Choosing
A podcast about the choices we make and the routes we take to become parents. Hosted and produced by Julie Censullo.
Choosing
Plan A
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Ruth is a decider. At a young age, she decided that she wanted to be a parent. She also decided that she didn't want to be pregnant.
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Choosing is podcast about the choices we make and the routes we take to become parents. Are you grappling with the decision to become a parent, or have you become a parent via a non-traditional way? I'd love to hear your story. Get in touch: juliecensullo@gmail.com or via @choosingpod on Instagram.
Choosing is written, produced, and sound designed by Julie Censullo. Voice acting in this episode provided by Carolynn Oaks, Sullivan Ojala Helmbolt, and Jennifer McCord. Story editing by Jennifer McCord. Music in this episode is by Blue Dot Sessions, with additional audio from freesound.org.
Welcome to Choosing. I'm Julie Censula. So despite the fact that I have a whole podcast about the choices that people make around parenting, I didn't always feel as obsessed with the idea of having kids as I do now. If you would have asked me when I was 16 or 20 or even 28 if I wanted to have kids, I probably would have said, I don't know, maybe. I would have waived the question off because there were so many other important things in my life to think about. Like which boys I was messaging on Tinder. Want to get a drink tonight, smiley face? Or which bar I was going to go to that Saturday night. Come on, let's go. We have to do one more. No, no, no, wait. The urge to become a parent didn't hit me until I was in my 30s. And when it did, it hit me hard. It's now all I can talk about at happy hours or parties. Hi, it's so nice to meet you. Yeah, you too. I'm thinking about freezing my eggs soon. Are you thinking about freezing your eggs? It's the thing I'm thinking about in every conversation. Waiting for someone to say something.
SPEAKER_00I'm actually starting a new job next week. Oh, cool.
SPEAKER_04Anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm really excited.
SPEAKER_04That I can somehow segue into talking about parenthood. That's such a big change. Kind of like becoming a parent, right? My obsession with parenthood can feel a little uncomfortable at times. And not just because it's an inappropriate topic to bring up at parties. It's uncomfortable for me because I've never been certain about what I want for my life. I'm a freelancer because committing to one job feels scary to me. My relationships don't tend to last very long. I don't have any tattoos. Whenever I have a big decision to make, I text like 50 different friends to get their opinion. I often start books and don't finish them. And I barely know what I'm going to eat for dinner tonight. But this desire to become a parent, possibly the most permanent decision I could ever make, feels stronger than anything I've ever felt before. And I'm still having a hard time figuring out what that's going to look like for me. So today I want to tell you a story about someone who is much more decisive than me, especially when it comes to parenthood.
SPEAKER_01I think I definitely always knew I wanted to be a parent.
SPEAKER_04This is Ruth White. Although, if you were on her high school tennis team, you might have known her by a different name.
SPEAKER_01We all like had nicknames, and this is mildly vulgar, but my nickname was Utaruth because like I think that people felt like I was like a mothering figure on the team.
SPEAKER_04Not only did Ruth know that she wanted kids, but so did everyone else around her. Her friends, her family. They all saw her as responsible, parental, uteruthal, if you will.
SPEAKER_01Even from a young age, I felt like I was given the responsibility of watching cousins and young children. I babysat from a really young age, so just neighbor kids.
SPEAKER_04It was always pretty clear to Ruth that one day she would have kids of her own. But how Ruth wanted to become a parent was a little more complicated. We'll get into that in a moment. But first, I want to tell you more about Ruth. She lives in Seattle and she actually works with kids. She's a pediatric audiologist, which means she works specifically with kids with hearing loss.
SPEAKER_01I've always loved working with kids. I love watching and observing and playing.
SPEAKER_04Ruth also has a special skill. And it's a special skill that has eluded me for most of my life. Ruth's special skill is the ability to identify exactly what she wants and make what she wants happen, which I wish could be me.
SPEAKER_01I've always been a decision maker. I have always been like, this is what I've decided, and I'm gonna make this happen. And that's how I am in a lot of ways. I was like, after college, I'm gonna go to grad school and I'm gonna do this, and this is my dream job, and I'm gonna get this, and then I'm gonna live in the Northwest, and like all of those things have happened. And I think Dakota, my husband, is pretty similar in that way.
SPEAKER_04So Ruth met her husband, Dakota, in high school around the same time that she was becoming known as you to Ruth. Ruth and Dakota didn't start dating right away. They were just friends. They were just friends when they graduated from high school, and they were just friends when they went off to separate colleges. But when they started hanging out again after their freshman year of college, things were different.
SPEAKER_01The only way I can really describe it is like when he was in a room, that was like the only thing I was paying attention to. And I think that he felt the same way.
SPEAKER_04Ruth and Dakota started dating their sophomore year of college. And once they did start dating, Ruth and Dakota, who again are both deciders, decided pretty quickly that they wanted this relationship to last. Which meant that Ruth needed to make sure that Dakota was on the same page as her about wanting to have children.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can actually remember when I brought it up.
SPEAKER_04Ruth had gone to visit Dakota at college in Spokane, Washington.
SPEAKER_01We went to this park and we were sitting on this big rock formation, and I kind of said, you know, what do you think about kids? Do you want kids? And he was like, Yes, I definitely want kids. I want a family, I want at least two kids. This is super important to me. And I said, Would it be a deal breaker for you if I didn't want to have biological children?
SPEAKER_04As much as Ruth knew that she wanted children, she also knew that she didn't want to be pregnant. And that was a choice that she had made for herself. But it was a choice she made after another choice about what to do with her body had been taken from her.
SPEAKER_01I'm actually a um childhood sexual abuse victim from a family member, which is a story that is um too common, right? And I think from a very early age, it made me feel like I wanted to be in control of my body. Thinking about pregnancy, I think that's obviously an incredibly different experience, but still I felt like you know, I have regained like a love and relationship with my body, and I I didn't want to sacrifice that in any way, and I felt like I didn't want to have any resentment towards a child for making me feel out of control of my body again.
SPEAKER_04So there Ruth and Dakota were sitting on a rock in Spokane, Washington. Ruth telling Dakota that if they wanted to be together, if they wanted to get married and have a family, it would not involve biological children.
SPEAKER_01He really, I think, sat with it for a little bit and was like, let me think about it. Um, let me really consider it.
SPEAKER_04Dakota took some time to think over Ruth's proposition. And then he told Ruth, I just really want a family.
SPEAKER_01I if you wanted to have biological children, that would be fine. If we want to adopt children, that's great. If we want to foster kids, that's great. I think he just really was like, I would like to have a family, and that was what really mattered to him. So that was probably like three months into dating, which is wild.
SPEAKER_04Ruth and Dakota got married a few years later, but they didn't start talking about having kids right away. After all, Ruth needed to finish grad school, get her dream job, and move back to the Northwest, just like she'd planned. Finally, after nine years of marriage, Ruth and Dakota started to talk about adoption. Can you start kind of from the beginning? Like you're now like several years into your marriage, you're thinking it's time to do it. What do you do? Like, what's the first step of adoption?
SPEAKER_01I'll be honest, the first step is Googling adopt a baby.
SPEAKER_04This is where Ruth and Dakota's decisiveness came in handy. Because when you start the process of adopting a child, you have to make a lot of decisions right away. For example, you need to pick an adoption agency, and you need to determine what type of agency you want to work with. Ruth and Dakota had a couple criteria in mind when looking for an agency.
SPEAKER_01Like, one, we wanted an open adoption. Every single thing that we've read talks about how much better for everyone open adoption is.
SPEAKER_04An open adoption just means that the birth parents and the adoptive parents maintain at least some sort of contact. The child knows who their biological family is and is able to contact them if they choose.
SPEAKER_01Children deserve to know where they come from. I believe that strongly.
SPEAKER_04So, criteria one, open adoption. Criteria two, they didn't want a religiously affiliated adoption agency.
SPEAKER_01There is a huge tie with adoption and religion. There's a lot of rhetoric, too, when it comes to like a woman's right to choose. So we knew we wanted some an organization that was not religiously affiliated because we're not religiously affiliated, and I did not want there to be a possibility of like religious coercion in any way.
SPEAKER_04So, religiously affiliated adoption agencies were off the table. Next criteria.
SPEAKER_01And then we knew we wanted to do domestic adoption. Now that I think is a big choice that you have to make. We felt really strongly that, like, we live in the United States, it's our job to care for our community before expanding. I also think that every country has different laws, and it's really hard to tell if things are being done ethically or not.
SPEAKER_04Obviously, this is not true for all international adoptions, but generally an international adoption is a closed adoption, meaning that the birth parents don't maintain any contact with the child, which can make it difficult to know if a birth parent gave their child up willingly. And it can also make it difficult for the child to access information about their medical history as well as their culture of origin later on in life. So open adoption, no religious affiliation, domestic adoption, and then the final criteria.
SPEAKER_01We wanted uh the birth mother to be in control of choosing us versus us choosing the child. We felt like any autonomy given to birth family birth mother is positive.
SPEAKER_04Once they found an agency that matched all of their criteria, they reached out and got connected with an adoption liaison.
SPEAKER_01And then they basically give you like 400 tasks that you have to complete. So you have to fill out like every survey under the sun, every preference you could have about a child, except for gender. You can't pick gender, but then it's like race, and then it has every single combination of race you could ever think of. And you click yes or no for all of them.
SPEAKER_04Like you can say, I want a child who is like half black, half Chinese.
SPEAKER_01Oh, even more, it'll be like, are you okay with like Caucasian, Asian, African American, Native American? That's one option. It's all four of those combined. And then the next one will be like African American, Asian, just Native American. Cool. Yes, I don't. Like you can, it's it probably there's like 80 different options, and you go through and you say yes or no.
SPEAKER_04I know that feels weird. So does Ruth, but at this agency, once a birth parent picks the adoptive parents, once they say, I want these people to raise my baby, the adoptive parents can't say no. That's how the agency maintains birth parent autonomy. And so the agency would rather adoptive parents be upfront about any biases that they might have rather than place a child with a family who is going to be uncomfortable with them.
SPEAKER_01The next thing you have to fill out is your preferences for drug exposure in utero. And it has every drug that you can think of. And then it has the frequency at which you're okay with the drug being used in utero. Every day, every week. A couple times a week. A couple times a month, once in a pregnancy. Never. And then it's family history. What family history things are you okay with birth mother and birth father having? And are you okay with them having it? Are you okay with extended family having? Pick if you're willing to take twins. History of autism. Are you okay with birth parents having it? Are you okay with birth parents' families having it?
SPEAKER_04This is super complicated, right? Because the birth parents are filling all of this out on their end, but they can only fill it out to the best of their knowledge. There are so many reasons why a birth parent might not know their family's medical history and might not be able to access it if they don't necessarily want other family members to know about the pregnancy. There could be an instance where a birth parent doesn't know and can't ask for the medical history of the other parent involved. So, as much as Ruth and Dakota could list their preferences, they couldn't control it for everything. They had to leave a lot up to chance. But still, they felt confident about their decision to adopt. After they finished the questionnaire, submitted four letters of recommendation from their friends and family, and completed several interviews with a social worker. Ruth and Dakota uploaded a video to the adoption agency's website. And now any parent looking for someone to adopt their baby could scroll through the website and meet the whites.
SPEAKER_01We actually have always known that we wanted to choose adoption, and we had a lot of honest conversations about what we wanted our family to look like, and adoption was always how we wanted to build our family.
SPEAKER_00We've undergone a lot of education to best equip ourselves for raising an adoptive child. And after doing that research and really doing some kind of soul searching, we just feel like the two of us together are going to be a really great team. We can't wait to discover who they are and bring out their best characteristics and just grow this unique little family.
SPEAKER_04After the video was posted, Ruth and Dakota waited.
SPEAKER_01The waiting period is insane. You just like are sitting there living your life. You're just going to work. You're like at any moment they could call me and say that tomorrow you have to fly somewhere and get a baby, right? We were waiting, waiting, waiting. And then we got a call from the agency and they said, We have a pre-match opportunity for you. And we like, okay, nowhere in the handbook did it say anything about a pre-match opportunity. I don't know what that means. And basically, when we called back, they said, There's a birth mom who really likes you. She wants to meet you over Zoom before she commits, which I was like, that seems incredibly reasonable. So then we got on Zoom. It felt like the most stressful, insane job interview you've ever had.
SPEAKER_04There were two people on the call. First, there was a representative from the adoption agency. And then there was a woman who was pregnant and looking for someone to adopt her baby.
SPEAKER_01She just asked us questions. She just started out, she said, Can you tell me about yourself? So we talked about ourselves. And then we asked a little bit about her and it was going really well. She's absolutely so sweet. And I think we were like getting along, we were laughing, and then she said, I have one last question for you. She said, Um, you know, this kid is gonna be black. Is that gonna be a challenge for you guys? Our answer to that was yes, but not in a bad way. Like, yes, I think it would be naive for us to say that that wasn't a challenge, right? There are parts that we will never be able to understand, that we can only try to provide resources for him to understand, but we're willing to, you know, keep learning and get him the mentorship and community that he needs. That's really important to us. And she was like, Great, I want to choose you guys. And then we all started crying. We were all crying, she was crying, the lady from the agency was crying, so emotional, and it's so intense. Like, what do you mean this woman over Zoom was just like, yes, you can raise my child, that's fine. Wild.
SPEAKER_04Ruth doesn't know why this woman, who I'm just going to call B, chose to give her baby up for adoption. Ruth did gather that B is a religious woman, although she doesn't know B's exact stance on abortion. B has four other children, the youngest of whom was ten when B got pregnant with this baby. So it's possible B was at a stage of life where she just didn't want to be the parent to a newborn again. But of course, this is all speculation. What Ruth does know is that when she and Dakota met B, B was already seven months pregnant. Bee had been living with this baby growing inside of her for over half of a year. Regardless of why B was making the decision she was, it couldn't have been an easy one. Bee was a black woman in North Carolina who was choosing this white couple, literally and figuratively, Ruth and Dakota's last name is White, who lived across the country from her, who she had only met one time over Zoom to raise her baby. Even if she was fully confident in this choice, I have to imagine that she was scared too. She now had two months left in her pregnancy to sit with this decision. And Ruth and Dakota had two months to prepare to become parents.
SPEAKER_01That's not a lot of time, but it's also a lot more time than we could have had. She had an ultrasound like the next week. And she FaceTimed us from the hospital, and she was like, It's a boy. It was so sweet.
SPEAKER_04Ruth and Dakota started to make plans to travel to North Carolina for the birth of the baby.
SPEAKER_01But then 34, almost 35 weeks. And she said, I think they might induce me.
SPEAKER_04As things progressed throughout the day, it became pretty clear that B was about to give birth. And so that night, Ruth and Dakota got in a car and headed to the airport.
SPEAKER_01Dakota bought our flights on the way. He booked our Airbnb in the car. We called all our family. We were like, Oh, we're leaving tonight to go get our child.
SPEAKER_04They'd received the call at 7 p.m. and they were in the air by 11.
SPEAKER_01The woman who was sitting next to us on the plane was so sweet. She was like, Are you guys okay? Because I think we were like nervous and jittery.
SPEAKER_04Flying to North Carolina to witness the birth of your child would make anybody jittery. But Ruth was nervous for another reason. Because even though they were on their way to witness the birth of this child, there was no guarantee that they'd be coming home with him.
SPEAKER_01Once he's born, there's a whole week in which she can decide that she wants to keep him.
SPEAKER_04The terms of their adoption agreement didn't automatically grant Ruth and Dakota parental rights upon birth. We still got to make that final decision after the child was born.
SPEAKER_01So you are going with the assumption that you're gonna end up leaving with the child, but you might not. So there's this weird thing where you're like, mentally, this is my child. I have to be all in. You're like, I am this child's parent and I am all in for this child forever. But at the same time, your body's like, oh my God, this might change, right?
SPEAKER_04They landed in Charlotte early that next morning and they learned that B hadn't been induced yet. They still had a little bit of time to make it to the hospital for the birth.
SPEAKER_01So we drove to the hospital and went up to her room. And we just stayed in her hospital. She we were like, we can leave. And she was like, you don't need to leave.
SPEAKER_04They spent 18 hours in the hospital together. They got to meet B's children and get to know B a little bit more. And then finally, it was time for B to give birth.
SPEAKER_01I held her hand through labor, and Dakota got to be in the room, and he got to cut the cord. And we had asked her, like, if she wanted to do skin to skin first, and she said yes. And so they put him on her chest. And then she said, Okay, your turn. They put him on my chest and then on Dakota's chest. And it was an incredibly intense experience because it's like so full of like beauty and grief, about like love and amazement. Also, you're watching this woman and her child, and there's so much love in the room, but you also know that there's so much pain. It was like the weirdest mix of like, this is the most joy I've ever felt in my life, and also the most fear I've ever felt in my life. And she would say things to us, like, I'm not gonna change my mind, but like, you're just like, I don't know, this is the most perfect baby I've ever seen in my life.
SPEAKER_04Ruth and Dakota got to pick the baby's name. They named him Ari. It was the first decision that they got to make for him as his new parents. The first decision that wasn't made by his birth mother.
SPEAKER_01I think adoption is trauma. Even if they just got adopted and then somehow their life was perfect for the rest of their life, whatever that would look like, there can still be like deep repercussions and trauma from being removed from the family that you were born into. Maybe not as emotionally if it's an open adoption, but physically not living with the family that you were born into is traumatic. And I think accepting that you have partook in your child's trauma right when you meet them, like you've had three hours with them, and you've also partook in their trauma is a really intense thing to feel like.
SPEAKER_04They had to stay in North Carolina for a week to get some paperwork sorted out. During that week, they spent a lot of time with B and her other children.
SPEAKER_01I think about those days in North Carolina and how insane they were emotionally, but also like how precious they were in that little bubble with all of us, like Ari's whole world. And we were all there.
SPEAKER_04But eventually, Ruth and Dakota needed to get back into their life in Seattle.
SPEAKER_01The very last day we were there. We told her we were like, tomorrow we're gonna leave. Like we got our okay with our paperwork and we're like, we're gonna buy our plane tickets. We're leaving tomorrow evening. And we dropped him off with her for the whole day.
SPEAKER_04Ruth and Dakota drove to a Starbucks nearby to give Ari and B some privacy.
SPEAKER_01And we sat there and watched right now and just panicked. Like, just had seven hours of I didn't eat anything. Like, I think I had a croissant in front of me for like four hours. Like just again, like reminding each other. Like, if she decides that Ari's gonna stay with her, that's the best thing for Ari, right? Like she is his mother, and she gets to decide what the best thing for him is. And if it's us, it's us. And if it's her, it's her. And if it's a relationship that we get to have together, that's also wonderful. But like you can believe that with your whole heart, and still you're so fearful that you're not gonna get to go home with your child. So those four people at the Starbucks were like, What is wrong with these people? Just like in the corner having a panic attack.
SPEAKER_04After hours of panicking in a Starbucks, Ruth and Dakota texted me.
SPEAKER_01Said, We're gonna we're gonna come back and get him and go to the airport. And she said, Okay, and we went by and we all hugged each other and we said, We will come back and we will FaceTime. And I just remember like looking at her and saying, like, this is see you later. We're not disappearing.
SPEAKER_04For the second time in one week, Ruth and Dakota boarded a plane headed to a new life, but this time they had a five-pound six-day-old baby in tow.
SPEAKER_00What's on the other pages?
SPEAKER_04Ari is almost two years old. And by all metrics, he is a happy and healthy toddler. Ruth and Dakota maintain a regular relationship with B. They FaceTime her and send her updates so that she knows she has access to Ari if she wants it.
SPEAKER_01We care and we're here, and you're Ari's mom, and I'm Ari's mom. When we're both Ari's mom. And there's pictures of you in Ari's nursery, and we tell him that you love him.
SPEAKER_04For Ari's first birthday, they traveled back to North Carolina to spend time with B and Ari's half siblings.
SPEAKER_01And we went to Chucky T's, and it was so fun. And the kids gotta play with him and hang out with him, and we spent like three days just spending time with them. That was like our only we're like, we're just showing up and we're gonna get an Airbnb and we're just spending time. And so I think that's been really positive. And again, there's like all sorts of emotions intermixed all the time, right?
SPEAKER_04Even though it's hard to hold all of those emotions at once, Ruth knows that that's part of adoption.
SPEAKER_01I would not recommend adoption to people who are not willing to be in touch with their emotions. I would say that's the first criteria. If you cannot sit in discomfort with your emotions, adoption is not for you. If you cannot feel multiple intense things at once, adoption is not for you. Like it is a roller coaster all the time. It makes you feel life in the most acute way. It's like you cannot ignore the extremes of human existence.
SPEAKER_04Ruth and Dakota aren't naive. They know there will be challenges along the way with raising an adopted child, especially raising a child of a different race. But they work hard to make sure that Ari feels supported and loved by everyone around him.
SPEAKER_01This is Ari's environment that he's growing up in. This is his reality. His reality is that he has two mothers that care for him. So that will be normal to him. Dakota and I always talk about this is something that is in the literature like capital A adopted and lowercase A adopted. And Ari will always feel lowercase A adopted. He is black. We are white. What we don't want is to make him feel capital A adopted all the time, like to other him about that. And I think making all of these things normal and talked about and like his birth family is integrated into our lives and we're integrated into their lives. And like trying to make that separation less of a separation, more of just like this is your unique situation, and this is how it is. But it it's like more fluid than like them and us, and already feeling like he has to move between worlds, whereas like this can just be his world. And later in life, there might be challenges with that once he understands that different people have different families. We also live in a part of the country where people have all sorts of families, like the families that are doing all sorts of stuff. So I hope that he just sees like that his is one of those types of families.
SPEAKER_04Ruth always knew she wanted to be a mom. But I wanted to know how she thinks about motherhood now, now that she is the parent to an adopted child.
SPEAKER_01I think about my role is to make sure that all of his birth mother's dreams for him come true. That's my role. I get to have the resources to make all of those dreams come true. And how lucky am I to fill that role? And now he says mama, right? And I won't lie, like when he says mama to me, right? I'm like, oh mama, that's me. That's me. And that's his birth mom, right? Like it can be bold.
SPEAKER_04Listening to Ruth talk about Ari and B, I'm so struck by what a positive experience this has been for all of them. I admit, I always thought of adoption as a backup plan. Something that you do when you've tried unsuccessfully to have a biological child. But for Ruth and Dakota, adoption was always their plan. It was their first choice. And I think there's something really beautiful about choosing adoption intentionally. The same can be said about any decision that you make around parenthood. The more intentional the decision, the better the outcome. B also made an intentional choice. She chose not to be the primary caregiver to a fifth child. We don't know if this was her first choice, but we know that she didn't change her mind. Even when she had the opportunity to. She stood by her decision. And all of these emotional and scary and intentional decisions led Ruth and Dakota and B to a hospital room in North Carolina, where together they created a family that none of them could have chosen on their own. Jennifer McCord also provided story editing and a whole lot of encouragement when I was feeling so stuck on this story. Thank you so much to Jen. If you like this show, please consider rating it and leaving a review wherever you listen to podcasts. It really, really, really helps people find this show. You can also follow Choosing on Instagram at Choosing Pod, where I post pictures related to each episode and share a little bit more about the decisions that I'm making around parenthood. If you are considering parenthood or if you've become a parent in a non-traditional way, please send me a message. My contact information is in the show notes. I would love to speak with you. Thank you so much for listening. I'll talk to you soon.
SPEAKER_01I don't think so. Your cat is so cute, though. This is Bertie. Hi, Bertie. Oh, see, you're already a mom. I know. I am. He's my child.