a supporting cast member, which is like something you and I have come up with in this conversation, 

Julia: Yeah, I love being a supporting cast member. And it's a fun, it's a fun and meaningful role to play. But ironically, There's this narrative about not having kids that means you're selfish.

Gabby: I think that people are like, this is selfish, you just wanna... Party or you just, you know, don't want to be responsible for things. And I think that while I would be a good parent, could be a good parent, I don't want to. And so, how well am I going to do something that I don't want to do? I mean, how well do you do a job that you don't want to do? How well do you do a relationship that you don't want to do? And I, and I think it's, I think it's selfish in both, both ways are selfish.

Claire: I feel like another, I don't know, kind of common, like question or response if you say I don't want kids is people think ahead, farther in life. So if you don't have a family now who will take care of you when you're old.

Gabby: Number one, like, let's talk about selfish. Like I'm going to produce a whole human so that they can take care of me. I don't know if we're going to make it to when I'm old. Okay. Like the world is on fire, literally. And so I'm not sure that I need to birth a babysitter for when I'm 80.

Julia: And another narrative is that if you don't have kids… 

Lyz Nagan: that it's lonely, that there's no meaning, like you can't have meaning in your life without children. That somehow that, the act of creating a child is like the most wonderful and beautiful and sort of pinnacle thing you can ever do. And that might be true for them, and it's obviously not true for me.

Julia: Another thing that can be tough is adjusting to your friends having kids and going into a different phase of life than you, sort of diverging. 

Gabby: I only see these, these folks every once in a while now. And, you know, kiddo is there, usually, and conversation is focused on baby. And what we're doing is focused on watching what baby is doing. And the amount of time that we can be at dinner is... It's all planned around when baby needs to eat and baby needs to sleep. And that's great. I love baby. I love each of these babies. but I don't have the, the adult friend in these scenarios, I don't have them in the same way. I'm not craving time with a two year old. I'm craving time with my 32 year old best friend. 

Claire: That one's tough because it's hard to talk about because you don't want the parent to feel like they ruined the friendship, but it is just hard. Change is hard. It is hard to go into different phases of friendships.

Julia: It's tough to Have spent so much time with someone and you're just not getting the same level of attention and care anymore. And you're available to give that to them, but they're not available to give that to you.

So it's obviously not all challenging. Not having children can mean more freedom. And we did want to celebrate some of the things we heard from these three that makes it worth it. 

Lyz Nagan: one of the gifts is being able to fulfill that part of my heart and soul that is new experiences and new people and new newness that keeps my brain and my senses like stimulated and activated.

Michael Ventura: dogs will always be in our life. They're a big part of what brings us joy.

Gabby: literally, we do whatever we want, whenever we want. 

Julia: Asking ourselves if we want kids is such a new thing for all of us in our culture today. Even being able to ask ourselves if we want kids is a new thing . And all of us who are questioning can feel kind of lonely because this isn't something that humans have really done in the past. You just have children. So sometimes it feels good to have someone else give you permission.

Michael Ventura: I would say don't look at it as a absence of something, but more, what is this giving you permission to do more of? If you're looking at it as a decision that is taking something out of your plan, also be mindful about what are you putting back in your plan, or what are you dialing up in your plan?

Lyz Nagan: all the reasons are valid for not having kids. And if it's traveling the world, if it's sitting in your room by a fire, reading 20 hours a day, just do whatever it is. If it's right for you, it's just right. Period.

Julia: I just don't think we could end it any better than that. We're going to take a break. And when we come back, I talk with Heidi Clements, who's lived a child free life all the way into her sixties.

Julia Winston: This is Refamulating. I'm your host, Julia Winston, and today we're exploring the choice to be child free. I'm a 40 year old child free woman, and I have felt so many different ways over the years about being child free. Sometimes, I'm content. I savor my slow mornings. I travel whenever I want to and I have a lot of time and energy to give to a lot of people.

Other times, though, I'm not so content. I worry that I'm missing out on an important life experience, or I feel like I'm depriving my family of something crucial. In my toughest momentsI fret about my future. When I'm at large, multi generational family gatherings, I look around and I wonder if the old lady version of me is gonna regret not having kids. So, I wanted to talk to someone older than me who didn't have kids. 

Heidi: Hi, my name is Heidi Clemens. I am a 63 year old writer turned a social media storyteller and fashion addict. 

Julia Winston: Heidi has more than 700, 000 followers on Instagram, where she posts videos of herself getting dressed and sharing little stories.

Heidi: I learned an important lesson the other night that sometimes you just need to give yourself a break. I was having dinner with a friend who's really going through it. Some health issues, the death of an estranged parent, and the constant fear of a business failure.

Julia Winston: Heidi's videos are really popular because for one thing, her outfits are tres chic, but also because of her energy. Heidi often talks about aging, being single, and being child free with so much confidence. It's a very refreshing perspective.

Heidi: Being a single person doesn't mean I'm swimming in joy every day. It takes a lot of mental work to be a single person in a world filled with messaging that says you are alone and you are less. 

Julia Winston: She says that when she started posting, she hoped that other women in their 50s and 60s would be inspired. But as it turns out, that's not who's watching.

Heidi: 95 percent of my audience is under 35. It's taught me that everybody in their thirties is terrified that their life is over at 30 and that everything they've done has been a mistake. So I've highly documented all of the things that I fucked up at 20, 30, 40, 50. And To say like, I'm still here and I'm having a great time. What I've noticed is that the younger generation, is thirsty for somebody to tell them it's going to be okay and somebody that's been through what they've been through and somebody who doesn't look like everybody else, somebody who didn't get married, who didn't have kids, who doesn't have a significant other, who was an alcoholic, who struggles with pot, who struggles financially at 63 and is still thriving. Like these are just Things that happen. It's not, this isn't a test. No one's going to grade you at the end. And if you're grading yourself, like I like to say, you're probably grading someone else's paper because you didn't even ask for half of this stuff that you're being judged on. 

Julia: I've been developing this theory over the last year that I really believe, which is that I'm going to peak in my eighties. So I'm like only almost halfway there. And when I believe that, and I do when I, because I thought, think about like, what does it mean to peak? For me, I, for me, it's like, for me, peaking is like that there's this wisdom coming through me and there's this beauty and appreciation for life that when people look in my eyes They see it and they feel it and to me that's like peaking it's not about like my tits look great I Everybody wants like you were saying or like I'm juggling a career in a baby and a this and a that it's like no I for me peaking means that I am in full like peak Appreciation of life and that people feel that oozing out of me. 

Heidi: My peak is now because right now is when I feel the most in love with myself. And when I feel the most happy with who I am, I didn't feel that at 30. I was a fucking hot mess.

Julia: what do you love about yourself now?

Heidi: I am sober. I am able to handle my problems that come up in a rational way. I don't have insane irrational thoughts about things anymore. I don't judge myself. I know how to set boundaries with people. I know that no is a complete sentence. I don't care what you think about me. Just all the things that you need to live a full, happy life.

Julia: I'd love to hear about the, the journey you've been on. Starting there, who is your family, and what does your family look like today? What does it look like in the past, and what does it look like today?

Heidi: I mean, I, My family is made up of actual family and friends, and I have two older sisters who are family to me. But my friends have been a real source of family. You're told that romantic love is the only love there is. And so you need to have a partner and start a family in order to be whole. And I never did that. And I don't think romantic love is the only love that there is. And I think your friends and your family is the love that's most important outside self love. And, uh, and I've had that in spades.

Julia: How have you cultivated community and family throughout your life?

Heidi: I've just been really honest with the people in my life. I believe in boundaries with friendships and I believe that you can outgrow people and that's okay. Everything good happens when you let go. If you have a friend that's no longer serving you, if you have a parent that's no longer serving you, like, just let go.

Maybe they'll come back. Maybe it'll work out. Maybe you can try to work it out. But if you have things in your life that are literally not serving you, serving you that are just making you feel awful every day. Just let them go. There's no rule that says just because you had a best friends at eight until you were 30, that you have to keep that best friends. They might not be part of your life forever. Like, we stay in relationships longer than we should stay because we think we're supposed to be in relationships. People don't tell you enough that you can be on your own and be really happy. 

Julia: who have your role models been when it comes to living a child free life?

Heidi: none, no one. I don't know anybody who's my age that didn't have kids personally. It wasn't a conscious effort decision to not have kids. I just got sober at 40. And that's when I was like, Oh, should I have kids? And I went to the gynecologist my best friend was going to be a sperm donor. And she told me how difficult it was going to be. And I just was like, I don't want to do it. I just decided I didn't want to do it and, and then lived with that decision. And I think there were probably moments where I was like, huh, I wonder if I fucked up on that one. Oh, well. But you know, like I said, I was an alcoholic up until I was 40. So I like reverted back and had to live all those years that I was living as a drunk. So my forties were like a blur of just trying to figure out who the fuck I was and what I was doing while dancing on the head of a pin from being an open raw wound of surviving the trauma of being an alcoholic. So the kid thing just didn't work out.

Julia: there any part of you that wishes that you had kids?

Heidi: No. None. not a moment of me Wants children and I have a ton of girlfriends in their thirties and I feel like they're my kids. So I mother them quite a lot. And I mother whoever's following me on Instagram because I get a lot of DMS, uh, with people asking for advice.

Julia: That's so interesting. So it feels like you've found like almost like a one to many mothering role that you have now.

Heidi: 100%. Yeah. I mean, I don't want to be so presumptuous to say that, but that's what people tell me that I have been a parent that they didn't have and that I make them feel safe about what they're going through. And that's pretty remarkable. My DMS are just flooded with just magical things. And it just makes me feel like my life and my mistakes were worth something, which who wouldn't want that?

Julia: Yeah. I don't know why I'm getting emotional hearing you talk about that, but I think it's just like the, Courage that you have to just be who you are as it turns out is quite maternal for 

Heidi: What a concept, right?

Julia: Yeah, have you ever felt shame or behind for how you structured your life? Like what's been the evolution around your own experience of not having children and other people's perceptions of you being child free? 

Heidi: I think I was too busy being mad at people who tried to shame me for not having kids. And I think it's what's too bad. driven me the most is the concept of not having shame about it. My very first post that went viral was about, how I was standing in a, in a studio one day with, uh, a pregnant woman and a male.

And the man said to the pregnant woman, you will never know a love as great as this love you will have for your child. And it fucking pissed me off, like, how dare you tell me that I won't experience a love as deep as what she's having because I'm never gonna have kids. And it's continued to piss me off because I'm tired of how we make women feel badly for not reaching your fucking goalpost. You know, So I've never felt shame about it. I don't feel shame about anything. I say give the shame back to the people . who gave it to you. Anytime somebody says something to you about what they don't like about you or it's all their own fear. I mean, if they're just talking to a mirror, something in you and what you're doing makes them terrified and alone about themselves and you just have to kind of feel sorry for them and move on. 

Julia: yeah, who are the other people in your life? The other women in your life who are child free, in their 50s, 60s or above. 

Heidi: I don't know that I know any that are child free above 50. I don't think, I think they all have kids. You know, that might be my own like judgment because a lot of women who are my age are like bitter and pissed off that they didn't have kids or didn't get married so maybe I'm too judgmental of them. Or I don't want to be in that club of like, Oh, you're over 50 and don't have kids and you've never been married. Like even maybe I'm still judging it as some kind of loser club. I don't know, but I don't have a lot of women in my life who are over 50 and single and childless.

Julia: have you heard from any others, you know, in your, in your online community? 

Heidi: Yeah, so many. So, so, so many beautiful, wonderful, over 50 women who are just living their best lives single and child free. Yeah. They're all over my page. They just don't live in my neighborhood. 

Julia: Does it make you feel less alone seeing them?

Heidi: I don't feel alone. Even if I was the only single child free woman in America, I would not feel alone. It makes me feel different. What's wrong with being different. I think it's cool that I didn't choose the same path that everybody else did. Makes me unique. Doesn't make me alone.

Julia: If you could give advice. about how to live a life of joy now, what would you say?

Heidi: stop worrying about what other people think about you and stop making decisions based on somebody else's list of what's the right thing to do because you didn't write that list. Why are you following it? Why are you shopping for someone else's life?

Your life doesn't end at 30, that your life doesn't end. If you don't have children or get married, that you're not a failure if you're not perfectly financially together, that everything you do, you're allowed to do, that you can throw the rule book out and, and live your life by whatever set of rules you want to create or have no rules, just to live your life. No one's going to get to their deathbed and be like, so glad I did it exactly by the book and didn't enjoy it at all. 

Julia: Yeah. 

Heidi: have the cookie, eat the cookie

Julia: I think enjoyment is something that I really see. Like you are, you're enjoying yourself. What a concept. 

Heidi: Someone asked me what my word for the sixties, my sixties would be. And I said, it's just pure fucking joy. It is just joy to be able to know who I am and be okay with it. Is it perfect? No. Is life perfect? No. If it were, then how would you know when the good things happen if you don't know when the bad things happen? So yeah, I do feel pretty joyous. 

Julia: How do you throw out that list? Like, how do you take charge of your own list? If you're still just operating off of someone else's standards?

Heidi: I mean, I did a lot of work. Um, I did a lot of meditative work. I did ayahuasca. I think I'm going to go do some ketamine therapy. I think you really have to get to the core of why you are who you are. And I did that work. I listened to a lot of, uh, meditations by Lacey Phillips, who's sort of, um, to be magnetic is the name of her podcast. She helped me a lot actually really dive deep into like reparenting myself moving the shadows from my life that were um Holding me back and I think that you have to do the work. You have to put the work into why you feel the way you feel. So that you can figure out why you are who you are So that you can make the changes that you need to make. 

Julia Winston: Heidi talks a lot about aging on her Instagram, and it came up a lot during our conversation because refamulating involves letting go of and reframing your expectations. And let's be real, most of us are walking around with numbers in our heads. I'll have a partner by the time I'm 35, I'll have a kid by the time I'm 40, I'll reach this career milestone by this age or that age.

All of these made up benchmarks can make us feel really bad when we don't hit them. And we most likely won't hit them because we can't predict how life is going to unfold. Unsurprisingly, though, Heidi sees things a little differently.

Heidi: I just think we need to stop categorizing people, you know, like, if you're this age, like, age really is just a number. It's, yes, your body changes and things happen to you, but, you know, old shouldn't be a bad word. You know, growing older shouldn't be a bad word. It Should be honored. You know, you've made it this far. 

It's like wrinkles and plastic surgery. Like if that's what you want to do fine, but just understand why you're doing it. You're doing it because someone told you wrinkles are bad and ugly. What if they told you they were beautiful? It would kill the fucking industry. So they're not going to tell you that. I just wish that we would stop making feel women badly for something that is natural, which is aging. We don't do it to men. Why do we do it to women? We don't talk about saggy nads every day, do we? You know, we 

Julia: No, let's not. 

Heidi: I know, who cares? 

Julia: I think if we can love ourselves as we age and if we can love the decisions we make, I do think there's so much more hope for us. And there are a lot more people now who are not having children. Like the numbers show us that they're, they're, you're ahead of your time, Heidi. There's a lot of people in my age group who are choosing not to have children.

I know for you, it wasn't a conscious choice. It was just what happened and you always accepted it. For a lot of people, they're actually choosing consciously not to have children. And I think a lot of people are asking themselves, like, what does community and family mean for me if I don't have What does community mean for you and what does family mean for you as you age and what do you see for the rest of us out here who are sort of following in your footsteps in that direction?

Heidi: My goal is to live on like a really big property where all of my cool friends have a house and there's like a big giant community table in the middle where we all have dinner once a week. I think community is what you make it. I think if your community is a once a week zoom meeting where you talk to your girlfriends, that's your community.

I think if it's your one best friends that you talk to, that's your community. If it's the family that you have of husband and wife and children, that's your community. Community is what you make it. It's just what you make it. It could be just you. You could be your own community. If you are giving yourself everything you need and you're happy, be your own community.

Julia: Yeah. of people say to child free folks, there's this worry of like, well, who's going to take care of you when you get old? And this question comes up over and over again. I think it's like one of those little inner critic judge fear questions. Question. What do you think about that What does that mean to you? what do you, what have you, thought about it? 

Heidi: I think more about not having a partner when it comes to that aspect of my life, you know, that I do kids. I mean, I would hate to have forced my kids to take care of me. I went through that with my parents going through it now and it's just unfair. Like you shouldn't have kids that they take care of you. That's just hideous. I think more about Do I want to be like alone at 80? Am I going to be okay with that? I probably will be, but Um, I think more about that like what if my body fails me Do I want like some nurse taking care of me? Um, but it's very fleeting that That idea. And I just try not to think about it.

I try not to borrow trouble about that concept because we all die alone. You know, I was with my mom right before she died, but she died and she knew I loved her and I got to say goodbye, but she was alone when she died, you know, and she wasn't anywhere near what she was when she was alive. So I just, it's part of life is death, and I don't think we should focus on death. I think we should on life. Again, that's just looking to the future. Like, just don't borrow trouble. Just stay here now. Maybe it'll all work out. 

Julia: Well, to that question, what comes up for you when you think about the idea of legacy, what does that concept mean to you? And you know, what do you want to leave behind once you are gone? 

Heidi: I think maybe some of the work that I'm doing on social media will stay around and matter to people, you know, maybe it will be like, Oh, remember that cool old lady that helped us through our thirties and there's when they're 60, you know, and I'm no longer around, like, that'd be cool. That somebody remembered me and that I did some good. My, my goal in life is to leave earth better than I came. And I think I'm doing that.

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Julia: okay, so Claire, we've just heard from four different people who have chosen not to have children who celebrate that choice. Three of them are sort of in our age bracket, and they're really owning it, um, warts and all. And then we have Heidi, who's like, you know, she's talking at us from the other side.

And how are you feeling at this point for yourself after hearing from these people?

Claire: I think this has been really helpful for me. Like you said earlier, I'm in the thick of really thinking about this question. I also live in Kentucky where everybody is, you know, married and has a kid, not everybody. Um, but it's always really refreshing to like, get out of the water you're swimming in and remind yourself that like, I, whatever family I have with whoever it's with, whatever kids are in my life, like what I took from Heidi is it's always going to be beautiful because it's what you're putting your energy into.

It's the love you're sharing. Um, and we shouldn't get caught up on who those people are and what the titles are and just focus on like cultivating love at whatever stage we're in. 

Julia: Oh my God. Me too. I feel so encouraged and sort of relieved and at peace and like I can do this. I think the word that would probably describe it the most is empowered. And the whole point of this show is to empower everybody out there to just own it a little bit more. Own your choices. Own your life. Own your family. Own yourself. Own it. Whoever you are and however you're approaching your family, just own it. So, whatever it is for you, own it, love it, embrace it, and just go forth, you know. Be present with what is with love. 

Claire: I write about this in our newsletter, but you and I both had very spiritual moments recently, me with an astrologist, you with a psychic, and they kind of talked about how both of us in our own lives want a big community for family, are really thinking about family differently. And um, That kind of also felt really reassuring and made me feel the same way you're feeling right now, which is like, Oh, we're just on this journey and it's okay to question and it will be okay. No matter where it ends up.

Julia: I want to thank you for joining me in this episode, Claire, and for always helping me create everything that we're creating together. And we want to thank Gabby, Liz, Michael, and Heidi for just owning it, owning their lives and sharing that empowerment with us. I hope everyone out there is also feeling empowered in some way.

Is there something in your family, whether it's about having kids or not, that you could own just a little bit more? Own it, baby. We love you. Thanks for being with us today.

07: Family Secrets Revealed: How a DNA test brought one woman home to herself

A few years ago, Alexis Hourselt took a commercial DNA test. She was hoping the results would help her with some ancestral research about the Mexican side of her family. But the day she got her results became the day everything she knew about her family changed forever. 

Alexis Hourselt is the host of the podcast DNA Surprises, a show that talks to other people who learned their biological truth through DNA tests.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

Julia Winston: does your family have a story that has become a kind of lore within your family? Maybe it's a funny story from childhood. Like when my producer Claire was a kid, she was on an airplane with her family and asked if they'd be able to see the black lines that divided the states from up high. Her parents and brothers still laugh about this.

It could be a little scandalous, like the time in high school when my stepsister and I threw a party while our parents were on their honeymoon. We got busted by the dog sitter and our parents tried to ground us, But when best friends become sisters, getting grounded just means basically staying home and keeping the party going.

So that's what we did. A lot. 

Sometimes these stories of family lore are more than funny anecdotes. There are origin stories. 

Alexis Hourselt: I would say we had a pretty quote unquote normal family when I was younger. 

Julia Winston: This is Alexis Hourselt. She grew up in Tucson, Arizona with two younger sisters and her parents.

Alexis Hourselt: my dad is Mexican. My mom is of European descent or white, and so growing up, my understanding of my identity was that I was multi ethnic, Mexican, American, and white, basically, and that was always a huge part of, of who I was and how my family defined itself. 

Julia Winston: Growing up, one of the family stories Alexis heard was how her parents met and started a family.

Alexis Hourselt: When I was eight years old, I remember my mom telling me that my parents got married after I was born. But she explained that she got pregnant shortly after they started dating. And then when I was nine months old, they decided to get married. And so that was the story that I always believed about my origin story. And my mom only put her name on my birth certificate. And the reason for that I was told was because she wasn't sure if she was going to stay with my dad.

Julia Winston: This story had an impact on the woman Alexis grew into as she got older because it made her look up to her mom a lot.

Alexis Hourselt: I thought my mom was like this badass feminist woman because she was like, I'm not just going to marry you because I'm pregnant. And she went on, to have me and you know, luckily it worked out, but I had really romanticized their relationship because I truly believe that they chose each other and they didn't just get married because of a baby. And that was a big part of my identity, I think, in shaping who I am, because I identify as a feminist 

Julia Winston: alexis lived for 35 years with this story, letting it shape how she viewed her family and herself.

But stories aren't always fact. Sometimes they're fabricated to cover up the truth. A few years ago, Alexis learned that this story was a lie and her entire perception of herself and who she thought of as family came crumbling down.

I'm Julia Winston and this is Refamulating, a show that explores different ways to make a family. As we've been making this show, I've come to think of refamulating as a process of transformation. It's the way your family is changing on the outside and the way it's changing you on the inside. For example, when I donated my eggs and became Juju the fairy godmother, it expanded my family and it changed my identity.

I'm very much still navigating these changes. And the reality is re reformulating also involves accepting that your family might end up looking different than you expected.

Today's episode is a story of profound transformation from the inside out. When Alexis learned the truth about how her family started and the truth of her existence, she not only looked at her current family members differently, she saw the entire world through a new set of eyes.

And that all started with a commercial DNA test that was on sale.

Alexis Hourselt: I'd had it on my Amazon wish list for years. Nobody bought it for me, Then it was Prime Day, June 2021, Prime Day hit, and for whatever reason, that moment I decided I'm just going to buy it for myself, and it will be interesting, and I'll see what the results are. 

Julia Winston: When and why did you take the DNA test and what were you hoping to learn from it?

Alexis Hourselt: That actually goes back to my paternal grandmother as well. So she died in 2009 and when she died, she had been doing a lot of research into the indigenous side of the family. So for people who don't know, Mexicans generally descend from indigenous people and Spanish descent as well. And she died suddenly in a car accident. And so she didn't really get very far in her research. And so as Ancestry and 23andMe and all of those tests really got popular, I was intrigued to learn more about that side of myself. I just thought it was going to be this interesting research and maybe I find out something kind of fun, see who I was related to, maybe I was related to somebody famous, or maybe there was some part of my cultural identity that I didn't know about, and I just really thought it was going to be fun.

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The day that I got the results, I was sitting at my computer waiting to join a work call. and I get a notification on my phone that says your Ancestry results are ready.

And so I'm thinking, okay, I've got like 10 minutes before this meeting. Let me just click in and the first thing I saw was the cultural DNA piece. And it's this huge map that shows where all of your DNA comes from. And I, so I look at it and instantly I'm like, this is wrong because there was nothing Spanish and there was nothing indigenous. There was nothing colored in, in the Mexico region or anywhere. anywhere, but what was colored in was a lot of Africa and also North Carolina. 

Julia Winston: Alexis first reaction was, this is a mistake. Someone else's DNA got attached to her account and now she's going to have to call the company and sort it out.

Alexis Hourselt: So I then clicked over to my matches and I saw a parent child match. I did not recognize the person. I did not recognize the name. It was a group photo, so I couldn't tell who in the photo was supposed to be this match. And the name was a username that was like a name plus a bunch of numbers, so I didn't really know who the person was at all.

And again, I'm just like, this is, This is wrong. And I started scrolling down, and I matched with a sister that I did not recognize, and I matched with a brother that I did not recognize, and then I saw my mom's brother, my uncle. And, you might think that my reaction then would be, this is real, but instead my reaction was they mixed up half somehow, I don't know how that's possible, but there's, this is a partial mistake.

And I was kind of just going through all these mental gymnastics to try to make it make sense. So, at that point I started freaking out a little bit and I called my sister. Amanda, And I said , I just got my DNA results back and it's saying that dad isn't my dad. And it's saying that I'm black. she was speechless. She did not know what to say. She was like, I don't know. I think maybe you need to call mom. 

Julia Winston: So Alexis calls her mom, tells her she took a DNA test, and that the results are saying her biological dad is someone else

Alexis Hourselt: And she said, that's so surprising, but she said it just like that. That's so surprising. And. I was just like, that does not sound like it's surprising to you. Um, but I kind of just said, is there, is there any possibility that this could be real? And she was like, I, I don't know. Which test did you take? I said, I took an ancestry test. And then she said, well, those seem pretty accurate on the Maury show.

And I couldn't tell if she was, like, trying to make a joke or if she was just shocked. I didn't really know, but I was just kind of, like, mortified that she would say that in that moment. So I said, I'm going to order a paternity test for dad and me. Can you please talk to him? Because at that point, I started to think that maybe she had a secret that she had hidden from him.

Julia Winston: Like, maybe her mom cheated? Or slept with someone else at the beginning of her relationship with Alexis dad? Who knows, but at this point Alexis was really confused. 

She called her best friend, her husband had quick emotional phone calls, and then jumped back on her work meeting. She tried to just go back to her day as normal, but that didn't really happen.

Alexis Hourselt: I was pretty much just alternating between crying, dissociating, and denying. That was basically the cycle. Then I would feel completely removed from my body. And then I would Say, is this real? Is this really happening? This is not really happening, right? Like this, there must be some sort of mix up. My sisters came over that afternoon to support me and that was kind of the loop that they witnessed, was just me constantly going, is this real? Freaking out and trying to like, take care of my kids and not let them see me really upset. 

So trying to hold a lot of it inside. 

My mom texted me that afternoon and said, I talked to your dad. we were both seeing other people when we started dating. So it is possible, but you are still his daughter and he loves you. 

And I was just like completely devastated by that. My dad was always really close with my kids. He was my son's favorite person, and I felt like this was being taken away from him very suddenly, that biological connection to my kids. 

Julia Winston: The next day, Alexis's mom and dad came over. She gave her dad a big hug. She gave her mom a more timid one. She was still thinking that maybe her mom had been lying and hiding something from her dad. Then the three of them sat down in the living room, 

Alexis Hourselt: and the first thing that my dad said was, I met you and your mom at the same time.

Julia Winston: which completely blew up the story Alexis grew up with.

Her parents didn't conceive her and get married later when they knew they wanted to commit. Her mom had actually been a single mom and her dad. He'd always been, well, technically a stepdad.. 

Alexis Hourselt: so the story as I know it now is that my mom and dad were in the air force in Spain. That's where they met. That's where I was born. She had been dating someone and it was an abusive relationship. And when she became pregnant, he did not want a baby. He was not interested and they broke up. So she went through her pregnancy alone. Um, had me alone, like with just a friend in the hospital and a couple of months later met my dad and my dad was like, I want to raise her as my own. They said he fell in love with me first and decided to raise me as his daughter and they agreed that that's what they were going to do. 

Julia Winston: Race becomes important at this point in the story. Remember, Alexis's mom is white and the dad who raised her is Mexican. So we're back in the living room and her parents explained that when they got together, they believed Alexis's biological father was that abusive boyfriend who was Puerto Rican.

 Because of that, they figured they could pass her off as a biological child between the two of them. This DNA test also created a surprise for her parents. The story her mom and dad told themselves for 35 years was also untrue. The abuse of ex boyfriend was not Alexis's biological father. The DNA test proved that there was someone else in the mix at that time. Someone who was African American.

Alexis Hourselt: So that twist was news to all of them and brought up a lot more emotion because they'd been doing this thing for What they thought were noble reasons, and then they were actually keeping me from somebody else.

my biological father, I believe, was somebody that met my mom in a club one night. And they probably had a one night stand. Neither of them remember each other. So, he was also in Spain, also in the military. After whatever happened, happened, he went on to meet his wife and have kids of his own and he had no idea that I was out there and she didn't know that it was him. So they, I mean, I shouldn't say that they're nothing to each other, but it's kind of just a random relationship. 

Julia Winston: During that conversation, Alexis also found out that her parents had told other people what they thought was the truth. Her grandparents, aunts and uncles all knew her dad wasn't her biological dad her entire life.

Alexis Hourselt: so that really wrecked me, um, finding out that everybody knew something about me that I did not know about myself. I felt like completely untethered. And then to find out that actually what you thought you knew about yourself was completely wrong, it completely disrupted my sense of identity. And I know a lot of people will say things like, you're still you, this doesn't really change anything, but it completely changed my Where I come from, my history, my medical history, the things that have happened in past generations, the failed attempts at connecting with a heritage that really did not belong to me. 

Julia Winston: Alexis was shell shocked. It's dumbfounding to learn that something about your family isn't what you thought it was. And it can be deeply painful to discover that other people did know what you didn't. I shared earlier this season that my parents got divorced when I was a child and that years later I learned it was because my dad was gay.

 During the years when it was still a secret, I could tell that something was off. I didn't know what the secret was, but I could feel the secrecy happening. And it's unnerving to finally learn the truth. It's kind of like the bottom drops out from under you. 

When we come back, Alexis meets her biological father and embraces her new racial identity.

So Alexis has taken a DNA test. She's discovered that her dad is not her biological dad, and that her biological dad is a black man, which means that she has a totally different racial and ethnic identity than the one she grew up with.

Alexis Hourselt: Growing up, people would always ask me, what are you? I would get that a lot because I'm kind of ambiguous looking, I guess. And so I would get questioned if I was Black, I would get asked if I was Italian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, any shade of Brown person, basically. And I always just said, this is how I turned out. My dad's Mexican, my mom's white, and you never really know what's gonna happen with genetics. And I look like my sister's. I thought I looked like my dad. I thought I had features of his. And I never questioned anything about it. 

I really wanted to fit the, the Mexican side of my family. I did not speak Spanish, but I always wanted to learn. And I think I was always seeking and just feeling like it never really fit. I never felt super close to that side of my family, like outside of my dad.

I think I tried further to connect with that Mexican side like after I had my kids. I'd take them to like the south side of Tucson to go grocery shopping where there's like a lot more Mexican community. I started like taking Duolingo lessons to try to learn Spanish. Spanish, and just really tap into that part because I did want my children to be more connected maybe than I was.

Julia Winston: In the first few weeks after getting the results, Alexis had so many thoughts swimming through her head. The Mexican culture she grew up around and was most familiar with wasn't hers. Instead, she was black.

Alexis Hourselt: Growing up, I always felt connected to like African American culture and like all of these different things. And I always felt like, well, that's not for me. I shouldn't, you know, appropriate that and then to learn, well, actually that is your culture and also actively denying my culture for a long time because I was always being asked, what are you? Are you black? And saying, no, I'm not. I'm Mexican. This is just how I turned out. And to reflect on the fact that for 35 years I denied it. And now all of a sudden I'm supposed to say, Oh, actually, just kidding. I am. And to try to find connection to that. 

Julia Winston: While Alexis was wrestling with the truth around her new racial identity, she was also coming to terms with the lies her family had told her. Family was always really important to Alexis. She grew up in Arizona, briefly lived in North Carolina, ironically in her twenties and moved back to Arizona when she had kids.

So she could be close to her parents. Now she felt like she didn't really know them the way she thought she had.

Alexis Hourselt: It just made me question everything. If you could lie about that and keep that from me, what else could you keep from me? And how could you do that? That is such a huge betrayal. So it completely disrupted my family. Um, and there was a lot of distance between me and my parents after that.

For the first year afterwards, my parents thought that I wanted space, and so they didn't really talk to me that much, and it was very uncomfortable when we did spend time together. And so I think that that really hurt our relationship, because I felt abandoned, and I think from their side, the last conversation we had where they were sitting on the couch across from me, I had said, I need some space to think about this.

And they took that to mean like, don't talk to me anymore, which is not at all what I meant. I meant like literally in that moment, I needed a moment and they kind of disappeared for about a year. Um, we tried to like have family functions and stuff, but it just didn't feel the same.

Julia Winston: While she and her parents were taking space, Alexis was interested in learning more about the biological family members who were listed in her DNA results.

Alexis Hourselt: I joke that I was like prepared for this because I have very good internet sleuthing skills. And so when it came time to find my biological family, I got straight to work like that weekend. I was like, I'm going to figure out who this is.

I started digging through ancestry, looking at his family tree, trying to make connections. And I saw someone's name, someone that had died. And so then I went online and I looked up an obituary. I found an obituary for them. And then on that obituary, it broke out who So who they were survived by, and they were one of 12 siblings, and there were, I think, four living brothers at that time.

I found Cliff, my bio dad, and he had listed like every place he'd ever lived on his Facebook page and every place he'd ever worked.

I would say he's like such a good boomer because he just like outlined everything for me. And when I saw that, I saw that he was in Spain in 1984 to 1985. I was born in 1985. So I'm like, got him. So then I tried to find out as much information about him as I could without contacting him. Because when I was talking to my best friend, the therapist, she said, I'm only going to give you this advice. And that is don't reach out until you are ready for whatever outcome there might be. Because he could have accepted me. He could have said get away, I don't know who you are. And I needed to be prepared for either. 

Julia Winston: Alexis found a therapist to help her process all of this and prepare to contact her biological family. But then someone in Cliff's family reached out to her.

Alexis Hourselt: I got a Facebook message request from my biological sister. Elena. And she said, Hey, uh, this like might seem weird, but I think we're related. Let me know if you want to talk. And I said, yeah, I think we are related. And I don't remember who called who, but we ended up talking for like 45 minutes and basically just confirming that she was my sister ,that Cliff was our dad that had a brother named Jeremy and another older sister from a previous relationship. 

Julia Winston: It turns out one of Elena's brothers had taken the same DNA test and matched with Alexis. He told his mom and siblings, there might be another sibling out there. 

Alexis Hourselt: my brother and their mom told my sister Elena not to contact me. They said, don't go bothering her. She may not know, and she may not know that she's black, and she may not want to be black. And I thought that was super interesting, because that's not the world that I live in at all. But they live in the South. They live in Alabama. And so their experience of race and racism and all of those things is very different from mine. So she, said after our conversation, she told me all that. And I was like, no, I don't, I don't mind at all. Like that's, that was like the least of my concerns. I'm just so thrown off that like, this was hidden from me and all of that.

Julia Winston: Elena told Alexis that she would call their dad and tell him what was going on and see if he would be interested in talking to Alexis.

Alexis Hourselt: So eventually that week he did log on and then he sent me the nicest message and he was like, Hi, I just saw this. It looks like you're my daughter. You're so beautiful and here's my phone number if you would like to talk. And so I called him. And we talked and it was really weird, but nice. And in the beginning we talked often, like multiple times per week, just kind of trying to get to know each other. And then on veterans day, of that year, 2021, I flew to Montgomery with my husband and met him and my sister and brother.

I was hoping that I would feel a connection right away, that it would make sense. Talking to him on the phone, it felt pretty natural considering that we didn't know each other at all, but I was hoping that it wouldn't be awkward, that there wouldn't be these like weird pauses in our conversations or that we wouldn't run out of things to talk about.

That they would like me, I guess they would feel like I fit in with them. I was worried that we wouldn't necessarily get along. Um, they're all pretty religious and I'm not. So I was a little bit worried about like what that vibe might feel like. I was just worried that it wasn't gonna feel right.

Julia Winston: So describe the first time you met your bio dad and his family.

Alexis Hourselt: He met us at the airport, and I, Josh, my husband, was going to get our rental car, and like, I was getting my luggage or whatever, and I kind of just remember walking up and seeing him stand there. And we just gave each other like the biggest hug for a really long time.. 

 And then he escorted us to our hotel, um, and kind of just let us be there and like, let us chill. We are so similar in our approach to like, entertaining people, because he's very much like, let me give you your space, go do your thing. And like, we'll meet up for dinner later.

 I just took all of that in and then got ready for dinner and we met everyone at this really good restaurant. It was like elevated soul food place in Montgomery. And it was awesome. I got to meet my brother and my sister and her fiance at the time and my bio dad's wife and it actually felt okay.

Julia Winston: There weren't really any awkward pauses. It went great. And then the next day they went to the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, which is all about the history and legacy of slavery. It takes people on a journey through America's history of racial injustice.

Alexis Hourselt: So it was like this really cool, sad. Beautiful moment where I got to really see, like, where I came from. Very close. And I was so grateful to them for that experience. Because it's like you learn it, you know, in school. But to actually go and see that, and like read accounts, and see photos. And to do that with my father, who, um, you know, grew up in the South and experienced some of the things that we were seeing and, and to hear him talk about that was very powerful. Um, and then that night we went over to his house and had dinner and it was just really special. It was very nice. 

Julia Winston: Wow. It's so striking that they thought to sort of, um, invite you into your new racial identity when they met you. Wow.

Alexis Hourselt: Yeah. That was really special.

Julia Winston: What has been your experience of learning and adjusting to a new racial identity?

Alexis Hourselt: I, I'm really still figuring it out. It's interesting cause I'm two and a half years in now and random things will still hit me. After I met my family, they invited me to their family reunion the following year. So in August of 2022, I went out to North Carolina, where my dad grew up, which was only about an hour from where I lived when I moved there, and didn't know that he existed. And I saw my aunts, and that was the first time that I ever really felt like I saw my face on somebody else, and like, saw my nose. You know, I always, um, was told like your grandma, she had a button nose and that's where you got it from, like my maternal grandmother. And I accepted that because when you're a kid, you accept what your parents tell you and you believe them. But when I saw them all at the family reunion, And it was like, there, I see it, like, that's who I look like, that's where my body type comes from. Like, I look so different from the family that I grew up with in that way. And it just made everything make sense. And so I think for me, while I don't necessarily feel like I've completely stepped into feeling completely connected, because I do feel like That was sort of taken from me because I have spent so much of my life not identifying with it. I'm getting there because I've been invited in, like you said, um, to be part of that family. And I feel really grateful for that.

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Julia Winston: It's crazy enough to discover that you have a secret biological parent and a new racial identity, but beyond the drama, there are also practical implications that come with not knowing one of your biological parents. Meeting Cliff allowed Alexis to finally understand some health issues she'd been confused about. 

Alexis Hourselt: After II had my kids, all of a sudden my cholesterol went up, and I could not figure out why. I was working with my doctor on making dietary changes, and exercising, and eating tons of fish, and doing all that stuff, and it was like making minuscule differences from year to year when I would get my lab work done.

So I went to my parents and I'm like, does anyone in our family have high cholesterol? And they're both like, no. It turns out after connecting with my biological father, that that is a huge piece of medical information that I was missing.

He'd had it since he was in his thirties, just like it came up for me. My sister has it. 

 It's just something that runs in our family. And I was able to take that information and go back to my doctor and unload all of this new information on her and then say like, yeah, this, this is what it is. And then finally she was like, Oh, well that explains it.

And she's like, you're the fifth person I've called. ever prescribed like cholesterol medication to, but you need it because it runs in your family and we're probably not going to be able to make a lot of other changes. it's because I was missing half of the picture.

Julia Winston: Alexis is a mom herself. Before the DNA test, she'd put a lot of effort into connecting her kids with their Mexican heritage. But suddenly, they weren't Mexican anymore. So how did this new information affect her children's racial identity? 

Alexis Hourselt: It's interesting because when I thought that I was Mexican, I checked off Hispanic for them without hesitating at all. Now that I have African American instead, I pause because my kids do not look Black. They, they don't. Um, and I don't know how they'll identify and I kind of want to leave it to them to figure that out, but I am very open with them about what happened.

I explained it to them in terms that I felt like they could understand. So I just said, You know, uh, grandma and Tata didn't make me the same way that me and dad made you. Somebody else made me with grandma, and that's my biological father, and he is actually, um, African American or black, and they kind of were just like, okay, like they to them. It wasn't really that big of a deal. I think my son did go, so are we black? And I was like, well, you know, I think that's something we just have to figure out. Um, but, you know, we've since visited my biological father, all of us, and like we went to the Rosa Parks Museum, and we're like learning these pieces that are age appropriate for them about our history.

And they've spent time with him. And I kind of just want them to decide what makes sense for them. And I feel like that's, that's kind of where I have to leave it because I understand how confusing it can be because I still haven't figured it out myself.

Julia Winston: Since finding out the truth in 2021, Alexis has started her own podcast called DNA surprises, and she interviews other people whose ideas of family have been shattered by a DNA test. It's helped her feel less alone in this experience. As for the relationships with her family, biological and beyond, they're constantly evolving. 

Alexis Hourselt: My relationship with my biological father is pretty great. We have visited each other a few times. I'm going back out for a family reunion this summer with my kids this time. We, I think, are, are similar in a lot of ways. There's just things that now I'm like, this, This makes sense. Like the first time when I went to go visit him, he sent me a list of like his preferred hotels, like in order, like, you know, here's, here's places you can say in order.

And I'm like, okay, this is like how I plan vacations and recommend things to people. 

I talked to my sister pretty regularly. We were connected like on social media and all that stuff. It's hard though, because of the distance. I think if we lived closer, we might be closer, , in our relationship. And And that's kind of something I've had to make peace with is that we just, it's hard. You can't make up for lost time like that. I can ask all the questions I want and write down all the information I want, but it's not the same as having been raised by him. And so there's kind of this radical acceptance piece when it comes to that. 

Julia Winston: This radical acceptance piece is a major part of Alexis's journey. She accepts that she lost time with her biological family. And she accepts that her relationships with the family she grew up with may never be the same.

Alexis Hourselt: We are not as close as we were before, even still.

Within the last few months, I would say things have felt like they were opening up a little bit more.

They're seeing my kids a bit more. We're doing things as a family and it doesn't feel kind of forced. It feels less awkward. And so recently I asked them. How did it feel to hold that for so long? Like, in my mind, I thought that maybe the lie had become the truth at some point, and they were just able to push it down so far that they kind of just didn't think about it anymore.

And I learned, you know, just about a month ago that They thought about it all the time, constantly. They lived in fear that I would find out the truth because it just went on for so long that they felt like the time had passed to tell me the truth. And so they were just constantly stressed out and worried and I told them, like, I just can't imagine what that must have felt like.

That must have been really hard. And that felt really good and I just explained to them that in the work that I do I Since my DNA Surprise, like with my podcast, and now I have a retreat for people that have gone through things like this, that my whole goal is just to reduce the shame and stigma that leads us to these situations.

And it's not about shaming my mom, because I feel so awful that like a lot of people Our views of sex and women are what lead to these scenarios and why women hide the truth. And so I could get on my soapbox about that forever, but really it's just, I have a lot of compassion for them and I want them to know that. And I think once that really sunk in for them, it felt like things have kind of been improving.

Julia Winston: I'm with Alexis on that soapbox. I understand why her mom might have felt ashamed to embrace the truth of her situation. I also understand why my parents might have felt ashamed or scared to be truthful about what was going on in my family when I was a kid. It was all coming from a good place. Parents just want to protect their children, of course.

But what I've learned, and I'm sure Alexis would agree, is that secrecy can hurt more than the hard truth. 

Alexis Hourselt: I just want people to realize that it's okay to be honest. There's no need for the shame. Like, we can reject the shame. associated with these things. I think all the time about how, as a society, I think generally we are accepting of people being in their 20s and having some fun. And that's what happens when people are in college or they're young or whatever. But as soon as someone gets pregnant, it's like the whole view changes and there is shame. Especially if someone doesn't know who the father of their child is. And that's something that happens for better or worse. It's just what happens.

 And there's all of these things that happen that parents hide from their children because of their own shame and stigma around parenthood and sex and Fertility, and I just want to normalize what it is to be human and these things happen.

It doesn't mean it's always okay that it happens, but we need to be open and honest about it because people have the right to know where they come from.

My story has taught me just how important it is to know who you are and where you come from, because I have never felt more authentically myself since discovering this information and working through it and integrating it into my life and accepting it, I feel more me than I have ever been.

Julia Winston: Thank you, Alexis, for sharing your story, your truth with us. Alexis podcast is called DNA surprises, and it's linked in our show notes. 

We know refamulating looks different for everyone. How are you refamulating? If you want to share your family story, send us an email or a voice memo to hello at refamulating. com. You can also send us a message on Instagram at refamulating. 

Next week we're talking all about being child free. We're choosing not to have children.

Heidi Clements: Even if I was the only single child free woman in America, I would not feel alone. It makes me feel different. What's wrong with being different? I think it's cool that I didn't choose the same path that everybody else did. Makes me unique, doesn't make me alone.

Julia Winston: If you like this podcast, please share it with someone. You can also write us a review. We want everyone who's refamulating to be able to find us as an independent podcast. We're also super grateful for any financial support. You can make a donation at our website, refamulating.

com. Refamulating is hosted by me, Julia Winston. Claire McInerney is our executive producer. Grace Berry is our manager of engagement. This episode was mixed and scored by Josh Gilbert. Our theme music was composed by Luke Top. Special thanks to Nadia Hamdan for editorial support on this episode.

Refamulating is a production of the Feelings Co. Network.

06: Thicker Than Water: Creating family with a known sperm donor

When Cat and Emily, two women, wanted to have a baby, they knew they would need outside help. They asked their friend David to donate his sperm. They didn’t just want his DNA though, they wanted to invite him into the family they were creating.

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

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Julia: A year and a half ago, I arrived fashionably late to a friend's birthday dinner at a sushi restaurant in Austin. The appetizers were disappearing quickly, so I gave the birthday girl and her wife a big hug. Then I scanned the table to see where I wanted to sit. That's when I saw David. He's tall, with dark hair, and kind eyes, and there was an empty spot right next to him.

So we're talking about like, what makes a father? What makes a mother? Is it like, biological?

Dave: Well, I think there's three components. There's um, biological, there's parent, and then there's role model. And so, you can have all three, or just one of the three, or none of the three.

voice memo fades underneath

Julia: No, I wasn't hitting on him, but he is a catch. I wanted to sit next to David because he's a known donor. David donated his sperm to the birthday girl and her wife so they could have a baby. That's why I was so excited to meet him. He was the only other known donor I'd met after I donated my eggs to a male couple.

At the time, the egg daddies, as I call them, were in the middle of trying to get their surrogate pregnant. I just decided that I was going to make this podcast. So naturally I wanted to record every interesting conversation that came up. David and I started talking about how we both grappled with this funny role we've found ourselves in, a role with very few models, and even fewer words to describe it beyond known donor.

Dave: if you think about the situation where like a father is just like not a good role model, and maybe not even in the kid's life, they might even say something like, Oh, I don't have a father. Even though they have a biological father, he's just not in their life.

So they've deemed their biological father as not their dad, not their father. And they might even, or they might have a stepdad and be like, this is my dad. And so it's really, I think, whether or not you're the father or the mother is like deemed by the kid. Yeah, so 

Julia: we all have to wait until our kids are old enough.Our kids, I just said that. 

THEME MUSIC 

I'm Julia Winston, and this is Refamulating, a podcast that explores different ways to make a family.

 This is the second half of season one, and we're excited to share five new refamulating stories with you over the next five weeks. 

When I met David at that dinner, I had already donated my eggs, but I had no idea if I'd end up becoming a fairy godmother. But I was so excited to chat with him because I wanted to hear from someone whose donation had already led to an actual human.

David donated his sperm to his friends Kat and Emily when they were ready to have kids. Their daughter, Quinn, is now two years old, and David is part of her daily life. So today, we're gonna hear from David and his baby mamas, as he calls them, about how they've created a family with their friend and sperm donor.

First, I want to introduce you to the three adults in this family. There is, of course, David 

David: I'm David. I'm into fitness. I'm an entrepreneur and I'm a known donor.

Julia: and then the baby mamas.

Catherine: Hi, I'm Catherine. I gave birth to Quinn and this is my wife, Emily. 

Emily: Hey, I'm Emily. Um, go by Ima, which is mother in Hebrew. Um, and I'm a bonus mom. 

Catherine: You're not a bonus mom. You're a real mom. Well, that too.

Julia: What is a bonus mom, and what is a real mom?

Catherine: That's a good question. I've heard people who are like step parents say, oh, I'm a , bonus dad or bonus mom. Which I wouldn't say that Emily's like a step parent. But I guess she has two moms I don't know. I don't know how this works.

Julia: none of us really know how this works. We're all figuring it out, which is totally why we're even doing this interview. 

To be clear, Emily is a full on mom co parenting with Katherine or Kat. Finding the right words in any refamulating situation can be tough because we have such limited language and titles outside of the nuclear family. But this is how it looks in Kat and Emily's family.

The two of them are married and raising their daughter, Quinn. And David is their good friend and donated his sperm to help them conceive. Now that Quinn is here, he sees them once or twice a week and sometimes babysits. One day when Quinn wants to know more about how she was conceived, he'll be around to answer questions.

But I want to back up a little and talk about how they all met, and how they decided to start a family together. This all starts with Kat and Emily meeting and falling in love.

Emily: Well, we met the old fashioned way on Tinder. What? Oh. In New York. 

Catherine: Yeah, we met on tinder in 2018 and we You know, like, lesbians do, went on four dates in a week, and our fourth date was the Women's March in New York City. 

Julia: Before the march, Kat and Emily made political signs, and Kat told Emily that she wanted hers to be noticed. Sure enough, it was photographed by the New Yorker.

Emily: I just thought, okay, this is someone that really manifests things and makes things happen. And that's been true since then. So that's. One of the first times I was like, oh, you're a pretty remarkable person.

Julia: These two were in love, but the timing wasn't quite right for a relationship when they first met.

Catherine: At the time wasn't out of the closet yet. So that was a process for me and we went through some stuff with that where Emily didn't want to be with someone that wasn't, you know, out yet. I was like, well, I have to, you know, I don't want to come out and then we just met and then we aren't actually together and then what am I just out and then I'm not with anyone. So the whole thing was just this weird, , chicken or the egg. I'm like, I want to get to know you better. And you were like, I don't want to be with someone that's not going to be out of the closet and is potentially just experimenting. So we had this whole, drama around that. And then we broke up for a couple months and then we got back together.

Julia: Once Cat was out and they got back together, the two of them started talking about having kids.

Emily: Early on in our dating, it was very clear to me that I was, like, okay, this is what I want, like, are you on board? Remember, I don't know how quickly it was in our relationship, but I was just, like, Week two? Yeah, it was like, uh, I pretty much laid it on the table, I'm like, you're great, this is what I want, is this also what you want? Cause if it's not, like, I need to know that pretty early on. 

Catherine: Um, No, I think because we broke up for a bit and then we go back together, it was very much like, okay, well, if we're going to be together, I want to have kids at some point and, you know, get married and do all that stuff. And so it was like, well, if we're getting back together, that's where this train's going. So let's do that. 

Julia: So the train towards babies is chugging along the tracks. But they needed to figure out how they would actually make that happen. You know, biologically. While they were dating, they decided to leave New York and move to Austin. That's when Kat first met David.

Catherine: we met two days or three days after I moved to Austin and Emily hadn't moved yet. So she was moving a month later. And so I was invited to this like entrepreneur dinner. And I go and there's six people and Dave, our donor, who is a stranger at this point, is sitting across from me. I didn't really chat to him the whole dinner. But, he drove us to this party after. So cut to literally 30 hours later, my friend had been running this, like, 50 mile charity bike ride thing, and I'd signed up for it, because I'm like, oh, I don't know Austin, I'll get to know it, and so I did it, and 10 miles in, I come off my bike, break my collarbone, they're like, you know, we'll, we'll call your emergency contact, and I'm like, well, she's in New York, I didn't think that would actually...

You need to call anyone and at that point like I knew people in Austin, But I'm not gonna like interrupt someone's Saturday and like ruin their day to take me to the hospital And so I'm like, I don't know any like I don't have anyone to call and so they're like, okay We'll just have the race volunteer bring you to the hospital And so the volunteer pulls up and who's the volunteer is Dave

No.

Yeah

Julia: Damn.

Catherine: And I'm like, oh my god, Austin is small and, and he was like, you're Catherine? So he takes me to the hospital. Uh, then comes back to pick me up, then, like, brings me food when I didn't ask. He's just like, I have this food for you. And then I'm going into my apartment, which is just full of boxes. I have two dogs there. And he's like, oh, do you want me to walk your dogs? And I'm like, no, it's fine. Like, I'm just thinking, I put this person on so much already. And, um, he's like, I'm just gonna walk them. So he takes them for a walk. And it was just like... Oh, this person's like super caring and, you know, looked after me when I was, you know, was sick and I have a hard time asking for help. Especially from people I don't know and he'd just gone so far out of his way So I think we bonded because of that and he became like a really good friend.

Julia: When Kat and Emily were ready to have a baby, they started thinking about how they wanted to approach it. Did they want an anonymous sperm donor or someone they knew?

Emily: Cat and I both have really amazing, fathers and biological fathers that we grew up with. And so for me, personally, I just really wanted Quinn to have an identity that belonged to her donor, and I wanted that relationship there. And I knew that if, like, we went to a sperm bank, that that wouldn't be possible.

Julia: So they wanted to ask a guy who was already in their lives. And David came to mind first for a few reasons 

Emily: So Dave is tall. He also has like Jewish descent and I was really wanting that thread of religion in there And he's super smart. He can do math. Yeah, he can do quick math. 

Catherine: you're actually complimenting someone because you're like I'm literally wanting your DNA in my baby

Julia: The first time Kat and Emily brought up the idea of sperm donation with David, they phrased it as a joke. Oh, if we had a baby, you'd be a great sperm donor, yeah?

David: And I quickly responded with a yes, knowing that it was a joke at the time. And like, I wasn't actually committing, but it gave me time to really think it through. And so I had a couple of weeks at least, maybe even longer before they brought it up again. And over that period, I thought through, okay, what are the pros? What are the cons?

 by the time they asked me the second time, I knew that the answer actually was yes.

So several months went by and then we had a little retreat with friends. We were going out to an Airbnb and I went into that retreat with the intention of like, Hey, I want to bring this up and like find out for real, if they're for real about it and tell them that like, I am serious that I'm willing to do it. And before I can bring it up they bring it up. And they had gone into the retreat with the same intention. So that was cool. So like we had I think it was two nights at this house with friends and like Within a several hours of getting there, this was discussed and agreed upon.

And we're like, all right, great. We're doing it. 

Julia: When we come back, David, Kat, and Emily make a baby.

When David said yes to being a sperm donor, Kat and Emily were thrilled. They were going to be parents. To them, it felt like a big relief. But for David, there was a lot to think about. It wasn't hypothetical anymore. Eventually, there would be an actual child, and he was going to be part of the kid's life.

So he had to start imagining what that actually meant for him.

David: I remember voicing one of my concerns, which is being single in my 30s. Like, oh, how is this going to impact my dating life? I said, well, I don't know, what if I meet a woman, I really like her and she's not cool with the situation. And my friend responded, well then that's not the right woman for you. She was quite adamant and I was like, okay, are you sure? Now I've had several, like two years, let's say, to think it through and process it and like bring it up with girls on dates and it's definitely not an issue. If anything, it's probably a pro. 

Julia: What do you think makes it a pro?

David: I was talking to a girl, um, that I dated and asked her about that. The pro would be one that like, Oh, I was generous enough to do this for my friends. Two, there's a number of factors why somebody would pick somebody to be the father of their kid. 

Julia: Like, oh, this must be good stock if someone wants him to be the, you know, the sperm donor for their baby. 

David: Exactly. So more than just looks and he's smart, but also character is what this person I was at the time dating mentioned like, Oh, he must have really good character that they want him to be a known donor and be in the kid's life.

Julia: Honestly, I had the same reservations as David when I was considering donating my eggs. I wondered if people I dated would have a problem with the fact that, technically, I had children. But I quickly realized that I wouldn't actually want to date someone who had a problem with that. So in the end, it became kind of a useful way to weed out the people who are not the right fit for me.

Before David did any donating, there were some logistics that he, Emily, and Kat needed to address. The first was a contract.

Emily: My dad's a retired lawyer, and so the biggest thing for me is, like, I don't want to make myself in a vulnerable situation and not, you know, cross all the T's. 

Catherine: The legal contract was very much like, This person has no responsibilities, We're not gonna ask them for anything, Um, they have no rights, A known donor contract is what they call it.

So when you get a sperm donor that you don't know, like that, this will all come when you buy the sperm, I would guess. Uh, whereas when you know the person you just have to come up with the, the documentation yourself. And so we had to get, you know, lawyers to, to handle that part.

David: So I wanted to make sure that it was clear, like I'm not going to be parenting. I don't have financial responsibility. 

Emily: But it was expensive, like the process of hiring the lawyers and going through it.

Julia: Yeah. What were the costs associated with your process and how did that fit into your family's financial situation?

Catherine: I mean we paid for the our lawyers obviously and then also for dave's lawyer. 

Emily: That was probably between both fees. Was it, it was over 2, 000. It was 500. Yeah, it was 2, 500. But then let's not forget that. I need to adopt Quinn then after she's born, which is a whole nother process. That was probably another 2, 000. Yeah, at least. I would say all in, with the adoption, it was probably over 5, 000.

Julia: Next, David had to get a sperm analysis and genetic testing. Everything was good there. And the final step before insemination, probably the most important, was having conversations around David's role as a known donor.

David: one thing that I thought was interesting prior to her being born is they asked me if I would like her to call me dad. I almost instantly was like hell yeah, because I've always wanted to be a dad and I was like great let her call me dad. But I feel like I should think about this, I feel like this is not something I should just like, rush to decide on the spot. So, I took some time to think about it, and I was really surprised that after thinking about it, my answer was like, no, she shouldn't call me dad. 

I was kind of picturing like my lifestyle. I like to travel and sometimes I'll go for a month, you know, it's like if I'm going to buy a plane ticket to go overseas, like might as well make the most out of it and not just go for a long weekend. So sometimes it'll be a month long trip. And I was just picturing myself, her being, you know, of age where she can like talk to me on FaceTime. And her being like, dad, when are you coming home? 

And just thinking like, wow, that's not fair to her. Like everybody else's dad is like living with them or at least like nearby sees them every week and here I might be gone for a month and I don't want to sacrifice, , my lifestyle cause I'm not having my own kid. So I went back to them and I said, Yeah, she should probably just call me David.

And they were like, well, you want her to call you uncle? Like, and all these things that people outside of the three of us have been like, Oh, so you're like an uncle. And I'm like, yeah, sure, you can think about it like that, but I don't want her to call me uncle. I think that'd be even more confusing. She can call me David. I'd be happy if she came up with some nickname for me. Um, and she could totally call me that.

Julia: Ah, the elusive nickname. We simply don't have enough words to refer to the important people in our lives who are not related by blood. But that's kind of what refamulating is all about, right?

Creating roles and names that feel authentic and meaningful. It's just part of the process. In this case, they settled on David being called David. And then with labels and logistics out of the way, it was time for Kat and Emily to try it and get pregnant.

Catherine: I'm two years older than Emily, and the idea of carrying was more of like, this is a life experience that would be interesting for me to have. 

I actually find a online company that sells home insemination kits. I ordered it, 89. I actually bought a subscription, because I was like, this is going to take a while. We started tracking our cycles or whatever, and then the plan was, we were going to take turns, and whoever got pregnant first, would be the person that would go first. 

Julia: Their plan was to inseminate whoever was ovulating until one of them got pregnant. And yes, they were playing with fire. 

Emily: There was like a slight risk that we both would have been pregnant at the same time, which now we would never do. It's just like crazy. 

Catherine: And anyone that we've told the story to was like, what if you both got pregnant? Right. And that would have been really very difficult. Yeah. 

Julia: Uh, I'm not a doctor, but I co signed that it's not advisable to play pregnancy roulette.

 Because they got an insemination kit online, they were able to do everything at home. Kat and Emily jokingly call this, the ceremony.

Emily: We make a lot of references to Handmaid's Tale. That's not how it goes. I don't want people to visualize it. That's like not how it goes down, but we think it's funny. So, like not funny, kind of twisted, but yeah. We'll be like, oh, Thursday is the ceremony.

Julia: The first time they have a ceremony, David goes over to Kat and Emily's house.

David: I just went up to their guest room and they just gave me a little cup and some lube and I came back down with the cup and then they went in their bedroom.

I just, hung out in the living room. They like, we turned the music on a little bit so it was like a little bit of privacy and I just, I don't know, read a book or something until they were done.

Julia: While David was hanging out, Kat and Emily retreated to the bedroom and whipped out the insemination kit.

Catherine: we were supposed to take turns. Emily went first and was like, okay, I think I'm good. 

Emily: Yeah, I was like, I have enough. Like, if I'm getting pregnant, like, this is fine. Like, what do I do with this thing now? This, like, glorified turkey baster? Do I just, like, throw it away, or what's the protocol? 

Catherine: And there's, like, the tiniest bit and I'm thinking, well, I don't like waste, fuck it, I'll try. That was really as much thought as I gave it. Because to me, I was just thinking like, it's like an experiment. This is gonna take a while. This is gonna take like a year, you know?

Emily: Everyone was like, you try and it takes a year, don't be surprised.

Julia: So yeah, the plan that day was for Emily to inseminate herself with David's sperm. For Emily to get pregnant. But yes, you heard that right. Kat gave it a go with the leftovers. And then

Catherine: A few weeks later, something happened where Emily was like, maybe you're pregnant. I was like, no way. There is no way that can't be, that can't happen. And then I was like, oh my god.

Emily: She was very pregnant.

music

Julia: During the pregnancy, Kat and Emily were busy preparing for the baby and they had constant reminders that a baby was coming. Cat's belly was growing. They were preparing the nursery and reading about how to take care of a newborn. But for David, life kind of looked the same.

David: I grew up in sales and it was always like, you don't count the sale until like you have the credit card info and like it's charged and gone through. I was just like, well, until this baby pops out, like it's not a real thing. And so I, you know, continued to just, go along with, with everything be friends with them and support them and however I could. It was very surreal and it was hard to, to like really comprehend. It was much different. I think for most fathers who are with their wife for nine months and they're there the whole way and every bit of it And I would see them once a week for like three hours. 

Julia: But the day Quinn was born was when it all finally felt real. David wasn't at the hospital for the birth. His contribution was picking up Kat's mom from the hospital the night before Quinn was born.

David: And I went to sleep at like 11 or something like that. Woke up at 8am and rolled over to look at my phone and had a message that they welcomed Quinn to the world. And I was like, Oh, that's so cool. Maybe it was the next day, I got a message from Emily and she just said, Quinn is perfect. Thanks for making our dreams come true. Oh, yeah. And that was like the most touching text I'd ever received.

Julia: Okay, here's where I, as a donor, want to know. What did it feel like to hold the baby for the first time? The reason I'm curious is because I still haven't met the twins, and I want to get a sense of what it might feel like to actually hold them for the first time. Like, will I suddenly fall in love and my ovaries explode and I realize I want babies of my own? Or will it just feel like holding some cute babies? 

David: Well, the interesting thing about it was that there was a lot of people projecting what that experience was going to be like leading up to it. And so, that, I felt like there was a lot of pressure around. Because it's like, oh, this is the first time I'm going to hold her. And like, I'm supposed to feel this like, very connected moment of like, oh my gosh, this is my daughter. And, it was interesting the like, a lot of women being like, oh my god, the first time you hold her it's going to be like, Magical. And a couple men. I remember I had one cousin that had just recently had a kid and was like, Oh my God, David, it's going to be amazing. Like this is your daughter. And he was so excited for me. And so I was a little bit like nervous going in there. And I remember thinking to myself like, Oh my gosh, I am nervous being made nervous on this like manly guy. That's like, uh, prides myself in being courageous and nothing ever makes me nervous. Yes. And there's like a eight pound little human in there that's making me nervous. And I went in and, uh, I mean they were really sweet to like have me be one of the first people that got to hold her. I remember just thinking like, Wow, she's so tiny.

Julia: And that was all he had to say about that. I think it's really easy to put pressure on moments that are supposed to feel so big, like holding your biological child for the first time. But the reality is, not everything that's meaningful will feel meaningful in the moment. Some things take time. One thing I've learned from watching my friends have babies is that people like to project a lot of big feelings onto that experience.

Oh, you're going to fall in love with your baby the moment they come into the world, breastfeeding is the most magical thing you could ever imagine. These types of stories can make people feel lonely. Like we're having a different experience than what people say you're supposed to have. So there's something wrong with us.

This happens to donors too. People think we'll be too attached or sad that the kids are not ours, but that's just not always the case. And talking to David about this helped reassure me. Whenever I meet the twins, whatever I feel will be just right. Refamulating begins with letting go of expectations.

When we come back, we'll hear about the reality of Kat, Emily, and David's family.

Quinn is now two years old. The last couple of years, Kat and Emily have been in new mom mode, caring for an infant, now a toddler. They've also been navigating another layer that exists in their family. What does David's involvement look like?

Emily: Wanting to be sensitive with Dave and be like, okay, if we post a picture of Quinn, does he want to be tagged in it? Does he want this associated with his identity? And I think that we really wanted that to be able to shift depending on where he is and meet him where he is.

And so for me, Just being, like wanting to be very sensitive of that and who I tell even because our social circles are so intermersed as well. I mean he's single right now if anyone out there is listening, but We're like perpetually trying to be matchmakers for him because he's so great.

But I think for me it was hard to kind of understand. It's like, okay he had concerns about his dating and what that might mean if he has a bio kid out there in the world, and explaining that, and does he need to explain that, and, that was, like, challenging for me to be sensitive, I think, at first, to that, um, cause I'm like, oh, I wanna scream from the top of buildings that we have this beautiful kid, and it's like, okay, what Which we can still do, we just don't have to connect Dave to it.

Yeah, yeah, I remember, like, we were at some party, And I had announced that, like, not even really thinking. Do you remember? Yeah. And I was like, oh, and he's our donor. And we were honoring Dave at the event. And it was like, oh! Obviously not everyone knows that. Wow. That maybe was a big joke. I mean, I think it's pretty common now.

Catherine: And I think he likes it now. Mm hmm. Cause she's so cute. That helps. But, um, I think at the beginning it was just, like, how he was concerned, how it was gonna affect his dating, and if women would see him differently. But I think he's gotten enough people being like, oh, we think it's the coolest thing, and it's not a, it's not, it shouldn't be seen as a threat. And anyone that would see it as a threat, this is what other people have said to him, is like, I don't think that that would be your person. 

Julia: For David, it's not just about worrying that people he's dating might have a problem with this situation. It's also that talking about this in public at first meant he had to explain the whole situation. And when Quinn was first born, he was still practicing that.

David: I remember I was at a friend's house and she must have been a month old, maybe not even. And at that party, there was maybe like 20 people. It was just daytime. We were out by the pool and maybe two of the people there. I had told already and one of them just like across the party just goes Hey, do you have that kid yet? And the other 18 just like heads jolted me like single David like what is John talking about? And I'm like, yep, and I think everybody else thought That this was like some joke between us and, uh, and he's like, that's awesome. How's she doing? And of course people are just like, try to comprehend, like, wait, they're still talking. Is this a joke or is this for real? And this one of the other guys looks at me and goes. Wait, you had a kid? And I was like, yeah. And they're like, oh, wow, so you're a father. And I was like, well... And he's like, well, do you have a kid or not?

And I was like, I have a biological kid. And he's like, then you're a father. And so it's very interesting people's stance on this. They're like, this is my stance that like, if there is a child out there that's biologically yours, you're a father. Uh, and, and so that's the part where I'm like, what am I, a father? 

Julia: When I first met David at that group dinner, the thing that made me want to record our conversation was when he brought up this subject, how he defines a father. He broke down the word into three different roles, which really helped me categorize myself as a fairy godmother better. David views these three roles of a father like a buffet.

Some people take on one of those roles or two or all three.

David: One being biological, two being a role model, and three being a parent. And so, in my situation, I'm a biological father. And I'm a role model, but I'm not a parent. Because I'm not there doing the day to day stuff. A stepfather could be... A role model and could be parenting, but he's not biological or a stepfather could be parenting, but not a role model. Maybe the kids hate him and don't want to have anything to do with him, but he's still there parenting. And then sometimes there's biological fathers that are not parenting and are not role models. 

And so then you have like a stepdad where the kids might be like, yeah, that's my dad. And so, does that make that person the father? I would say so. And they probably consider themselves the father. Especially, you know, in these situations where they've been in the kid's life when they're really young. And so, I kind of came up with the framework of like, Okay, well, right now I'm a donor. I'm David to Quinn. At some point down the road, if she decides to declare me dad, then I'll be dad. But, that's really up to her to decide. 

They've been pretty open that like, as soon as she asks, it's going to be like, Oh, they know that guy that's hanging around all the time that sometimes babysits you. That's your dad. or your biological father, your bio dad, right? So however they want to reference it.

It's like dad, father, they're like pretty much synonymous, but like there needs to be another one, another word that's like makes these things clear in the English language. And maybe in other languages, there's more words to do these things to describe these things. 

Julia: Now that Quinn is here, there are other parts of their relationship to navigate besides semantics. David, Cat, and Emily are all very good friends and live in the same city, so navigating their boundaries has been important. 

David: I remember pretty early on there was something where they were like, I literally had like every night free except like this one thing, one night that I really wanted to do. And they were like, can you babysit? And it's that time. And I felt some pressure to be like, Oh, I, I should say yes to this. And I remember thinking like, okay, well, if we're here, we're like two or three months into this and I'm already Compromising what we had discussed in terms of expectations because like I'm feeling pressure That like, Oh, like I'm this very important role in her life.

And so I need to make myself available. And I thought, well, that wasn't what we discussed ahead of time. And like, if I'm already going to make that sacrifice now, then maybe that's not setting the right precedent. So like. I responded to them and said, like, that's the only time I have something, like, I will babysit for her any other night this week, just let me know.

it's challenging just for me, personally, internally, because... I want to show up for people, especially people that close to me. And I felt like they were asking me and I wanted to be able to do it.

 The part that was great was their response. I was like, that's fine. Like, there's no, there's no expectation, you don't have to and so that was cool. And that like made me feel way more comfortable and so the relationship between us on it is great. 

Julia: The boundaries go both ways. Cat and Emily had to decide what environment they wanted to create in their family between their daughter and her biological dad. 

Emily: There was a time where Dave was, like, I could tell he maybe wanted to be over more, or wanted to be introduced to Quinn more often, and we were just, like, Hey, just like let us know if you want to stop by and he was really like waiting for us to be like, hey We want you here during these times but then once we were like Hey If you like are in the neighborhood and you want to feel like you want to come by just like tell us Yeah, and so I think once we started opening our communication more where he felt like invited to do things like that I think that's when things like in terms of our connection got even closer. So that was pretty cool. But obviously like we're in a unique scenario we're not like a one fits all and and coming in with the expectation of like If it's a known donor, like, they may or may not be involved. And for us, like, we sort of chosen that we're open to it, and then it's working. Um, but life has ebbs and flows, and like, you know, there's different circumstances.

David: And I thought that was also really cool of like really making it clear that like the doors open for me to be as involved as I want to be. Obviously, if I really start pushing the envelope, they might push back, but knowing that, like, I've been trying to make sure I don't step over any boundaries, for example, um, you know, if there's stuff like around parenting that maybe I would think I would do differently, I've just been like, like, that's how they're choosing to do it.

 So I think they've, you know, probably felt that and recognize that like I've been not pushing anything, but then inviting me in to spend more time with her and be more involved if I want to, which has been really cool. We're definitely in alignment on Um, on how we're not co parenting, but co like, I don't know, co familying. 

David: music

Julia: words, I have to say I really love that one, co familying.

So, I experienced something big and unexpected when I donated my eggs. A total shift in my own desire to have kids. 

For many years, I just assumed I'd have children of my own one day. So, I waited and searched and waited to meet that special someone who would get me pregnant. But the years went by and no one showed up.

I started experiencing an anxiety that I think many women feel with each passing birthday. I saw the window of opportunity for biological kids closing and the pressure kept building. I felt this sense of doom, failure. But then when I donated my eggs, suddenly it felt like the pressure valve that had been building inside of me It was released.

I didn't meet a romantic partner. I didn't get pregnant, but my body helped to make babies. It's almost like the biological clock stopped. I still feel it, but it doesn't rule me anymore. The curiosity about kids is there, but the pressure it's gone. I feel more relaxed now about partnership and kids. My entire future feels more expansive.

And so I wondered how this experience might have changed David's view on becoming a parent himself.

David: I think as I've gotten older, I've gone from like definitely wanting my own kids to being like maybe 50 50 and my answer now is usually like, well, I don't know. I don't have a partner. Like I would need a partner and then me and her would need to decide that together. And so that's been my stance.

I started thinking just in like the last two days, like, wow, there's so many people that want to have a kid. And then they struggle with this, like, do I want to give up the life that I have now? At least, you know, in, in my circle, you know, as I've gotten into my mid to late thirties, and there's more people that they've, you know, you get a decade of living out on your own, and traveling, and doing all these fun things, and you're like, oh, I'm gonna commit to having to give up a lot of that for years and years with a kid.

And I realized, I was like, wait, did I hit the jackpot that like I can have a biological kid. I can go hang with her whenever I want. But then if I want to go to Europe for a month I can just go do that. Now I'm sure I would love my kids and they'd be amazing and I'd be like, oh I, you know, don't regret any bit of it, but that's the human experience is like you always, you know, are happy with whatever choice you make because otherwise we'd be miserable.

Julia: When the three of them decided to have a baby together, there were many unknowns about how their family would look and function once Quinn arrived. While there have been challenges and times when they've had to navigate new things, all three of them say, the one thing they didn't expect was how big and loving the family they would create would feel.

David: My sister doesn't have kids of her own, I don't have kids of my own. And so my parents have this grandkid now, and so Catherine and Emily have been great about including my family. My sister's an aunt now. This is the bonus family. So Quinn is lucky to have three sets of grandparents, has an extra aunt. Uh, and my parents are actually the ones that spend the most time here. So they've been the ones that have been able to help out the most with babysitting and they love it. So that's a huge bonus and gift that like, I wasn't expecting that to be the case when we, when I said yes to them. So that's been really cool. 

Emily: I'm from Indiana, and I don't have my family here, and Kat is from Ireland, Dave's parents., they've shown up in a big way, and they split time between here and Connecticut, So, there's this whole bonus family, and, like, even to the extent of, like, we had a registry, and we're like, Who are the, like, we're getting gifts from people, we're like, Who are these people? And they're like, Oh, you know, that's, uh, Dave's dad's best friend from high school, from forever, for 25 years, and we're like, This is so cool! Like, we, Like, we have all these, like, it was just wild, um, the people that came out of the woodwork. It was so, so cool. 

Catherine: Yeah, we were also so, we were like, how are you explaining this to these family members? I was so curious. But, yeah, his parents have been amazing, and his sister lives in Austin, and she actually, um, started fostering six weeks after Quinn was born, and so now we have this, kind of like a cousin dynamic, the, the girl that she had, she fostered is six, and Quinn knows her and she knows, and they're so Quinn together. They're sweet together. So cute. And they both sort of came into our world at the same time, even though they're different ages. 

You know, maybe Dave will have par other kids in the future, but right now this is their first like biological grandchild. And so, you know, I think at the beginning, right before Quinn was born, they sort of were a little cautious around what to say. And we were like, the more, more people love this kid, the better. And so we're, we're just thinking like, Oh yeah, this, we now have an extra set of grandparents. 

Julia: When Kat was talking about the love she has for her family and bonus family, she mentioned a popular phrase many of us have heard, that blood is thicker than water. Many of us have understood this to mean that we have a stronger bond with the people we share DNA or blood with. But the actual meaning, in Old Testament language, actually means the opposite.

Catherine: The original saying is, blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, which essentially means that your chosen people in your life Should be considered higher than your blood relatives. And so when I think of family, I think of, like, Dave and Emily. And, like, the people that I've chosen that, like, share my, my values that are in my life. Of course I have my, like, blood relatives, but I, I like the idea that you can choose your family. So we have Dave, and we have Dave's sister, and she's fostering. And then we have Dave's parents, and we have Emily. And it's just all these people that, you know, I, I didn't grow up and have known me my whole life. And... We've just created this new reality, um, that none of us had before, which is pretty amazing. 

Emily: Family means the folks that show up for you. Right? It's the people that are there in the moments where you're vulnerable, and you're not necessarily feeling strong, and And those who also want to celebrate you fully. I think Cat and I have been really lucky to have supportive family. That's not the story for a lot, a lot of these configurations, right? And so we feel like incredibly blessed to have that. And yeah, we're, we're learning what it means to be family, and so for me it means showing up and for each other, and, I mean, we've, we've been through a lot of transitions and a lot of new, new and exciting things, and it can be exhausting, and it's like, how you show up when you are exhausted.

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David: We went to this wedding, my parents babysat for Quinn for like four days while we were at this wedding out of town. And... I remember being there, it was like the second night, it was like a multi party wedding, like just lots of events with everybody. And I'm just standing, talking to this guy, I just met for the first time.

He's like, oh, so who'd you come with? And I looked across and, and saw Catherine and pointed at her and I said, oh, I came with my family. And I thought, oh, that's so cool, like they are family. And that, that was the moment I realized that like, Oh, I had done this thing is like, for my friends, I didn't expect that they were going to become family, like we're going to become so close and, and now they are.

Julia: Thank you to David, Kat, and Emily for sharing your story with us. And thank you for listening to Refamulating. Next week, we'll hear a story of refamulating brought to you by the results of a DNA test. 

Alexis Hourselt: I called my sister. And I said, I just got my DNA results back and it's saying that dad isn't my dad. And it's saying that I'm black. 

Julia: you definitely want to hear it. And we want to hear how you're refamulating. If you want to share your family's story, send us an email or a voice memo to hello at refamulating dot com.

You can also send us a message on Instagram at refamulating. If you like this podcast, please share it with someone. You can also write us a review. We want everyone who's refamulating to be able to find us. We also have a newsletter every month. We send out a list of books, podcasts, articles, and other resources that talk about refamulating topics.

Our sub stack is also a place to get bonus content. If you become a paid subscriber that is linked in our show notes. As an independent podcast, we're also super grateful for any financial support. You can make a donation at our website, refamulating. com. Refamulating is hosted by me, Julia Winston.

Claire McInerney is our executive producer. Grace Berry is our manager of engagement. Nadia Hamdan gave us editorial support on this episode. This episode was mixed and scored by Josh Gilbert. Our theme music was composed by Luke Topp. Refamulating is a production of the Feelings Co. Network.

05: Are You My Llama: Creating a blended family after divorce

Lauren always knew she wanted a family. The way she imagined it, she’d meet a great guy, get married, and have babies. But when she finally met Dan in her late 30s, that’s not how it happened. Dan was a divorced dad with two small kids, so their family became a blended one. Lauren’s transition from Lauren to Mama (aka Llama), led her on a journey to grieve her single life, learn her new role as a bonus parent and grapple with her least favorite word: step-mother. Along the way she gained more love than she ever imagined was possible. 

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

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Julia: In May 2019, Lauren hosted her last birthday party for herself at her San Francisco apartment. She was 36 at the time, and was about to leave the city to move three hours away, near Lake Tahoe. This party was a chance to say goodbye to her friends...the city...and also to the apartment. 

Lauren: That was my home. I made it my home. It had my artwork up in it. It had furniture I had gotten second hand and I just loved it so much. And while I was very excited to move into this new beautiful house, I really had to say goodbye to 90 Castro. 

Julia: Lauren moved in in her late 20s, when she first came to California. She lived in that apartment for 8 years, evolving and changing into the person who was now ready to move to Lake Tahoe. 

Lauren: I invited people over people that were meaningful, um, parts of that journey, and it was really beautiful to have the energy and to have the people and to say goodbye to 90 Castro, as that was the end of that chapter

Julia: Lauren's party was about more than this apartment. 

Her move was about more than a new city and a new house. 

Lauren's party marked the end of her single, child-free life.

The reason she was moving to Tahoe was to move in with Dan, the man she would eventually marry. And Lauren was SO excited about that! 

But... Dan was divorced with two small kids. So moving in with him meant she was stepping into a new role in someone else's family.

In the four years since Lauren said goodbye to her apartment and started her life with Dan, the two of them have done what forty percent of all married couples in America do: they created a blended family. 

These days, Lauren and Dan are married. They raise Dan's two kids half of the time. And they've had a child of their own. Their blended family is full of love, and naturally, there are also challenges. Some of their challenges are unique, and some come from the sheer fact of being a blended family - a new family unit that has formed in the wake of another family unit falling apart. So co parenting, raising children with different parents and stepping into the role of step-parent is nuanced.

I'm Julia Winston, and this is Refamulating, a podcast that explores different ways to make a family. Today, Lauren and Dan walk us through some of the nuances that come with a blended family. 

Which starts, of course, with their love story. 

Lauren grew up in North Carolina, where her family all lived in the same town. Most of the women she knew got married and had kids. So as she became an adult, she too imagined having a family of her own. But after a big heartbreak in her mid-20s, she took a break from dating. Instead, she traveled abroad to Ecuador, Columbia and Israel for most of her 20s and focused on short lived flings.

Lauren: I came back to the United States and my siblings had kids and a lot of the women I grew up with were married and having families and all of a sudden I think I felt behind. That I really wanted a family. I wanted a partner and family and dating became something else after that. Became another job.

Julia: Oy. I know that feeling of being single and feeling behind. I know it well. Anyone else know that feeling? (sigh) Anyway, dating started feeling like a job for Lauren because she was serious about meeting people. She told her friends to set her up. She used dating apps. Some weeks, she went on multiple first dates. And while some of these dates turned into relationships, none of them felt serious enough for marriage or kids.

Lauren: This was kind of in my early thirties and I would have boyfriends for about a year And then often it was mutual where we'd be like, this is it. This is great. You're great. But this isn't how I see my future. Even though I often knew, well, that's not the right person for me. There was still sadness for me becaus e I felt like this family oriented person without a family. I felt behind, like everyone was partnering, having families, and I was measuring myself against this really traditional measuring stick, which I had never previously done. And when I use that measuring stick, I was falling short. 

Julia: Those damn measuring sticks can really feel like they’re beating you into the ground, right? It's so hard to feel like you’re not measuring up, whether it’s about being single or some other fundamental part of your life. You can't force a husband and kids upon yourself...you have to be patient! (God! Patience! Oof! Such a tough one). So for much of Lauren's dating life, she was also working on accepting her life as it was. Her therapist at the time pointed this out... 

Lauren: And I remember she asked me, let's say you never meet a partner and never have kids. What are five things you need in your life to be happy? And I don't remember exactly what I said, but I probably mentioned a career I love, hobbies that excite me, a great community of friends, strong relationship with my family, exciting travel adventures, things like that. And I focused on those things.

I think people would say I was really good at like putting myself out there, letting people know they could set me up and sometimes going the extra mile to meet someone. But in the meantime, I did eventually have to let go of that measuring stick and say, you know what I'm doing pretty good. Like I don't need that traditional measuring stick where I'm gonna be falling short.  Let me use this alternative measuring stick and a sense that I could feel really good about myself And where I was at in life. 

Julia: While Lauren navigated this tension of...how did she phrase it? "being a family oriented person without a family"....Dan was 200 miles away navigating the opposite situation. He was married with kids. 

Dan: I guess I always grew up with, um, this very traditional ideology, as of get out of high school, go to college, find a partner, have kids, build a life together. Very, very kind of traditional. Um, image of that's just what you did.

Julia: Dan grew up with this traditional ideology about family, but his family wasn’t traditional. He grew up a child of divorce, and the situation was…complicated. 

His dad and stepmom had majority custody, and he saw his mom about once a month. There was a lot of tension amongst the adults, and Dan felt that as a kid.

But since he lived with his dad and stepmom most of the time, he subscribed to their traditional views of family. So when he was in his mid-20s and moved to the Lake Tahoe area, he met a girl, and got married.

Dan: I did fall in love for sure. Um, but I think I was also very stubborn at the time. And just, uh, determined to make a relationship work. I think our relationship was fine. I didn't really know or have a whole lot to compare it to. It was really my only long term relationship I had ever been in. Um, I didn't know that much about being a partner and what that looks like, and I was just learning in my, my early thirties what it means to be a father, a partner, uh, and kind of all those things. And fast forward, uh, I was together with my ex for, I think, twelve or thirteen years, and we were married for eight. Eight and a half years, and there was a lot of, uh, inter family stress and friction between her and my parents. Um, and that is not the only reason that we, uh, split up, but definitely that was a major cause of stress for us in our relationship.

Julia: Dan and his wife got divorced, for reasons that frankly aren't our business. And just FYI, we didn't interview Dan's ex-wife, because we’re focusing on Dan and Lauren’s experience of creating a blended family. So you won’t hear from her in this episode, but we want to acknowledge that her role in this family is important.

When Dan got divorced, it forced him to really think about relationships and whether he'd want to be married again.

Dan: Going through my divorce, I feel like is when I really started to do the soul searching and the personal work and the exploration and explore what is it to be happy and what is a relationship, what should it look like. And discovered Brene Brown who really kind of changed who I was as a person and went from being a very private person who always had a smile on and everything was fine to being a very, very vulnerable and open person and kind of wearing my emotions on my sleeve and walking into situations and And sharing marbles, as Brene Brown would say.

Julia: What does it mean to share marbles?

Dan: She has this term called marble jar friends. And basically, when you share stories with somebody, You are sharing your marbles, and in return, people will share their stories with you and share their marbles. And over time, you have these jars with your friends names on them, and they have all their marbles in them. And it's the people, really, who had collected the most jars with the most marbles and built the most relationship, meaningful relationships, real relationships. Um, those are the folks who were really the happiest and, and the healthiest later in life. 

In reading Brene Brown and understanding that it really revolves around shame. And, and having internal shame and not wanting to share that stuff because you're ashamed of it. I remember going on a trip with, uh, a ski trip with a half a dozen of my closest friends. And we were in Canada for two weeks together. And we get home and, uh, Two weeks later, I moved out from my ex wife and I, I was at a bar with a bunch of friends, you know, later, just a day or two later, and I told them that we were splitting up and I had moved out, and they were shocked that we had just spent two weeks together in the mountains, and I did not say one peep about, um, kind of the situation of my relationship, and, and these are friends who, you know, I'd known for, since I'd moved to Tahoe for, for, A dozen plus years.

And that's when it kind of struck me that living a life without sharing, and without being vulnerable, and with hiding your shame, was a little bit meaningless and a little bit soulless. And I, I kind of almost overnight, um, changed as a person and, and started going to situations and saying, Hey, my name is Dan, I'm divorced. My brother was in jail, I have this, I have that, whatever it is. And just kind of walking into a room with your hand out full of marbles. And some people would embrace that and they would turn around and grab their bag of marbles and want to share back with you. And those are the people who have since, in the past five years, um, become my, my absolutely closest friends. 

Julia: A few months after Dan and his ex-wife started the divorce process, he got the chance to share some of his marbles with Lauren. His brother invited Dan to come visit in San Francisco.

Dan: I did not know, but it was, um, it was a setup, and they had also invited Lauren, who they knew through, uh, the synagogue and the Jewish community. 

Lauren: I got a text from Dan's brother, whom I was well acquaintanced with. I but they, I think this was the very first text I ever received from him. And it said, Hey, my brother's coming to town. I'm getting a fun group of people together for dinner. Can you join? So I of course knew this was a set up. I got set up all the time. 

Dan: There was, uh, five of us. And we went and hung out at a friend's house and then we all went out to dinner and immediately Lauren and I started chatting about Brene Brown and Connection and, you know, a conversation that I probably would not have been capable of having even just a year or certainly two years before that.

Lauren: Right away I just thought he was adorable and looked so out of place in the city. He was like this mountain man in the city coming to hang out. So I really didn't know anything about him. And in front of him, Jen asked me, Lauren, could you date a man with kids? And I said, sure, I could date a man with kids as long as he wanted to have more. 10 minutes later, Dan starts talking about his kids. And at the end of the evening, Dan asked if he could get my number. I got a text. Either that night or in the morning that said, you're super cool. I'd love to see you again. 

Dan: I found out that she was going to Burning Man for her first time. And I was going also that year, it was not my first time. And we kind of stayed in touch and exchanged some texts over the next month or so. And then we kind of had our first date on the playa. 

Lauren: We had a lovely first date at burning man, where he came and picked me up and we explored art on the playa. And I really thought he was just for fun You know, he had just gotten separated. He had two kids. There was also several other guys I was connecting with at Burning Man. And while he was my favorite by far, you know, he had two kids. He lived hours away. I wasn't necessarily expecting what was going to happen next, which was when I left Burning Man after having hung out with him a couple times, I received a slew of very romantic, sweet text messages from him. And of course, which he asked when he could come see me again, which was Probably the next week or two. He came to San Francisco to see me and That's when I knew things were for real

Julia: This first visit wasn't a playful night out between two people who just met. Lauren says it was clear right away that they had serious feelings for each other. 

Lauren: I'll go ahead and tell you a fun detail that's slightly embarrassing. I told him he could come visit me as long as he didn't expect a sleepover. And um, we had a lovely time together, but when I asked him to leave that evening, he, um, you know, asked why. And I said, well, it's a late night. I have work the next day and like, I don't want to get too attached. And he, um, became tearful and said, but I want you to be attached. I'm already attached. 

Lauren: And so that was when I was like, okay, we're together. This is, this is it. This is for real. And it was, it was just, it just flowed after that. It just was so easy being with him and that's what was so different about my other relationships. I felt like I dated extraordinary men who were wonderful people who treated me very well. But it always felt like work. It felt hard. The relationships felt hard. And from day one, even though Dan had kids, even though he was in the middle of a divorce, even though he lived, you know, over three hours away in a cold place, and I do not like to be cold, A relationship was easy. Being with him was easy. Communicating with him was easy. And it was just like letting nature take its course. It was letting the river flow.  

Julia: Lauren and Dan have fallen in love, and are in a full on, Brene Brown approved relationship. Dan has custody of his kids half of the time, so they mostly see each other on the weeks when he’s not in dad mode. But it was important to Dan that the kids and Lauren met early on.

About six weeks after their first date at Burning Man, Dan and his kids were visiting his brother again near San Francisco. 

Lauren: When I met his kids, it was super casual. I was just meeting them as a friend. My roommate was having this huge pancake brunch in Golden Gate Park. And I even texted Dan, you know, if you want, bring the kids, it'd be great to meet them. And then he walks up with his two adorable children in a wagon and my heart just melted 

Dan: and I just introduced her to my kids as a friend, and immediately they, I don't know, they recognized her as a sparkly, sparkly jewel. And they kind of, my daughter especially, grabbed her and took her off into the woods and they started chasing fairies and, um, Actually a funny story was my, my six year old, uh, we live in the woods and she has, um, no qualms with going to the bathroom in the woods. And there we were in, uh, Golden Gate Park and she grabs Laura and they're off in the woods and she says she has to poop. And so there she is, and she just drops her pants right there behind a tree, and I think she said something like, make sure no boys are coming, and she pooped right there behind a tree. And Lauren was just completely caught off guard, had no idea what to do. Um, and it was just kind of a funny situation. And so then I saw what was going on, I went over there and helped rescue her. 

Julia: Nothing like a good poop moment to seal the deal, right? (laugh) At least it was a kid who was doing the pooping and not one of the adults! 

Dan’s kids were 4 and 6 at the time, which Lauren recognizes made it a little easier to connect. The six year old daughter opened up to her right away, but Lauren says it took a little bit longer with Dan’s younger son.  

Deciding when to introduce your kids to a new partner is different for everyone. Lauren and Dan both agree bringing the kids into their relationship early was what was best for them. 

Lauren: You know, there's a lot of advice out there for parents with kids not to introduce your kids to your partner until it's till later on, and I just completely disagree with that. Of course, I'm sure it's circumstantial, but for me, I met his kids very early on and I fell in love with him and his children at the same time. I fell in love with him as a dad, which is who he is. And I think that advice really robs people of that opportunity and doesn't set their relationship up for success. I think it was really easy to fall in love with someone who was a dad, who had that nurturing part of him, who loved his kids and prioritized his kids. You know, a lot of times you fall in love with somebody who you think is going to be a great dad, but I already had proof. And it was a really big part of who he was. 

Dan: I've had other friends who have, uh, similar situations, they were divorced, and they had kids, and they met somebody, and they kind of lived two separate lives, where they would have this new partner, and the new partner would not meet the kids. And they would have a lovely fling and relationship and whatever. But it was always kind of just a vacation and I think, um, with Lauren, you know, I, I didn't want it to be a vacation. I wanted her to know who I was and, and my kids were, um, obviously a very big part of who I was and it's, it was kind of a non negotiable as well. Like, I wasn't gonna get in a relationship with anybody who wasn't going to embrace me for who I was, embrace my kids, and want to play a significant role in raising them and being their stepmother.

Julia: But they didn't jump right into Lauren being a stepmother. Things progressed slowly over a year. Lauren and Dan spent a lot of time together when he didn't have the kids, and when he did, they had Lauren meet up with them at restaurants and public places.

Lauren: We were intentional in terms of having it be gradual with me being around the kids. And I remember I met up with them at a pizza place and Dan sister was there too. And Leora was telling me, go, go talk to daddy, go talk to daddy. And she was like writing little notes in a book that said like big L heart, little L. And when I left her, she said, are you sure you don't want to spend the night and stay tonight? You can stay forever. That was amazing. And then the first time I did stay the night when she was there, we took her to school on Monday and she gave me a little stuffed mouse and said, Don't forget about me. And so I just, you know, I fell in love with his kids as I was falling in love with him. 

And I had never felt that type of love from children before. And To start seeing Leora Jude on a regular basis and the means so excited to see me When I was with their dad just brought so much more joy and meaning to my life to get to be A part of children's lives. 

Dan made it easy. It wasn't like I had these responsibilities with his kids. He just always told me like, I just want you to be a good role model. cause I didn't really know how to be around kids. Like I didn't want to wipe their snotty noses and I didn't, you know, like I didn't want to, uh, discipline them or anything like that. So I was. I feel like in the beginning, my relationship with them was very much like a fun auntie. You know, I would read to them and I would play with them and I got to be a fun auntie with them. 

Julia: A year and a half into their relationship, Dan proposed to Lauren. She slowly started moving in with him, but held on to the San Francisco apartment. And when she finally let it go, it was harder than she expected. 

Lauren: When these things became official and I let go of my apartment and I was living in a home with children and I was planning to expand our family, I realized I had become attached to my identity as a citizen single woman, a successful single woman who had a career, who had a community, who went out a lot, who got takeout a lot, who went out dancing. And these, I remember specifically being like I'm not going to have any stories to tell anymore because all my funny stories had to do with random flings and funny dates. And I loved that part of my life, telling funny stories about my ridiculous dating love life. And I was just like, that's that part of me is over. 

And humor aside, I needed to really intentionally step into a new chapter of my life while honoring the previous chapter in a way that felt good. 

I have this amazing women's circle and I remember bringing it up with them and sharing how I was feeling. And they supported me in a way where I remember one woman sent me songs for this transition of my life to listen to, and they just gave me an avenue to speak about it. I journaled about it and really sharing with other women that journey was a way I honored it that felt right for me.

Julia: so I'm in your women's circle and, and this is, you know, the reason I know your story and wanted to invite you to tell it is because I've been a witness to it. Over the many years and I was so inspired when you came to us and you you knew exactly you knew what you needed and you asked for it and that alone is an alternative measuring stick you were like, Hey, I am moving into a new chapter of my life and I've realized that I need to let go of, um, my single independent life as I start a family and you know, join a family and start a family and I'm actually sad and I'm grieving. Um, I'm excited about where I'm going and also I want to make space for the grief and the sadness of saying goodbye to the life that I've loved, known because I've loved it. Even though I was yearning for something more, now I've found that and now I have to actually say goodbye to what I had that I also loved. And I really was just amazed at, I witnessed a woman yearning and stepping into her desire and it also grieving, it really showed me the range and the breadth of one person that it can all be true at one time. And I saw that as a model. 

Julia: This tension that lies in that space between losing something familiar in order to gain something new is at the heart of many refamulating experiences. For many of us creating quote unquote non-traditional families, we’ve had to let go of something. 

Maybe that's just letting go of expectations or ideas about what your family will look like. I can relate to that one. But sometimes..it means letting go of people. Dan's divorce created a big loss for his children- the loss of their parents living in one home- so Lauren and Dan worked really hard to include the kids in every stop of their relationship.

When we come back, we'll hear about the joys and challenges of creating a blended family. 

Julia: Once Lauren moved in full time with Dan, the couple started preparing the kids for the changes that were coming. 

Lauren: I had reached out to a friend of mine via Facebook that I noticed was a stepdad just to get some advice on how it went for him. And he told me one of the most important things was having, that he, one of the things he wished he had done is had a nickname for the kids. And so llama was planted. It's like Lauren plus mama equals llama. And I wrote them books via some site where you pick the characters and you can write a book. And in the book is the story of how I met each kid. And so I gave it to Leora maybe on her eighth birthday, but it's the story of Llama and Leora and it ends with I can't wait to make it official. And so she has that and I made one for Judah as well.

And then there was this whole thing where it was, Oh, when we get married, it's going to be official. And so I think having that momentum of we're engaged, there's going to be a wedding. This is going to be official, really solidified us as a family before we were actually married because we didn't get married for until years later because we waited until after the pandemic. 

Julia: The kids were excited about Lauren and Dan getting married. But Dan grew up in a blended family, and he knew that he, his ex-wife, and Lauren would have to work really hard to make sure that any conflict amongst the adults didn't impact the kids. 

Julia: What did you learn from your own blended family growing up that influenced your decisions as you've started to blend and build family with Lauren?

Dan: Uh, I think the importance of the relationship with their stepmom and how to cultivate that so that they have a close relationship, and Lauren is just amazing at doing that already as, as, as the person that she is. And I think the importance of, um, encouraging and promoting a healthy relationship, uh, with the kids, with their mother, and as much as possible making sure that it doesn't feel like they have, Uh, two separate lives, even though they do have two separate lives, it's, it's hard to avoid that.

I don't have an overly great relationship with my ex wife. Um, but I think the kids have done a really good job of adapting to going back and forth between two households. Uh, it's very, it's very different than what I had when I was growing up, certainly. And also the same dynamic when I was little between my dad and my mom and always trying to please both of them, which is, it's a lose lose situation. And so now, as much as possible, I really try to not put my kids in that same dynamic where it's trying to either make me happy, or their mom happy, or their stepmom happy, or somebody else, and try and not put them in the middle, um, and really try and encourage them to focus on their own happiness.

Julia: One way they keep the kids out of the middle is that Dan serves as the main liaison between all of the adults, so everyone has the same information.

Dan: I find sometimes making decisions, uh, in conjunction with either Lauren or, uh, my kid's mom independently, and just telling the kids this is what the decision is. So they're not actually put in a position where they need to make a challenging decision that they might not really be equipped to make as, again, they try and please both their parents, which I feel like every kid is going to always try and do. Um, as they seek love and, um, acceptance. Um, I feel like I was raised with a very conditional love. And especially, um, from my dad. And so that is something I'm very conscious of with my own kids. To try and make sure that they understand that the love is unconditional. And that they are enough and that I love them. And they don't need to do or succeed on whatever level for me to be proud of them. And, and love them unconditionally. 

Lauren: Dan is more the primary contact with their mom, they're the ones that are figuring out the schedule and she and I have met and had tea and coffee here and there to talk about the kids, but I think it's really important for Dan that he doesn't feel bypassed. Like in our home, he is the primary parent. It's important to me that the kids see um, me and their mom as allies, as friendly, as pleasant. It's easy enough to do that. You know, they do sense the tension and the conflict between their mom and dad. And I really try to stay out of it.

Julia: It's been four years since Lauren moved in with Dan and the kids. While she absolutely loves her role as Judah and Leora's llama, she's struggled with some of the assumptions that come with being a stepmom.

Julia: tell me your thoughts about the word stepmother.

Lauren: I think it's awful. I think it is so triggering. I think it's so hard not to have knee jerk negative reaction to it because of Disney and all the other things. It's really hard. And yet it is what I am and I'm called it all the time and there's no real reason why it needs to be negative. But I, I struggle with owning the term, although in certain circumstances it definitely feels like the most appropriate term to use. And the kids don't seem to have a negative connotation with it, although my stepdaughter was literally Snow White in a school play and literally said my evil stepmother's trying to kill me. 

Julia: why do you think that is?

Lauren: I mean, Cinderella, Snow White, I'm sure. There are some examples and I'm sure there's some sociological reason of society having a hard time with other women taking care of the children who still have their biological mothers and sharing that time. Hopefully it's changing. Yeah. There's the new term bonus mom that doesn't feel quite right either. Other mom, second mom, it's like you want a term that still acknowledges and respects the biological mother. 

A lot of step moms feel they can do no right because there's this dichotomy of oh, well, if you call them your step kids and you don't refer to them as your own children then you're not being loving enough. And then there's this idea that if you call them your children and you want them to call you mom or something like that, then you're being disrespectful to their biological mother and stepping on her toes. 

I remember sharing how excited I was by this really cute love letter that Judah wrote me and my friend just having this knee jerk reaction of, Oh, if I was his mom, I would hate that. And I'm like, okay, that's one way to look at it. Or if you are his mom, you can think that's great, he has another adult in his life who cares for him. Or you could also just look at it from my lens. And so there have been a few moments like that, that have been hard. And I think that often unconsciously people have this loyalty to a biological mother that would assume negativity around a stepmother that doesn't really bear much reality, so to speak, not for the kids. The kids don't feel like one love excludes another. And I think sometimes adults have a harder time with that than children.

So I just feel like you're constantly figuring out what your lane is. You don't want to overstep and disrespect their, their mother. Um, and you want to make sure they feel loved and nurtured and supported enough by you. And so I think sema  ntics can make that more challenging, but that, that's kind of playing in my mind a lot with the kids. 

Julia: This is why many of us come up with new names when we refamulate. We have such limited vocabulary for people who are close to us. Of course we’ve got titles for the usual suspects- mom, dad, aunt, uncle, cousin. For non-relatives we have friend...or best friend. We don't really have options for people you aren't blood related to. 

In my situation with the egg daddies, there was no title for "a woman we know who is donating her eggs and will spend time with our children but not act like a parent"....which is how we settled on Fairy Godmother. 

Titles and language can set the tone for an entire relationship. And Lauren has found that to be true for herself and the kids. 

Lauren: I love Llama because it feels good. Their teachers call me Llama. If their friends call me Llama, I like it. Llama is such a positive, fun, Word for us. It feels right. It feels full of love. You know, I call them my little apocas. They still use the term stepmom in, in context in certain situations. And that's totally fine. 

A lot of times I'll say I'm their step mom, they call me llama. And it's like, as soon as I let them, whoever, no, they call me llama. Then there's this autumn automatic. Oh, the kids must like you. Because I think I really think that people have this unconscious bias that most kids don't like their step mom. Or that most stepmoms don't like their stepkids. And so that's why that word triggers me. Because of an unconscious bias that often goes with it. And not by people who have necessarily experienced stepparents. Those people are often the most supportive. But people that have grown up in traditional families and haven't been that exposed to it.

Julia: Three years ago, Lauren and Dan took another step in blending their family. They got pregnant with a child of their own, something Lauren had wanted her whole life. They didn't know how the kids would react, so to tell them....

Lauren: we, uh, and had them watch the, the movie or documentary called Babies. It follows four different babies, their first year of life in four different cultures around the world. And so we watched that together. And then afterwards we said, Do you know why we watch this? And they had often asked me if I was going to have a baby, right? Like that was something they were curious and interested in. And so it was this nice, beautiful, like celebration with the kiddos afterwards. And, you know, they went to school the next day and like told their teachers and were really excited to celebrate it. Dan very respectfully did tell their mother before he told the kids so that she would learn about it from him first.

And it was a really exciting time, and I had a very beautiful, easy birth at a birthing center. Sophie Jean was born around midnight. And we were able to get home around seven in the morning so the kiddos could meet their baby sister before they went to school. And we didn't know if she was going to be a boy or girl and Leora was absolutely ecstatic that it was a girl. And I just remember so well seeing the kids see Sophie for the first time and how much they loved her. And how sweet it felt as a family for her to bring us all together even, uh, more unified.

Julia: And a new child changed the dynamic for everyone. 

Lauren: It gives a different rhythm, right? So one week when we have the big kids, we're a big family and it's louder and we have the big kids activities to attend to and Sophie just wants to be all up in their business all the time and play with them. And one thing that's really hard is when they're gone, she says their names a lot. She really misses them when they're not here. And when they are here, I feel like Dan and I Are really available to them and present to them. We try not to go off as much. And then when we don't have the big kids with us, it's easier for us to have our couple time and date time. 

Julia: What about step parenting prepared you for being a parent and what is totally different?

Lauren: think when you start spending more time with children, you realize how important patience is and staying calm and not getting triggered. Leora and Judah. I'm, I'm their third parent so to speak. They have two primary parents and I'm their third parent. And their safety in that. So the difference of the Sophie, I would just say, uh, I worry there's, uh, An anxiety or worry that I had never experienced before in my life. And when I became a mother of Sophie, that's kind of what felt different. You know, she was a baby, she was very vulnerable. It was me, like I was the first stop. And that is what felt different about parenting Leora and Judah. I have a specific role, like my role with them is very nurturing. It's, you know, they come to me when they need me. They also have two other great options to go to. And at this stage with Sophie being and so young, I'm often the first stop and that feels, that feels different.

Julia: Becoming a biological parent has also shown Lauren that while her duties as a step-mom are different, her dedication to all the kids is the same. 

Lauren: Just like any parent takes their parenting role seriously, I take my llama role just as seriously. It's such an important part of who I am, and these kids are gonna be a part of my life, my entire life. You know, I met Juta when he was four. It will be hard for him to remember a time when he didn't know me. And so when people ask me, are they your kids? Hell yeah, they're my kids. I'm raising them. 

And that is not any exclusion to their mother who birthed them, who raises them, who they have a secure, loving relationship with. And I think that's also what makes a blended family in my situation easier is there's no competition. There's no mom versus step mom. They have a wonderful relationship with their mom. They have a wonderful relationship with me and their dad. And I feel like people always want to kind of like pit the women against each other. And I think that in more cases than not, it is actually not that contentious. 

Julia: As we’ve established, a big part of refamulating is letting go of expectations. Most of us have ideas about what we want our family to look like. But the universe doesn’t always give us what we want. Sometimes it gives us something even more wonderful than what we expected. 

Dan: It's not really the life I envisioned when I was 20 years old, but it's a wonderful life and the kids are happy, healthy kids that love me, um, and love their, their step mom, their llama, uh, and have a lot of loving people around them. And so to me, that's a, that's a huge success and something I'm super proud of. 

I'm super proud of, of Lauren for being such a rock in their lives. And, um, really, there are situations that have come up where, uh, the kids actually go to Lauren to confide before they come to me or their mom. And so, uh, the role she plays for them is, is just got, um, is just so beneficial for them. And I'm proud of me, for kind of evolving and growing to a point where she would find me attractive and actually be willing to be my partner. Because, like I tell her, five years ago, or seven years ago, I was a very different person, and if we had met in our twenties, it would not have been a match.

Julia: I asked both Lauren and Dan, five years into blending their family, what advice they would give to someone else creating a blended family.

Dan: your kids are smart, and don't, don't try and hide to them. You don't, you don't have to show them every single card in the deck. But, uh, no matter what age they are, They're smart and they want to know what's going on and you just got to sit down and be real with them. They don't deserve to be your emotional punching bag, um, but they are along that journey with you and they do deserve to, to know what's going on and to know the people in your life and to know how you're feeling and to ask them how they're feeling and get their input. It doesn't mean you're going to do whatever your six year old kid says, but it's important to listen to them. And, and understand how they're feeling. 

Lauren: I remember Googling, you know, dating a man with kids when I got together with Dan and it was so negative. It was women saying run the other direction. And I think there is a lot of negativity out there about joining families. And I just needed to forge my own path with it. Because becoming their llama has been one of the greatest joys and delights of my life.

Lauren: I have many single girlfriends who I think would still be hesitant to enter into a blended family and it has worked out so beautifully for me that I can't help to be an evangelist on the topic because if you are in your mid to late thirties, early forties, and you're wanting a family. A lot of your options out there, the dating pool may be divorced men. And so I'm saying do not overlook them. A lot of divorced fathers have grown their nurturing muscles. They have been through a hard time. They know what they want. They're not afraid of commitment. And I've had friends say they're hesitant because they're not sure they need to come first and they're worried the kids will come first or they feel, how will they ever feel prioritized and loved enough?

You don't just get love from your partner, you're going to get love from the children too. If you enter into the family in a healthy, welcoming way and that love expands. And so I think it's so beautiful that when I entered in this relationship, my heart grew, not just for one person, but for three. And that's awesome. And I think. If more people can experience that, then it, there wouldn't be so much stigma for successful single woman to partner with a divorced dad because They're awesome. And of course, there are going to be some situations that are trickier dealing with Exes dealing with kids that might not be excited that their parent is dating So I understand that that exists I don't think there's enough emphasis on that possibility of that exponential love.

04: Professionally Pregnant: For this mom, being a surrogate is not a job, it’s a calling

When Jen was pregnant with her daughter, she had one of those unicorn pregnancies you never hear about in real life: she wasn’t tired or sick, and she felt energized by it all. But she and her husband didn’t want more biological kids, so Jen started thinking about how she could experience the magic of pregnancy again. That’s when she became a surrogate and found her life’s purpose. 

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Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

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Julia Winston: I'm Julia Winston, and this is Refamulating, a podcast that explores different ways to make a family.  

Kelly Clarkson: Congratulations. Oh my. You baby boy. Right? Thank you baby boy. Uh, 

Khole Kardashian: It definitely was, you know, just a different way. I did surrogacy. Yeah. 

Julia: In 2022, Khloe Kardashian went on Kelly Clarkson’s talk show and casually talked about having her second child via surrogacy. 

Khole Kardashian: it's amazing. I had reasons why I couldn't carry myself. Me too. Right. And it's, it's such a blessing that we have this. And I, my sister Kim had two babies through surrogacy. She had two that she carried on her own and her last two are through surrogacy. If it wasn't for Kimberly, I definitely don't think I would have been as comfortable. I wouldn't have been aware. I wouldn't have known as much. 

Julia: There is nothing particularly special about this interview, and I’m not a huge Kardashian fan. I play it because this kind of casual conversation about fertility and surrogacy on daytime TV…wouldn’t have happened even a decade ago. 

Many of us were told conversations around fertility and family planning were inappropriate, so keep that to yourself. But Khloe mentions that watching her sister, Kim Kardashian, use surrogates helped demystify the experience for her. 

The normalization of surrogacy seems to be becoming more widespread. Even if we don’t know someone who used one, there are more and more examples in pop culture. In the last few years, Paris Hilton, Crissy Teigan, Gabrielle Union and other celebrities have openly talked about their surrogacy experiences.

But all these celebrity examples only give us a glimpse of surrogacy from the perspective of the intended parent- a word you'll hear a lot in this episode that refers to the person or people who will raise the child. 

The main narrative we've been given about surrogacy is that it helps people who can’t carry babies or give birth, have biological families.

But what about the surrogates themselves? What are their stories? As someone who donated my eggs to help a same-sex male couple start a biological family, I was curious to learn more about the experience of the other key player in a refamulating scenario like mine - a surrogate. 

When I was asked to donate my eggs, I had to do a lot of personal reflection about my future relationship to these imaginary kids. People close to me, especially people who’ve had children, worried that I might get too attached. “I could never do that,” they said.

For me, being the source of DNA feels more like a cool connection to the kids, rather than an attachment. If I had been asked to carry the children, on the other hand, that would have given me pause. I could totally picture myself getting attached if I felt them actually growing in my body. 

But I've heard other people say that the opposite might be true, that sharing DNA with a child would make them feel more attached. 

It's obviously personal… but I wanted to dig into questions like this with someone who actually serves as a surrogate. What is it like to carry a child and do the intense physical labor on behalf of someone else? 

In my own experience, once I donated my eggs I wasn't really involved in the process, and didn't have a relationship with the surrogate the egg daddies used. So I wasn't privy to the ups and downs. 

But luckily...I found Jen. 

Jen: I just love the feeling of growing a baby, like being able to feel the baby moving in your stomach, just knowing that there's a life in there. It's just, I don't know, everything's just very magical. I have friends that get very sick in pregnancy and I completely sympathize. But for me it's, it's been such a positive experience. 

Julia Winston: Jen is 38, and has spent most of the last decade pregnant… or trying to get pregnant. That’s because Jen is a surrogate, and she’s given birth to five babies for other families.  

Jen lives in the mountains of Northern California with her two daughters, her husband and lots of animals- dogs, horses, chickens and peacocks- all together on their small ranch.

I had so many questions for Jen- because I felt like I could connect with her on some level. I know what it feels like to use your body to help someone else have a family. I also know how taxing it is to do IVF. But my situation was pretty different from what Jen does. I was helping a couple I was friends with, donating my eggs as a gift. Jen works with families she doesn’t know, carrying their babies as a form of paid work. 

But before surrogacy was even a twinkle in her eye, Jen built her own family. That started when she met her husband and quickly fell in love…

Jen: We fully committed to each other in January and in February we actually found out I was pregnant. So, we hadn't been expecting that and both of us just looked at each other and we're like, we want to keep it. You know, let's see where this goes. 

Pregnancy was really easy for me. Uh, I didn't have any of the side effects. I didn't actually believe that happened to women. I thought for sure you get the nausea, you get the aches and pains. And I didn't have any of that. My daughter was not a big kicker. So she was very gentle. And the whole process was just so calm and sweet. And I didn't expect that because you hear so many negative things about pregnancy and how hard it is on women. And it definitely can be. I just... was one of those lucky ones.

Julia: She even loved giving birth to her daughter. Things didn’t go exactly as she planned- her doula was late and her husband was nervous- but she felt empowered after the experience. 

Jen: I think it was a year or two later, and we just said, you know, I don't think we want to have another one of our own. We, we both have some funky biological background. I absolutely adore my daughter. She's just turned out to be an amazing kid. And so we thought, you know, some of the risks that our family has just biologically, we could be taking those same risks and be helping children that need a home or a temporary home at least. And so when we decided that we wanted to do foster care, we just talked about, and I told him, I said, I miss being pregnant. I really miss the feeling and I know I still can be.  

Julia: So Jen and her husband started fostering children, and eventually adopted their second daughter. While she and her husband were building their own family, a relative of Jen’s was also trying to have kids. He’s a gay man, and he used a surrogate. 

Like Khloe Kardashian, seeing someone close to her use a surrogate helped Jen understand what the process actually looks like. 

And that’s when something clicked. 

Jen could be pregnant again and she could do it for someone else. 

And so she became a surrogate, and her first pregnancy couldn't have gone better.

Jen: the whole thing was wonderful, but the actual labor and delivery was probably my favorite part. I think giving birth is so fun, I really do. Especially if you have a doula. I don't think I could do it without a doula. 

We had this funny little Hawaiian doctor. He was just, he was really cool. He played over the rainbow on his ukulele during the labor, and um, when I did give birth and the dads took that baby into their arms and they held him and they called him sunshine. It was like, it was very magical, very special, and I just felt lucky to be a part of it. 

Julia Winston: What role do you think that the success of that surrogacy played in you wanting to continue down this path? 

Jen: I think it made a huge impact, just how wonderful the intended parents were. They were nothing but... Sweet and kind to us. It's been 10 years and I'm still in touch with them. They send us a little gift every Christmas and we get their yearly letter. I know surrogates have had a much tougher first journey. And I think if I didn't have that connection with my intended parents that I really wanted, if I had just gone for an out of country couple that let's say, We had a hard time speaking the same language or something. For me, that just, that would have been a lot harder. I really wanted a connection and I, and that's exactly what I got.

Julia: Okay, let’s just rewind for a second though because, unsurprisingly, being a surrogate involves a lot of logistics. 

For Jen, the first step was to find an agency. The agency would match her with intended parents and handle all the logistics. 

After finding an agency, Jen had to go through a series of physical, genetic and psychological screenings to make sure she was a good fit to become a surrogate - I went through a similar process as an egg donor. 

But one thing that surprised me about surrogacy, is that most agencies want surrogates to have already had their own children. 

Jen: They always say you wanna be kind of done with your family if you're gonna be a surrogate. I've seen a lot of people that are very young go, oh, I wanna be a surrogate, but I've never had a child. Why won't they let me? Um, it's because there is a chance you could lose all your reproductive organs possibly and not be able to have another child. And there are surrogates out there that actually are now intended parents because of things like that. 

Julia Winston: Surrogates who ended up being unable to have children of their own and now require surrogates to help them have biological children?

Jen: Whether, whether they got remarried and decided, oh, you know what, I'm not done yet, or whatever it is. Yes, there is. 

Julia: After passing the initial screenings, Jen worked with the agency to find the right family. She knew she wanted them to be local so that they could go to doctor’s appointments together.

Jen: My very first couple was a gay couple because I requested a gay couple because the person I knew who had their child through a surrogate was a gay couple who had been trying, you know, to have children. And that was something that I really felt strongly about. My doula, she's a lesbian, she's one of my best friends. She had hopes of having children one day too. And so just being part of that community was important to me to be able to do that for the first time.

Julia Winston: The couple was trying to have their second child, and they were thrilled to be involved in every part of the pregnancy, which Jen loved. They went with Jen to doctor's appointments. They attended her oldest daughter’s birthday party and had their nanny watch Jen’s kids when the three of them went to OB appointments. She really felt loved and supported by this couple.  

This first pregnancy was also her introduction to the legal side of surrogacy. Before the IVF process began, Jen and the dads signed a contract explaining the terms of their partnership. The main purpose was to make sure the surrogate, and egg donor, have no parental rights over the child. But Jen says the contracts can also get more granular. 

Jen: You can add little things like I've had intended parents that don't mind if I dye my hair and I have intended parents I would prefer I don't dye my hair the whole pregnancy and some that would like me to not do it in the first trimester only. So all those little things get added to the contract and I think that's totally fine. You just have to make sure what you're putting in the contract is really important to you because something could cause a match to go wrong that maybe wasn't that important. You know, for me, I am very sensitive to my intended parents' needs, but I'm also very busy mom and I don't know if I could keep a journal about every time I exercised and every time I ate something and it, it's a little too much. I'm already a homeschool mom, , you know, I'm already doing my homework a lot. . 

Julia: This is, this brings up the whole topic of how much say an intended parent has over the body of another human being while they're pregnant with the intended parent's child. 

Jen: That was a big conversation recently in one of my surrogate groups. A intended parent was very upset that the surrogate did not want her to touch her stomach. And it was one of those things that some people are like, well, it is her baby, so why shouldn't she be able to feel her baby moving? And other people are like, well, that's the surrogate's body and you can't just touch people unwanted. And they were already very far into this pregnancy. 

For me, I wish that had been talked about ahead of time, but that's not something anybody in our groups had like even thought about. I think one side just assumed it would go one way and the other side just assumed it would go the other way. And nobody ever even thought to talk about it during a match meeting. But there are little things that you need to think about. They don't necessarily need to go in the contract. I wouldn't put: she can touch my stomach in the contract. That'd be a little bizarre. But just having that conversation and anything you wanna lay out on the table, you have to do it during the match meeting.

So the match meeting's important. Everybody wants to be polite at the match meeting. Everyone wants to say yes to everything, especially if the intended parent has been waiting. You know, some intended parents wait over a year for their surrogate, and if that match doesn't work, then they could be waiting another year. So don't say, you know, just, you can't say yes to everything. You have to really be true to yourself on if it's a good match or not. 

Julia: The legality of surrogacy varies wildly… depending on where you live.

It’s not even legal, or recognized, in most countries. The US is one of the few that allows surrogacy, and even then it changes depending on what state you’re in. Jen lives in California, which has some of the most supportive laws for both surrogates and intended families. 

Jen: I have heard there's lots of other states that are not surrogate friendly and that's when it gets scary. Here, when you get your birth certificate, it has the intended parents' name. My name is never on the birth certificate. It is not an adoption. It is very clear their children and we sign all the paperwork way ahead of time for that. In other states, it becomes more of an adoption, and your surrogate does have her name on the birth certificate, or you have, you know, you have to go to court and almost fight for your own child as an intended parent.

Julia: Here’s a very general overview of how that looks in the U.S. 

A handful of states, like Michigan, Louisiana and Nebraska, don’t recognize contracts for surrogacy. That means there are no legal protections for the intended parents or the surrogate if something goes sideways.

California, Nevada, Washington, Colorado and a handful of other states do recognize surrogacy contracts.

The rest of the states fall somewhere in the middle.

We have a link in our show notes if you want to learn about surrogacy laws in your state. 

Compared to other countries, the American surrogacy process focuses on making sure both the surrogate and intended parents have a say, and that the surrogate is properly compensated. There are also more medical requirements here than in other countries, which makes surrogacy in the U.S. pretty   expensive. 

Intended parents usually spend 50 to 100 grand on the process, but really the cost can get as high as 200,000. It all depends on the legal fees, if the family needs an egg donor, and all of the medical costs. So how much of that money goes to surrogates like Jen? 

Jen: That is an extremely common question. It's not the same as if you're working a full-time job. It's not, you know, the amount of hours that go into surrogacy is 24 7 for, you know, ideally 10 months. But at the same time, you know, my last one didn't stick, so we're having to try again. So I don't wanna give the exact amount because it really varies. A first time surrogate, you know, it can go in some states, I guess. Maybe $30,000, but I've heard of surrogates getting a hundred thousand in, you know, Hollywood or something like that. You know, it really depends on what the intended parents focus is. If they want an experienced surrogate, if they want a surrogate to follow a certain diet plan, you know, I've had surrogates that are supposed to write down in a journal every day what they exercised and what food they ate. And then there's other surrogates that, you know, things are a little more relaxed for.

So it, it's huge variation. Um, I don't know any surrogates that do it for the money, you know, you are supposed to show, especially with an agency that you are financially doing just fine. They do not want people in America doing surrogacy because they're desperate for money. Same reason they don't want anybody doing surrogacy, you know, that doesn't have a child Yet.. You know, you've gotta kind of have some boundaries on this to make sure that people are doing it for the right reason. There are altruistic surrogates that do it for no money other than, you know, like covering the hospital expenses and things like that. But it's a huge variation. I just like, I do wanna put out there that most surrogates really aren't doing it for the money. It's not that much money, like with the risks you're taking. 

Julia Winston: Yeah. It seems like you have to have a really strong sense of purpose and, and intrinsic motivation to do something like this, that the, the incentive is not the money.

Jen: I would think so. I mean, every surrogate I've, I've met really talks like I do about it. They, they did it for the experience more than anything, you know? And usually it's people like me that didn't have an absolute horrible time with pregnancy that love being pregnant or have like that connection like I do, where they saw a family member that was able to use a surrogate. So they have that in their heart. You know, it's not so much you wake up in the morning and you just go, oh, I feel like being a surrogate today. There's so much thought and research put into it before you do it. There's so many other ways to make a ton of money that, that you're not risking your body and taking time from your family and all those things. 

Julia: Jen mentioned the risks a few times- which is something I want to underscore. Giving birth in the U.S. has gotten more dangerous in recent years. The number of women who die during labor is growing, especially for Black women. The US is the only developed country with a growing maternal mortality number...

Also...more than a third of women have some sort of health issue after giving birth. These range from depression and anxiety to pain during sex to infertility.

Jen: There is a lot of risk of surrogacy, just like any pregnancy. Um, sometimes higher because of IVF. So, you know, you do risk even things like losing your uterus, you know, I, I actually have it in my contract that if I am put on life support only to support the babies, , um, that the intended parents do pay for therapy during that time. I'm on life support for my family because you can't grieve losing someone when they're still on life support for a ba just purely to give the baby a couple more days or whatever. 

Julia: But Jen accepts the risks. When we come back, we'll hear details about being a surrogate: the good, the challenging, and the pregnancy belt that holds it all together.

Jen's next two surrogacy experiences were similar to the first one. She enjoyed being pregnant. She had successful births. And...she felt connected to each family.

Jen: All three of my first intended parents were really great. You know, we stay in touch. I've still seen pictures of the kids. It just, it felt like friends, you know, not necessarily a friend that lives next door that you go and have coffee with every single day. But it felt like friends that, you know, we check in with each other. We ask how your kids are doing, you know, um, during the pregnancy they would text or call or we'd visit and it was awesome. You know, it really, it felt very warm and I knew that this baby is definitely something that they really wanted, cuz half the conversation would be totally focused on how excited they were to become parents. 

Julia Winston: But Jen’s fourth surrogacy didn’t go as smoothly. The agency had connected her with a single, gay father trying to have his second child. 

Jen: So, hearing his plight that, you know, he wanted a sibling... I was like, well, you know, I think I could do that. That could be fun.

So we did a match meeting and, uh, he was very, very nice. Uh, very excited to get started. He'd been waiting kind of a while. And he didn't want the kids to be too far apart in age. So, we went to his IVF clinic. Um, he didn't come to the first appointments, but we video chatted during them. So, I felt like he was there for the appointments, you know, as much as he could be. We did the... The transfer, and a couple weeks later The IVF doctor actually told us at first he thought there was triplets. Yeah, it was pretty, it was actually kind of scary because body wise I am a little bit older into my surrogacy journeys. I'm not trying to carry three babies. That's a little, little much and the intended parent really kind of freaked out. I think it really scared him. The idea of being a single father with one toddler And three babies on the way, possibly. 

Julia: Jen got an ultrasound the next day, and they found out she was pregnant with twins, not triplets. Jen had been a surrogate three times, but she'd never carried twins. So she was understandably a little nervous...and she expected the intended father would step up and be her partner during this pregnancy, but...pretty quickly, Jen realized this relationship was going to be different. 

Jen: He kind of stopped messaging me as much, he stopped calling, he wasn't even really talking to the agency. But he kind of stopped communicating with me and for me that was hard because my last intended parents have all been very communicative, very supportive. I totally understood that this was very overwhelming for him, but I was also suddenly pregnant with twins, not expecting it. And I kind of needed us to be able to support each other.

That got a little lonely. My agency was very nice. They were there for me, best they could be. Um, went to the next few appointments by myself. He didn't video chat, you know, he wasn't there. I did ask my agency if they'd talk to him. I think they only talked to him like once and they were like, yeah, we think he's just really overwhelmed with the idea of how as a single father, he's going to manage a toddler and twins.

Julia: Toward the end of the first trimester, Jen was getting ready for a big doctor's appointment where they would do an ultrasound that would tell her and the dad more about the twins and what to expect from the pregnancy. But the day before the appointment, things took a turn.

Jen: Unfortunately we did have a miscarriage at 11 weeks. Because it was twins, there was something called, um, an S C H, which is a, like, kind of a big ball of blood that was behind them, which is very common in I v F. It can also be common with twins. I lost a lot of iron and, um, being that it was twins, I was already, um, much more tired than normal. And I think a lot of that had to do with the amount of iron that two babies kind of take versus one. And, and so I ended up having to go to the ER. 

Julia: She went to the ER because during the miscarriage she fainted and lost consciousness. Fortunately, IV fluids kept her awake while she completed the miscarriage. 

Jen was out of the woods, but the pregnancy didn’t make it. Once she was okay, Jen told the intended dad what happened and… 

Jen: I did get a message from him just saying, you know, I hope Hope you're doing okay after it happened. He did discuss with the agency me going ahead and trying again because usually with surrogates you agree to try three times If you mentally and physically feel like you can. You don't have to . I still wanted to be a surrogate. I still wanted that birth I still wanted that joyful feeling of bringing a baby into the world and we thought hey, what's the chance of another split? It's a very small chance. This happened once wasn't meant to be You know, hopefully this is a singleton this time. Let's try again. And they ordered me my medication, got my medication, and a week before I started he decided to cancel. And so I just never heard from him again. 

So that one just kind of left me feeling a little abandoned, I guess. Where I know a lot of surrogates like to have more of a connection with their intended parents, where they don't feel like they were just, you know, A breeding machine or something like that. You know, you, you are a person, you do have a family. Obviously me going through miscarriage, all these things affected my family as well. And so I just wanted some recognition that, like, Hey, I'm here, I'm a person. And I'm really sorry this happened to you, but I'm sorry it happened to me too.

Julia: Earlier, I talked about attachment to babies that aren’t your own. It’s something I had to wrestle with a lot, and I was curious to hear about Jen’s experience.

Jen: It feels like a friend's child to me. And there's love there. There's worry and concern that, you know, they're healthy and they're growing. Um, the time that we did find out was twins. I was excited to see two heartbeats, you know, but it doesn't feel motherly. It feels like an auntie or a very close friend, someone that just wants to protect your child and see that they, you know, do end up living their best life. Um, and I think I kind of took on that same perspective with foster care. You know, they're not your children and for me, it's very easy to separate that but still be concerned and still be loving and still, you know, like I said, like an auntie would mother a child, but not be the mother of a child. You know, there's boundaries there. 

Jen: A lot of us really don't like when people tell us about how they could never do it because they'd be too attached to the baby. It's a really harsh thing to hear because we are attached. It's just in a different way. We've been able to take the mindset of doing what's best for the baby. I saw someone say surrogates must have no maternal instinct. And I thought that was very harsh because even though I don't feel sadness when that baby's going to their family, I feel happiness because I know that's what's best for the baby, is their child. 

Julia Winston: Did that come naturally to you, or is that something you've had to sort of train yourself to do, to hold these boundaries in knowing that you're not the parent?

Jen: It came more naturally with surrogacy than it did for foster care. Honestly. I think foster care and adoption carries a little bit more heaviness. A little more sadness. You do worry about where they're gonna go afterwards, Foster children and adoptive children have been through trauma. It doesn't feel the same way when it comes to surrogacy. You know, they're built with love. They're, everything is all about that child from, you know, A to Z the whole time. And with foster care and adoption, it's, it's not like that. 

Julia: Jen has a lot of compassion for children who have been adopted. Yes, she adopted one of her children from the foster care system, as you might recall… and she was adopted herself. 

Jen: It was never a secret. It was always, I was always able to ask questions and eventually I kind of started looking into it more myself and I have been introduced to some of my birth family, um, through different channels. It was, they handled the, especially as a young child, I think very properly. I will say, there wasn't a lot of support for adoptive families at that time. And so, encouragement was to be so overly positive about adoption, that later on as a teenager and as an adult, when you start to get feelings about Um, coming out of what they call the fog a little bit, we're starting to understand that, uh, there was loss involved, you know, there's, there's blood relations there that you don't know, you may never know, there's, uh, you know, certain, uh, health history you may never know, things like that, that I feel like, Maybe shouldn't have been quite so glorified at a younger age where I would have been more comfortable with the negative stuff as I got a little older. Uh, the negative stuff kind of was actually more of a shock to me when I started coming, those things started coming to light.

Julia: Being adopted helped Jen understand, from an early age, that families can be created in many different ways.

It primed her to think about family more expansively. There are people out there who share her DNA, but she doesn’t have the same emotional attachment to them as the family who raised her. 

There are different kinds of love, and Jen knows how to hold that complexity. Her own adoption helped her realize she could raise two daughters of her own and carry babies for others - and approach both experiences with love. They’re just different kinds of love.

This isn’t easy for everyone to wrap their head around. Jen gets a lot of comments and questions about being a surrogate, and I was curious what the general response was.

Jen: people say very nice things. My last ultrasound, the gal was like saying just such sweet things and I just told her, she goes, you're so sweet for doing this. I said, I'm crazy, but it's a good kind of crazy. 

My husband's not the type of guy to just say no,  you know, he's very, very,  um, backs me up 100% no matter how kind of crazy my ideas are.  Um, my daughter has always been involved in the process. She was only three through the first surrogacy, but she's 12 now. And so as she's gotten older, we always ask her, you know, how do you feel about mom doing Another surrogacy? It's never been weird to her cuz it's just always been a part of her life. And she also knew that, you know, this family member had had kids through a surrogate. So we're very open with her about everything. 

My  mom on the other hand, was not super comfortable with it.  Um, she was kind of confused at why we weren't gonna have more children of our own. And I do think part of that comes from because she just wasn't able to herself.  Um,  she's very worried about my health. I am her only daughter, you know, and so she just worries that something could happen to me and I'm, I am risking it for another family. Uh, but as we've gone on, she's kind of accepted it.  Other than that, I, all my friends have been supportive. You know, I've never had, I know some surrogates that have had like nasty comments from people, and I've never had that. Everyone's always been very pleasant. Hmm. Confused maybe, but pleasant.

Julia: After the miscarriage with the twins, Jen knew she wasn't done being a surrogate. But working with the hands-off dad of her fourth surrogacy taught her she should be a little pickier about the families she worked with. She wanted the parents to be more involved if she was going to enjoy the process. 

Jen: I wanted to trust my gut a little bit more. Maybe ask a few more questions, make sure that I'm really on the same page at the match meeting with the intended parents. And, um, my next match meeting went wonderful. I absolutely love them, and I still absolutely love them. 

Julia: They're another gay couple, trying to have their first kid. 

they were adorable. Every appointment that I saw them at, they showed up with cupcakes for my kids or flowers for me or both, and just very adorable. appreciative, very sweet. The first two transfers that we tried, unfortunately, neither one took, and there was only one embryo left. So as a surrogate, I had a lot more anxiety for the intended parents. We did take a little break after the second one, so my body could just get back to normal before we started with medication again.

Julia: After a short break they tried again, and the third transfer worked! The first doctor's appointment was just to confirm the pregnancy had stuck. 

Jen: And we ended up going together. They met me there. And I actually had been a little more abnormally tired than usual. But I convinced myself, I'm just, you know, I'm a little bit older, maybe I'm just tired because I'm pregnant, and I'm a little bit older than I was, you know, my first pregnancies, and so when we went in there, and the, the guys are in there next to me, and the Um, the lady was looking at, you know, the image and she turns to us and she goes, I see two heartbeats. And they, it was like they didn't understand what she said. You know, the look on their faces was like, what? And, and, and that's what they asked. They said, What do you, what do you, what did you say? I see two heartbeats. It looks like you guys are having twins. And they were just in complete shock. And I just kind of looked over and I smiled at them and I was so happy to have a second chance at this for a couple that really wanted this. And I did have a tear in my eye. I just, It was pure happiness.

It was a little bit of nerves, because, you know, twins I know is going to be a harder, a harder thing to, a harder amount of babies to carry. Um, I will say that the miscarriage I had with twins was very, very hard. It was very scary. And so there was a little bit of that kind of fear and stuff, you know, well, I hope this just works. I hope this lasts, you know. I know this makes it a little bit higher chance of losing them because there's two in there. 

Julia: When I interviewed Jen, she was in the final trimester of this pregnancy with the twins. And if you were frustrated earlier hearing her talk about how easy pregnancy is, don't worry, the twins changed that for her. 

Jen: I definitely had more symptoms with this pregnancy that I did not have with singletons. Um, I'm, I feel bad because I feel like I'm just having what a lot of women probably had with singletons. Uh, just like in the first trimester, I was a little nauseous, I wasn't horribly sick, but I had a lot of trouble eating, you know, as much as I should. I had to struggle with protein, things like that. Um, so that... Was a little bit tougher, you know, I was a little bit, a lot tired, things like that. But it sounded like a first trimester that a lot of my friends that had singletons went through. So I'm kind of just getting what everybody else gets. Uh, second trimester, really wasn't bad at all, been very smooth. Uh, third trimester though, it's a lot heavier. Um, I've got, currently I'm 33 weeks pregnant and I've got Two babies that are slightly over five pounds in there right now.

Julia Winston: Wow.

Jen: and I can feel it. You know, my pelvis hurts a little more, I had to buy a belt, a special pregnancy belt, which I've never done before. Um, definitely lots of heartburn, lots of acid reflux, you know, you can't eat as much because there's two babies in there. So it's been tougher, but every appointment we go to, they do the ultrasound and they tell us how perfect these babies look. 

Julia: Jen gave birth to healthy twin boys earlier this year. She hadn’t given birth yet when we talked, but I wanted to know what her other experiences were like once she left the hospital. She gives birth, she hands off the babies, and she goes home. What now?

Jen: I am so happy to get back to my family and my pets and. , I have everything I've ever wanted. So for me, there's no, no real loss to it. And you know, like I said, I've had intended parents that still stay in touch with me. So, you know, they'll send a picture of the baby and as long as I know they're healthy and happy, I feel very good about it. Um, it does depend though, if you're pumping afterwards, which I pumped for 10 months with my first surrogate baby, he had, um, an issue with formula. With my second one I pumped for three months. You do, you know, you do get a certain amount of money to pump , uh, per week. But the amount doesn't honestly make up for the amount of time that you're pumping. 

Julia: Jen loves being pregnant, and all of her healthy deliveries added to this being a magical experience for her. But she's in her late 30s now and knows it will only get riskier to carry babies…

Jen: I am allowed to do one more surrogacy. Um, they do not let you have more than six deliveries, which, uh, whether it's C section or, uh, vaginal delivery. just, I love this. I absolutely love the whole process. And even when it goes not so well, it is like I told you before, you know, you learn something from all of it.

Um, I will be very picky about the intended parents again, though, just like I was this last time where I want someone I'm going to have a connection with again. You know, someone that if it was twins, they would be okay, or at least, you know, happy with it, that they are prepared for some of these unexpected things that do pop up, but we'll get through it together. Like if I can find a couple like that again, I would be very happy.

Julia Winston: Wow. I, so I'm just like jaw dropped, amazed that you want to do it again. You, you, it sounds like you just love it. Like, what do you love about being a surrogate?

Jen: Um, I just, uh, growing life is amazing, you know, and knowing, I think being adopted and, you know, seeing what foster care is like for kids, seeing so many kids that have rough starts in life, have families who maybe they want them, but they just struggle at the ability to take care of them. Sometimes you do have parents that don't like their kids or don't want their kids. In the surrogacy world, I get to be with parents that dream of children that, you know, they just, they've been hoping and wishing and praying and doing everything they can to hopefully be able to have that family that they always wanted. And, um, I love being a part of that. I, I love the positivity that I know these kids are going somewhere that they will for sure be loved, maybe a little spoiled, you know, exactly what kids deserve.

Julia: Whether Jen does another surrogacy or not, her time being pregnant will be over soon, and she's thinking about what comes next. 

She’s busy raising and homeschooling her two kids. But she's started to think about how she wants to spend her time when they're older. 

Jen: my goal is eventually when my kids are a little older to become an end of life doula. Uh, just like a birth doula is there for when babies are born to comfort the mother. I'd like to be there for people when they are passing away, especially when it's hard for their family to be. Um, I want to be the one that's there for the uncomfortable conversations that, uh, maybe need a little bit of guidance or a little bit of support with the family that's going through that. 

Julia: Jen's dream is to use her ranch in Northern California, as a place for this end of life work. 

Jen: I have big goals for our property. We plan to turn it into a place that people can come who are in their end stages of life, that can bring family, a priest, whatever. And we're trying to make it kind of where they can do lots of different things. We have four horses. We raise peacocks. We, you know, are doing, um, meat pigs right now. They can come pet the horses, they can walk around in the forest area we have.

I know death can make people very, very uncomfortable, which is totally understandable. Um, for me, I unfortunately, you know... As an adoptee, I did lose a chunk of my family. Um, and I knew that from a young age, uh, 12 years old, I lost my father. I continued to lose family up until around age 18, 19, you know, grandparents, uncles. It just kept going. So for me, death was a large part of growing up and, um, you can either sink down in a hole with that or you can see, you know, why that's just part of life. 

And when it came to, you know, being able to carry these babies and stuff like that, and be able to bring life into this world, I feel like it helped balance it out for me a little bit. It helped make me even more comfortable with what I had previously gone through knowing that that will happen to all of us. It's just the same that we're all born. We will all die. I don't want to be uncomfortable with either one of those. So I dive in deep with both of those. 

Julia: Have you ever met someone who you thought might actually be an angel? For me, Jen is definitely one of those people. In her world, the veil that separates birth and death is very thin.

Jen: Giving birth naturally is almost as close to death as you can get. Physical body is in extreme amounts of pain, but it's doing what it's supposed to do. It's completely natural. And when you pass away, that's completely natural. But both those things are, they're on the opposite end, but they, when you're in that moment, I feel like that's kind of what it's going to be like. This extreme moment that leads to some kind of peace. And that's how I feel giving birth. It's an extreme moment. It's very, Emotional, physically and mentally. And then there's peace after really when the baby, as soon as the baby kind of pops out, those shoulders come out, that heads out, the body's out. You just breathe. And it's, it's an interesting moment that I will miss. 

Julia: Talking to Jen made me feel more seen as an egg donor. Some people in my life don’t understand why I wanted to help someone else have babies, when I haven’t even had my own. And I struggle to explain it, all I can say is my gut told me it felt right. It just feels like part of my life’s purpose in some deep, strange way. 

Jen so clearly feels that giving birth for other people is part of her purpose. She sees herself as someone who is not only here to serve her own family, but to help other people start their families as well. 

There’s a life mantra I've been developing for many years that goes like this: “be grateful, stay open, give what you can, and enjoy the ride.” 

In Jen, I see someone who is truly living this mantra. She realized pregnancy was her happy place, and wanted to gift that experience to others.

Some people don't understand her calling- that's fine. She still does it. Jen is not afraid of loss, failure, or being misunderstood. In fact she embraces these things, painful as they may be, because she wouldn't get the magical experience of birth without them. 

03: Accidental Parents: Creating a family after tragedy

Four years ago, Lindsay and Jeff were just starting their family. The 32-year-old couple had recently bought a house. They were talking about getting married and they knew they wanted kids…one day. Then, Lindsay’s step-sister collapsed, and overnight everything changed. Lindsay’s sister had 10-year-old twins, and as their mom lay unconscious in a hospital, Lindsay wondered if she and her boyfriend could take care of and parent these kids.

Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

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Julia: January 22, 2020 was like any other school night for eight year old Ariah and her twin brother Breydon. They were both hanging out in their apartment with their mom, Jennifer, like most nights. 

Ariah: We were just chilling and she was telling us it's time to go to bed. And then I was like, okay. She said, I love you. Good night. And I was like, I love you. Good night.

Julia: That evening, Ariah and Jennifer had been FaceTiming with Jennifer's stepmom, the kids' Grandma, to talk about the twins upcoming birthday-- deciding what pizza to order, whose house to celebrate at. Ariah went to bed thinking that at the end of the week, she'd turn 9 and have a big party.

Ariah: But then I kind of got a little thirsty, so I got some water, but I just saw her on the floor and she was like kind of shaking. I don't know what was going on. 

Breydon: Araya went downstairs, and then I was just laying in bed, and then Araya said, something's happening with mom, come down quick. I was like, okay. And I was like, What's wrong? What's, what's wrong? 

Julia: Their mom is conscious, but clearly not well. Ariah tries to call 911 on her mom's phone, but couldn't figure out how to open the Android. So she and her brother grab their iPad…

Breydon: So I called, um, our grandmother and then she called 9 1 1 and they came 

Ariah: I was like, I don't know what's really going on, but mom's on the floor and she's shaking and I showed her, and then I just hear a gasp, but I didn't know why she gasps. I just thought my mom was just playing around, but she wasn't really playing around. 

Julia: Just a mile or so away, the twins' aunt – Lindsay- had just gotten home from work. She and her boyfriend Jeff were preparing dinner and unwinding from the day. 

Lindsay: my mom called me and said, something's wrong with Jennifer, you have to go over. And so we're all racing to her house. We kind of all arrived at the same time. The paramedics were there. My mom and my stepdad were there I kind of briefly looked at my sister and I could see that she was kind of slumped down. But, you know, as the paramedics are pulling in, I just thought. Oh God, I don't want the kids to see this. Um, and, um, I just kind of like grabbed the kids and I was like, let's just go in your room for a minute and, you know, we'll let these people help us and, you know, they're gonna figure it out. 

Jeff: we were one of the first ones there and went in and, you know, I actually was had to be the one to check her pulse. Like it was, you know, it was intense.

Julia: That's Jeff, Lindsay's boyfriend at the time, and now husband. Jeff and Lindsay were the first people to get to the apartment that night. 

Lindsay: They weren't upset at that time. They were just kind of like confused and, you know, a lot of people just came rushing into their apartment 

Ariah: and then Aunt Lindsey just came, and then she told us to pack her things up, and we went to her house. 

Lindsay: They had just had a recent sleepover. So we thought, okay, guys, it's going to be like. You know, like a sleepover and, you know, the doctors are going to figure out what's going on with mom and, um, and they were pretty calm and we just packed up some stuff for school the next day and we just, um, yeah, we just got their stuff together and we just went over to our house and tucked them in and, you know, as soon as we got them into bed, Jeff and I were like, what, what's happening, you know?

Julia: What was happening was Jennifer had had a stroke. Which felt crazy to everybody because she was in her early 40s. For a few days, it was a medical puzzle. Why did this young mom have a stroke? Would she be okay? At first, everyone was hopeful her age would mean a full recovery. But after a few days, it was clear Jennifer suffered severe brain damage. It was unclear how this stroke would impact her quality of life, but they knew it would somehow. 

Lindsay: I had this fear that I didn't share with Jeff, and I thought, oh my god, like, she might die, you know, she might die, and What are we going to do? instead of communicating that to my partner and being like, I'm freaking out. Um, I just thought I'm going to solve this and I cannot ask him to take on these children and to have this different life than we thought. The plan was that we were gonna get married We were not gonna have children for a long time, you know I can't ask him to raise my sister's children, and I'm 100 percent gonna do it because I love them, and they need me, and I'm gonna do it, but I can't ask him to do it. 

Julia: Lindsay's worst fear came true- her sister died six days after the stroke. There was too much brain damage, she would never wake up.

In the span of a week, the kids went from excitement about their upcoming ninth birthday, to becoming orphans. 

I'm Julia Winston, and this is Refamulating, a show that explores different ways to make a family. 

Today we're going to tell you the story of a family that never intended to be. Ariah and Breydon loved their mom and felt safe and happy with her. Lindsay and Jeff were a 32 year old couple, new homeowners, and just starting to make plans for their future.

These four people were already family- an aunt and her niece and nephew, a boyfriend, who would later become a husband. But when Jennifer died, Lindsay started considering something much more serious than the role of a fun aunt.... she wanted to take the twins in and raise them. 

In an alternate universe where Jennifer had lived, we would see two families: one would be a single mom and two kids. Another family would be a young couple, the fun aunt and uncle. 

Nobody thought that this would change. But Refamulating is not just about CREATING family. It’s also about redefining family when the one you’ve got is falling apart.

Julia: Jennifer’s death was the catalyst that formed this family of four. We’re going to come back to that, and how her death brought them all together. But first let’s find out how each of those 4 people arrived at that moment. 

The story begins with Lindsay and Jennifer, who are technically step-sisters. 

They met when Lindsay was 12 and Jennifer was 24, because their parents got married. Their blended family lived outside of Philadelphia, where Lindsay, Jeff and the kids still live. Because Jennifer was 12 years older, Lindsay looked up to her a lot. 

Lindsay: I was becoming a teenager and she was, you know, really cool older sister and she and a friend of hers took me to my very first, um, um, Rap concert, which I thought was very cool. And we went to see Nelly and It was amazing. I remember being like There, and there was all this smoke in the building, and I was like, Oh my god, is there a fire? Like, what is that? And she was like, uh, yeah. Like, and now I'm back, like, thinking of it as an adult now. I'm thinking, like, she was so sweet. And like, I had no idea. And, um, it was so fun. So she was really fun.

Julia: Not only did Jennifer expose Lindsay to Nelly and - ya know - weed, Jennifer gave Lindsay the gift of becoming an aunt. Lindsay was 22 when Ariah and Breydon were born, and she loved them from the moment she met them. 

Breydon: She said that Ariah and I looked like alien potatoes. We did.

Julia: So when they were born, they were alien potatoes. But who are they now? 

Julia: So, Araya, Tell us a little bit about you.

Ariah: I like to paint and I like to hang out with my friends.

Julia: What's it like to be a twin?

Ariah: Honestly, he is my best friend. We will get each other mad sometimes, but he is my best friend at the end of the day.

Julia: How sweet right? But like most siblings, this answer changes depending on the day. 

Breydon: My name is Brayden. I'm 13 years old

Julia: what's it like to be a twin?

Breydon: ew, it's annoying.

Julia: What's annoying about it?

Breydon: Ariah bosses me around. Arai has been my buddy since birth. We would like, be together no matter, like, no matter what. Sometimes Arai and I have moments, sometimes we don't.

Julia: Here is how Lindsay describes the two of them:

Lindsay: Araya is two minutes older, and she's very proud of that. She is just incredibly creative and happy and sweet and just very authentic. You know, she's just a big personality, and I love that about her, um, and she is just wild and funny and creative, um, she's very artistic, she's very observant, um, you know, she might come at you with this badassery that she gets from her mom, but, um, she's very protective and she's very loving and You know, assesses the situation.

And Brayden is very sweet and loving in like a very genuine way. He's very quiet at first, but when he gets comfortable with you, he is, you know, silly and kind and loves to be around family. He says his favorite hobby is relaxing. And he is also a deep, deep feeler and lover.

Julia: Lindsay has so much love for her niece and nephew, and they love her too.  

Breydon: so every day I give her hugs.  Um,  because I love hugs from her. 

Julia: There’s another person in this story who also loves Lindsay, and that’s her husband Jeff, aka Uncle Jeff. 

Jeff: My name is, uh, Jeff Rosello, and I'm actually the uncle of Ariah and Braden and the husband of Lindsay.  

Lindsay: we've been friends since we were little and we grew up together, but mostly I would say we started hanging out when we were in high school, um, and we, you know, quote unquote dated when we were in high school and college, um, but because we had this very beautiful friend group, we kind of always thought we better not, you know, be too serious because we don't want to make it awkward in our friend group, 

Jeff: it was always there. I feel like maturity level wasn't there, but it was always there. And then Just being around her parties and things like that. She always wanted to do like, you know, it's just we always ended up being around each other.

Julia: Just so we're clear, Jeff is referencing his own maturity level - he wasn't quite ready for a serious relationship. So they do the whole "will they won't they" thing through most of their 20s. And then when she was 27, Lindsay's dad died of a heart attack. Nine months later, Jeff's dad died unexpectedly, too. Suddenly, these two friends were going through the same kind of grief and heartbreak at the same time. 

Jeff: It was one of the hardest things I dealt with. So I didn't want to do anything. I felt like me going out was almost like I wasn't caring for him.  But Lindsey was actually the one who got all my friends together and drug me out of the house and got me out of the house and got me to do things. 

Lindsay:  It was you know Helping to clean out the garage and the things that are the even more unpleasant things of people don't think about when you're someone dies it's like You got to sell the car and like, you know, just things like that. So we spent a lot of time together, you know, just helping each other's families at that point. 

Jeff: And I think we were at a birthday party at the bar and she took me home and I remember we pulled in my driveway and we, I was like, we're not getting any younger. You know what I mean? Like life's too short. Let's do this. So that's when we started dating.

Julia: Why was Jeff the person you wanted to commit to aside from him just being like one of those people who's just the best person?

Lindsay: He has such a beautiful heart and because we've been friends for so long, it was kind of like, we already knew all those things about each other that maybe you do or don't want to reveal to people that you're dating, and that part would, could kind of be over, and we're like, you could be more vulnerable with that person,  And I think at that point we kind of fell in love as like adults.

Julia: What do you love about Lindsay?

Jeff: Like, what's there not to love? My buddies used to always tease me, like, if you don't wife her, I'll probably will. She will never forget someone's birthday, never forget an anniversary, never forget a passing. But it's also like even with her work for a non profit like She comes home from a full time day at work, and then we'll get on a board meeting for a non profit, and then volunteer her time to go to a mission for a week and out of her own pocket. You know, it's just, I It's just who she is. There's not a bad bone in her body.

Julia: So Lindsay and Jeff finally get together. The plan was to eventually get married, and someday have kids, but they were in no rush. First they wanted to spend time enjoying each other’s company. 

They also wanted to focus on their role of fun Aunt and Uncle. 

Between the two of them, they have 20 nieces and nephews- so they were always going to birthday parties, school plays and family events. And when you’re the fun aunt and uncle, there are no rules. It’s all about slumber parties, buying toys, and most of all… s-u-g-a-r. 

Jeff: it's, giving them ice cream to come over here just to bake cookies to stay up late, to watch movies to have soda, to eat sugar,  and then send them home all jacked up and wired up and not have to worry about it. 

Julia: Meanwhile, just down the road, Jennifer was living life as a single mom, juggling a job and two kids. Implementing rules about sweets. And she was doing the best she could, which was more than enough for Ariah and Breydon. 

Breydon: Oh, her scrambled eggs are amazing. She just like, Makes eggs and put cheese on them. I don't know what kind of cheese. I just say that she's an amazing person. we would like do fun activities, um, once in a while. in the summer we would go to the beach with our family.

Ariah: My favorite memory of my mom was probably going down to Ocean City, Maryland with both of my brothers and my mom and spend the week with my family. We would all have fun and just play in the water. Even though my mom didn't like it, she'd do it. She'd do it for me. 

She loved Penn State every single time she was watching the game. You would just hear in the living room saying, yeah, or something or screaming if they made a goal. And she was just amazing. She let me do her hair, even though I was a little rough, like she was with the hair. I would still do her hair, um, she would always play and would play hide and seek and always go to the store every single weekend and get each other some snacks. She was the silly, goofy best friend I had at home. Brayden and my mom were my best friends. 

Julia: What do you call your family? Since you have different last names from the kids.

Lindsay: Our dog's name is Roxy and we say, this is Roxanne's family. 

Julia: They didn’t know it at the time, but Roxanne’s family actually started during those six excruciating days that Jennifer was in the hospital. Lindsay and Jeff brought the twins back to their house, expecting them to stay for a few days. But after almost a week of surgeries, tests and treatments, the doctors told the family that Jennifer wasn't going to make it. 

And Lindsay had to figure out how to tell Ariah and Breydon.

Lindsay: a good friend of ours, she lost her mom when she was a child, and she works for this amazing organization that helps kids who are grieving. And when it came down to it, we're like, do you have any advice on how we tell them?

Is there a script? You know, what do we say? She was on the phone with this lady who's like the head of this organization and being like you got to just tell them the truth. That's what the research shows, that's what you're supposed to do.

And so we explained to them, um, that mom was really sick and that she was going to die. And, telling them was just the most awful thing, obviously. We just told them that, you know, mom has been suffering for this whole week. And the doctors told us that, you know, her brain is not working and she's she's going to die.

My nephew was kind of just in shock. He didn't cry. He didn't say anything. He just sat with us and we held him and he didn't say anything. And I kind of said to him, you know, we're going to go to the hospital today and we're going to, you know, see mom, but she's not awake. You know, we're going to, we can give her a hug and, you know, we can, you know, come and see her, but this is going to be the last time that we're going to see mom and, and she's not going to be able to talk to us and she's not going to be awake. And he kind of understood that, but he never said anything. And my niece is the polar opposite. So she just began weeping and screaming. And she just started saying, I need my mom. I need my mom. I need my mom. And I was so grateful that Jeff and Kelly were here and we were just like holding them and, you know, validating them. And obviously this was a new thing for all of us. So we were just like, yeah, I'm, I'm so sad too. And we're going to miss her.

Julia: Here’s the thing. Ariah and Breydon didn’t have another parent they could live with - their dad had died three years earlier from a drug overdose. So now Lindsay had to talk to Jeff about the thing she'd been  thinking about all week: that she wanted to take them in. 

But Lindsay felt she couldn’t ask Jeff to take on this burden with her. This would be a huge undertaking. Both kids were dealing with intense trauma. And both kids needed a lot of academic support - Ariah had dyslexia and was reading at a kindergarten level in third grade. Breydon had just been diagnosed with learning differences and needed extra help. 

And Lindsay and Jeff had never been parents. They weren’t planning to have kids for many years. Taking in the twins would mean turning their lives upside down. It would mean more financial responsibilities and less time for themselves and their relationship. And they wouldn’t have 9 months to prepare, they’d have to learn how to parent on the fly.

All of this was swirling around Lindsay’s head when she sat Jeff down. 

Jeff: Lindsay came in the bedroom and I was, we were sitting there and she said, we need to talk. 

Lindsay: I made up this grand plan in my head again without saying anything to him. I thought, okay, well, we just bought the house, so maybe we can sell it, or maybe I can just, he can buy me out, then I can get an apartment down the street, and then the kids will live with me, and you know, it'll be terrible to break up, but I can't ask him to do this, and the wheels are just turning.

Lindsay: And I say, um, you know, I think we should break up. And I can't ask you to do this, and I have this whole plan, and he just, you know, like a movie, he just kind of grabbed me, and was like, what are you doing?

Jeff: And I told her, like, this, this is what you do. You know what I mean? This is what you do for family. Like, if something happened to my brother or sister, there would not be doubt in my mind that Lindsay would take those kids in and it's just, you know, it shows the type person she has. Like she didn't, she didn't blink twice. Like it was, it was like mama bear mode and took them right in. 

Lindsay: And he was just like, we're a team. We're doing this together. No questions asked. And that was it. 

so then we had to explain to them, you know, that this was their home, and that lots of things were gonna change, um, but that we would always be here for them, and that you know, we're so sad too. And, you know, there'd be a lot of things that would be different. 

The kids were able to stay at their school, but almost everything else in their life was changing. They were moving to a new home and there were new adults in charge, which meant new rules and routines. 

Ariah: was really kind of awkward and weird for me at first because like there are so many different things that we do at my mom's house and we did here. 

Jeff: You're gonna make your bed every day. You're gonna, you know, you're gonna shower at night. You know, you're gonna hang your towel up. It's a whole different thing. 

Breydon: it was hard to live with Uncle Jeff, but it was easy to live with Aunt Lindsey.

Julia: Yeah. What was hard?

Breydon: I barely knew him.

Julia: Remember, Jeff and Lindsay have 20 nieces and nephews between them, so Jeff saw the twins at birthday parties or family gatherings, but that didn't mean he knew their personalities and quirks super well. So while Lindsay had known them since birth, Jeff and the twins got to know each other well when they all moved in together.

Jeff: They were eight when we got them. So that was, I think, the hardest part is not having them from when they were babies to know what we expect and how we operate. So not only Did they have to learn us? We had to learn them. So like, they had to learn our behaviors, we had to learn their behaviors. 

It’s obviously going to change from being like, you know, let's go sneak away and have this cake to, you know, now it's,  you can't eat cake. You're about to go to bed. And now it's like, do your homework, get in the shower, cut your nails. We have to be, paternal figures and not just the fun aunt and uncle. 

It's hard because like the first time, like I had to punish them, like it, I was upset, like the first time I took Brayden's phone away and he's like upstairs crying. I'm like, did I do the right thing? It was a learning curve. Like, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not. 

Lindsay: we were just very honest with them, unfortunately, our relationship was going to change, you know? It was going to be different and that we were still going to make time for fun and any time they wanted to do something like we did before, we would make time for it. but also that, you know, it was really important that, you know, me and Uncle Jeff, that we do a really good job of doing what mom would want. And, you know, mom would want us to brush our teeth and do good job in school and, you know, work hard and all that. Um, so we're still navigating that.

Julia: Another thing they’re navigating is parenting kids of color. See, Lindsay and Jeff are white. The kids are multiracial- their mom was black and white, their dad Peurto Rican- so Lindsay knew right away she and her husband would have to approach parenting differently than they would with biological kids of their own.

Lindsay: I think raising them has been, um, more of a protective, you know, mama bear mode now that they're getting older, because, you know, they don't look like us. We went on a family trip with Jeff's whole family. And we were, you know, 20 of us at Disney World, which is like, pray for us, that's a whole different story, but, they were the only kids of color. There were times when we would be, like, in the line, and people at Disney World. at Disney World would think that they weren't part of the line with us. Like, like, you know, as if you would cut the line off, because they must be a part of a different group. And the kids were pretty young when we did that. And they would be like, why did they not know that they, you know, we were with you. And things like that, that we had to explain to them. you know, that, that is really hard. And we, um, try to explain that to them in a loving way. That like, we'll never know how you feel. And, you know, we can't relate to the things that people say to you or, you know, the experiences that you have.

But the other side of it is that, you know, They just turned 13, and, It's not an easy world for people of color, and now we're in protection mode. Things that are crappy, like when you go to a store, you can't keep your hood on, You don't have to say that to a white kid, you know? And so, that has been hard to navigate as White people to be like, I'm just telling you, you can't do that. My little brother is biracial and he helps them with a lot of stuff or my stepdad who's black helps them with a lot of stuff. And I'm grateful for that, that they have that support in a way that we can't relate. but I would say that they're doing a really good job. You know, they, are proud to be who they are. But those are the times I really wish, you know, my sister was here because I'm like, darn, I could really use your, your parenting on this thing that we really can't relate to.

Julia: In the four years they've lived together, they've all gotten to know each other more and adjusted to the new routines. Of course, the kids will always miss their mom and their life together. But they have come to appreciate many parts of life with their aunt and uncle.

Ariah: My aunt and uncle, they're like coolest and they're the best. I love like how Aunt Lindsey just like takes me outside of my comfort zone and like helps me find something else I love to do and my uncle I like i'm inspired by my uncle i'm gonna be so honest Like he plays hockey and I was like one day I can play like hockey and I was like no no hockey I can't ice skate. So I want to try field hockey. And now it's my main sport and I love it and I can do it. 

Julia: One thing that was new with Lindsay and Jeff, is that the kids got to travel for the first time.

Ariah: Like we didn't really go anywhere travel The only place we went to was school, home, or the store and then like here we go places a lot of the time so it was kind of like different 

Julia: They've explored more on the East Coast....

Breydon: Uncle Jeff, Araya, and I, and Aunt Lindsey went to New York to see a a play of Harry Potter. the play was so good. It was like, better compared for what we're doing for school. I mean like, I wonder how they did that. Or just like, how do they do it so fast?

Julia: They also traveled to Florida, their first airplane ride, for a beach trip with Lindsay's extended family. They'd never met any of those people, but they were embraced as new cousins. 

Ariah: especially when we went to Florida and I met like everybody I was like so happy. I felt like that was just like more love I could take in and just feel like, feel like I could like absorb and like feel happy. 

Julia: Throughout all the ups and downs of this journey, there has been a constant current running between all four of them: grief.

There is grief over losing a mom and a sister. They've all grieved the loss of their previous life, or their old dreams on how life would unfold. And when we come back, we'll learn how the four of them addressed their grief together.

Julia: When the kids moved in, Lindsay and Jeff were no strangers to grief. They could relate to the kids’ pain because they had also lost parents. But they had lost parents when they were adults, with adult mindsets and coping skills.

They had no idea how to guide two third graders through such an intense emotional experience. 

But just like Lindsay showed up for Jeff when he was grieving, and he showed up for her, the couple stepped up for these kids. Grief brought Lindsay and Jeff together as a couple, and now it would unite all four of them as a family.

The first thing they did was find a local organization that offers support for grieving kids and their families. 

Lindsay: They, have a, six weeks, very intensive, family course about grieving, except it's the same topics, but there'll be like a children's group and an adult group, and then you kind of talk about the same thing in appropriate language, And we learned so much from that and I feel like that was really helpful to have early on. That helped us to figure out how to parent a little better and, you know, just learning about grief I feel like was really helpful because, um, Obviously, we were actively grieving and, you know, we had grieved our dads not long before that. But, you know, everybody's experience is different. 

Jeff: Some people cry, some people need to be left alone. Some people need to draw. Some people need to, to get a shower. Some people need to go on a run. There's no right way to grieve and everybody handles it differently. So however you handle it Just make sure you grieve. 

Julia: The course on grief also taught Jeff and Lindsay how NOT to handle grief. They both realized their instinct was to "fix" the pain the kids were feeling...which isn't actually helpful. 

Lindsay: You had a terrible day at school. Well, it's okay. And I love you so much. And it's okay. We're going to figure it out. I was so guilty of that. You know, Jeff was guilty of that, where we were like, especially kids who were grieving, were like, we just want them to be happy. You know, like, do you want to go get ice cream? Uh, do you want to go to the park? Like, you know, we were just fixing everything, what we thought was fixing. and so that was another freeing moment where like, yeah, we could just validate their feelings and we could just sit with like, Yeah, it sucks. Yeah, it stinks a lot and we feel that too. I'll just say like, yeah, sometimes I just think about my dad and I just think about your mom and I just cry for no reason.

Jeff: That's one thing lindsay told me which is like a good point like a kid is crying like Stop crying. Why are you crying? You don't know why they're crying. Like they're crying because they feel something. Like they're, everybody should be able to cry. Like you shouldn't yell at a kid because they're crying. So that was huge for me. 

Julia: And they're also trying to model what grief looks like, and not hide their own pain.

Lindsay: You know, if they kind of catch me in the morning, like, on my yoga mat or, like, crying in a meditation, I'm, like, just honest with them, like, this is just me, you know, taking care of myself and this is what I felt like I needed today and I was thinking about mom and, you know, and, and I've seen that in, you know, in their little, You know, 12 and 13 year old ways of them being like, Oh, I just want some alone time or, you know, I just feel like I want to be outside today. And, you know, I'm being like, you don't have to have a reason, you don't have to explain it, but maybe we can teach them that, like, you do have to take care of yourself.

Julia: Jeff and Lindsay learned a lot from that course they took. But the kids found the most solace the year after their mom died, when they found a summer camp specifically for kids who are grieving. It’s called Experience Camps. 

Breydon: And then Ariah and I started going to a camp. Then it started getting easier to talk about our parents. A lot of people there has lost somebody very special and you can talk to anybody about it. And I made a lot of new friends there.

Julia: This became a place where Ariah and Breydon learned how to talk about losing both of their parents and their grief about that. But it was also a summer camp with bunks and bonfires and sports.

Breydon: And they have so much activities there. I love doing volleyball. And um, swimming. we have a like a grief circle so we go around saying who our special person was. It just like helped me a lot. 

Ariah: When I went to camp, I felt like I could talk about it more because I was around people that knew what I was feeling and could express it in different ways. And it helped me, like, calm down if I ever needed to. 

Julia: They've learned coping skills to help them when they feel overwhelmed with emotions. 

Breydon: sometimes I'll like count to 10. It would kind of make me feel better. And then sometimes I talk, I talk to people about it. I mean, like you don't have to, if you don't want to.

Julia: But most of all, at camp, this horrible thing they experienced doesn't make them different. It makes them belong.

Ariah: Cause, my friends at school, they don't really understand. But then at camp, everyone's just like, asking you, who you lost first and they like use the proper terms of who takes care of you and no one really makes fun of you at camp like they do at school. Cause kids at school really just don't understand, because if like, if they ask about it, I'll talk about it, it's just Some of the times, they're kinda rude about it, cause like, sometimes they'll make fun of me and then say I'm adopted, or other times they'll just laugh and then say that I'm weird, and they say I'm not normal, but honestly, there's no such thing as a normal family. Not everybody is perfect family because there's no such thing as perfect.

Julia: It broke my heart to hear Ariah talk about being judged for her family. 

It reminded me of when I was in middle school, trying to hide the fact that my dad was gay and had a live-in boyfriend. I only felt comfortable sharing about my home life with other kids who had alternative families. 

But Ariah and Breydon have more tools now than I had when I was their age, and they have access to supportive adults who are trained to help guide them through grief and pain. 

Julia: What are the counselors and adults that talk to you about at camp? What have they taught you?

Ariah: They basically taught us like There's no normal way to, like, grief, like, there's different ways you can express your grief, and then, like, it's okay to be, like, at a point where you moved on, and then you're, like, finally happy and, like, free. But some people feel guilty when they, like, feel free and happy again. But honestly, when you're free and happy again, I feel like you can express your feelings more. And I feel like you're like more open and some people like when they're like in the first stages of grief, I feel like they're just like locked away or they're somewhere in their own world where they think no one gets them, but there's gonna be someone that's gonna get you, but you just didn't find that person yet.

Julia: How, how have Lindsey and Jeff helped you in Brayden when you felt sad or overwhelmed?

Ariah: They would give, like, Breydon and I our space, and they would talk to us about it after, and I would always, like end up hugging and then like crying on your shoulders or something, but I feel like they understand the most because they also lost their dads. When I lost my dad, um, I don't think my, like my mom didn't know how to handle it because honestly, I didn't know that he kind of like passed away because I didn't know what like death was at the moment. I was like a little bit younger. my mom just explained it as going to sleep, but he just won't wake up. And I said, why won't he wake up? And I'm just like, now I'm living with someone that understands more.

Julia: God I wish these kids didn’t have to deal with such heavy losses. But what a gift, to have supportive adults who understand them. 

It brings me hope to know that there are programs and people out there who can help young kids process grief while it's happening. Even the simple fact of being able to name grief as a thing to deal with feels like a far cry from the way things were when I was growing up.

When my dad's life partner, Mitchell, died of cancer after I graduated from college, I had no tools to help me deal with the intense grief I was feeling. 

So I partied. I turned to drugs and alcohol to avoid my big feelings. 

It wasn't until I discovered yoga and meditation that I had the tools to help me slow down enough to face the pain and start healing. 

Like many of us, I learned the hard way that you can't ignore grief. The pain will always be there, no matter how hard you try to numb it. You have to deal with it, and there are healthy ways to do that. 

Roxanne’s family didn’t ask to form the way they did, but here they are. And I find their willingness to face grief and embrace the unknown so brave and beautiful. It reminds me of this quote by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who developed the theory of the five stages of grief:

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

Ariah and Breydon are only 13-years-old and they already have such depth and compassion, more than most adults I know. Who will they be when they grow up, and what will they bring to the world as a result? 

As for Lindsay and Jeff, it’s inspiring to see fully formed adults stretching, learning and making an effort to change their own behavior so their kids can live loving,  peaceful lives. 

This is an important form of refamulating that many of you parents may be familiar with - taking a look at how you were raised, and choosing to approach things in a different way. 

It's been four years since Jennifer died. The kids have gone from little third graders to bona fide teenagers. Lindsay and Jeff went from a young couple with no responsibilities, to being caregivers and role models. 

One thing that hasn't changed, is that they all think about Jennifer every day. 

Julia: what do you think Jennifer would think about how you've raised the kids these last few years?

Lindsay: Like I said, she was kind of a, had a badass exterior, you know, she was always sarcastic. but then she would like pull you aside for a quiet moment. And then when no one else was around, you know, give you her real feelings. and so I envisioned that she would, you know, yell at me for letting them eat candy or, you know, yell at me for, letting Ariah have a little boyfriend. but then I think she would pull me aside and say, You know, thank you so much. I think she would, um, see how hard we're trying.

Julia: what do you think your mom would say about how much you and Brayden have grown and changed in the last few years? Yeah.

Ariah: I feel like she would Um, tell me a few things of how much I grew because like last time when I was like talking to her, I could barely read and now she's just like, wow, now, now you can read, read, now you're reading books. Well, my dad was a mechanic, same as Uncle Jeff's dad, but whenever I feel like I'm working with tools, I feel like, I'm like thinking of my dad. I'm just like, wow. What if I was just like here and my dad was just like saying good job. Cause I think of my aunt and my uncle as my mom and dad, but like. I feel like, so bad, if I like ever call them mom and dad, I feel like I'm replacing my mom and dad. But, I would never like replace them. They're always in my heart. They're always here and everywhere. I, I am them. I really am them.

Julia: There’s enough space between the trauma of the past and now, that Roxanne’s family can step back and appreciate where they find themselves today. 

Lindsay: they've just blown me away, you know, recently. Braden, you know, kind of graduated from special education, um, and he doesn't have to be a part of, you know, the extra support class and he, you know, he's able to, um, advocate for himself when he needs help and, you know, that's been really great.

And Ariah too, she, she went from a little girl who literally couldn't read,  you know, at a kindergarten level to, you know, advocating for herself, reading really well, you know, speaking up, looking for her own accommodations that she's also not in the, in the supportive classroom anymore. 

So I think, not only like their academic skills, but just, you know, being in therapy and being in tutoring and, you know, all the things in life,  been a lot in a few years for them, um, but I feel like  they do a great job of balancing, like, being a kid, um, but also being, you know, mature and doing things that are really hard that, you know, they really should never have had to deal with.

Julia: Something that we believe very strongly at Refamulating is that everyone's definition of family is going to be different. 

So to end this episode, let’s hear how each person in this family has re-evaluated what family means to them. 

Lindsay: It kind of just reinforced of, you know, the feeling of blended family and, that, you know, I love them with the same love that I feel like a, you know, mother feels for their children. 

Julia: What's been the best part of raising the twins? What have you enjoyed? 

Jeff: To watch them grow, to see their accomplishments, to see them smile, you know, to see their reactions when you tell them you're doing something, or where we're going, or just everything. To see like you're helping them be their best person, you're helping them succeed to, to strive to be all they can be, you know, to, to support them in whatever they want to do

Julia: So do you think of yourself as a father?

Jeff: Yes. Yes. Of course. I mean, just because you didn't birth the kid doesn't mean you're not their father. no, we still have them calls and uncle, but, you know, we are, we're their guardians.

Julia: What does family mean to you, Brayden?

Breydon: family means a lot to me. I would never forget about them. I would never hate family. I would love them no matter what. Because Ohana means family. Family means no one gets left behind or forgotten. 

Ariah: Family means everything to me. It's my world. They're my love. I have their eyes and nose. I am my family. So, I am everything and they are everything to me too. And I know one day, if they ever need me, I'm gonna be there for them.

Everything is not bad. Things are so mysterious of why they happen and why they do or do not. But, you gotta kind of live with it. The world is kind of crazy. So You gotta kind of, like, not, like, get used to it, but, like, be a part of it, too. 

02: Picture Perfect: A single dad’s journey to fatherhood

Tony Lilios always imagined himself as a father. When he was younger, the picture he had in head included a wife, a few kids, and a white picket fence. Then he came out as gay and had to totally re-think his family image. It took him almost 20 years, but finally Tony got a family that brings him so much love. And he couldn’t have done it without the help of two very special women.

Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

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Julia Winston: In the year that I've been producing this podcast, and since I created the word refamulating, I've been seeing it everywhere! Here are some real examples: 

I celebrated a friend who had a baby on her own because she hadn’t met a partner to do it with. She’s so courageous. She’s refamulating!

When a group of friends bought a plot of land to build a compound for family and friends, I thought holy shit - they’re living the dream! 

A colleague told me about how her father acknowledged his lifetime of alcoholism and expressed a desire to heal old wounds. As I thought about how much was changing in her family dynamic, I thought “wow, that’s also refamulating.” 

My friend’s transgender spouse was legally recognized as their baby’s parent, yay!, but part of me was pissed that they had to go through that process in the first place. But hey, that’s refamulating. 

Refamulating is a lot of things. When you’re breaking new ground, it stretches you, which is uncomfortable, but it can also be really exciting. Often, it’s all happening at the same time. Change can be intense, man! 

I’ve been feeling that through the process of becoming a fairy godmother. And now, there’s another thing. Recently I started dating a woman - which is kinda new for me - and I realized that for the first time in my life I’m not entering a relationship with some pre-written story about where it’s supposed to go. This is my latest version of refamulating. 

Ditching expectations is often the first step in refamulating. This was definitely true for Tony Lillios. For a lot of his life, he had a crystal clear image of how his future would unfold.  

Tony: If I was a painter, I could paint this painting. Like I feel like I have a specific white picket fence and house In my mind it must be like eight is enough or something like that where I got this image or something. there was definitely a spouse, a woman, uh, a wife. But yeah, I wanted a lot of kids. Um, I enjoyed being in a larger family and so I imagined having four kids of my own. Lliving somewhere, just like recreating what I knew. 

Julia Winston: What Tony knew, was a mom, a dad, a gaggle of kids, and a lot of love. And most of that picture was possible for Tony- except one part. The wife. 

Tony: When I first  came to terms with being gay,  I felt like my life just exploded. Like it was like a tornado, a hurricane, tornado came through and obliterated my life. Like all the pieces of papers of my lives, all the photo albums were just strewn up on the lawn and just destroyed. 

Julia Winston: I’m Julia Winston and this is refamulating, a podcast that gets curious about different ways to make a family. 

In this episode, we're going to tell the story of Tony and how he created a different picture, one that doesn't include a white picket fence or a wife, but is absolutely perfect for him.   

Tony: I grew up in suburban Connecticut and I always like to qualify, not like suburban Connecticut, like suburban New York City, Connecticut, but like middle of the state. Just, you know, plain old, middle class, uh, America. I was the youngest of four kids,  uh, with immigrant parents. One from Greece, one from Brazil.. I was the accident, I was an oops child, a five year gap to my siblings. Born and raised in the same house my whole childhood. Um, and very kind of average, wonderfully average.

Julia Winston: In his early 20s, Tony started to see his white picket fence picture come into focus when he fell in love with a woman named Mimi. He’d known her since high school and after college they both ended up in San Francisco. That's when he started courting her. He would send her gifts and poems…but she didn’t know who they were from.

Tony: That culminated into us a blind meeting at the, the Carnelian Room at the top of the Bank of America building.  where I was sitting there when I back to the room and in comes Mimi. So I needed some big transition from like friends to something more. Um, and she, you know, walks in and it's this huge, like, Oh my God, it's you, Tony. I can't believe it. I thought it was this person and that person. And Oh my gosh, I'm so glad it wasn't that guy because all my, it just kept going on and on. And then  finally I was like. Are you happy it's me?  There's this kind of this like magic moment. Oh my god. Yes um, and so Mimi and I dated for five years, um, she was um, really We were just so connected.

And  at some point there, there is, um,  a part of me that discovered I had an attraction to men.  which kind of blindsided me because  I never thought of myself as gay. Um, when I was a kid, gay was Liberace or Elton John. And, um, I don't feel like what I see kind of projected at me. But then I had this other thing of where I was attracted to men. Now as a 20 something, I'm like, oh, that means gay. I think I know what that means, or bi. And so I started to explore that. 

Julia Winston: At first, the way he explored was online. This was in the 90s, and American Online, otherwise known as AOL was brand new. 

One of the features of AOL was chatrooms - where me and my teenage friends were pretending to be porn stars while in real life were actually eating the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches our moms had cut the crusts off of.

But Tony, because he was an adult, was participating in chat rooms as himself.

Tony: And there were all these rooms for M4M San Francisco, M4M LA, M4M this. I was like, member to member? Like, what is this? And I would drop into these rooms, and I was like, oh my gosh!  These are gay people, like, chatting up in these rooms, like, what?  This is so crazy, like, what?

Julia: gay people! 

Tony: They're gay people, and they're organized, and I found myself,  Enraptured, engaged, deep in the wormhole of these conversations with these people. And, but I'm not gay, I'm just like, captivated. Um, and I ended up in, with this one person, Norman, having months long conversations. Hours a day, you know, hundred dollars, hundreds of dollars a month of bills because of these online chats. Um, that eventually led to You know what, we should actually just meet up, because I think there's nothing here, it's no big deal, this is just some weird obsession, let's just like, meet, realize there's nothing here for me, like, I'm, I'm not gay, and we can just put this one to bed and move on. 

We meet up,  and fireworks explode, and quite the opposite happens, and when you meet someone like that from the inside out, like, we were, there was, like, the physical attraction was built on this emotional, kind of intellectual, rich depth, inside out kind of connection that, you know, he could have been anybody and of course fireworks would have happened. 

Julia: So fireworks are exploding with Norman, but what does this mean for Mimi?

Tony: it led to a couple months of me trying to figure out how to navigate this or what to do and eventually  came out to Mimi, my girlfriend. And.  In all of it's mess and confusion and uncertainty of what it meant of  how to step forward. And she was willing and able to walk with me for months at first.

It was hard to be authentic to what I was discovering and to be in a relationship with her. It just felt like I was just crushing her. And she was willing to stand there for me, for herself, but eventually it became a, I need space to just  get messy and figure this out on my own and to walk my path.  And, um,  and I love you to pieces and I need to do this for myself.  It was heartbreaking. 

You know that phrase when you feel like your heart's getting ripped out?  Um,  not until that moment did I ever know what that really felt like. Like it literally felt like  I was just, my heart, I loved her so much. And to just have that like, but it can't be right now and just to rip it out. I just, I could feel the pain in my chest of how hard, um,  This decision was for me, and how necessary it was at the same time. We stayed apart for, didn't communicate for maybe a year or maybe even two years before we could kind of come back together and, you know, find a new way to kind of engage.

That led to me going on a real long, deep journey. Heart  blasting open, mind blasting open, journey of,  you know, literally the white picket fence view was just kind of obliterated and Wizard of Oz style, just tornado ripping it apart. And here I am. What am I left with?  The whole future is ripped to shreds. I have no idea what's coming next. Um, and that vision of not only the white picket fence goes away, the wife goes away, the kids go away. There's that, that whole future is just, um, gone  

Julia Winston: Tony and Norman dated for a year. While it was a very important relationship for him, eventually it ran its course. Once he was single again, Tony was figuring out how to date and pursue people as a gay man. 

Tony: I'm in my 30s now dating. But this is still new to me, so I still have kind of a teenager y view of things. Like, it's very kind of, um, shallow. You know, it's very like, ooh, you're fun, and you're attractive, and like, whee! And, but I'm a 30 year old acting like a 17 year old, you know? It's like it's, or a 14 year old, you know? It's just, it, I wasn't sorting for a partner to co parent with at that point.  In my 40s I did start moving out of that phase and like who could I really be with and who could I spend my life with and who might want to have kids. And I found it really challenging. I felt like there was a lot of people that I would meet that would talk a good talk.  Oh, I love kids. I've always wanted kids. And then, meanwhile, you look at their actions, and you're like, that doesn't really seem consistent with, like, what a parent in my mind looks like. And so, I would get judgy about it, of like, you seem like a high risk, like, I don't know what you would be like as a parent, because everything you, not everything you do, but a lot of your behaviors and your habits seem to be not around settling down and home oriented. Um, and so, I started to kind of lose  faith that I could find somebody that was both gay and wanting to settle down and have a family. I thought I was really  not the only one, but it was like slim pickins and  at the rate I'm going, it does not feel like I'm going to find somebody that's going to do this with me.

Julia Winston: The searching and yearning Tony experienced as he got older really hits home for me. Each passing year that I’m single, I get to know myself better and I feel clearer and clearer about who I am and what I want. But as I expand and grow, the pool of possible partners seems to shrink. 

This was Tony’s frustration in dating as well. 

But after a decade of dating and not finding a partner who wanted kids, something started to shift as he watched his friends have kids. 

Tony: Having folks ahead of me, That were starting nontraditional families really moved the needle. Specifically there are two gay men that I know that were single gay men that had Children of their own  and seeing them. And even though we weren't close, just the fact that I had contact with them and I could see them and I could go to dinner once every four or five months like it was like, Oh, this is how this works. That's like a possibility I can see.  

And then also my friend Thursday. That's her name. Thursday was a single mom and adopted a kid and she allowed me to kind of take care of her son, uh, for days on end at times where I developed this. Not only do I want kids, but I can do this. Like, not only is she trusting me with her child, like, I'm actually doing the things, like, I'm, like, being a dad right now, like, I can do this, and those little gifts of responsibility were, man, she's like, thank you for babysitting my child so I can go to work, and I'm like, no, thank you, because you've given me an embodied experience to know, to give me increased confidence that I got this, I can do this too. 

Julia Winston: So he was seeing single parents raising kids on their own, and loving it. And at the same time, he was hearing from married friends that having a partner isn’t always better.

Tony: There were those whisperings of these couples that I just love from the outside. They seem these, these great straight couples. And meanwhile, when you have, you know, conversations over, you know, kitchen, side by side, when with one of them, I can specifically think of one woman who would say, you know,  when my husband's away on business.  It kind of runs pretty nicely here. Like I kind of like the temporary single parent thing where it's just things are a lot smoother. We get to, you know, and there was this like, like I love my husband. Absolutely. Do we love being together? Yes. But there was also this side of, it's actually awesome and different being a single parent when, and I was like, that opened a door for me of, oh, like what if it was like that all the time? And then,   that could actually be pretty great.

Um, and that led me to a realization at some point that there was a possibility that I could actually have kids on my own and that would be enough. So there was a sense of. You know, I'd have to make up, if I didn't have a wife, I had a partner, I was a gay man raising kids in a partnership, okay, that's not as great, but, uh, you know, we can compensate and make it happen.  There was a shift at some point, and I don't even, can't even put the pieces exactly together, but there was a sense of. Oh my gosh, as long as there's love, I have so much love to give. I have so much to provide. I have so much like wanting to bring to the world in, in, in terms of starting a family. Um, I was like, I can do this on my own. Like I really saw this future of this is totally different, way off road now and.  , this is different and awesome, like this will be great.

Julia Winston: When we come back, Tony tries to have a baby. 

Julia Winston: When Tony was 41, he was finally ready to be a dad. For him, the first step was restructuring his life a little bit, to make space for kids.

Tony: I moved to Lake Tahoe on my own saying I'm no longer trying to meet anybody, so let me get myself outta San Francisco where dating and shiny things are everywhere. I'm doing this on my own, let me prioritize that.  move up into the mountains on my own, get a house with extra bedrooms so that I'm building and manifesting this future. So, and, and it started to feel natural.

So at first, I was thinking of adoption, um, for various reasons.  One of the reasons that took me out of adoption is that the narrative I was getting was that in terms of pecking order, single gay dad is not on the top of the pile.  And so I was like, wow, this is gonna be a challenge. And um, you know, I just had the story of, oh my gosh, this is gonna just take years and years and years. 

Thankfully, and just how pieces fell into place, um,  uh, professionally, uh, came into some money. We sold a portion of our company. I had more money than I had had in the past. And the opportunity to, to pursue surrogacy was available.

Julia Winston: And what do you need to have a baby via egg donation and surrogacy? A lot of money. The cost ranges depending on the surrogate and their location, plus the cost of drugs, clinic visits, hospital stays, travel expenses and agency and legal fees. Sometimes intended parents even pay for the surrogate’s groceries. 

Most people end up spending between 100 and 175 thousand dollars for one pregnancy.

Once he knew he could afford it, Tony set out to find the right egg donor and surrogate.

Tony: I found an agency to have to find an egg donor and an agency to find a surrogate. So those are two separate agencies.  Um, and with the egg donor, it was a lot about  Finding someone, and I was coached to this for some reason, and I probably still like that I was coached this way, is to find someone who kind of looks like you. You know, if they're, if they look really different, you're going to constantly be asked questions about your wife, of why is her, what's her ethnicity, and why is she, you know, why is your kid a mixture of things.

So the more that the egg donor looks like you, the less questions there are going to be, and it just makes it easier.  Seemed reasonable to me. So, um, so there was someone, I was looking for someone like me and it was like, like online dating, like swiping. You're literally looking at a picture book with pictures and like basic stats. 

Julia: Truly, just like Tinder.

Tony: I remember sending something to my sister like,  Oh my gosh, it's so weird that the surrogates have this weird selection bias that they're all kind of short. They're all like five, four or five, five.  My sister was like, Dude, that's the average height of women, just for the record. I had no idea! I was like, they're all really short!  Um, and then it came down to meeting a few and finding chemistry. And meanwhile, I'm in conversations with another agency to find a surrogate.

Julia: And they found him one.

Tony: I remember as I drove up to the restaurant to meet her, I thought, man, if this at all feels transactional, I'm out of here. If this feels extractive, like here's my money, I want you to do this for me. Like, like any kind of back alley kind of feeling to this, I'm like, dude, this is not, I'm not into it. And I got quite the opposite connection with her. She's a mom of her own son. She  Was like, I love giving life and bringing  the experience of bringing my son in the world was amazing. And she's like, you know, those people on TV that you have way too many kids and you know, they really can't support all those kids. And you're like, what are you doing? She's like, I get that. Like I have that feeling, but I have this responsibility filter on of like, don't do that because you can't support them. So, um, and so she, When she came into being of like, oh, there's a thing called surrogacy where you can help others start their family. She was like, Whoa, sign me up. I could do this. 

Julia Winston: Tony leaves that lunch knowing this is the woman who will be his surrogate. 

So now he has an egg donor and a surrogate, and it’s time to start the IVF process. Tony has the easiest job. He gives a sample, and he’s done. But the women had a much more intense process. 

Tony: The egg donor in the surrogates have to take repeated drugs, injectable drugs, over a several week period of time to get them on cycle with each other. So they're trying to get the two of them on cycle so they are ovulating at the right time. And they're painful injections. They're self administered day after day for weeks to get into it. This is a non trivial thing.  Um, and then when the doctor deems like the hormone levels are all right and everyone's ready,  the egg donor goes into the office and they do a collection of, of the eggs and she was not under, she was kind of given some drugs to be, um, to reduce the pain a little bit, but it was, it's a painful and uncomfortable experience for her.

They extract the eggs, they fertilize the eggs and they put them and in a petri dish, essentially for days watching how they grow.  And as they grow, the IVF clinic decides this one looks good. This one growing in a way that I just qualitatively think is a good egg. And they pick that, the surrogate will come in,  they implant, um, the egg.  into, uh, the surrogate at that moment. And I'm sitting by her side and that's like,  in the world of IVF, that's like, Oh my God,  like she's pregnant.  Um, and so it was an emotional moment and it's like, there it is. The egg goes in, it comes in the lining, gets sucked in and And for the next,  I think, 10 days, you're kind of holding your breath, um, to see how it's all going to go with hormone levels and tests and see if it's being rejected or accepted. 

The first ones didn't take, you know, and when it doesn't take, you start all over again, and here we go, um, from scratch. Uh, and this was This happened several times. I'm not going to walk you through all the gory details, but there were multiple cycles involved.

I thought it was going to be, um, linear, like very straightforward. You find an agency and you pay some money and make it all happen and it all kind of unfolds  according to plan, and it can often be very bumpy. 

Julia Winston: Like many people who do IVF, it doesn't happen the first time. This was the case for me and my egg daddies too. We only had three embryos, and the first two didn’t result in a viable pregnancy. Thankfully the third one stuck, but it took us a full year to get there. 

Tony’s process took two years, but finally his surrogate gets pregnant. And Tony is in full on supportive partner mode:

Tony: I  go to all the pregnancy, all the OB appointments with her.  They would keep forgetting like, oh, yeah, you're not married. Are you and yeah, we're not married and you know. Sometimes we were kind of a little sheepish about her being a surrogate, uh, that wasn't kind of like waved on a flag. Um,  I can't remember exactly how we fully navigated that, but it was, it was somewhat elusive. And I always kind of left her to decide how she wanted to present  the situation, because I was in her town where this was happening. So, it was her world to kind of, her cards to play.  very supportive. Her parents are very supportive of this process.

Her son was like right in there with it. It was just beautiful. And she just got, you know, more and more pregnant. 

Julia: Were you ever, um, worried or feel concerned that there would be some level of attachment between the donor or the surrogate and the, the kids that you would have to deal with later?

Tony: I was concerned  mostly on the surrogate side thinking, she's been with this child for nine months, that there would be a real heart attachment. I, I was concerned on that point. And, you know, you can say stories all day long, but you've never done this before. So how do you know? You know, I, it's hard to trust her, what she says, you know? And so there is a leap of faith. Um, she was clear at some point in the process where she said, had it been her  own egg, it absolutely she would feel attached, but because it was someone else's egg, she felt very clear the whole time that this is for the sake of another. This isn't my child. This is something I'm doing for the sake, for someone else. So that never got mixed with her is the way she explained it to me.  

Julia: that's, uh, that resonates actually. I, as an egg donor who's not carry.  . I don't feel concerned about getting attached because I'm not growing a baby in my body. Yeah. But if I was, if I was, I, I don't, I would, I would say no if I was asked to carry a child, because I do think that that would be a different experience. Mm-hmm. , so I understand what she meant by that. Yeah. 

Tony: Early on before this ever happened. I had been asked to be a sperm donor for various women, and I did say no because I was afraid of attachment. And now the answer is, um, a wholehearted yes if I were to be asked again.  

Julia Winston: As the due date of his first child approached, Tony moved to the surrogate's town. For three weeks he and a friend posted up at a hotel, waiting for the baby to come and brainstorming names. Finally, the surrogate was induced. 

Tony: I was there in the room for the delivery,  um, mom, her mom was in the room  and  she was just such a trooper, such a champ. You see, um, women giving birth as a man, uh, in movies all the time and it's so theatrical  and  To be living, this is, this is the real deal. This is, um,  her really going through the pain and bringing this child into the world and  it was so rich with emotion and passion and, um, and out  came my child and then the, he, the doctor picks up  my child backwards and  Both of us were convinced that she was going to be a girl, but when he held up my child backwards, you could see these two kind of massive ball sacks hanging down. And we're like, Oh, I can't believe it. It's a boy. I, we totally had it wrong. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. And he turns her around and it turns out it's just her labia were just so swollen it looked like testicles from behind. We're like, it is a girl. Ah, there's like,  you're killing us. 

Julia: Okay, here’s where I insert a very heartfelt apology to Tony’s daughter. I love this story, AND I would hate it if my own dad was telling it. But anyway, it’s a girl! And tony is like…

Tony: oh my gosh,  get over here. Cut the umbilical cord.  Cut the umbilical cord and, and just  took my shirt off and just had my daughter just laying on my chest and just that skin to skin, skin to skin connection was just,  you know, and they were like, Oh, let us clean her up. And I'm like, are you kidding me? You can't take this child off my chest  now. I'm like, I'm just like,  you can just feel this like attachment, just this like her getting folded into my chest. It was just an amazing  connection that was just like, oh,  it was just, I can still feel what that felt like  to have her laying there.

And I remember just turning my head looking at the surrogate, just repeatedly just going Thank you.  Thank you.  It was, um, it was  unbelievable, uh, to be in that space to like, oh my God, like this actually is happening. I, I was.  Overwhelmed. Um,  and uh,  it was beautiful. That moment lasted.  It felt like forever. both of us were just  in tears that like,  my gosh, we like got here. Like, I can't believe in all the twists and turns were so many reasons to punch out and give up.  We arrived at this point.

Julia Winston: Tony’s dream has finally come true, he’s a father.

He hangs out at the hospital for a few days, learning how to care for a newborn, and then he heads back to Lake Tahoe with a new child in tow. 

Tony: So I was totally immersed in my own world of like, oh, new dad and all these pieces and poop and food and formula and this and that. So she pumped a little bit. So we have that. But, oh no,  the surrogate's milk is out now. So  when is she going to get more milk to me, and we have freezers and the whole system lined up, and I check in with her and she, no response, and eventually I get in contact with her mom, and her mom tells me the story that she's back in the hospital, um, she's like on IV antibiotics, and she bled so much and got an infection from the pregnancy, that um, she's got a blood infection called sepsis. 

Julia: Maternal sepsis is rare, but it’s also the second leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths. So Tony’s surrogate was suddenly facing a potentially fatal complication.

Tony: And it's touch and go. I'm like,  uh, I can't even like wrestle how to deal with this. Like it's far away. I'm in this like new dad, emotion, wrestle, love  everything, like love all the emotions. And wow. And this, like, she's like fighting for her life, you know, two hours away from me. Um, and it was, uh, There was really nothing for me to do, um, and so I just kind of just checked in on the regular to see how she was doing and she came out okay. On the other side was weak for a little while. 

And the most amazing thing happened  to three months later, one of our check ins that, you know, we're constantly sending photos and I'm telling her stories of what's going on with my daughter  and she goes, yeah, like, let's talk about number two.  And I'm like, what are you talking about, girl?

She's like, you know, you wanted more than one kid. Um, I'm up for having a second.  I'm like, are you delirious? Like, have you thought about this? Like, do you, like, do you remember what just happened two months ago? And she goes, yeah, I'm really. I'm up for it. It won't happen again. We know what to look for. It'll be better. Um, and I really want to do this.  And I was like, if you're in, I'm in, let's go. And so the started yet another process to have number two.

Julia Winston: There were some embryos leftover from the first pregnancy, so Tony and the surrogate go through another few rounds of implantation. But nothing sticks. After a few cycles, he goes back to the egg donor to see if she would do another retrieval. 

Tony: And she's like, I've been waiting for you to ask me for my eggs. You know, I wanted to give it. I didn't want to be forthright and say, yes, I will. But I've been waiting for you to ask. And I was like, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, so she did another egg retrieval.

Julia Winston: Another round of sticking herself with needles, being hormonal, and a painful extraction. But these new eggs do eventually lead to a pregnancy for the surrogate. This time, a son. With an actual ball sack to prove it. 

Tony: And how did the second pregnancy feel, especially with the knowledge that the surrogate got so sick after the first birth. 

Tony: Yeah, there was more kid gloves going on. I was listening more intently during, um, checkups with the O. B. I was much more like making sure the doctors and Uh, you know, nearby and nurse knows what's going on and it's really paying attention.

I just had a higher degree of, um, attendance and with all that,  when my son was ready to come,  the doctor was not in the hospital, he was at his office like 10 minutes away. My son's popping out all by himself. I'm telling the nurse, like, huh, can you get in here? She's like, yeah, just in a minute. I'm like, no, his head is like about to land on the table. She's like, oh my gosh. And so nurse played doctor. I played nurse. And suddenly we're delivering a child without a doctor. And I'm like, did you not get the memo that we're worried about this pregnancy? Um, and so he just came out like that. He just like got shot out black and blue head, you know, face. It was a very aggressive quick, uh, delivery. 

Julia: This time, there are no health complications. The surrogate is healthy, Tony's son is healthy. And finally, his family is complete.

Julia Winston: Tony's kids are now 8 and 10 years old. They all still live in Lake Tahoe, and have the kind of busy life you'd expect a family with two kids and a working parent to have. 

Julia: Tell me a little more about your your sort of day to day life. Yeah, where do you get support and help and what does the flow look like? 

Tony: Yeah.  Once I had a second child, I got an au pair. An au pair is a  A person from a foreign country that comes on a special visa, a J 1 visa. They come here for a cultural exchange for one to two years. They live with you. They can only do child care related things. And once I got two kids, I was like, man, I cannot do this on my own with a babysitter here and there.

When I travel, finding care on the road, it was just, it was, it was too much.  And then it turned into Wow, here's a female presence in my life that is absent in the house and my daughter gets this like female Guidance and energy and, you know, essentially a surrogate parent and she gets a revolving door of different parents, different styles and, and for every age, I felt like I picked a different au pair.

I'm on my seventh au pair. Now, each one of them had their own style, their own personality, and I invited that into the house, um, and encourage them to bring their own,  you know, whatever it was like, bring that into the house and, uh, yeah. You know, every morning during the week, the school week, they're up often before my au pairs up often before me starting to prep lunches for kids at school and breakfast  They help out with you know, doing the laundry and getting Things organized.

Julia Winston: The au pair is a necessary second set of hands for Tony. But when it comes to parenting and making decisions, he's still on his own. Which most of the time, he likes. 

Tony: There isn't a whole lot of, well, what do you think is best? I don't wanna do this. There isn't a discussion, um, kind of going on with two parents around. It's like, we wanna travel through Europe this summer. Uh, you know, three nights every place somewhere we will backpack through Europe. We're just doing it. My kids just kind of follow along and we just, you know, we're the merry, uh, campers.

The hard parts of being a single parent is  when this, when you're  not really sure. When you find yourself second guessing and approach and you'd love a qualified invested  second opinion. Um, you can get those from other people, but no one knows your child, like  a parent. And so I feel,  um, out on a limb sometimes with some of my decisions. I worry that I'm making  Not a wrong decision, but a less than savory decision about, and it can be as small as like corrective behavior or, you know, school choices or parenting styles. Like I just, there isn't anyone really checking my work  and, and that's fine at times until it's not, and I would get insecure about something and I'm not so sure about something like I worry about the teenage years.

I imagine the teen years can be frothy and confusing. Man, a second pair would be so nice to have in those moments, I'm sure.

I more often think than I think most parents.  You know, I'm one bus hit away from those car kids being alone. Um, so I'm the last man standing and um,  it scares me sometimes. It influences the activities I do,  the way I engage with those activities. It's real. Um, I think about  my  health, my, you know, how I could be gone at any moment and what that scenario looks like way more active than people with two parents. Um, that's top of mind, probably compounded by the fact I'm older.  

An imagined challenge that is kind of funny given, uh, to me by a friend is that, you know, as a child of single parents, they never see the arguments. They never see the discussions. And this single parent would actually role play with me.   a crisis, or not crisis, but distress. So she would actively engage with a, a discussion, a debate with me in front of her child so that her child could see how that, how that mechanism works, um, . And so I was like, oh, that's kinda interesting. Like  that's important to model and, and show your kids. So I think there's challenges of, oh, there's certain things your kid doesn't see.

Julia: we have such deep programming of the shoulds and supposed tos. Mm-hmm. , like, you should have a partner, you're supposed to be married before you have kids. All this stuff. Was that with you at any point at this or at this by this point? Was that stuff still with you on some level or had you completely shed the shoulds and the supposed tos?

Tony: In all honesty, I think it never leaves. I think it's always there in some degree. Um, and it, uh,   and, uh, yeah, it rears its head every once in a while,  way less strong. But the shoulds and the, and the, you know,  what's supposed to happen, um, it's just been baked in so hard. It's baked in by the media. It's baked in what you see your friends having. And so it's, it's always  there a little bit. And it surprises me sometimes.   and the other side, I'll say it's sometimes it surprises me of how amazing it is to be a single dad rocking it and loving like, we're doing this  like, it's like,  like giddy. I like pinch myself. And so, so it's, I'm not trying to be like doom and gloomy, but it, to be honest, um,  it's always there and, and decreasing, uh, volume.

Julia Winston: When Tony came out his entire perspective about starting a family was turned on its head. He spent the next 20 years slowly creating his own definition of family. 

Often, that looked like venturing into the unknown. He chose to walk away from Mimi and the white picket fence, because he knew he needed something else, even though he didn't know what that would look like. He spent six figures and two years trying to conceive his first kid, never knowing if the science would work out in his favor.  

And after he became a single dad, he was once again faced with another unknown in his refamulating journey: the very thing it took him so long to write off - sharing it all with a partner.

Tony: I set off on this path to do this on my own. During this path,  I met a person who lives in Florida.  And I started casually dating them, you know, not that we were even like dating. It was just like, you know, I'm being a parent, I'm doing this on my own. And, you know, let's like, have some fun weekends here and there, you know?  He had no aspirations of being a parent ever and not now. When my daughter was born, something got ignited in him. And in us of this possibility that, oh wow, maybe  I could be around kids. Maybe I could spend more of my time around Tony and a child.

His friends were like, you need to run. Like, you should run now. Like, if this guy wants kids, it's gonna be all about the kids and you're never gonna be seen. And they had all kinds of stories of why he should run. But he didn't. And when my daughter was born, he just fell in love. You could just see the sensitivity and the  Just the care, the deep care he just developed instantaneously.

He's a big hearted guy. Um, and so the  visits from Florida increased over time. I didn't consider myself really dating him, but I was like, I'm just busy being dad, you know, and I'm, and now here comes a second one. And I'm just like, I'm just doing my family stuff and he would kind of show up at times. 

And it kind of started to escalate over time. Like, he would show up more and more. Um, and I started to fall more and more in love with him. Watching him, like, love on these kids more and more. So, five years ago, he moved in. Um, and  he's here full time now with  me and the kids. And  While I don't consider him a parent, he is absolutely like a loving adult in the house and, and does a lot of care and help with the kids, but not quite like a parent. Like, he's not all the way in there. Um,  and. It's beautiful. It's like non traditional and kind of quirky and sometimes hard to explain, like, No, he's not their dad, but he's my partner, and yeah, we live together. Like, just,  that's, you know, every year at school there's like this explanation of who he is and how we are. Um, but it seems to work, and there isn't an insufficiency.  Other people look in like, you should be getting married, and you should do this, and blah blah blah, and he needs to be in that photo.  And honestly, it kind of works for us, and everyone's happy. 

Julia: This is refamulating. 

Tony: Absolutely. 

Julia Winston: It's been nearly a decade since Tony teamed up with the egg donor and surrogate. But the time he spent with these women, the sacrifices they made, and the gifts they gave him, are honored everyday in his family’s home. 

Tony: Because  I'm a single dad. I describe it as having an empty chair at the table. There's clearly no mom present. And so I am happy, I love filling that with these two,  they're the heroes of the story. Like nothing happens without them and. Um, to memorialize that, to really like ground that in the house. Um, I commissioned a piece of art when my daughter was born, uh, by an artist I really liked to, to essentially paint our family story and our, you know, how this came to be.  

this painting is probably six, seven feet wide. It sits on our mantel over our fireplace in the living room, and it's massive. And the surrogate and the egg donor are on the ends, the left and right, and they are all the way front and cen not center, but they're all the way pulled to the front. They're, they're the showcase of the piece, and it's all about them, and, and Asp, and really bringing out parts of their character. You know, the artist worked from photographs to really Capture them. 

And me and the kids are kind of set back in the center because we're a result of, of their amazing gifts and their love. Um,  and  in that picture, there are symbols all over my parents, my dad's as a sailboat, my mom as a butterfly,  a backdrop of Lake Tahoe where we live now. And it sits there as a reminder on a daily basis of the gift  that these two women provided for us that is,  um, so deep.  Um,  so meaningful  and I feel it so deeply because I feel like I'm a person who always tries to provide that in the world. And to get this monumental gift from these two twice over, um, it's just overwhelming. It's so beautiful.

Julia Winston: Tony always pictured a family portrait hanging on his mantel, he just never knew what it would look like. In his early years, it featured a wife and a white picket fence. And then for many years it was painfully blank. 

The painting that hangs in his living room now tells a beautifully original story of a family with love and teamwork at the center. 

And though he didn’t paint this portrait himself, Tony was always the one holding the paintbrush. 

The family he created may not be what he envisioned, yet it’s everything he ever wanted.

01: My Big, Gay, Blended Family

Host Julia Winston came up with the word “refamulating” when she became an egg donor in her late 30s. But when she really thought about what it means to redefine family, she realized her family of origin already did that back in the 90s.

Her dad came out as gay when Julia was seven, her parents divorced, and the four of them had to completely re-frame what they thought their family would be. A lot has happened in the 30 years since, and in this episode Julia, her mom, dad and sister talk about it.

Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

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Julia Winston: On January 3, 2022 I read an email that changed my life. 

I was eating dinner at a restaurant in Mexico on the tail end of a fun and rejuvenating trip with a group of friends. I’d spent the last week in holiday mode, meeting new people, dancing at parties, hiking in caves. It was the last big dinner, and I was starting to emerge from the haze of vacation so I decided to check my email. 

I scrolled past some work emails I would need to respond to…eventually. There were lots of promotional emails I would need to delete. And then I saw a note from an old acquaintance. We’d been friendly years ago, but since I moved back to Texas, we hadn’t kept in touch.

The subject said: “Saying hi, and posing an idea.” 

Curious, I clicked on the message and saw a long email with his husband cc’d. I started skimming: 

“We’re thinking hard about starting a family…. We've been brainstorming women in our lives and we keep thinking about you and what an incredible story you have with your own family. We keep thinking: wouldn't Julia be an amazing person to ask if she’d give us the greatest possible gift?

The greatest possible gift…

My heart skipped a beat. The noise of the restaurant around me went silent as I tried to wrap my head around what they were asking me. I mean, I knew we always liked each other, but I didn’t know they liked me enough to ask for my DNA. 

In the past, when I’d thought about the concept of donating eggs my knee jerk reaction had been, “HELL NO! That’s not for me.” Those are my eggs!

The image in my head when it came to my fertility was that I would meet a nice Jewish guy and have children of my own. I wanted to make the heteronormative, nuclear family I always wanted but never had.

My eggs symbolized my future baby - my future family.

And yet… 

Here I was, 37-years-old on vacation with a group of other mostly single, child-free adults. Not with a family of my own. Far from the fantasy I’d always had about where I thought I’d be at this point.

For years, I’d been working hard to shed the shoulds I’d carried around for most of my life - “I should be in a relationship, it should be with a guy, he should be Jewish, we should have kids,” -  and what was left was just me: a woman with love to give, looking for people to share it with. 

I’d felt so much anxiety about whether or not I’d meet someone and have a family of my own. But this invitation made me realize I could bring life into the world, and create a family- just in a way I hadn’t imagined before.

So as I read that email, I was surprised to feel joy, relief and hope. Suddenly I saw a new pathway materialize right in front of me. 

Right there in that moment at the dinner table, my soul screamed, “HELL YES! This is for me.” 

Welcome to Refamulating, a show where we explore different ways to make a family.

I’m your host, Julia Winston. I’m passionate about this topic of creating family in new ways for a few reasons: like I just mentioned, I’m an egg donor to a gay couple. You can hear all about my experience as an egg donor in Episode zero in our feed. 

But also…. I grew up in a non-nuclear family. My parents divorced in 1991, when I was 7, because my dad came out as gay. At the time, gay parents and blended families weren’t the norm, and I often felt ashamed of what my family looked like. 

But so much has changed in the 30 years since my dad came out. Queer people are more empowered to be out and have families. Many adults are more comfortable choosing not to have kids or..have kids without a partner. In the last generation, the norms around family have shifted so much, but often when you’re the person making the new choice, you can feel so alone. 

When I chose to donate my eggs to the couple I lovingly refer to as the egg daddies, I started doing research on non-hetero normative families and heard some statistics that made me feel more seen:

The number of Americans who are unmarried or unpartnered has grown to almost half of all adults. And the majority of children live in non-nuclear households: their guardians are unmarried, divorced, LGBTQ, OR the kids are being raised by someone besides their parents.

All this to say, the nuclear family, with two, heterosexual parents in their first marriage, raising kids, is no longer the dominant family structure. 

In fact, there is no one dominant family structure. 

In the last 50 years we’ve completely reformulated what a modern, American family looks like. We’ve been refamulating – my new word, feel free to steal – and it feels like we’re reaching a crescendo. 

The intention behind this podcast is to keep normalizing families that break this nuclear mold. I want all of us to feel less alone in whatever paths we’re taking when it comes to starting a family. We’re here to talk to real people with nuanced stories that census data could never tell us.  

In this first episode, I want to tell the story of my family of origin and how we shifted from a nuclear family with a mom, a dad, and two kids, to the big, gay, blended family we are today. Our story is filled with love, but also pain and secrecy and eventually… acceptance. 

That’s what Refamualting is all about. Accepting, and embracing, family in all its forms.

My family is an example of how messy it can be to do something new but also how rewarding the payoff can be. 

I grew up in Austin, but moved away for most of my adult life. A couple of years ago, I decided to move back during the pandemic to be near my family. Including my sister Molly, who lives just down the street from me. 
Julia: So go ahead and introduce yourself however you want.

Molly: Okay. Well, hey, I'm Molly Winston. I am Julia's younger, 34 year old sister, living in Austin, Texas, and happy to be here. 

Julia: When I decided to tell the story of my family in this first episode, I was surprised when both of my parents and my sister said yes to an interview. Over the years, I’ve gotten the sense that we’ve all done our own healing around my parent’s divorce and my dad coming out. But…we’ve never actually talked about it. 

Julia: So before I sat down to dig into the past with my parents, I wanted to hear Molly’s perspective. The trauma around how our family changed was so formative for me, and I wanted to know how it shaped her.  

Julia: so Molly, I guess my first question is, what are some of the things you love most about our family?

Molly: Our family, well, they're unique.That's what I love about us. And we're open, we're funny, we're interesting. Like people when they're on the outside looking in, it can be a lot, it can be really overwhelming, but that's one of my favorite things about our families that we are overwhelming.

Julia: how would you describe our relationship? 

Molly: Oh, sisters forever. 

Julia: What's that pillow that mom has? It's like, I smile because you're my sister. I laugh cuz there's nothing you can do about it.

Molly: Yeah. It's that , it's that pillow. 

Julia: Nowadays we’re pretty close. But growing up, that was not the case. 

Molly: Our relationship was terrible for about, I'd give it 18 to 19 years.

Julia: Yeah, like, like I think about the time, I mean, there's so many, like, I remember you being a bitch, honestly in, in a hot tub and me throwing ice cubes at your head. Or maybe it was vice versa, I don't know. But yeah, it was marked by lots of violence. We'll put it that way. 

Julia: You had a move. You had a move that I called the cockroach . I would, I would approach you to hit or kick and you were on your back on the floor with your legs and arms. A kimbo just pushing away, squirming around like a dying cockroach on the ground. And honestly it was a really effective strategy because it was, I couldn't get to you

I have to apologize for taking all of my dolls and throwing them in your room every night before bed. Because the reason I did that was I saw Chucky and I thought my dolls were gonna kill me in the middle of the night.And so I threw them in your room. Might as as well, will kill you. 

Molly: Might as well kill me. 

Julia: and they never did, much to my chagrin.

Julia: But during our childhood, in between the slapping and fighting over typical big and little sister stuff, our family went through a huge change. Our parents got divorced when I was 7 and Molly was 3. Our dad moved into his own place and we split our time between his house and our mom’s. 

When they split, they did not explain why to Molly and I. We didn’t know our Dad was going through a huge personal change, that he was starting a new relationship with a man. 

For a couple years all we saw was that our mom was heart broken, and our dad had a roommate named Mitchell.

Molly and I lived in that confusion and secrecy together. The wool was pulled over both of our eyes, but as we got older, we both started to uncover the truth. 

Molly: Like I knew that dad lived with a man, but I thought, yo Tbh, I thought Mitchell was the maid until I was seven years old. Okay. That is so fucking embarrassing. He was just really compulsive about cleaning.

Julia: Yeah. Super anal retentive and compulsive. And I, you know, dad and Mitchell never showed any kind of affection towards each other, so I was like, oh yeah, they're just like totally chill roommates. And that guy's, the maid, also, they had different bedrooms. 

I mean, I remember this, I was confused because I knew there was more going on. Granted I was four years older than you. I knew that they were in some kind of relationship. I could feel that. But they lived, they had two separate bedrooms, but one bed was always made. Mitchell's bed was always made. They clearly slept together in dad's room, but no one ever talked about that. It was just this like weird elephant in the room.

And I never asked anyone about it, but it was, and I couldn't talk to you about it. You were too young. I was too young. 

Molly: And also I, I'm sure I've told you this story, but there was one time I was in the car with dad and I was like second or third grade. And I remember hearing on the play scape, like a kid calling another kid gay or like, that's gay, you're gay.

So I asked Dad , and again, I didn't know anything had to do with anything. And I was like, dad, are you gay?  because I heard it on the playground. I was like, yeah, I know what this means. You just asked him straight up. And he was like, well, honey. And it like turned into a big conversation and I was like, whoa.

Like whoa. That's not what I meant . But like thanks for the info. Didn't mean for you to just like smash open my whole world. Yeah. Shit. And then I remember being in like, Yeah, I think I was really ashamed of it.

Julia: We had a similar experience. I learned that dad was gay because I saw some kids, uh, like wrestling during recess, two boys. And someone was like, that's so gay. And I was like, what does gay mean? And my friend was like, you don't know what gay means. So I already felt ashamed cuz I was like, oh, I'm behind on something.

Mm-hmm. . And she said, it's when guys like, like each other.  and I immediately, I was like, oh my God, that's my dad. And I, I went home and I asked mom about it. You were too young at the time. I was like 10, so I guess you were maybe six. Mm-hmm. . And we were at dinner and I asked mom, I was like, mom, is dad gay?

And she like dropped her fork, mid bite and in shock. And so I knew it was true and I felt sick to my stomach and I ran to the bathroom and I thought I was gonna puke. And then I think she came and had the talk with me.

But isn't that interesting that we were all, you're in the closet with your family. Mm-hmm.  If there isn't like a definitive moment where it's like if either you're not raised with everybody just fully understanding and talking transparently about it, or they're being a definitive moment, and mom and dad made it they made a choice for us to just find out, to keep it quiet. 

Molly: And you know what's bizarre is, like I was saying earlier, like our family's so open, we talk about everything. But when we were growing up, we did not. No. It was, we were a family of secrets and you were a family of secrets. And it's very, you know, and you learn.

And if anybody's ever been in any kind of, um, recovery program, the one of the baselines is secrets keep you sick. Secrets make you sick. And I think that a lot of our childhood might have been plagued by a bit of dysfunction from the secret keeping. 

Julia: Keeping secrets and living in secret is a disease, a disease my whole family suffered from. But there was a turning point seven years ago, when Molly was in treatment out of town for drug/alcohol abuse.  

Molly: I will say that when I got older, when I went, when I went to treatment and we as a family had to sit down and be real with each other. Yeah. Yeah. That was a good starting place. Oh my God. Molly, you, you going, I think I accidentally kicked the door wide open with that. I think you did. That's actually, 

Julia: God, that's so fascinating. That was the first time the four of us got together. Just the four of us since we were a family unit. Mm-hmm.  and y'all actually stayed together. I remember at an Airbnb, like as a family and I was so jealous that I couldn't be with y'all doing that. I know, I know. And I was really sad that you couldn't be with us.

I also was like really appreciative that I got that time with mom and dad and I mean, you're being in treatment and the exercises that your recovery center made us all do together was like such a gift for all of us. 

Molly: Yeah. And you know what? That actually started Dad on his journey of being able to say what he was feeling very openly. Like he would come to me and he would use the framework that he learned in treatment. 

Julia: Yeah. It's really amazing. I mean, isn't it just like you just never know when some of these really challenging experiences are actually huge gifts. 

Julia: How did you feel about being in a blended family as a kid? Were you ever teased, were you embarrassed to tell others that your dad was gay? 

Molly: Yeah, very embarrassed. Um, and I think a lot of my childhood, I kind of blocked out a bit because I was so embarrassed by my home life.

Julia: Yeah. I felt the same way. And that was kind of how I, I gauged who my real friends were, were the people who'd, who accepted and loved me.

Julia: While Molly and I went through all of this at the same time, it didn’t feel like we were in it together. She’s four years younger than me, and that’s a big difference when you’re kids. The role I assigned myself was to try and protect her from the hurt of the situation.

Instead, I really relied on my friends. One of the friends I felt truly accepted and loved by was Ellana. We’ve been best friends since we were four, and she was one of the few people I could talk to about my parents splitting up. And then, when we were 12…her mom also came out as gay. All of a sudden someone I trusted could empathize with me, and I didn’t feel so alone anymore. 

Even better, her dad and my mom, the two straight parents, started dating and when we were 16 they got married. 

My best friend became my step-sister, which helped me feel more proud of my family, which at this point was starting to feel like a big, Jewish gay Brady bunch. 

But that also meant that I wasn’t talking to Molly about any of this. I was just talking to Ellana. I was probably still hoping one of my dolls would murder Molly in the middle of the night. 

It wasn’t until Molly was in rehab that we finally addressed the shared pain of our upbringing. 

Julia: You know, I remember feeling a sort of quiet exhilaration when that was happening, because I think I knew that this was just taking us to a new level. 

Molly: Yeah. Like a new level of like a family therapy that like we didn't ask for, but was kind of forced upon us. But that was kind of necessary.

Julia: It was necessary…and when we finished the interview I felt so appreciative and closer to her. 

Which made me wonder..what would a direct conversation with my parents make me feel? When we come back, we hear from my dad.  

Julia: One year on Father's Day, I think I gave you a card that was like, thank you so much for being my dad. Thank you for giving me life. And what was it you said? 

Jaron: I said, oh, it was nothing. Just a little squirt (laughter)

Julia: This is my dad, Jaron. He is, in one word, outrageous. 

For example, on a recent Sunday afternoon I got invited to a dance party in a warehouse, and I invited my dad. The room was filled with people in their 20s and 30s, slowly swaying and bopping their heads in their trendy outfits and wide brimmed hats. 

But right there twirling in the middle of the dance floor is Jaron, 67 years old, wearing athletic clothes from Target. The DJ dubbed him MVP of the dance party, and I agreed wholeheartedly. 

Because my dad is the life of every party. He’s sassy, irreverent and can find humor in any situation. 

But as my family has healed, we’ve learned that his humor is also a defense mechanism. He’s a geriatric psychiatrist, and that’s a heavy job. Humor and sarcasm has helped him compartmentalize the emotional strain of working with Alzheimer’s patients.

We’ve all followed his lead- humor is my family’s favorite tool when things feel hard. I often joke that I’m glad he didn’t come out as gay right away because otherwise I wouldn’t exist. 

That’s where I started our interview together- his desire to have a family. 

Julia:  When you were young, what did you envision for yourself when you thought about your family of the future?

Jaron: I mean, I wanted a family. Um, family was all important.

Julia: And what did that mean? You know, literally.

Jaron: I mean, literally it would, it, it would mean that I married a woman and that I had kids. 

Jaron: I had known your mother, I think since day o ne of college, which was 1973. 

Julia: But she moved away for a few years after college. And when she got back to Texas, they reconnected.

Jaron: We saw each other, got back together at her Best Friend's wedding, then we dated for a while until I really was, um, it was getting more and more intense and more and more, um, serious.

And I just couldn't tolerate it. I felt like I had to go. Uh, I had to go see about my gayness and I broke her heart. I broke the relationship off, and, uh, and she went and, uh, and did her own thing in Houston for a while. I went to Connecticut, uh, to do training in psychiatry and, uh, was, was really seeing men and women at the time.

And, um, uh, and AIDS came on the scene around the same time. And, uh, my cousin, uh, Alan eventually died of aids and I decided, you know what? If I can have it either way with men or women, I wanted to be with a woman. I wanted a family.

I wanted kids. I'd always wanted a family, wanted kids. Family was all important. And your mother and I really loved each other, and we loved each other's families.

And so it was really, really hard to initially break it off with her. And it was really, really wonderful to get back with her because I never thought it would happen.

Julia: During their time apart, my mom knew my dad was bisexual. And when they got back together, he told her he could choose and he wanted to be with her. So they got married and six weeks later they were pregnant with me. 

Jaron: So you came along pretty quickly and I realized afterwards that at least at the time, it's like, uh, wow, I guess I cemented myself in a heterosexual relationship and because I wasn't going to do anything different, I basically went back in the closet for several years. And then Molly came along and around that same time, I couldn't control what was going on with me inside anymore. I've known I was gay since I was probably five or six years old.

Jaron: your mother and I were in therapy. We were in couples therapy talking about being honest. And one day I just said, I, I can't do this anymore. I want to be with a man and broke her heart for a second time.

And I still feel bad about that. But, um, you know, my philosophy at the time was right or wrong. That I was the child of a very unhappy marriage. My parents were very unhappy from the time I was born. They were unhappy the day I was born. I couldn't tolerate that in my own relationship. And so I had to find  something that felt it fit for me. And I knew that I was never going to abandon anybody. I just had to go my own way sexually.

I knew that I could still have my family. It just wasn't gonna be a traditional intact family. And of course, 50% of families wind up in divorce too. And, you know, I've worried that psychologically I was going to damage you kids by divorcing. But on the other hand, the feeling of damaging you all, if I stayed in a marriage that I just couldn't be in anymore, was gonna be even worse for everybody. My unhappiness would've been worse for everybody I felt.

Julia: What made you sad? 

Jaron: Well, that I left her and I didn't want to, never would have, but I couldn't be honest about my sexuality for years. basically gay people learn, not to be honest. You can't be honest with yourself and you can't be honest with other people.

You don't want to be attacked. You don't want to be, uh, criticized. You don't want to be killed, so you learn how to stuff it and shove it and not be real, and not be honest and, and not be who you truly are. Some people, you know, don't have a problem with that, they're just out. And I think as the years have gone by, certainly younger men have a whole lot easier time, uh, than my generation did.

Julia: What was it like? To be a dad and raise kids as a gay man in Texas in the 1990s?

Jaron: You know, I guess looking back, it wasn't that bad. I was in Austin, Texas, which was a much better place to come out  than, you know, Odessa or Midland or, you know, uh, anywhere else, or, or Bohunk, Texas. Uh, so I knew I was in a liberal place and that most people were gonna be just fine with it, and they were, and at my job in my office, I mean, Nobody said anything about it.

I don't know that they were comfortable, but they didn't say anything about it. And so life kind of went on as usual. I think the hardest thing for me was, being a single parent, it was not easy. Every time I got you all, it was, um, okay, what am I gonna do with them for the few days to keep you busy or to keep you interested or, you know, do interesting things with you. And of course, that led to ‘Well, you're the good time dad’. That's what your mom would say.

I mean, it was really in the service of having a relationship with you all and taking care of kids. I mean, you know, go places and do things. And then taking you back home was always really terrible. I mean, it was sad. Sometimes you all didn't want to go home. Sometimes you wanted to go home to mom's, you know?

Julia: Not only was he a single dad, but right after the divorce, he started a new relationship. 

Jaron: I did meet my first partner, Mitchell, and he helped me rear you all really. For better or worse. I don't think you liked him very much at first. 

Julia: Not at first, but then later, man, he and I got really close. 

Jaron: You got really close. He was your confidant. 

Julia: Mitchell became one of my favorite people. When I first met him as a little, Jewish girl, all I could see was that he looked like a real life Ken doll, with blonde hair and blue eyes. I thought he was gorgeous. I could tell he made my dad happy, and eventually he made me happy. He was a source of light in my life who felt sparkly and fun. When I was a rebellious teenager, he came to my rescue when I got in trouble for drinking and partying. He brought optimism and cheer to my life, which I came to really appreciate the older I got. 

My senior year of college, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He died a year later. 

Jaron: What was the most painful experience from your childhood? Of me leaving the family?

Julia:  The most painful part of this journey for me was when Mitchell died. And the thing that made it so painful was not just that he died, but it was that the day he died was the day I found out that he was HIV positive.

And the reason I found that out was because you told me, but you told me in a way that was like in a sort of like sobbing, crying mess after your love of your life died, you were ranting about the H I V and how that was what killed him in the end, even though it was cancer and I, it was like, it was like the rug was pulled out from under me all over again.

It was like this whatever trauma I did experience as a young child from finding out a secret that actually had a huge impact on my life. it was that happening all over again with this other thing. And then I was afraid that you were HIV positive and I was convinced that you were what? Lying to me to protect me all over again.

I was afraid that you were gonna die of h hiv aids and that I was gonna, that I couldn't handle it. That I wouldn't be able to handle it. And you knew that. And so I thought you were gonna, I thought that you were lying to me to protect me from completely having a psychotic break. The day that I, Mitchell had already just died. It was the hardest day of my life. 

Julia: Thankfully, my dad never was HIV-positive. But it took me a few years to really accept that he wasn’t lying to me. My dad eventually fell in love again with his current husband Jeffery.

One of the things they love to do together is travel.

Julia: So recently you went on a gay cruise and  one gay cruise, many gay cruise. Recently you went on many gay cruises and you had a bit of a revelatory moment. Can you tell us about that moment? 

Jaron: Yeah. So I'm on this gay cruise with 4,000 gay men. And it's at one of the dances and it's outside on the deck. And I just looked out at everybody and I was up against a post and I just was bawling and I was bawling because it was, I was so happy that all these people, all these guys could just be themselves.

And I wished that I could have been able to do that when I was young. What was amazing was this one guy. He came up to me and he embraced me and he said, it's because of you all that we're here. Because I was feeling really old and, I was happy and I was sad, uh, but it was a very powerful moment.

Jaron: I would've come out a whole lot sooner, but I wouldn't, and maybe I would've had a family eventually, you know, somehow, but like people are doing now. But, um, but you know, the reality is, is that it happened the way it happened and I, I'm very thankful and I love you all tremendously. And, um, you know, just the journey continues.

Julia: I have spent years thinking about my dad coming out and how it’s impacted our lives. He’s always been at the center of this story: it was his decision to come out that changed our family forever. It was his secrets we had to untangle years later. 

I’ve also celebrated the good that came from my dad’s decision - like my relationship with Mitchell. Or…if they hadn’t gotten divorced, my mom wouldn’t have married my best friend’s dad. We all get together on holidays and everyone has a good relationship, so from the outside looking in, it seems like a beautiful success story of divorce. And let’s be real, we’ve had 30 years to get our shit together. 

Which is why I was a little surprised during my interview with my dad, to hear pain in his voice when he talked about hurting my mom all those years ago. 

It was a reminder that her maturity and resilience that really kept our family together. We wouldn’t be able to have a cohesive, blended family if it weren’t for her.

And I probably wouldn’t even be doing this podcast if it wasn’t for her. 

So when we come back, I talk to my mom. 

Julia: Cathy Schechter is a force of nature. 

Cathy: And dad was like, you know, I'm waiting for you to write the book. And I'm like, I don't wanna define myself by this experience. This is not, I mean, it's an experience, but it's not the defining moment of my life. There have been other defining moments, and this is just something that it's, it's a, it's a decision that I made, um, to marry him.

Julia: This is a woman born in the 1950s, saying marriage doesn’t define her. My mom is a lot of things- wise, authentic, compassionate - but most of all, she’s a badass. 

When I was in my early 20s, I worked at her market research firm. One day, my direct supervisor was stressing me out and I went into my mom’s office to tell her. She was sitting behind her big desk, with her glasses resting on the edge of her nose, and after I finished complaining she pushed up her glasses and said “Julia, is anyone dying?” I said no. She responded with “Then don’t worry about it. Just do what you can.”

That’s how she approaches many things in life: she calls challenging moments AFGEs…which stands for Another Fucking Growth Experience. She’s taught me that there are no mistakes, only lessons. 

She’s been such a role model for me - she cares deeply about the collective, she’s curious, and she’s a master storyteller, whether it was for public health campaigns or as a teacher of ancient Jewish texts.  

When I was a kid, she wrote a book about the history of Jewish people in Texas, based on our family history. This desire to mine for meaning within family clearly rubbed off on me.

But I was nervous to tell her about this podcast. I’ve explored my family’s story through creative projects before, and that didn’t go over well with my mom. So it took me months to muster up the courage to ask her to do this interview.

But….she agreed. 

Julia: First of all, how did you find out about dad being gay and then. How did that play a part in your marriage and the ending of your marriage?

Cathy: I knew that dad had had same sex partners when we got married. I, I'd known that about him for a long time and we had actually explored that together. Um, and the masters in Johnson's, you know, there's this, this continuum of sexual The Kinzie scale. Yeah. The Kinzie scale, whatever it was. And, you know, and Dad's assurance was, yeah, I'm attracted to, to both men and women, but, but you're the person I wanna marry.

And I believed him. Why wouldn't I? Um, so it wasn't an issue when we were married, you know, finding out that dad was gay. It was an issue of me discovering that Dad had betrayed our marriage and that he had fallen in love with someone else. 

Julia: And for you, how much did it matter that the other person was a man

Cathy: at the time, time? you know, I think, I thought that it was probably easier than it would be for a woman who gets left for a younger woman or for a more beautiful woman, or a richer woman or whatever. I mean, it was like, I, how could I compete with another man if he wanted another man? I mean, that was just something I could never do or be.

Julia: how did you feel when you decided to get a divorce?

Cathy: I felt very sad. I didn't want it. I didn't wanna be single again. I didn't wanna lose your father. I didn't wanna lose our dream, The family life. Um, so I was angry. Um, the rug got pulled out from under me. You know, here we had these two children together and I just, I was really angry with him.

Julia: how did you and dad end up repairing your relationship to get us to the point where we are today?

Cathy: I had done my research and I understood that children of divorce are more wounded by fighting and nastiness than they are by the divorce itself.

And so even though I was angry, I knew that I had to, find a way to keep our family together and, and in order to do that, I was gonna have to get my shit together and,I was gonna have to put my big girl panties on.

Julia: How the hell did you do that, mom? Seriously? Like when I do really try to sit in your shoes and think about what this whole process was like, from your perspective and what you must have gone through, which I'll never fully, I'll never be able to know that. No one will ever know but you, but how did you get through this?

Cathy: it was an exercise in self-control.I learned a lot about being human and I learned a lot about love. What I learned about love was that the better part of loving your father was gonna have to be loving who he really is and not who I wanted him to be. Um, and so I didn't get my way.That was just the way it was. And so I couldn't change it. I couldn't control it. 

Cathy: I feel proud of it because I feel that when dad and I were getting a divorce, there was the sense in on both sides of the family that they should not like the other one. That we should all be get mad. My parents and my aunts and uncles who were all prepared to really hate Jerry, I was like, we're not gonna do that.

This is not who we're going to be. He's Julia and Molly's father. And make no mistake, I was mad as hell at him. I mean, he broke my heart. He betrayed me. He betrayed our dream, the dream that we had together. But I loved him then, and I love him still.

Julia: I look so admirably at you for how you handled that. And there's so much that I'll never know about. I really think, and I've heard dad say before too, that you, so much of the reason that we are still so connected is because of you. It's probably all because of you actually. 

But there was a moment when you could have, I mean, you were the deciding person. You could have said, I don't wanna be around this person. But there was obviously something bigger that you had in mind, even in the moment that you felt heartbroken.

It's almost like you chose that bigger love or that bigger perspective over the feelings you had at the time. What was going on for you?

Cathy: I wanted my children to have a family. I didn't want them to, I didn't want you, I didn't want you and Molly to have a life, that was where you had to choose. I wanted you to have what I had.

And you know, that was, I remember one night sitting outside on the back porch, right outside my bedroom. Remember that? There's a big tree, big sycamore tree. Beautiful. It was a beautiful spot. And looking up at the stars and talking to God and saying, I have no control over anything.

I, now, what am I supposed to do? Just guide me. And that's when my career took the turn that it took. And I spent the next 25 years educating women about you were empowering women. I was empowering women. That was my path.

I had to set aside whatever romantic relationship we ever had had. And I had to start looking at him, not as a husband, but as the father of my children. And this was the father that, by the way, I wanted to, you know, I mean, . I wanted a partner in raising my kids, and then I also kind of got Mitchell in the bargain. Who sometimes did more than your dad did, you know. Who sometimes rose to the occasion so beautifully. Um, it just took time. It took time.

Julia: Yeah. What, when you look back at Mitchell and the role he played in our family and your relationship with him, what do you remember most?

Cathy: Mitchell was the only person who, who got doses of my rage other than your dad. So I'd left a really angry message one time and Mitchell was on the receiving end and he said, you ought really hear yourself. But you know, as their relationship went on through the years, he began to understand why I would be so angry with your dad.

And I loved Mitchell and I, I, I was grateful to him. he always complained, that we weren't teaching our kids to be clean or we to need enough and, you know, all their clothes and you, he hated that I'd throw my towels all over the floor.

So, you know, ultimately he became sort of the third person in the marriage.

And you know, and I appreciated that about him. He took the role seriously. And when he was dying, you know, for those, those months, those really horrible months, you know, I, I was there for him. And we had a good ending.

Julia: One of the things that is very top of mind to me at this point in my life, is the idea of having children. Neither my sister nor I have kids and I know this is tough for my mom, who loves being a grandmother to her husband's grandson and would love to have more.

Julia: Does it make you sad that neither of us have kids? 

Cathy: A little bit, yeah.

Julia: I have this story and I know you know that I have this story about you, that you want to be a grandmother, and I mean, I know that's true, but I think the weight I've put on that story that you never asked me to put on is that I am a disappointment somehow because I've not delivered children to make you a grandmother. What do you think about that story?

Cathy: I think the story's not over. And  what I've told myself is that if I never have my own grandchildren, you know will have hopefully left a legacy somehow on the world.

And if you don't have kids, you still have some obligation to leave a little bit of yourself behind, whether through students or the people that you touch, the children that you touch.

You know the things that you produce in this world to take people to a place where they can bring hope and repair to the world. And I believe that both of you are capable of doing that, whether you have children or not. But you do have an obligation. I won't let up on that . 

Julia: Well, it's why I'm doing this podcast.

Is there anything else you want to say just to feel complete with the conversation?

Cathy: You know, despite everything, when Molly was going through rehab and we had that moment where the four of us embraced each other, I didn't want it to end. And in that way, I don't think I've ever really gotten over it. I'm not sure that I ever will, but what we have is good enough. 

Julia: Thank you so much for how you've handled everything, and I know it's not perfect. We've all, you know, had our hard times. Um, but I think you've done a phenomenal job. , and I'm saying it in front of, I don't know who's listening to this. I don't know if this part is even gonna make it into the podcast, but I'm just saying like, it doesn't matter.

Cathy: I don't need credit. I know, I know. And I'm proud. I'm proud of our family. 

Julia: Hell yeah. No one else like us out there. 

Cathy: Oh. I think there are people like us out there that have had a journey where they just figured out that it's easier to love, it's just easier and healthier to love.

Julia: These conversations with my family were incredibly cathartic for me. The interview format gave me the opportunity to talk to them directly about things we never would have talked about on our own, which for me has unlocked another level of healing and acceptance. 

My parents divorce started with shame and secrets, but decades later I see how much we’ve loved and respected each other through an intense process of refamulation and I’m so proud of how resilient we are. 

Now I begin a new process of refamulating, this time as an egg donor, and I’m drawing from my past to inform my future. I’ve learned from my family of origin that transparency matters, different is beautiful, and doing something new doesn’t have to mean doing it alone. 

That’s why I’m creating this podcast. I want to shine a light on people who are courageous enough to create their families in ways that align with who they truly are and what they truly want.

If that resonates with you, I’d say you are refamulating and I’m so happy you’re here. You might know what you want your family to look like, but don’t know how to make it happen. Or maybe you think there isn’t a way for you to have the family you want. Maybe you have no idea what family means to you, or maybe you have a family and don’t see any others that look like yours.

All of these scenarios can feel lonely - trust me, I know - but they don’t have to. There’s no one else out there like you and your family, but there are a lot of people trying to figure it out, just like you. Just like me. 

So let’s do it together.

00: Becoming Fairy Godmother: Egg donation and creating a new kind of family

Two years ago Julia Winston was asked to help a gay couple start a family by donating her eggs. At the time, she was 38, single, and had no idea if she’d start her own family. Sometimes that made her feel insecure, so the opportunity to donate her eggs allowed her to help create a family, just not the one she imagined in her head. Since the donation, she’s gone through an emotional transformation that opened her eyes to all the different ways a family can look. 

This episode originally aired on Terrible Thanks for Asking, hosted by Nora McInerny.

Episode transcript is below. Transcripts may not appear in their final form.

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Nora McInerny: What does family mean to you? 

Each of us will answer that question a little differently- maybe you consider the people you live in the same home with as your family. Maybe you widen that circle and include aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins. Maybe family are the friends you've chosen who have stood by you through everything, when the people you share blood with didn't. 

When I was growing up, my family was a massive Irish Catholic conglomerate spanning the upper midwest. I have – and this is not exaggeration – FIFTY FIRST COUSINS! And so many other forms of cousins that if you share even one strand of DNA with me, or if you grew up alongside me, I was told you were my cousin or my uncle or my aunt.

Family to me was always expansive, but I still assumed as a kid that my own family would be pretty nuclear. I’d marry a man. We’d have kids. Those kids would be cousins with my siblings’ kids. We’d become grandparents, and then we’d die and maybe someone would name a kid after us someday? 

And I was kind of right and also kind of wrong.

I was married, he died. I was a single mom for a little bit. Then I blended families with my current husband, his kids, my kid and a surprise new baby. My first husband’s mother is a grandmother to all of these kids. Both my mothers in law have lunch together and don’t invite me!! Our kids don’t say step or half sibling, they just say sibling. Because our oldest was born when I was 18 but I didn’t meet him until he was 14…my husband calls me a “late in life teen mom.” 

And all of my kids mostly call me Nora, which is very funny to me. 

But you can only have a blended family when two other families disintegrate, and ¾ of our kids know what it’s like to have a family they loved…and a family they love now. 

Our family is more expansive that I thought it ever would be, and even though meeting new people often means a five-minute rundown of the backstory with time for Q&A…our family is unique in the fact that it’s not unique at all. 

A third of adults, ages 25 to 50, live with a spouse and kids. A generation ago that number used to be 70 percent. 

Family is changing. People are staying single longer, having children has become a choice for many people, not a thing they feel they have to do. And queer people have more opportunities to have kids using science and outside help. 

All of this freedom to do something different means that many of us are asking ourselves the question I asked at the beginning: 

what does family look like for you? 

Exactly two years ago, on April 2, 2022, Julia Winston logged onto a Zoom call with a psychologist. Julia was sitting at the kitchen table at her home in Austin, TX. The psychologist was in her office in a different state. They'd never met before, and Julia was talking to this specific psychologist because she was trying to figure out what family would look like for her.

Therapist: How do you picture this? Like, you know, what role do you think you would have? 

Julia: Well, we talked about that and we came up with a role. We came up with a title, which is the Fairy Godmother. 

Therapist: Yeah. Only thing is, I don't know if you have magic. 

Julia:  Oh, I have magic. 

Therapist: You do? Because that's very helpful for children.

Julia: I've got magic. I love that, yeah. 

Nora: Three months before this session, two male friends of Julia's reached out and asked her a favor. They wanted to start a family and they were looking for an egg donor. they asked Julia and....she said yes. She would be their fairy godmother. 

The technical term for her role is “known egg donor”. Julia’s friends – who she calls The Egg Daddies – want to use her eggs and their sperm to make embryos via In Vitro Fertilization. The embryos will be implanted into a surrogate, a woman who has agreed to carry the children she has no genetic tie to. This sounds so strange and technical, I know. The Egg Daddies don’t want Julia to be a mom, but they do want Julia to know their children, to be available for questions and to just be another adult who loves them. 

It’s not a relationship we really have a term for. We have aunts. Uncles. Cousins. But an adult who gave their DNA to make sure you could be born? That doesn't parent you? Fairy Godmother was the term that felt right. 

At the time, Julia was 37. She was single and didn't have children of her own. She'd frozen some eggs a few years prior, in case she did want to get pregnant one day, but her own desires for a family were still a little fuzzy. She could give these men a huge gift…and… be part of a family, without carrying the baby or filling a parental role.

Julia: I love the idea of, of having an extended wacky family. I mean, I just think to me, that's a very comfortable, uh, place. And, um, I mean, I felt a lot of joy when I was considering this, doing this, because that was actually one thing I imagined. And I just laughed so much because I was like, wow, I've gone from worrying that maybe I'll never have any kids to like, what if I have like a bunch of kids, like what if Aaron and Dan have multiple kids from my eggs and then I have kids, I mean, that would just be incredible and that my body wouldn't even have to go through you know, all the things to have multiple kids. So that possibility is actually very exciting to me. Not that it wouldn't have complications as every family does, but I fully trust that I would be able to meet any complications that came up. 

Nora: Saying yes to the egg daddies was easy for Julia. Two years before they reached out, she  went through a big break up in her mid 30s. The man she thought she would marry and have kids with wasn’t in her life anymore…and as she mourned the loss of that relationship, she also mourned the loss of the story she’d always told herself: that she’d get married and have kids before she turned 40. 

Then, the pandemic started, as Julia sat alone in her house she thought a lot about that story. She realized for her, kids weren't a priority, finding the right partner was. So when the egg daddies reached out in early 2022, she saw a new story being presented, and she loved her role in it.

But this process is not as simple as just saying yes, you may have my eggs.

That yes kicks off a medical process that begins with meeting with this psychologist, whose job is to evaluate Julia to see if Julia is psychologically prepared to donate her eggs to these men. Because donating eggs will make the Egg Daddies into parents. But not Julia. 

Julia: I would love to be a person who can be deeply caring for the child and to develop a relationship with a child and be able to provide answers about where do you come from? Why are you the way that you are? To be a safe space for them to go. I think that I could actually play that role better if I wasn't, you know, directly parenting them. And I think that's a really special, that to me, if I had a presence like that in my life, wow. Actually I did. My dad's, my dad's love of his life, my dad's partner really became that for me. And I know what it's, I know how to be that. Like I know how to play that role because I received it and I was so lucky. 

Nora McInerny:  The love of Julia’s dad's life was named Mitchell. And today on Terrible, Thanks For Asking, Julia tells us what it took to become the Fairy Godmother she is today. 

Julia grew up in what she considered a nuclear household in the 80s and 90s in Austin, Texas. A mom. A dad. A little sister, Molly, who is four years younger than her.

Julia: And I remember at age seven, just being really confused about what was going on and feeling the intense emotions in my household.

Like, I remember my mom crying in her room alone and my dad laying on the couch downstairs facing away from us. Like, in my memory, He's laying on the couch with his back facing towards our bedrooms and the rest of the house. And I just remember kind of going from my mom's room downstairs to where my dad was laying on the couch, just understanding that something big was happening and that change was coming, but I didn't really know what it meant.

And my mom said, your dad and I are getting... a divorce. And I think I asked why, like, what does it mean? And she said, ask your father. And so I went and asked him and I don't remember what they said. I was so young, but I just remember the visual of her crying alone in her room and him turned away from us on the couch.And of me somewhere in the middle, feeling like. What's happening? And I also remember them both telling me very clearly that they loved me and that I didn't do anything wrong.

Nora: Julia’s parents split custody. Her mom stayed in their house, and Julia and her sister went back and forth from their mom’s house to their dad’s apartment.

Julia: every other weekend and every Wednesday we would go hang with my dad at his apartment. Um, And I hated his apartment because I just wanted him to be back at home. And he was in this little dinky apartment with like, popcorn ceiling apartment and um, my sister and I shared a room, which I obviously hated. And I just remember, you know, there being a lot of just discomfort. like learning how to pack and like trying to make decisions about like what do you take, what do you keep, having pets at both houses.

And it went on like this for a few years. I just remember having this, this feeling that whole time. Like there was something I didn't know. There was some lurking truth and I felt it swirling around me. But I just didn't know what it was, but something fell off to me and at the time I did not totally equate that feeling of something being off with the fact that my dad was hanging out a lot with this guy who looked like a Ken doll. I was like, who is this dude?

We had like a dinky little like speed boat, fishing boat on the lake and we would go to the lake on the weekends. And my dad, you know, brought friends and there was always this guy named Mitchell who had blue eyes and blonde hair. And he has this like. Really fun, like chuckle. And he was just like tanning gorgeous. And like my dad seemed to just hang out with him a lot and I, but I didn't know who he was. And I was like, why are you here And so I thought it was kind of weird. And then my dad, um. I, at some point he moved into a new house.  There were four bedrooms upstairs and he had a room, Mitchell moved in with him. And then my sister and I had our rooms. And again, I was like, why is this guy here all the time? Like why does he live with us? And so this was happening. It was just like part of my everyday life was just like my dad and his roommate. And like, this was totally a trend in the 90s of, uh, you know, when, when there weren't a lot of resources at that time, like books and, and other types of resources for parents to have the talk with their kids about like dad is gay.I don't I don't know how it became like 100 percent clear to me, but it was like, uh, It's almost like at the end of it You know like the usual suspects when like suddenly you look back and all of the pieces came together like it's Kaiser Susie Like ah, my dad is gay! It's Mitchell!

Nora McInerny:  Aha! Julia's parents got divorced because her dad is gay. Mitchell isn’t just a handsome Ken doll who loves to chuckle. He’s her Dad's BOYFRIEND! 

Julia: We didn't really like each other. I was like, really aggravated by this person's presence. Cause I just, for, for those years, I, I just was like, who are you? Like, why are you here all the time? I don't care if you're handsome, get away. Like, I don't get it. And he had this like very sparkly, twinkly personality, but like it kind of annoyed me because, um, he was just always giggling, you know, I was like, why are you laughing at?

Like, it's just like, why are you laughing? And I think that, like, we kind of had like a little bit of a nemesis relationship for a while. Because I was very messy and I, I was a very messy kid and Mitchell was a very clean man. And I would like drop my towels on the ground and like leave cups everywhere, which I still do.

And I don't drop my towel anymore, but I definitely leave glasses all over the house, which Mitchell would fucking hate. But I just like left my stuff everywhere. I think that, like, maybe when the nemesis relationship began, it was when I felt judged by Mitchell. Like, he would glare at me, and then I would feel, like, really defensive, and he'd say something, like, Pick up your towel and I was kind of sitting there like who the hell are you to tell me to pick up my towel? This is my dad's house. Get out. You know, I was like it was a it was a power struggle between us.

Nora McInerny: It’s not just a power struggle. It’s the 90s, and like Julia mentioned earlier, we weren't really talking about how to be in a blended family, and in 90s Texas we definitely weren’t talking much about a blended family where dad has a boyfriend. 

Which means Julia’s dad and mom weren't really communicating with their kids about Mitchell's role in the family. 

Julia: Whenever there was like a function where my family came that Mitchell and my dad came together And that was when I understood that they were a couple or that was when I started perceiving them to be a couple It was probably my bat mitzvah Like there was a big event and in my you know in my life and my family really rallied together and in family photos It was my dad and Mitchell. 

when we started going on family vacations together, um, which we did from a very young age, like every year we would go to Mexico together or Hawaii or, you know, some kind of vacation and they would, yeah, they, they, we would always go together and it was my dad and Mitchell were like the, you know, the parent, parental figures. he was there and, um, and he felt part of the family. 

In middle school, I just, yeah, I started hanging out with, like, an alternative crowd. I was kind of feeling out with my new friends, like, are they safe? And it turns out that they were, like, I, I just got the sense that they were, like, the kids I was hanging out with, like, one, one girl, her, she had a single mom. And they were poor and they had, they just did things differently. And, um, I felt really safe and comfortable with her because I felt like she was sort of also, um, her family operated in a different way than what we saw around us as the sort of, like, gold star standard of families.

And I don't know, we like smoked cigarettes together and like we were just naughty and I remember one day when we were being naughty just telling them that my dad is gay and, and, and I think I was nervous to see what their response was, but when I felt accepted and in fact they thought it was cool, I started seeing Mitchell differently. When my friends accepted my family and my dad as being gay, I suddenly felt safe and relaxed enough to see him beyond just this like threat of Like whatever threat I saw him as it softened when I came out about my family to some friends and I started seeing him differently and then I think Because I started seeing him differently, I started acting differently towards him.

And we were able to just joke and laugh with each other. And that very organically over the years developed into a really cool camaraderie.  

And... And really when things, um, when things really started to solidify between us, it was in high school when I would get in trouble. I was constantly grounded in high school. I was just like, I just was a bit of a wild child and I loved boys. I loved partying. I loved, you know, all these things that my parents really did not want me to love. And Mitchell seemed to sort of like laugh with me and accept me for that. And I saw that and I was like, Oh, not only do I feel safe about Mitchell, but I feel safe with him to be my full self.

When, when, when we really, really like locked in and developed trust, it was when I got grounded for something for like, you know, something I did that was involved probably drinking or something. I got grounded and Mitchell sort of like came in to talk to me and he really related to me. He met me where I was at. And as a teenager who was like constantly rebelling against her parents, he sort of stepped in. And. Assumed this new different role that they couldn't which was like, hey, I'm here. I'm listening. Like what really happened? Like you must be so frustrated Hey, let me try to convince your dad that like to like go easy on you. And then I was like, yeah

And then from that point we started developing more memories together. Like he, we would go running together sometimes cause he was an avid runner and cyclist and he taught me how to run.   

Nora McInerny: The thing about being a parent is that you can only be so cool. Mitchell was VERY cool in part because he had the best role of all the adults in Julia’s life: mom and dad were parenting, running businesses and dealing with the fallout of their divorce. 

But Mitchell didn’t have all that baggage. And he didn’t have his own kids. He got to bring just himself to this relationship, and all he wanted was to have a good relationship with the kids he lived with on Wednesday nights and every other weekend. 

And that’s what he did. Consistently and competently and humbly. Until Julia left  the nest and headed to college. 

It’s 2002 and Julia is a freshman at American University in DC. When Julia left for college, she didn’t bring the shame about her family that she’s carried through her childhood in Texas. She loved that her family was different, that they were alternative, and she was proud to talk about them with her new friends. 

Julia: I remember talking to my dad on the phone when I was at college in Washington, D. C. and like, being excited to talk to Mitchell in the background. And like, I would hear his little twinkly voice and be like, wait, let me say hi to Mitchell.

I remember my freshman year, Mitchell was the one who told me that our dog, Raja, had died. And I was just crying and, you know, it was really clear to me with some distance what a family we were. And so he came to Washington, DC for work occasionally. And because that's where I went to college, we would hang out together. We would go to lunch. We really got to know each other, you know, as, as sort of as people, as adults. Um, I had a boyfriend my sophomore year of college and my dad and Mitchell came to visit and that was the first time that like we went, they took us to dinner and it was the first time I like went out onto a meal with, with a boyfriend, uh, or with like a, you know, someone I was dating with my dad and Mitchell and that the guy I was dating like really loved them. And I was like, Oh my God, cool. Like to see my dad and his partner, um, being seen as a couple by the person I was dating was like another new, it was a new moment of, of like deepening my understanding of who Mitchell was to me and to us.

and then I studied abroad in Prague my junior year of college and my dad and Mitchell and Molly came to visit me. we had like a really wonderful time together. And I remember one night we had appetizers and wine at my dad and Mitchell's like hotel and I brought all my best friends. who are still to this day like some of my best friends in the world, my best friends from college. And we all had wine and cheese and we laughed together and they got to know him and everyone I was close friends with fell in love with Mitchell.

And again, just like when I was a kid, an adolescent, when I saw Mitchell through the eyes of my friends, I saw how cool he was and I cherished him. He wasn't like a dad. He, that's the thing. He was, he was something different than anything I could have ever imagined. He was, he was just this special adult in my life who was cool, who didn't discipline me, who was handsome, who was successful, who was, um, Really independent but also like so loving and who my dad adored and who was adventurous and He was cool. 

Nora McInerny: This is why it was easy for Julia to say yes to being a Fairy Godmother. And this is why Mitchell came up in that evaluation Julia had with the psychologist. Because as Julia thought about what it would mean to be a Fairy Godmother, Mitchell's face appeared. His laugh. His Dimple. His magnetism. How he made her feel special and seen and safe…because he didn’t worry about her in the same way her parents did. 

He was an important adult, but not a parent. He enforced the rules, but he didn't make the big parenting decisions. He loved Julia, he showed up for her, and he let her be herself. 

It’s the kind of love that stays with you. The kind of love we’d be lucky to receive, or to give. And if Julia could, she’d have called Mitchell right after she agreed to step into the role he’d stepped into in 1992.

Julia: the summer between my junior and senior years of college,  I was spending the summer in Austin and And my sister and I were hanging out at the house and Mitchell, my dad was running errands and Mitchell was gardening in the front yard. And he, I heard him shout like, like he'd been hurt. He was like, panting and holding his side and clearly something was hurting him.

And, and my sister and I were like, oh my God, like, are you okay? What happened? And he goes, I don't know. I just turned and it feels like something snapped in my side. And we were like, oh no. And so my dad was gone. So I drove him to the hospital because he was in a lot of pain.

I was very nervous. I was like, what's going on here? And then my dad came and met us at the hospital and he was like, you guys go home. So my sister and I went home and I remember we looked at each other and we were like, I hope he's okay. You know, like that seems kind of like that's that's scary. Um, my dad and Mitchell came home and they said that there was something they needed to run tests. They found something kind of on his side and I remember feeling nervous and there was a part of me that's always been very intuitive and um, And since I was a child, I've actually, like, had visions, um, and, and sometimes gotten the sense, a sense of, of when things are serious. 

Um, and as a kid, in fact, I remembered looking at Mitchell and trying to imagine him as an old man. And I couldn't, I could never picture him as an old man. I would try, I would like furrow my brow and stare at him and try to see him as an old man, and I couldn't do it. And I remember in this moment when we got back from the hospital, thinking about that. And I had this weird feeling like, What if Mitchell's really sick?

Nora: Mitchell was really sick. The doctors found a tumor on his kidney. The tumor was  cancer. And the end of the summer, Mitchell started cancer treatment and Julia went back to college. 

I was fully confident that Mitchell was going to be fine. And because he was so strong and he was so positive. I lived my senior year of college with the story that Mitchell was going to be okay. Um, and every time I went home, he was deteriorating. We, you know, he's losing weight. He's, he's, um, he's looking pale. His energy is low.

By the spring, um, there's a photo that I remember of this trip. We went to Hawaii, and it was Mitchell's last trip to the beach. He loved the beach, and it was his last trip, and he was in a wheelchair. And I still thought he would be okay. I still thought he would beat it. And, yeah, there's a picture of me standing behind him in his wheelchair, at the beach, and sort of windblown, tan Mitchell for the last time.

Nora McInerny:  Mitchell died a few months later, at home, with his parents, Julia's dad, and Julia at his side. He would never be an old man.

But his love transformed Julia. It expanded her, and expanded her definition of family. And 15 years after he died, Julia would carry the torch of Mitchell’s love…and expand that definition even further. 

JULIA: When I said yes to the egg daddies...I knew that there would be a lot of unknowns with my role as Fairy Godmother, and I was okay with that ambiguity. But one question I felt I had to answer was what would this mean for my family? 

Any kids the egg daddies had would not be my children. Which meant they definitely wouldn’t be my parents' grandchildren. So how would I explain this to them? 

My parents and my sister are some of my favorite people. I love our family, and they have always supported me. But when I decided to donate my eggs, I knew it might be hard for them to wrap their heads around. 

I was raised with the story that I would grow up, get married and have kids, just like my parents did before me and their parents did before them. Even though my dad came out and my parents split up, this was still the default story. And that's really no fault of their own- they got married and had kids, and expected my sister and I would do the same. There was an assumption they'd be grandparents, and I knew my mom especially wanted that. 

I also think some of this has to do with being Jewish, because there's this trauma response that we must create new generations of our family, that otherwise we’ll die out as a people. 

All of these expectations were swirling around my head and my heart as my gut knew that donating my eggs was exactly what I wanted to do. 

I started recording voice memos of myself as I processed all of the questions I had and the changes I was going through. I was also checking in regularly with producer Claire McInerny to talk about all of this.

In the first few weeks of the egg donation process, I recorded this on the way to one of my first doctor appointments. 

Julia VM: How much do you owe your family in this decision, and how much is the decision purely yours? I think boils down to that question. How much do you owe to your family? How much is it your body? when the psychologist was talking to me about this and she said, you're, but who's your family? Is it your mom, your dad and your sister? Is it this family you're helping to create? Who is your family? When you become an adult, if you're not getting married and having kids of your own, who is your family? 

Julia: When I finally told my family, the reactions were mixed. My dad was pretty understanding, he wasn't surprised I was feeling called to do this. My mom and sister were a little worried I'd be too attached to the kids. My mom had a lot of questions about my involvement and her possible involvement. 

These questions are valid...but also, it showed me that it would take time for them to really accept this choice. 

While I was grappling with how this decision was shaking up my family of origin, I was also beginning the medical process of donating my eggs. Not the eggs I’d frozen before – I kept those for me. But I went through the whole egg retrieval process all over again, this time for them.

Julia VM: All the while, gumballs fill my ovaries, and I'm a little hormonal, a little emotional. 

Julia: This is a voice memo I recorded after the trigger shot I took leading up to my retrieval. This is the final big push of hormones.  

Julia VM: It feels like a weird time. I feel, I don't feel like a victim. I don't feel like it's not bad. It's just weird and intense. And maybe one day when I listen to this, I'll... be able to understand what was true. I don't know. Maybe it's just hormone, but something intense and powerful is happening and I hope that it's for a bigger reason. I hope this has meaning. I hope what I'm doing has meaning. Maybe that's the deepest truth is just this like real hope there is actually a meaning here that it's leading to something that I'll be able to hang my hat on. I guess the only way to find out is to live it.

Julia: So I lived it. It’s been almost two years since the retrieval, and hearing this voice memo makes me emotional ... I feel so brave for doing this. I want to hug that past version of myself, and tell her it does mean something. 

My egg retrieval went smoothly, and the egg daddies ended up with three embryos made from my eggs. In the following months they found a surrogate and started the process of IVF, and I would get periodic updates.

The first embryo is implanted. She loses the pregnancy a few weeks later. 

A couple months after that, the second one goes in. This one also doesn't take. 

The egg daddies live in a different state than me. So I wasn't seeing them during the IVF process, I was just trying to support them from afar- and it kind of felt like my first test as Fairy Godmother. Should I check in with them or wait for them to reach out? 

After the second embryo transfer failed, we only had one chance left, and I started thinking about the reality that they might not have kids. That even though I'd donated my eggs, I may never get to actually be a Fairy Godmother to any children. This thought made me sad, but I realized that either way, my mindset was forever changed. 

Julia: This whole process helped me confront my deepest insecurity: being single. I was approaching 40 and still hadn’t met a romantic partner. Stepping into this alternative role as a Fairy Godmother helped me realize I could look at my single life in a new way too. I didn’t have to follow the traditional script I had been given about kids. So why couldn’t I do the same for partnership?

The more I embraced this way of thinking about being single, the more I encountered others who felt the same way.

I started recording some of the conversations I was having with friends about this topic because it made me feel better and better about the path I was taking. 

One day, my friend Daniel and I were on a walk, and he brought up how this looks in his life.

Daniel: Well, I come from a family where it seemed, it, the narrative was that long term partnership was the norm, and it was ideal, and it was likely to lead to happiness. So basically, I was at this family reunion. And at some point, looking around the room at a dinner one night, I realized at least half people, half of the people, even in the older generations, were either never in a long term romantic partnership or no longer in one.

And it occurred to me that this narrative about like, long term romantic partnership being the norm was false. At least 50 percent of people weren't there and that it certainly wasn't the key to happiness. As demonstrated by the number of people who had gotten divorced and the number of people who had never been married that were perfectly happy. And somehow this narrative keeps getting perpetuated through the generations, even though it never... Is it this way? Uh, yeah, sure. Even though it may have never been true that it was the norm, and it may have never been true that it was the most... Direct line to meaning or happiness in life. 

No one just wants to figure out a way, no one wants to figure out a way to articulate the counter narrative.

Julia: What is the counter narrative? 

Daniel: The counter narrative is that a happy, meaningful life is accessible to you regardless of relationship status. No matter what your age is. And that there are a plethora of relationship structures and relationship pathways. Um, and that being in a long term romantic relationship, Oh, no, that's it. Um, being in a long term romantic relationship is hard. At some point, it may make you happy, and at some point, it may make you sad. It's 

Julia: not the solution to life. It is not the solution to life. It's not the silver bullet to a fulfilling life. Yeah. 

As I was getting more and more comfortable with living an alternative life, the egg daddies were still trying to conceive.

In spring 2023, almost a year after my egg retrieval procedure, after two failed attempts to transfer embryos into the surrogate…it came down to one last embryo. One last chance to make the egg daddies into actual daddies. We were all nervous and emotional. Because If this one didn't work, I worried my age would prevent me from being able to donate again. 

By this time, I had been talking to producer Claire McInerny a lot because we were going to make a story about my egg donation. 

One day in May, the egg daddies reached out, and the first call I made was to Claire. 

Claire: Tell me about the call you got a few days ago. 

Julia: I got a text from the egg daddies on Friday asking if I had a moment to chat and I honestly I was really nervous at first because I was like, shit, are they going to tell me that we like, we lost the baby? Like that it's actually like pregnancy didn't, didn't take after all. Um, and given the track record, like that wouldn't have been a huge shock. Um, So I was like, yeah, and my heart's pounding. And then, uh, they were like, we're going to FaceTime you. And I was like, Oh, this seems like maybe like, what is this good?

I don't know. And so I got a FaceTime from them and just like, I saw their faces and they looked like they had these like bewildered smiles on their faces. They were like, we're leaving the first ultrasound appointment, and we got to hear the heartbeat. And I was like, oh my god, amazing. And they, and then they said, there were two heartbeats. Twins.

Julia: All of a sudden, we went from maybe zero babies - to two babies. Instead of hypotheticals I had something real to wrap my head around. Two babies, with my DNA, would be born in  a matter of months. I was actually going to be a Fairy Godmother....and I still didn't know what that would look like. 

Claire: Do you have any fantasies about what your life as a Fairy Godmother will look like? 

Julia: There's not a lot formed around my fantasies, but there, there are pieces. I envision holding both of these babies, and, I have questions. I guess it's hard for me to allow my fantasies to take root until I know kind of like what the egg daddies want because I want to be really respectful and mindful of what the parents of these children want. And so I haven't really been letting myself fantasize that much, but I, you know, like in one version of my fantasy is like, I'm there when they're b orn and like we get to bond. But in another version of my fantasy is like, We're establishing the distance early on because that's, because I'm not their parents and I'm not, I'm not a parent. And so in that version of reality, I'm celebrating from afar with my loved ones. And, um, when I get to meet them, it's like this joyous, amazing, like occasion

yeah, I don't want to overstep and I also don't want to burden the egg daddies with my questions about it. Um, I feel like an, I feel like it's sort of like a, a go between where like, I want to share this exciting news with my parents, but I, you know, I think that like, it's kind of sad for them because like, it's not their, they're not going to be grandparents. So what are they going to be? Are they going to be anything? And I don't want to pressure the egg daddies with those questions right now, but I also feel this like pressure to, to let my parents know and to set expectations with them. Because if I just deliver the news without framing it in some way, then I don't, I know they're not going to know how to take it. And I want to help to guide their emotional response based on what. What they can expect from the role that that none of us knows what it means, you know, like we, we don't know. 

Julia: A month later, I traveled to visit the egg daddies so we could all celebrate the news of the pregnancy together. Going into that trip, I felt like it was time to try and define some details of what to expect as a known donor, and how I could prepare my mom for the news that the surrogate was pregnant.

This a voice memo I took during that trip:

Julia: I had dinner with the egg daddies the other night. Uh, where we are in the process is that the surrogate is, um, in her first trimester. And one of the biggest questions that has really been on my mind since that time and since it started feeling more real is just like, what does this mean for my parents?  

Um. I, of course, still don't really know what it means for me, but I'm okay with that. I really feel like I can handle and even a welcoming of the mystery of all of that. But what I have struggled with a little bit is just wanting to be able to share this news with my parents in a way that also gives them some understanding of what it means for them.

So what does it mean? Uh, that's just been on my mind a lot because I, um, this is probably a lot for them to take in, especially my mom. Uh, because she has wanted to be a grandmother basically since I was born. 

So, at dinner... Um, I brought this up and I, I brought it up in a way that felt good. I wanted to disarm them. I wanted to let them know that they don't need to worry or feel pressured, um, about my questions about my parents. 

I've talked to friends who are queer couples who have used donors to start a family and, you know, ask them what would they, how would they want to talk about that? And um, and what it kind of boiled down to was just sharing that I still have not shared this news with one of my parents, with my mom.And when I do that, I want to also deliver with it with a little bit of, uh, guidance about what it means.

And it was such a wonderful conversation. It just really deepened my level of connection and trust with the egg daddies and this feeling that we're, we're a team and that we are figuring it out together. Um, really what we kind of decided was like, wouldn't it be great for you guys to meet my parents and meet my family before there are children in the picture so that you're establishing some kind of familiarity. And um, and then when I sort of put that on the table, they were like, when's the best time to visit Austin? And I was so tickled. And so I think we're going to do that. And I really love, I'm loving this idea of bringing the egg daddies together with my family so that they get, as they said, a front row seat to see where half the d n a of their future children are coming from.

Julia: A few months later, they came to Austin and met my family. It was a social visit, nothing specific was decided about what life would look like once the twins arrived, but it was so special to see my parents interacting with these two men. I'd spent months worried and anxious about how this choice would change my family dynamics. I grappled a lot with the fact that my deep desire to help these men have a family was creating disappointment for my mom. 

But during their visit, she showed up. My dad hosted a BBQ at his house and most of my family came to meet the egg daddies. It was awkward at times, but really beautiful to see everyone trying. They knew this was important to me, and even if they didn't understand it, they were there. 

Of course...one person was missing. Mitchell.

He's been gone from our family for many years now, but that day I thought about him a lot as I looked around the BBQ. My dad and his new husband, happy. The egg daddies were about to be fathers, and were giddy with anticipation. My mom and her husband were curious and kind as she sat on the couch chatting with them.

This random assortment of people were standing together chatting because of me. I am part of the egg daddies family now, and I'm also still part of my family of origin. There was no wedding, but there will be children. I'm creating my own family, in my own way, and I'm still writing that story. 

The beginning of this episode ended with Mitchell's death.

So it's only fitting that we end this entire story with a birth. 

The twins were born in January 2024. At the time of recording this, I still haven't met them. The egg daddies are knee deep in juggling two newborns with the rest of their lives, but I get updates. 

I'm still figuring out what this role will be, and some days I wish I had someone to ask for advice. And the first person I would call if I could, would be Mitchell.

Claire: What do you think Mitchell would think about all of this? 

Julia: I would love to hear What he would have to say about what i'm doing now, which is like i've donated my eggs to a gay couple I'm, i'm continuing a cycle I'm, like continuing a family story in a way Um by playing this role i'm, you know, i'm i'm enabling, um, another gay family a gay couple to to have a family with children and I'm helping them to do that. And, and my role. I'm going to be the fairy godmother to these children. I hope to be like an angel to them. And I hope that I can be an angel on earth, a living angel. I hope I, you know, I hope I'm not just like a... A memory or a ghost or an apparition or a sort of outline of a figure who once was. I want to be a living source of love and, um, and, and sparkliness to the children who were going to come into the world through, you know, um, in part, um, because of some eggs that formed in my body that I donated. And I want to be, uh, I want to be a magical source of joy in their lives, just like Mitchell was in my life.

Julia: Somewhere in that 2-year process of becoming a Fairy Godmother, I made up a new word: refamulating. I felt like I needed a way to explain this process of ditching old ideas around family and formulating new ones. I wanted to talk to other people who are doing family differently, and a podcast felt like the perfect way to do it.

That’s how Refamulating was born. 

Nora: Refamulating is the newest show from Feelings Co. It's been in the works for over a year, and it's the kind of storytelling we like to do here at Terrible Thanks for Asking. Nuanced explorations of a topic that can be thorny or complicated and always very human.  

Julia: I, Julia Winston, am the host, and I’m so excited to share with you all the stories we’ve been working on. 

Claire: I’m Claire McInerny, and I’m the producer of Refamulating. If you go over to our feed right now, we have two episodes waiting for you. 

Julia: The first is about my family of origin. I interviewed my mom, dad and sister about what it meant for us to refamulate after my dad came out,There’s also an episode about a man named Tony, who spent decades on his path to becoming a dad, and got there with the help of two very special women.

The rest of season 1 includes stories about being a surrogate, how a blended family created new titles for the parents, the rise in communal living AND choosing to not have children.