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. 

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.