[SPEAKER_00]: This episode and the entire season of episodes is proudly brought to you by California Cryobank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Use Code Quirfam 26 for a free, level 3 subscription to their donor Catalog.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make those babies y'all and then come tell me about them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Good, good, love is love.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no, no, no, no, don't get it twisted.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are the most intentional families out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We work, their accidents, they're very few accidents.
[SPEAKER_00]: We work hard to create these families.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we work hard to show up in a world that doesn't necessarily accept us and to make sure that our children are raised with so much love
[SPEAKER_00]: and so much strength against the outside world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not against, that's not the right way to put it, but like, so much resilience and so much confidence and who they are and how they were made and how love they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so intentional.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so intentional.
[SPEAKER_00]: From the moment we start the family building process, to the moment we die, the whole journey is extremely intentional.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, y'all to the queer and family podcast, the show all about family, but with gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm your gay host, Jamie, and this is the show that highlights celebrates up loose and normalizes LGBTQIA plus families in all of our fabulous identities.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it is also, as you may know, if you've been tuning in this month, it is our Pride Extravaganza!
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means what?
[SPEAKER_00]: Which means what you ask?
[SPEAKER_00]: It means instead of just one weekly episode every Monday throughout the month of Pride June.
[SPEAKER_00]: You are getting two beautiful episodes of queer family goodness and all things that pertain to our families.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get one on Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: You get one on Thursday.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this one is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a fun one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have the pleasure of sitting down with Lisa Schuman.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lisa is the founder of the Center for Family Building.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is co-author of building your family the complete guide to donor conception and she is host of the podcast building your family with Lisa Shuman.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is also an adoptive mother and a therapist, which is bonus.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got a little therapy session in this interview.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to lie.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's also a very old friend of this show.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's been on the show a couple times and I think her first time she was in season two like that far back.
[SPEAKER_00]: She is an expert on all things donor conception and I lovingly call her Lisa the therapist.
[SPEAKER_00]: because any time I have any worries or doubts or fears, she espuages them for me.
[SPEAKER_00]: She's very kind and loving soul.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's a really great episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I decided to do something a little different with this one.
[SPEAKER_00]: We actually were doing like a joint fried episode together.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this episode will also air on her show around the same time that mine is airing on my show.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll be slightly different.
[SPEAKER_00]: They'll have different intros and they'll have some different edits to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: While we're still doing that, I decided to split it in half to make this a double episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're getting the first half of our conversation where Lisa actually interviews me, and we dig deep into kind of the origin story of the podcast and why it came to be, and we dig into all the things that go with donor conception and queer family building.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we dig into a little bit of like what it's like to live as an analogy, a B, a T, a Q and I and a plus in the world in in the in the country right now in the world to let's be real.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a really wonderful episode and there's some really wonderful moments and because I'm giving you doubly episodes every week, I thought it would be nice if I didn't give you super long episodes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is a nice short one that you can enjoy on your morning commute or whatever commute you're on or washing the dishes or whatever whatever the case may be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you'll have a nice little short one coming up next on Monday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So some great things in store for you, you're going to love Lisa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Lisa.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really do feel like I got a therapy session out of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: She made me feel a little bit better about some of my fears regarding mommy and it's fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm excited for you to hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Happy Pride Y'all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope your months are going well.
[SPEAKER_00]: Smashingly, I hope you're having Pride Celebrations.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, smashingly, I hope your children.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have them or saying happy Pride to you all the time, I will say this my son.
[SPEAKER_00]: We were walking down the street the other day.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was between my wife and I.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he just, he's eight.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he looked up at both of us and goes, I'm just so glad I have two moms.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was such a sweet ruin and it just came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: It just came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, really?
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, babe.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, I just like it a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: So take that y'all, take that and ride home with it because we're doing it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're doing good with our with our families and we're intentional, which this episode proves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So enjoy the episode.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see it in a couple more days and let's go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's raise up the pride.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, Helen, Bula.
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you please come over here and roll this tape?
[SPEAKER_00]: I find that if I talk to them in a much lighter tone, they move a little quicker.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just kidding.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't have assistance, guys.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nobody in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm talking to the air.
[SPEAKER_02]: But please roll the tape.
[SPEAKER_02]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's roll it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Building Your Family Podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so delighted to have you here for this pride episode with my colleague and friend, Jamie Kelton, who is the host of the queer family podcast and has been advocating for queer families for decades.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am so excited to have her here.
[SPEAKER_01]: to talk about things that are most important for you listeners.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've gotten so many questions over the years, we've decided to put them together in a format that will help you understand how to build your family in most warm and welcoming way possible.
[SPEAKER_01]: So welcome Jamie.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so happy to have you here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi Lisa.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice to be here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice to be back with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We've been in this room together before.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have, and it's always beautiful to have you here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's such a, you're such a beam of light and love.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so glad that you're here for your listeners.
[SPEAKER_01]: And here for our listeners, I know this is going to be a great episode and help a lot of people with their family building journey.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope so.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the help and of course all of you out there if you have questions you are welcome to put them in the chat or the comments.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to hear from you, but I'm going to start by asking Jamie some questions and then she's going to ask me some questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can I just say I love this so much and at least I call you Lisa the therapist everybody needs to know that I call you Lisa the therapist and also you are so much more buttoned up as a podcaster than I am so this is like this is fun this is the tree you have the you have the script ready to go I never have script ready to go so this is going to be fun let's do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, I think it's because I'm a little impatient and I like when I watch podcasts to be efficient.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like people to to get the answers to their problems and move on like I want to fold my laundry listens to the podcasts get my answers and move on and do whatever I have to do take the dogs out.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like they're all these questions that keep coming up and I thought if I ask you these questions and get the answers and I can feed them to the listeners and they'll be satisfied.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's just let's hope so.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I find it hard to believe that you're impatient, but okay, let's do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we go.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Number one is you've been advocating for queer families long before it was mainstream, and I'm wondering what was it like for you early on to think about family building, to think about talking to people, about their family building, and what do you feel like people
[SPEAKER_01]: really had to think about in fight for in ways that they don't have to fight for today.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, well, let's see.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me break this question down.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I've actually, I like that you say of an advocating for clear families.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wouldn't have said that myself, but it has turned into kind of what you describe it as.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the reason the podcast came to be at all was because
[SPEAKER_00]: I had a hard time getting pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: I suffered through unexplained infertility.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was also married to my wife who had given birth to our daughter before we started with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was having the experience of being in a lesbian relationship where I already had a child who was my non-biotic child that my wife gave birth to and now suffering through infertility and trying to get pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: and feeling lonely as you do when you're suffering with infertility and trying to get pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And really, really yearning to be able to hear my story mirrored back to me because that's cathartic for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We searched for similarities to get a little bit of healing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had a really hard time.
[SPEAKER_00]: hearing a story like mine out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our daughter was born in 2013 so we started in like 2012 and there were very few resources out there back then like basically you did what if you had friends who have had done it before you you just kind of followed their path because there are so many decisions to make there are so many paths to make what it comes to queer family building.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, whose uterus are you using?
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you using donor sperm?
[SPEAKER_00]: What kind of donor sperm anonymous are you using a known donor?
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, due genetics, Matt, there's so many things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were just, like, in the dark, we had no idea that any of these, like,
[SPEAKER_00]: choices, we're going to even come to the table for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We just knew we wanted to be moms, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, there's that, we had no guidelines or very few resources out there for queer family building.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now you add on my infertility and the struggle I was going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I wasn't able to find stories like mine out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had just discovered podcasts, podcasts were a relatively new thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there were already podcasts about everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, soon as podcasts started, everybody had podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, it was close.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I thought, well, surely there's a podcast about lesbian families.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely there is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I couldn't find one.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I searched through all the infertility podcasts.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were always told from a heteronormative lens.
[SPEAKER_00]: they were always straight couples dealing with infertility, talking about issues that did not pertain to me, or that I didn't care about, and they would have like one token lesbian family in like 20 episodes, you know, and I would glaw them onto that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the questions and the lens of it was still through a heteronormative lens, the questions that were asked, the, you know, wasn't asking the nuanced questions that I needed answered.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, at my point is, there was so little out there for all aspects of queer family building.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I started the show I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, since I started my show nine years ago, so many more resources have come up for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: We now do have podcasts that center gay dads, trans families, lesbian families.
[SPEAKER_00]: My show covers all,
[SPEAKER_00]: forms of families and how we build them and how we show up in the world now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the landscape has really changed for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are books.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've interviewed countless people who've written books about Lige Petucua, family building as I like to call us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the landscape has changed a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not anywhere near where it needs to be in my opinion, but at least we have some resources out there and some like help.
[SPEAKER_00]: Guidelines, if you will, we don't have to do what I call gay drafting, where we do what our friends did before us anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can actually look to other resources out there and say, oh, well, they did it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: They did it this way.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that would be the path I would choose.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I think that's why podcasts like minor actually really so important for a legitimate call folks, because it gives us robots.
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives us like a two-year-old adventure style.
[SPEAKER_00]: I look of like, you hear other people's stories and then you're able to piece together what your ideal way to do it would be and and figure out and answer the questions that need to be asked along the way that makes sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I answer your question at all Lisa?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you absolutely did and it's so beautifully said and I really appreciate that you're also sharing your infertility struggle because we'll go back to that later, but I think it's so important to realize that.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you're building your family, if you're building a single building as a couple of your queer couple or individual, you know, again, we'll talk about this later.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so natural just to say, okay, I'm missing this element.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm missing the sperm.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm missing the egg.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm missing the uterus.
[SPEAKER_01]: and not to really think about family building is hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, infertility doesn't discriminate.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not going to just choose the queer families or just choose the straight couples or just choose the individual people.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be for everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I really appreciate you being so open about that, James.
[SPEAKER_00]: Any time, any time, Lisa the therapist, any time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Jamie, that also brings me to my next question, which is about having a genetic connection to your child.
[SPEAKER_01]: And to varying degrees, people often wonder about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going to happen if I'm not genetically related to my child.
[SPEAKER_01]: am I going to feel like the other parent or people going to look at me and look at the child and look at me again and think oh we're not related or people are going to think well my partner's musical and therefore the kids are going to be musical and I'm going to feel left out.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all these fears that people have and yet you've said very openly that you feel very connected to your child who are not genetically connected to.
[SPEAKER_01]: So can you tell everybody a little bit
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that this is a very, very important conversation and I try to bring it up on almost every episode, the non bio connection versus the bio connection because in our families inevitably more often than not, you know, you do have your lucky trans families that get to do it the old fashioned way, most of the time one of us is not going to have.
[SPEAKER_00]: or both of us are not going to have a biological connection and that those feelings, those fears are very real for many of us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it feels taboo to say it out loud and I think we need to normalize talking about those feelings so that they don't bubble and simmer inside us and
[SPEAKER_00]: feel like terrible people.
[SPEAKER_00]: The more we talk about these things, the more we normalize these things, the easier everything will become in my opinion.
[SPEAKER_00]: My wife gave birth to our first, and I have also did give birth to our second.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm a biomum and a non-biomum.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like I have a gift that has shown me the two separate ways it can be and that has taught me that none of it matters at all, but the feelings that come up before and during and all the times and I still have feelings that come up for me, even having the bio and the non-bio.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have
[SPEAKER_00]: feelings that I have to work through regarding the biological connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not to say that my daughter and I do not have the strongest mother-daughter bond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like we love each other.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is my daughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: She, I am her mom.
[SPEAKER_00]: But things still do come up.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why it's so important to talk about the stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, just last night, she had a piano recital.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she, you know what?
[SPEAKER_00]: She didn't do very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm a musical person, I'm a singer, I'm a musician.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very important to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I had a moment last night where I was like,
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's just not a part of her, and it crushed me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I said to my wife, I think I need to go to therapy over this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I don't know why this is crushing me so terribly.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a non-biotic thing, it's a, she's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't have my genetics.
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe she doesn't have the love that I do of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it pops up, it does, it does.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to not talk about it and to act like it doesn't, I think does everybody a disservice.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so let's take it back to,
[SPEAKER_00]: When it was all first happening, my wife through a wrench and our plans from the get go, I was always supposed to be the one to carry that was kind of how we when we were dating that's always how when we talked about it that's how it was going to be and then like right after our marriage one day she said, you know what I think I want to carry to and that through a wrench and everything because I was not planning.
[SPEAKER_00]: on not being biologically connected to my child or children.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the feeling started right away for me because first of all, then we had to start right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: She was a little older, so we had it.
[SPEAKER_00]: quick it up the pace, which is a good thing we did because I went through all that infertility.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I went through a lot of scary feelings when she was pregnant, like the ones you described in your question, over like am I going to connect?
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I don't connect?
[SPEAKER_00]: What if she doesn't connect with me?
[SPEAKER_00]: What if she likes Anne better than me?
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because of biology, all the way up to last night with her,
[SPEAKER_00]: not doing so well at her piano recital.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, but to be honest, it's because she didn't really practice.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, my non-biomom brain was like, oh my god, oh my god, it's because it's because she doesn't share what I have when it comes to music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, brains are crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we go to some crazy places and it does not take away from the fact, however, that our bonds and our families are beautiful and so much stronger for having these connections that are not traditional that are that are out of the box so to speak.
[SPEAKER_00]: because it makes us think through everything so much more in my opinion it makes like our bonds and our family so much more intimate on different deeper layers, different levels that other families don't even ever even think about or things that don't cross their mind at all like what is a family, what is mother, daughter, what is family bond?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean like all these things that
[SPEAKER_00]: of the fact that we do not have a biological connection.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll be right back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_00]: Two, all this talk about donor conceptions got me thinking about my promo code with California Cryobank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you been thinking about it, too?
[SPEAKER_00]: What you want to do is go to cryobank.com Use Code QueerFam26 and you're going to get a free level 3 subscription to their donor catalog.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if donor conception is a path that you're thinking of towards your path to parenthood, this is a really great way to see what's out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's beautiful.
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to make any
[SPEAKER_00]: California cryo bank has been around for nearly 50 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are well respected and well-known in the industry, and they have been helping the legitimate to quaw community create the families of their dreams for quite some time.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they also do great things for families like ours, like second parent adoption letters, which I highly recommend you do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wild transfers between partners if you decide to switch who's uterus you're going to use midway through.
[SPEAKER_00]: Really great.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're thinking about us.
[SPEAKER_00]: They offer a really wonderful keep sake that you can use when you're speaking to your children about their origin story.
[SPEAKER_00]: All awesome stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I made my babies with California cryo bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I don't regret it one bit.
[SPEAKER_00]: So if this is something that sounds interesting to you, you're going to head to cryobank.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to use code queerfam26 and you're going to get a free level three subscription to their donor catalog.
[SPEAKER_00]: Make those babies and then come to
[SPEAKER_01]: love is love.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just wanted to ask, say two things about a one is that I think a lot of stray couples I see have similar feelings even when they have genetically linked children.
[SPEAKER_01]: They think like, I'm an athlete.
[SPEAKER_01]: How come my kids are an athlete, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're a musical, it doesn't mean any of three kids doesn't mean they're all gonna be musical, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: So even if you had a genetically connected child doesn't mean she'd be musical, but having those moments are source spots, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and they can flare up in those moments somebody says
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, oh, you're kids so musical and you're not or your kids not or your kids athletic and you're not or you Your child looks so much like you and you're you know pushing a carriage for the supermarket and you think well wait a minute I don't have a genetic connection like they're all these source spots that could bubble up right and so I think in the queer community you have this Beautiful opportunity as you said to dig a little deeper and ask yourself like what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: That I am connected to this child if it's not the way that I imagine when I was growing up, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I was growing up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know donor can see people.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a framework for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so how do I see family?
[SPEAKER_01]: How do I see family connection?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was talking to somebody this morning about a family that I saw who lived in South America and in their community.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people in their community share kids.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there might be a cousin going up with a sibling.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the parents move away for a little while, or maybe there's like four siblings and then one of them goes to live with the grandmother and everybody just kind of exchanges kids in a way that they don't really care about and so when they came to our practice in the US and they were saying, well, you know, even though my daughter is
[SPEAKER_01]: less than 21, she can still be a donor because for them, it meant very different things, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Across the US, this genetic connection is so much a part of how we were raised in our culture.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we don't go up with donor conceived children.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think it is natural for us to kind of reflexively say, we'll wait a minute.
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: But the other part you know what I want to say is you're saying that I love my daughter so much she loves me where we have this great mother-daughter relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about your relationship.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just about your feelings.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they belong to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't attract from how you feel about her or how she feels about you because you have these questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, 100%, yeah, you just summed it up very nicely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably way better than I said it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do, hammer down the point, I do think it's really important that this topic be brought up more often because I think it teaches us a lot about family and what matters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think if people can think about it that way, this is my issue to grapple with.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has nothing to do with my child or my relationship with my child.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is my issue that I'm gonna grapple with throughout my life, then all of a sudden it doesn't carry that meaning that I have to be ashamed because now I'm making a statement about where a relationship with my child or now I'm making this statement about how my child's not connected to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about your child and me.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about you, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we all have that I, you know, as you know, I have non-geneticly related children.
[SPEAKER_01]: Also, so I completely appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm so glad that you're bringing that up.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I agree we really need to be talking about that more openly and honestly and without shame.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and to your point, it can help the people who do have biological connections to their kids, but whose kids do not take on the trace that they were hoping they would, which happens quite a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: It seems like my son is going to have a musical tendency either, so I'm out of luck.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I see all these people giving their colleges money thinking their kids going to go to their college and then they turn out not to be interested or not to have the aptitude or whatever this part of parenthood right right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why I was saying to my wife, I think I need to go to the therapy to talk this out because I know it's an issue with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it's like I had dreams for my children to be the performers that they're not, you know, and I have to get over, I got to get over my, can I swear on your show myself go right in.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to get over my shit.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm 100%.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told my wife I was like, I'm really upset right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I need to go to a therapist to talk about this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm not going to go to a therapist because I think I just talked it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Here we are.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so glad that we're talking about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so important.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope all of you out there if you're on your family building journey and just starting can really take this to heart that just because you have ambivalence or conflict or fears, it doesn't mean that's going to translate to how much you love your child or how much your child will love you.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's your own issue and very separate from your relationships.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I really
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I do want to add, because this goes with the bio connection, and I thought at first it was a thing because I wasn't biologically related.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when my wife gave birth, it took me a while to bond with our daughter.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took it what didn't happen right away.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a little bit of a slow, slow burn.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not saying it was like a year, but like it took some time for me to kind of like grow into this idea of okay, I'm a mom now it was also first child this is my like to just feel that bond right and I thought I thought for four years while I was trying to get pregnant that that was because of the non bio connection because we are fed this myth.
[SPEAKER_00]: as women, or as people with uteruses, I should say, that the childbirth and holding that baby is what changes you.
[SPEAKER_00]: That moment is the magical moment in life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I had been looking forward to that moment, my entire life.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're fed this myth.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's part of the reason why I was so
[SPEAKER_00]: biological child because I wanted to feel that magical moment because my mother had the magical moment with me like you know well sometimes it happens with people right so I gave birth to my son and the same thing happened
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a slow burn.
[SPEAKER_00]: It took me time to establish that bond.
[SPEAKER_00]: It came, but it's not always instant.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it doesn't matter if it's a biological thing or not, it's just not necessarily always the magical moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like that is something that is so important to say all the time too.
[SPEAKER_00]: We established our bonds with humans in all ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: differently.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, I just wanted to add that because that kind of goes with this whole conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a slow burn when it comes to bonding.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, well, listen.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I think that's so beautifully said because it's so true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I talk about this in my book.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen people who bond very quickly or accept owner conception very quickly and some people who don't for very, very, very long time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And doesn't mean that once right and once wrong, this is just how you are and how your evolution
[SPEAKER_01]: develops and it doesn't mean that just because you have the slow burn, it's not going to happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody is experiencing different.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to appreciate and trust that we will have a connection with our child at some point, but everybody's path is different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody's journeys different.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, thank you for sharing that, Jane.
[SPEAKER_01]: No problem.
[SPEAKER_01]: Appreciate it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of humor in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think that humor is also important in this process to feel like there are times that we have to kind of lighten things up or do you feel like the community is already kind of a little bit since a gay, baby boom, a little bit more normalized?
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you feeling like the temperature is in the career community now in terms of family building?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think it's been a lot more normalized like to the point I made earlier about how there are actually resources and more and more queer folks making families.
[SPEAKER_00]: My tagline, the show all about family but with gay, is just a cute way of trying to add a little humor and say it's just the family show, like that's all it is, but we're gay.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just say we're just like you same same but different, but not different at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't speak for the whole queer community, but I know me personally, I survive with comedy and making light of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have to joke about all the things, or it does feel too heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of how my, that's how my family works.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're jokers.
[SPEAKER_00]: We joke about all the things.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the name of normalizing our two mom family to our children and their donor conception to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we use a lot of humor to explain things.
[SPEAKER_00]: We use a lot of humor to make sure that the conversation is constantly ongoing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm constantly throwing the word lesbian into the conversation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm constantly making jokes about
[SPEAKER_00]: like two mom jokes with the fact that you have a donor jokes like we joke that's how we keep that's how we keep the conversation easy and light and ongoing so it never I don't want my kids ever feel like it's a heavy thing the way
[SPEAKER_00]: They, they're story originated.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't ever want them to feel heavy when we talk about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to always just be just is.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is something we joke about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's working.
[SPEAKER_00]: And my daughter like now she jokes about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And she like, she's like, mom, the other day I was walking with my friend and she, my friend was being quiet and she goes, my, my daughter goes, you're acting like my dad right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the friend was like, but you don't have a debt.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, like.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she's making her own like funny jokes to like just you know, but normal but at the same time her doing that normalizes it to her friends so that her friends don't feel weird to have who talking about it, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: So with we use humor to help our kids have the tools to normalize it out in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not a heavy thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's never a heavy thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: ever.
[SPEAKER_00]: It can't be heavy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want my kids to feel shame or anything regarding how they came to be or our family.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there's nothing shameful about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually really freaking beautiful.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: 100%.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, heartedly.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think has changed most for queer families since you've been doing this show and going forward?
[SPEAKER_01]: It seems like our cultures made a left turn.
[SPEAKER_01]: So things have been kind of moving along nicely.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then all of a sudden now, you know, I'm getting calls about, should I move my embryos to New York?
[SPEAKER_01]: And should I,
[SPEAKER_01]: get married right away and should I get a second parent adoption and I'm getting lots of calls that I haven't had in many, many years.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm wondering how you're feeling about that and what you was sort of messages can we share with our audience about how to think about their family building journey now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I say, yes, get that second parent adoption, whoever's asking that, yes, 100% yes, yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: But take it back to what you were asking.
[SPEAKER_00]: The landscape has changed amongst the queer community.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think immensely, I think not only are more queer people, like I said before, creating families and becoming families, we've also really transitioned the whole community into being more open and accepting
[SPEAKER_00]: many many more identities and embracing those identities.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's my hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there are some in the community who try to not embrace certain identities, which is also, which is really sad and needs to not happen, because if we're going to survive what's happening right now, we all need to embrace the entire umbrella, the legit the quad plus plus plus umbrella.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because there are those in our community who are really, really, really getting targeted right now, and it's not me right it's not my cis white yes lesbian hate is hate self right it's our trans community it's our non binary community and they are the targets right now and our government is really strongly going after them this little tiny
[SPEAKER_00]: Tiny number of the population, the government is hitting hard against them because it's because, you know, they're trying to it's smoking mirrors is what it is.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a really scary time for many in the LGBTQIA plus community.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think we're all feeling it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and that's me my cisgender white lesbian self who passes for the most part out in the streets as a straight woman Not that I try to pass.
[SPEAKER_00]: I try very hard to look like a lesbian, but this is a nice look out for me But I think
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really, really scary for many people in the community.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I have spoken with many people in the past, just this lab, the last season I did, who left the country, who are gone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Who, because of the, because of fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if people who are transgender are non-binary, it's scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: We had gotten so far, there was so much acceptance.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it feels like it is getting rewound.
[SPEAKER_00]: at such a fast pace, it's deafening, it's so scary.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think I always think about that scene in Handmaid's town where the lesbian family walks up to the airport booths with their passports.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the one who's the non-biomom doesn't get to travel with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: She gets pulled back because she's not.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I think about that all the time because it feels like we're like, headed, I know it's not and I know it's a fan of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, but also sometimes those of us on this side of it can't help, but like do more things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh my God, we are headed in this direction.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're changing
[SPEAKER_00]: gender markers on passports, they're creating a database of the trans people in the world, they're, you know, like so of the country, I mean.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a really scary time for LGBTQIA plus people and to me it's a much less scary time than it is for those who are really, really, really being targeted.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's important that we're all conscious of that and we all work to be
[SPEAKER_00]: all of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think right now, unfortunately, you know, in on both extremes, there's hate on both sides.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so first time in my life, time I've seen that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think we all agree, we all have to really be there to support inclusivity and love and connection and help people in every way we can.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with that wholeheartedly, Jamie.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what do you think that don't can see children and queer families should know when they listen to a podcast like this?
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think that they should be taking away?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are the things that you really feel that they should be or that you're hoping that they take away from your episodes?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think it's the thing that I have taken away from all these years of doing it and the one thing, the one theme, the one thing that I always go back to, the one thing that I think in every conversation I have with a clear family is we are some of the most intentional families out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's our really important distinction to make when there are those in power who would try to say that we are not fit to parent, that we are groomers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been called a groomer more times than you can imagine on social media and my schools.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, whatever, it's I know I'm not.
[SPEAKER_00]: So okay, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: way to go, you come up with that all on your own, but like, but um, there are those who really do believe that we're not fit to be parents and I would hope that everybody who listens to my show, children.
[SPEAKER_00]: queer folks who want to be parents, queer folks who are parents, take away the fact that no, no, no, no, no, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't get it twisted.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are the most intentional families out there.
[SPEAKER_00]: We work, their accidents, they're very few accidents.
[SPEAKER_00]: We work hard to create these families.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we work hard to show up in a world that doesn't necessarily accept us.
[SPEAKER_00]: and to make sure that our children are raised with so much love and so much strength against the outside world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not against, that's not the right way to put it, but like so much resilience and so much confidence in who they are and how they were made and how love they are.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are so intentional.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so intentional.
[SPEAKER_00]: From the moment we start the family building process, to the moment we die, the whole journey is extremely intentional.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, that's beautiful, Jamie.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree with you, I think that that's so important.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is pride, months, it's pride every day, but now it's pride, months, are months.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pride, month.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's our month, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you so much, Jamie, for coming on this podcast.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful to have you here as always, it's a pleasure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I hope everybody out there has a wonderful pride and before we end, Jamie, where can people find you?
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find me anywhere you get your podcasts at the queer family podcast, it's the queer family podcast, I'm also on YouTube at the queer family podcast and I am on Instagram at the queer family podcast Facebook, same and on TikTok, I believe it's queer fan pod so you can find me in all those places.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm everywhere you didn't want me to be and more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, terrific.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I hope everybody reaches out to Jamie as you can see.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's wonderful and the podcast is fantastic.
[SPEAKER_01]: You will find something in there that's exactly where I feel I promise.
[SPEAKER_03]: Clear family podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: A huge, huge thank you to our sponsor of this year episode, California Cryo Bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't forget to use Code Clear Fam 26 to get that free, level three subscription to their donor catalog.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go make those babies y'all and then come tell me about them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Love is love.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whew, well folks, I hope you enjoyed that episode as much as I enjoyed it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you did enjoy it, feel free to listen to another or watch another.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have so many episodes for your listening or viewing pleasure.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just go pick one and enjoy.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're really nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And also, if you really do like this show, please, I know I say it all the time, but please do consider supporting the show on Patreon.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just gonna go to patreon.com slash the queer family podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're gonna pick a tear, you're gonna join, and you're gonna get that bonus content.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're also gonna get my love and adoration for the rest of my life.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you all, thanks for tuning in, keep on tuning in, and I'll see you next time.