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.

__

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.