World of Possibility with Marshall, Craig, and Candice

Over the years we’ve heard LGBTQ people say that they didn’t know what life might look like for them as an adult. Many haven’t had LGBTQ role models that provide examples of a potential future, and a lot of fear that parents of LGBTQ children experience comes from the unknown as well. We thought it might be helpful for parents to get to know some of the amazing members of the LGBTQ community, just a few at a time, so that they can provide a realistic view of what life could look like for our children. Today, Jen joins guests Marshall Shearer, Craig Watts, and Candice Green in this episode of World of Possibility.

Special Guest: Marshall Shearer

Marshall is a proud trans man who's been living life to the fullest for the past 8 years since transitioning. When he’s not busy being an awesome dad to five adopted kids, aged 14 to 24, or spoiling his adorable 2-year-old grandson, you can find him crushing it at board games, giving his all on the softball field, or just soaking up the sun at the beach. Marshall’s a foster care superhero with 11 years under his belt and 10 placements along the way. Life's a journey, and he’s loving every moment of it!

Special Guest: Craig Watts

Craig grew up in a conservative Christian community in Utah, where everyone he knew lived in traditional families. When he realized he was gay at 18, he thought he'd never have kids or have a place in his community. So, after completing a Master's Degree in Chicago, Craig ran away to Asia and spent the next two decades as an out gay man living and working in Japan and China before deciding to have kids via surrogacy. Craig had hoped to find a partner before becoming a parent, but he had strong support from his parents and siblings, and the biological clock was ticking, so he took the solo parent plunge at age 46. A Bangkok-based clinic helped Craig find a Thai egg donor and surrogate mothers for his three kids who are now aged 11 and 9 (twins). Craig and his kids lived for a few years in Beijing, then moved home to his parents' basement in Utah, and now live in the heart of San Francisco. They attend a Chinese immersion school where Craig teaches 7th grade. It's been a tough decade, but Craig loves being a parent even when the kids gang up on him!

Special Guest: Candice Green

Candice is a High School English teacher and mother of two. She loves Marvel movies, her book club, and going on adventures with her friends and kids. 

Links from the show:

Utah Foster Care’s LGBT Resource Page: utahfostercare.org/lgbt  

Join Mama Dragons today www.mamadragons.org 

In the Den is made possible by generous donors like you.

Help us continue to deliver quality content by becoming a donor today at mamadragons.org.

Transcript

JEN:  Hello and welcome. You are listening to In the Den with Mama Dragons. I’m your host, Jen. This podcast was created out of our desire to walk and talk with you through this journey of raising happy, healthy, and productive LGBTQ humans. We are so happy that you’re here with us.

One of the most repetitive ideas we hear from parents who are new to LGBTQ ideas and community is “I’m so sad, I always wanted to be a grandparent.”  Or “It’s fine, but, man, she would have been the best mom!” I think these ideas are based on the incorrect assumption that LGBTQ people don’t have kids.  Or that they don’t have them in all the exact same ways that non-queer people have them. We thought it would be a good idea to introduce you to a few parents and talk to them about their parenting journey.  And, obviously, all these parents happen to be queer. I’d like to welcome Marshall, Candice, and Craig In the Den. 

CANDICE: Hello. 

MARSHALL: Hey. 

CRAIG: Hey. 

JEN: I’m super excited to talk to you guys. We’re going to focus on your individual parenting journeys, which is a pretty narrow topic compared to your whole life. So I’m hoping you’ll elaborate on your entire story any time  along the whole episode where it seems applicable. But I’d like to ask each of you to give us a brief introduction of yourself, share a bit of your personal story, so that all the listeners have some context as we move into talking about this path to parenting?

CANDICE:    So my name is Candice Green. I’m a high school English teacher, just as a little bit of background. I do a little bit of graphic design on the side and have dabbled with Youtube and TikTok and things like that. So I am definitely really  involved in the online queer community. I grew up in Utah in West Valley City, Utah, actually. And grew up very religious here. And I came from a really big family. I was the oldest of nine kids with our combined family. And have always, since my youth, in part because of religious upbringing and part because of parenting my own siblings, but I always, I always wanted to be a mom. Always. And when you’re little, I had this chest, cedar chest, that I would fill full of doll clothes and shoes. And I named my kids when I was really little. I’m so cheesy, I would make scrapbook pages and all I needed was the kid, and I was going to clip out the picture and then glue it into the spaces. Being a mom was such a big part of my excitement about growing up. 

And it was also a lot of what was taught to me about how and why to be excited to grow up. A lot of the lessons I had gotten in my religious upbringing was about motherhood and wedding. And that’s who I wanted to be. And I think, in part, that was a reason for me – I had an interesting process realizing that I was queer because I still felt very feminine and very much enjoyed the feminine part of myself. And when that realization started happening, it was happening through dreams and certain attractions. And I would wake up from these dreams or in the moment of these situations, I would start having full panic attacks thinking about what a future might mean. And wanting to really suppress it because I really wanted this future of motherhood and family and white picket fence and wedding and all the things. 

And not only did I get from my family and my religion but I also got from movies. I never had seen a feminine presenting lesbian, ever. Or somebody who had kids or a family. I came out right after Ellen came out. And I just didn’t see the representation for myself and for a future that I wanted. And I’m going to go dark for a second, but when I was in college, it was really this deep fear of what my future was going to look like and not having the future that I envisioned. But I attempted a suicide in college. And that was actually a big process of my coming out process with my family. I sent my mother a text message that was pretty scary and she got immediate help for me.

 And what was really lucky for me and the thing that was really life saving for me, is my mother immediately coming out to me to take care of me. But a conversation that said, “What is it that you’re afraid of?” And I said that I was afraid of not being able to be a mom and grow up and have a family and be loved. And I was afraid of not being in the church and what that would mean and all of those things. And my mom said, “Sweetheart, you can still be a mom.” And I was like, “What? How?”

JEN:          I love that the misconception is yours and not your mom’s in this example.

CANDICE:     It’s so interesting because my mother saved my life because she had a vision that I didn’t have about queer parenting. And she had never saw it  in the media, either. I don’t know where, just in her head she was like, “If you want to be a mom, you’re going to be a mom.”

JEN:          Go mom.

MARSHALL: That’s cool.

CANDICE:    Yeah. And we kind of did research and I actually went to some school counseling therapists that were all of the same religion that I was from. And I was really expecting them to be judgmental. And all of them immediately jumped in like, “Oh, you can be a mom.” And they were the ones teaching me about IVF and IUI and donors and foster parenting and adoption and of these things. And it opened up a whole new world for me. I was able to maintain who I wanted to be and this feminine part of me, and also still be a lesbian. And still have a future that I envisioned. 

So, for me, it was funny how a lot of people, the youth, the queer kid says, “Hey, I can still be a parent.” And it’s there parents that say, “How?” But for me it was the exact opposite. I didn’t know I could be a parent and was taught that I could be. And then I did all the things. It cost a lot of money and took some patience and time. But I love being a mom, and I have two beautiful kids. My daughter, today is her tenth birthday. And so I have officially raised a child for ten years. It blows my mind. She’s the best thing that has ever happened to me. And then my son is seven and he’s a little squirt. My daughter is the star of my family and my son is the heart of my family. I’m a single,  divorced mom now. I was married to a woman. We had our kids together and then I’ve been divorced since and we coparent.

 And so when we originally started coparenting, I had the kids more time because of the situation and things that had happened. But at this point in time we are now doing 50/50. Sometimes it's a little bit hard. But, honestly, to this day being a mother is the thing that really brings me so much joy in my life. And I actually really thrive in this 50/50 co parenting because I get to have my kids and focus on them when they’re here. And when they’re not, I run my errands and I plan for when they’re going to be here next and kind of have my downtime. And that’s kind of my story in a nutshell.

JEN:          Thank you so much.. I loved that. Candice, you’re awesome.

CRAIG:        I mean, a lot of things that Candice said resonate with me. And a lot of them don’t, too. So, I grew up in Utah, conservative family, five siblings, grew up in a neighborhood where everyone lived in families. And when I came out as gay I was petrified because I didn’t know how anyone else lived. I’d never seen anyone’s house. I just thought, well, if you don’t have a family and you’re not in a neighborhood that I’ve seen before, I don’t know how it’s possible to even be alive. So I felt some of that same crisis about what’s my path and how am I going to survive because I’d never seen people who didn’t have families. I don’t think I even knew anyone growing up. And so it was kind of this black hole for me. 

But then when I came out as gay and started to live that life, I started to meet people who didn’t have kids, and people weren’t really a part of life among my gay friends. And this is pretty early. I graduated high school in ’84. And, say, in the 90s I was in Japan and China. So I was living in a different culture and hanging out with a lot of gay people and kids just really weren’t a part of things. And it was a lot of fun. It was great. I was dating. I was having a good time. And I joke around and say that I was gay until I had kids because once you have kids, then all the sudden you’re not hanging out with the guys and you’re not going out to drink at night. You’ve got a lot of things you’ve got to do. 

So, on the one hand I feel like, well, this wasn’t something I always wanted. I mean, people were like I had to be a dad and I had to have kids. And hear that, but it doesn't really resonate with me. It wasn’t really true for me. But what happened is I got a little bit older, first thing was I started to see other people. I come back to Utah once or twice every year and see gay friends. And there were a couple that had had kids through IVF and this was brand new, say late 80s early 90s. And I was like, “Wow. It’s possible.” It seemed like space age, how is this even possible? So it took me a couple of years to get my head around it. And then I understood it was really expensive and I wasn’t a rich guy that was going to be able to afford this. But it just started to seep into my mind that, “Wow, you can do this.” 

And then the other thing is, my five siblings all had kids and when we got together, that’s all they’d talk about. And I would kind of feel left out. You know, their kid’s in first grade, or developmental things when it’s a baby. And I was just sitting there like a lump on a log just kind of like, “Hmm, what’s all this?” And so it got me interested to relate to my siblings. And also this sense that I wanted to have a full experience in life. I felt like almost everyone has kids. And gay people, they’ve had the revolution and now there’s the gay ghetto. And now gay people don’t have kids. And it wasn’t always like that. 

And so, you know, maybe this is a possibility, and maybe this is something I should think about. I didn’t say anything because I knew my parents and siblings would love the idea and be really supportive and I didn’t want to get their hopes up. So I was kind of sneaking around and trying to figure out, “Is this possible and would I really do it?” And then, I talked to them before I made the first step. Because I knew I was going to need help because I was single. And to be able to do this on my own was going to be a lot. I could tell. I had no idea how much, but I knew it was going to be hard. And I checked in with them and yes. Oh, my parents were totally supportive. They would help out. In fact, later they, this is after I had the kids and was actually living in their basement. They would say to me, “Oh, son. Don’t be nervous, we’ll be your husband.” So they’re almost like my spouse stepping in. And so that kind of gave me the confidence to go ahead. 

And then once I had actually gone far enough and had a pregnancy, then I made the announcement. And this craziest thing is, when I told them that I was going to have a kid, I was back home and we were all gathered, the whole family. And I though, I’m here, I’m going to let everyone know, and everyone’s going to be popping balloons and slapping high fives. And I tell them I’m going to be a dad and there’s a surrogate in Thailand who’s pregnant with my child and I’m excited. And it was crickets. It was silent. And I didn’t understand at the time, and I do now because it is so hard to be a parent. There’s so many things. And it’s such a big thing. And I think they knew and I didn’t understand what was going on. But now I do. 

And it’s really moving for me to think about. And so, for me, it’s like my whole life, it’s the proudest thing that I am, but it’s not necessarily something that I thought out and had to do. I feel lucky that I’ve been able to do it and it’s a lot because of the support of my family. And this is my life. So that’s kind of my situation. So my oldest is 11 now, so I’m one year up on you, Candice. And then I’ve got twins that are 9. And that was kind of a mistake because I wanted a second and both embryos made it. And so I had a 17 month old and then I got twins born in Thailand, premature. 

And I had my first and I was like, “This is not bad.” He was totally easy. I had a carrier and I’d feed him and I had a nanny take him during the day while I went to work. And I was just like, “What is everybody talking about. This is – And then, I had these twins. And each of them individually was harder than my first and then I’ve got three and the oldest is 17 months and I thought I was going to die. And the craziest thing is, we think we’re in modern society and it’s not like a life and death situation. But there were multiple times where I thought, “I was tricked. We are not in the modern world. Somebody is going to die here.” The exhaustion, and crying, or sickness. And so it really pushes you toward life and death in a way too.

CANDICE:    That is so relatable. I think it comes like a hurricane.

CRAIG:          And so my parents are really supportive but I don’t think they knew what they were getting into either because we had these kids and we were all exhausted. We were all like, “How can we do this?” So we’re kind of past that a little bit, but not all the way. But anyway, that’s a little bit of background on me. Maybe a lot, I tend to go on and on, so I’ll try to rein it in a little bit here. Sorry, Marshall.

MARSHALL: I’m loving hearing this.

CANDICE:    That’s great.

JEN:          You’re awesome. Thanks Craig.

MARSHALL: Well, I guess I’m last, so I will go. Um, I’m Marshall and I am a trans man. I started transitioning about 8 years ago. I grew up in San Diego, born and raised. And I was in a conservative religion. And so kind of what Candice said, just the expectation from the religion is that you get married and you have a family. And I definitely wanted that. I think I wanted five boys and a girl and the girl to be last and had all their names picked out. And, like Candice, I started collecting books for them because I love to read. And so I started a book collection. And as I got older, I started having this thought, “If I don’t get married by the time I’m 35, then I’ll just adopt.” And I was pretty comfortable with that version of my life going that way. And it’s interesting because I think it was, I don’t know what you would call it, like a premonition almost because that’s when we started fostering, was when I was 35. So that kind of came true.

JEN:          Except that you weren’t alone.

MARSHALL: I wasn’t alone. Yeah. So, I was a teacher. I taught fourth and fifth grade and special ed as well. And I met my wife there. That was kind of a long story of itself. We were both from the same religion and I had moved up here to Utah in the meantime. So I was teaching here in Utah. And so this was pretransition. So we can’t really do this because we’re both girls. But it also didn’t feel right to not. And so we became the stereotypically roommates and best friends. And we were having a blast. We had bought a house together. We traveled all the time. We were both professionals, so we had lots of time and money and did lots of fun things. 

And it got to a point where we just felt like something was kind of missing. And my wife actually never wanted children, but I think our desire to help kids – you know, our philosophy is when you have more, you don’t get more things, you build a bigger table type thing. And she really felt strongly that that was something she wanted to do. And I was onboard. We ended up having to, we were living in a condo. So we ended up having to buy a bigger house in preparation for all of this. And started doing foster care. Our very first placement was for a sibling group of four. And they were aged, 6 through 12, I believe. And they were ferrell. We went and visited them at the Christmas Box house for an hour with our case worker, so there’s three adults and these four kids. And things got broken. We went home and took naps. We were so exhausted from this experience. 

And then a couple weeks later they came to stay with us. And we didn’t know it at the time, but it was going to be forever. And my wife and I just took turns crying every other day for a good couple of months, I think. It was like, “What did we do? These are poor life choices we’ve made.” But they turned out pretty good. And we’ve fostered – well, we’ve had 10 placements. One child, we had when she was an infant and she returned to us when she was 8 years old. And we adopted those first four. And then we have a little girl that we adopted as well. So their ages right now are 14, 18, 20, 21, -- No, let’s see. Hold on. It’s hard when you don’t birth them to remember. I’ve got to do it backwards. 24, 23, 20, 18, and 14. 

And it was difficult because at the time when my wife and I were getting ready to adopt the first four, because I had not transitioned yet and because the laws were what they were in Utah, I actually had to sign a paper saying I had no legal rights to the children because we weren’t married and we were the same gender. So that was really hard. Luckily the law changed. We were able to get married. And I started transitioning. By the time our youngest daughter came and so I was able to adopt her legally on the record. I mean, obviously, I’ve adopted all of them in my heart and mind. But that was kind of a difficult part. Everybody knew our situation in the foster care system. And no one cared, but because of the laws and what they were, it made it difficult.

JEN:          We talk a ton on this podcast about the importance of representation. And that came up several times in your stories. I’m hoping that people who are listening notice that. That it’s hard for us to imagine a life that we’ve never seen before. You guys, I have this giant list of questions. I never get to all of my questions. But you guys answered so many of them, but none of you answered all of them. So, some of things you’re going to be like, “I said that already.” Which is super true. But I have some little detail questions. So, Craig, you mentioned that you were living in China, but also you were living in your parent’s basement. I’m a little confused about that. Can you kind of help me understand that, like, where were you when you had the kids?”

Craig:        YEAh. So I was living in China when I had the kids. And I did it over there partly because it was more affordable. At the time, Thailand was open to surrogacy. I tried to do it in China. There’s not a legal surrogate industry there, but I had friends who told me there’s companies that can help you do it. And I had failures there. And then I tried to go to India and I failed there. And it actually took me six years. I was 40 when I wanted to have kids, when I decided and I thought, “Oh, just a couple of things and you’re going to get kids.” And it took me six years. It was a real journey.

 And so it was finally in Thailand that I had the kids. But I was living and working in Beijing. And so I would fly down there to meet the people at the clinic and meet the surrogates. And then to pick up the kids it takes two months to get all the paperwork done with the embassy, get the US passport, and then fly back to Beijing. So I had my first there, and then I went down for the twins' birth, came back to Beijing and I worked for a little over two years in Beijing. And I actually had two nannies living in my house taking care of the kids while I was working. And then, when the twins, which are the younger ones, were two and a half, then I wanted to move home. 

It was really hard in China to have kids. You have the medical care system, pollution, just a lot, and I was feeling like the nannies were raising my kids instead of me. And I wanted to be in charge. I thought, “This is the whole point.” Now I’m just working all the time. I’d come home and the nannies would be like, “Oh, he’s back.” And I felt like I was ruining their party and they were raising my kids. And I just didn’t like it. And I pulled up and my parents, and my dad, and my sister and brother-in-law all came over and get the three kids onto a plane. And we flew back to Provo to the basement, to the room where I grew up. and so I was living there and my three kids were living in the basement in other rooms. And I was with them for two years. 

And so, here I am at 48 years old, moving into my parent’s basement with three kids as a single day. So, watch out, parents. If you’ve got gay kids, you never know what kind of support they need. But it was a great time. I think, sometimes, the hard thing is the in-law relationship. And we didn’t have that. It was just, parents and kids, it’s not perfect, but you don’t have someone who’s kind of in the middle of things that maybe wishes they weren’t. And so it was actually a really great time. And then we had another great year during COVID because we were a pod and it was so nice to have other adults in the mix with my kids. So, yeah. So I had the kids while I was living in Beijing. When the twins were two and a half, we moved to Utah to my parent’s basement. And then a couple years and just slowly getting on my feet, we moved to San Francisco because the kids are now old enough. And so that’s kind of my story in terms of geography.

JEN:          So Candice and Marshall, you guys both were socialized female in the states in a conservative religion and talked about how that was kind of the path that was laid out before you. and Craig, you talked about that was a little different being socialized male. But I’m curious about the pressure or the ideas or the parenting culture in China. Like, you were in China for a decade before?

CRAIG:            Yeah. It’s interesting. I feel like there, it’s an obligation. Like, you have to have a son, it’s Confusion tradition that you need to have a son, actually. And it’s modernized now where it’s you need to have a child. Because one child policy, which was in place for a long time, I mean, you could really only have one. And for a while there were problems. But, now, having that child is the responsibility the child has to fulfill for the parents. And that was really weird to me. Because when we have kids, it’s like, we want kids and we want them because we want them. Not to fulfill some family obligation. 

And so I had friends, after I did surrogacy, I had a lot of gay friends, literally, maybe seven or eight gay friends go down to the same clinic where I had and had a child they brought back to China. And it was not because they wanted kids. I shouldn’t say that. I mean, there were some that did want that, but it’s like this obligation. It’s like this societal expectation that you have to meet. And I think sometimes in the culture where I grew up, the idea that you have a family is a little bit similar in some ways. But the relations are more friendly between parents and kids. And it’s less formal structure. You know, the idea that you have an obligation to have a kid for your parents was really foreign to me. If I had a kid and it was good for me, my parents would celebrate that. But they weren’t telling me I had to have a kid. 

And a lot of what it was in China is they feel like your kids are your retirement. Because it’s a poor country for a lot of people there. And if you have kids who are able to work when you’re old then someone’s going to have to  take care of you. And so people would talk to me, as a gay man in China, before I had kids and they’d say, “What are you going to do when you get old?” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me. I’m, like, 28.” Why are you even bringing this up? But they think differently there. And so the role of kids as an obligation and also as a retirement policy, those were just really foreign to me.

JEN:          It’s so interesting to me. So, everybody kind of touched on this a little bit. Candice started by talking about the desire to become a parent. And everybody kind of touched on that a little bit. But, was there any stage where discovering your queerness or starting to articulate your own queerness, like I said, Candice answered this so well already, but where that option felt like I cut off for you. Like, “I really want to be a parent. Oh, I’m gay. I can’t be a parents.I can be a parent.” Was that part of your journey, or was that mostly Candice?

MARSHALL: I think for me it never really waivered because I just thought that if I don’t get married, then I’m going to adopt. So that was always my plan B, my backup plan. And it worked out that way. So it wasn’t, not that we were planning on adopting from foster care. We really weren’t. It just kind of happened that way. But, no. I think being queer, coming out as queer caused other issues in other areas, but not necessarily with parenting.

CRAIG:        For me it was a big deal. I came out to myself when I was 18 and then to my parents when I was 22. And so there were four years where I knew I was gay and kind of hiding it and hoping it would go away. And then, when I came out to my parents, before I came out to them, I was just worried that someone was going to find out and that I was going to be cast out, basically, because it was such a horrible thing to be gay at the time. But, when I came out to my parents, they kind of brought this idea, “Oh, you won’t have a family.” And what it meant to me was, you can’t be part of this community because – they didn’t say that – but I didn’t see any single people in my neighborhood. And I thought I just have to go away. And I really think that sent me to China because I was like, “How do you live here if you don’t have family and kids?” It’s embarrassing. It’s sort of like you’re this thing that no one knows what to do with. 

And so I left. And I kind of feel like I left to not be an embarrassment. To not be this eye-sore, this gay guy who’s this bot on this family. And just go far away and do something crazy and people will kind of forget about you or they won’t think that you’re a misfit. And so I thought I wasn’t going to have a family and that meant I could not be part of my community. And that was heartbreaking. It really was. But the writing was on the wall. I think I wasn’t fair. I don’t think I saw the big picture. But I sort of banished myself to China, like, “Well, I can’t have a family. I cannot live here. Go far away.”

CANDICE:    It’s interesting, Craig, because you and Jen kind of both touched on really how vital it is that we have representation. And for me, same thing. I mean, every TV show I watched, and to be honest, I get jealous of gay men sometimes because they have so much great content right now in the media and books and Heartstopper and these great fun programs that show healthy queer relationships. But even still, lesbian media is tough. And we’re either, those characters are either dying by suicide, or breaking up families, and marriages, and there’s always cheating in them. And I want healthy content that shows, not only that we can have healthy relationships, but that we  can have families. And when I said in the beginning, like I said, Ellen was the only person I knew that was gay in media. And I adore Ellen, but she was not all how I saw myself and how I wanted to be represented. 

And in this weird way, I think that’s in part why I love teaching and stay in teaching is I know that I’m representation even for this small group of kids at my school. I like being out and gay. And I know it’s a scary thing to be out and gay in Utah, especially in this political climate. It’s really scary with all the book bannings and things. But just existing and being authentic without preaching anything says so much and I feel like gives so much. And I would’ve loved to have had one person, one person in my life represent that for me. 

I try to be as visible as possible because I’m hoping other people that need just one person can cling to that. So I think it's awesome that we do podcasts like this. And I’m grateful you guys are doing it also. It sounds like we’re all coming from three different ways of having kids: surrogacy, and foster care, and adoption. And I did it through IUIs and ICI procedures with a doctor when I was married. And seeing how there are so many different ways, even beyond that, to be a parent. And there are so many queer parents everywhere. And having representation so people can see and youth can see and parents can see that this can be a trajectory of life.

JEN:          Yeah. We absolutely wanted three different types of queer representation and then three very different approaches to parenting. So, I’m hoping you guys will talk a little bit more. You talked about it a little bit about some of the details about how you became a parent. Like, not just the words. Like, maybe, Candice, you can even start. Like you were saying all these letters, maybe people don’t even know what these things mean. So you’re married. You and your wife decide you want to have kids.

CANDICE:    I mean, we had those conversations even before we got married. I think it’s one of the reasons we got married so quickly. We were so excited that we could be parents. It was going to do it regardless if I was married or not and had even started talking to doctors and doing research. 

So the way that I was able to be a parent is, we did a lot of research and learned about doing ICI or IVF, or IUI procedures which is where you order sperm from a cryobank. I used a cryobank in California. And, actually, one of my favorite stories ever is when my spouse and I, at the time, were sitting on a couch looking through tons of pictures of different donor profiles. And looking at these random men that I will never, probably, meet in my life and trying to determine who we’re going to pick to be the donor. And my spouse at the time was really looking for someone athletic and someone who had good schooling. And I was looking for somebody that looked like both of us. And we talked about it would be awesome to have a dimple. You get to kind of pick from a catalog these qualities that you’re looking for not knowing for sure if your kid is going to have those qualities but kind of this ideal situation. 

And so we’re sitting on the couch and going through these different profiles and saying, “Oh, look at this kid. He’s so cute. Look at this guy, he’s so cute.” And, at the time, my sister-in-law was sitting by us on the couch with her husband. And she was watching us, kind of over her shoulder. And she finally turned to us and said, “This isn’t fair.” “What do you mean it isn’t fair?” And she said, “You guys can just pick any Ivy League school with perfect health background, handsome guy?” And we looked at her, and we looked at her husband sitting right next to her, and we said, “Hey, you got to pick who your baby daddy was going to be too.” And he was like, “Oh, yeah. I should be offended by this.” And we all laughed about it. 

It was really kind of fun. There’s a huge catalog of options for donors at the cryobank we used. I think they allow about 10 families per donor if you choose to. You attempt to have kids with that donor. And once you are able to have a pregnancy, if you choose, you can also know the other donor families that use that donor. And so we chose to be on the sibling registry so we could know the other donor kids. My kids won’t be able to meet or know or donor until they’re 18. The kids have the choice if they want to reach out to the donor. He wouldn’t be able to reach out to them first. It would be their choice to reach out to him first. At this point in time, as 10-year-old and 7-year-old, my kids have shown zero interest in the donor. 

I’m more interested in it than they are. I’m often saying, “You don’t like hamburgers? Your donor liked hamburgers.” And they’re like, “I don’t care. I want cookies.” My kids are just not at all interested.  I kind of wish they were a little more interested. But one thing they do love and they are very interested in is their donor siblings. They have become pen pals and friends with these other kids. We call them “Diblings” instead of siblings. And there are different families. We went to California together, some of us, and met and went to Disney Land and stayed in a beach, little, resort. And one of the families lives in Phoenix. My daughter is a die-hard Taylor Swift fan. So we went down to the Phoenix Taylor Swift concert and spent time with them there. 

We went to San Francisco. We have another donor sibling there who is just this gorgeous little spit-fire of a kid. And my kids love their relationship with there donor siblings, or diblings. And it’s cute because I heard my daughter once, when she was playing around with a bunch of kids, somebody said, “It’s really sad that you don’t have a dad.” And my daughter said, “Well, it’s really sad that you don’t have diblings.” Our family is just different and it’s what we’re used to and it’s what we’re comfortable with. 

As far as the process of having my kids, we picked a donor and then there are different things. So ICI means that you don’t use a doctor for the insemination. You can do it straight at home. And the, kind of, joking term is turkey baster. I’ts not that at all. It feels like a science experiment in your bedroom. It’s weird. The syringes and the things. We got pregnant with my daughter. I was pregnant with her with the ICI. It’s the cheapest route to go, but it’s also just a shot in a barrel. It’s not very common to get pregnant the first time that way. We just got really really lucky. 

And I think a lot of people hope that that’s how they’re going to do it and then they try it that way several times until they take a more serious route. So, originally we planned on – I’m older – so we planned on me carrying first and then my spouse at the time carrying second. So I carried first. It was so easy. Pregnant first try. It was even kind of embarrassing because we were going to use a doctor but we were like, “Hey, let’s try just for one on our own.” We bought 15 vials from that donor of ICI which means you do it at home or IUI which means that the doctor does it. So, ICI means that the vial goes into your cervix. And IUI means the vile goes into your uterus. And so the C is for cervix. And U is for uterus. The doctor has to do the uterus insemination. 

And so we bought one ICI and 15 vials of IUI. And we wanted the same donor if possible for both our kids. And we wanted to both of us carry a different child. So I carried my daughter first. And then we started trying with my spouse and we’re not successful. I think we tried for 9 months and there were a lot of things that made that – it’s really tricky because when you start to work with doctors when it comes to that. A lot of doctors are used to patients who are not able to have kids. And so they go really aggressive with the lesbians when they don’t need to go aggressive with the lesbians. It’s not because we weren’t able to. So there are a lot of things like trigger shots that will help induce ovulation. And clomid pills and other kinds of pills that you can take to enhance your production. So when you go to these reproduction specialists, they’re used to just going hard. And oftentime, lesbians can get twins or triplets if you’re working with donor conception because doctors are going hard.

JEN:          That makes sense.

CANDICE:    And so we got lucky with my daughter with ICI. Then you start going through and in the beginning, you’re like, “Don’t go too hard. I would prefer to not have triplets. Even though I’m sure that’s wonderful, I don’t know if I have – I’m amazed Craig that you had triplets in a way with your two being a fun surprise. But we were, hopefully, just wanted to have one at a time. And so you kind of start slow with them. And then we tried, like I said, months with my ex. And we weren’t able to be successful. And so we wanted, originally, to have three kids. And so we were like, well, we’re starting to run out of vials and we would like to use the same donor. And the cryobank didn’t have more vials from that donor at the time. 

So we were kind of like, it was easy for Candice to get pregnant, so le’’s try one more time for her to get pregnant. And then we’ll try again with you until we run out of vials. And then we’d at least have two kids. So the first time we tried again with me with an IUI – so that was going through the doctor again – it worked again. I never, ever touched sperm in my life without getting pregnant. So I got pregnant again and we had my son. And then after that, our marriage didn’t last. And so we had the extra vials and, to be honest, getting rid of those was really hard for me. I wanted three kids. But we made that difficult choice that it wouldn’t be fair or good for our family at that time. So we gave them back to the cryobank. And I’m sure my other donor families are very thrilled to have extra vials because everybody always wants more in some ways. And they run out quick. So I always recommend people to buy about 5 vials per kid. If you want to have three kids, get 15. That’s my recommendation to people. And, then, when you’re done, you can sell them back to the cryobank. That’s a ton of information.

JEN:          I actually think people will find that really interesting.

CANDICE:   Thanks.

JEN:         I found it really interesting, anyway. So, Craig, you talked about surrogacy. That was your route. Can you give us a little more detail about – like obviously surrogacy is going to be a little bit different in different circumstances. But how did that play out for you?

CRAIG:      I mean, it’s the opposite as a gay guy, because you need a uterus, right? And so getting sperm is kind of easier. So I was always jealous. You’re talking about, Candice, your sister who’s kind of like, “You get to pick your dad.” But I was like, I want to have a kid but I do not have a uterus. But I did have sperm. Getting sperm is easy. But a uterus and an egg and someone to carry it is really hard. It’s a lot to ask. And in some ways, if you can work it out, then you don’t have to carry the baby and go through that pain, but I  think there’s something nice about the bonding that goes on there, too, that you miss out on. And so, in some ways, guys have it easy if you can thread the needle and figure out a way to get the eggs and the uterus that’s going to carry the baby. 

And so the way it works, and some people are really like they’re asking, “Do you mind if I ask you how it works?” For me, it’s just cut and dried. It’s just how it is. And I feel like sometimes people have these weird ideas about having kids. But, if you want to do it, you can do it. There’s so many ways that things can happen. If you just put down all these, if you’re real rational, which is hard sometimes when we’re talking about having kids. But you’re going to get kids. You just have to be persistent. The way it works if you’re a guy, is you’ve got to get eggs from an egg donor. This is typically the way it works. There’s different paths and I actually did try some of these other paths. But I’ll just talk about mine because otherwise it gets really complicated. So I went to a clinic in Thailand and they have egg donors. So the first step is to choose an egg donor.

JEN:          So what if the surrogate just wants to be the – do you not do that, have the surrogate.

CRAIG:      OK. There is an option where you use your sperm and you get a surrogate pregnant either through, Candice talked about IUI, so they would take my sperm and inject it into the uterus or the cervix and create a pregnancy that way. But, typically, they want to have a two step process because they want to protect – if I did this, if I use my sperm with a woman and did IUI or ICI, there’s a chance that she might want that baby. And there’s not the separation that comes by involving two women. So the step that I did is. There’s an egg donor. You choose the egg donor. She produces eggs, you fertilize those with your sperm, and you freeze them as embryos. And once you have embryos, then there’s another woman who is your surrogate. And they implant the embryos in the surrogate who’s the carrier, who is not genetically related to the baby. And that might sound like a lot. It’s really easy for me because I did it so many times. I mean, I’ve been through it so many times. So, a two-step process kind of protects, it gives a little bit of buffer between the egg donor and the child that’s produced or between the surrogate who carries the child and the child that’s produced.

CANDICE:   I think that buffer is really important for lesbian families also. Using a donor through a cryobank. I have no idea who this person is. I don’t have to worry about the legal elements. I had some friends who used a known donor and it was his mother who wanted to be really involved. And they had a lot of legal problems with that. It’s just really safe to do the two-step like you’re saying or to use an unknown donor that the kids can, if they choose to, contact later or maybe not. But it’s just safer for the family, really.

CRAIG:      Yeah. But I have seen cases where they use a known donor and they have kind of a connection. Like, maybe they don’t live in the same city, but the mother would send Christmas cars, and the kids know who they’re mother is. See, in my case, the kids know who their surrogate mother is, the mother who carried them in their uterus. But they don’t know who the egg donor is. So their genetic donor is anonymous until 18 and they have the option of approaching if they want. So it’s a two-step process. 

And then the other thing that happens is, so the process is, when a woman agrees to be an egg donor, then she goes through a process where they inject hormones to cause her to produce a bunch of eggs. Typically, when you ovulate, you’re just going to produce one egg each month. But for the surrogacy, they’re going to inject hormones that are going to cause her to produce 20 to 30 eggs. And then they harvest the eggs and put them into a petri dish or whatever. And then fertilize them with my sperm and then you get embryos. And then they grade the embryos. And in my case, I was really lucky in Thailand. When I went to India, I got five eggs and the quality was not good. And then the embryos, I think I had three embryos and they were not good quality. And so I didn’t have very many chances to have an embryo that would be placed in a surrogate and create a baby. 

But when I went to Thailand, my egg donor produced 30 eggs and then we fertilized those with my sperm and I had something like 22 embryos that were viable. And those were all frozen. And so they keep those frozen. And so, when I had Ezra, they take, typically, they take two embryos and they implant them in the uterus of the surrogate, who is different than the egg donor. And she is the carrier. And she was fine to be known and we have pictures, and we see her when she’s pregnant. And I got to know her over the course of the pregnancy, but she was not the genetic mother of the baby. 

And then, after we had Ezra, then we try again and so we got back to that bank of embryos that are already fertilized and frozen, you know, they’re blastocyst, I think they call them. They wait until day three or day five and then they freeze them. They go back there and then they implant into a different surrogate – they never use the same surrogate. And the other rule that they have, at least with the agency I worked with, is they will only work with women who have had a baby already to be a surrogate. And they only work with them once, because they insist on c-section. They don’t want the mother to go through a natural birth and have that sort of emotional connection. And, for safety, in a country like Thailand and it’s a c-section, you’re probably not going to have a medical emergency that might happen if you wait until a natural birth were to happen. 

So that’s the process. You go to the agency, you leave your sperm with the agency. You choose an egg donor. The egg donor goes through a process where they’re injected with hormones and produces a bunch of eggs, hopefully. But it varies. Some women produce a lot and some don’t. And then you fertilize them with your sperm. Create the embryos and you freeze those. And then you use them as you need to. And Candice talked about having remaining sperm or, like in my case, and I haven’t even followed up, but I have something like 12 embryos that are frozen in Thailand, I think, but I’m not even sure.  And it’s really awkward, you don’t know what to do with those because I’m not planning to have other kids, but you don’t want to – it’s kind of a weird thing. 

Surrogacy brings up these things we don’t deal with usually. And so I think I might have 12 embryos there and I’m not sure and I haven’t quite followed up. It’s weird. Talk about rationality, but I have irrational parts of me too in this. I don’t know.

JEN:          So, was it like Candice, like you had that little book and went shopping for your egg donor and then shopping for your surrogate? Like I want a surrogate who’s never had health problems and sleeps well, and doesn’t eat junky food. Like, is it like that?

CRAIG:      Yeah. What I would say is that being an egg donor is harder than being a sperm donor by quite a bit. And being a surrogate is probably the hardest job of all because you’re carrying the baby for nine months and you’re going to birth the baby. And so it’s not as extensive of a catalog. And then, I was in Thailand where the industry wasn’t that developed, and it’s actually closed now. So, surrogacy is not open to foreigners in the country of Thailand anymore. There are other countries where you can do that. And you can do that in the US pretty much anywhere. In fact, I’ve heard that Boise is a great place to do it. There are great clinics there and people say there are women who are at Boise State and graduate school who are willing to be egg donors and surrogates and you can do it all right in the US. 

So it kind of depends on where you are. But your choices as a gay man, for the egg donor, you’re going to have fewer choices and you’re going to pay more money because it’s a lot harder and it’s a lot more burden on the woman to produce eggs than for a man to just give you some sperm.

JEN:          A lot more invasive of an extraction. So, Marshall, it sounds like you were planning to foster, you and your wife at the time. Another conversation, like you mentioned, there is a whole history there that is super fascinating about delaying your transition and maintaining your relationship and all of those things.

MARSHALL: Yeah.

JEN :          But, when you started fostering, it feels to me, I work a teeny bit with foster kids and it feels to me like you got thrown into the deep end of the pool. Like, you did not start with one kid, you started with four kids.

MARSHALL:  Yeah.

JEN:          Which is almost unheard of, like, most people just can’t take four kids on. And you guys were like these little babies yourselves, who weren’t even able to be legally married. And then you have four kids and you just kept them. Talk a little bit about your expectations when you signed up to foster and you took the classes and then what actually happened when reality hit.

MARSHALL: YEAh. It was kind of good that we were really so dumb in the beginning because we didn’t know what we were getting into, which probably is good in some respects. But, yeah, we were thrown in the deep end. We had gotten licensed, I think by May. And then by September, no, about August, we still hadn’t had a placement. So we were like, what’s going on? And we reached out to our RFC, which is like the caseworker for foster parents. And we said, “Hey, what’s going on? We haven’t had a placement. And we have this big empty house.” And she said, “I do have some kids, a sibling group of four, would you be willing to adopt them?” Like, that was literally our first introduction to these kids. And we were like, “Could we meet them first?” That seems like a logical next step, to meet them. And she was like, yeah. And so we had the meeting at the Christmas Box house.

 And I would say, I want to kind of preface this with, I think the focus and shift has changed and I think it should.  I think it’s moving in a good direction that, really, the first and best option for kids in care is to go home to their families, to their birth families. That’s really what we want for them. The  child bond with their parents is really strong. And it’s important for kids to be with their families if it’s safe to do so. I think that was different when we first started fostering. And so a lot of our conversations were, “Hey, I’ve got this kids, can you adopt them?” right at the beginning.

JEN:          Was this like, give me, like, a time frame because you don’t look very old. Was this like 20 years ago, like 30 years ago?

MARSHALL: It was 11 years ago.

JEN:          OK. So I thought you looked younger. OK.

MARSHALL: Yeah. I’m getting to be an old man. I’ve got lots of gray. But, yeah, so it hasn’t been that long since that push has kind of changed.  I think we’re learning more about trauma. We’re learning more about what things kids go through when they are removed from their families and how that in itself is a trauma. And I could get into there shouldn't be a need for foster care. Our society should help these families before they even get to that place. But I think we’re kind of moving in that direction. 

So, with that said, we spent a year taking the kids to visits to see their parents and really mom was the one that had to, needed the support, needed to make some changes. Eventually, it was kind of deemed that that wasn’t happening and so her rights were terminated. And we were able to adopt them.

JEN:          Super curious for Craig and Candice, two of you are single while parenting, you mentioned that you were married. And Craig, you’ve never been married. But I’m interested if you’re dating, if you’re interested in dating, and how showing up with kids impacts dating.

CANDICE:    Craig, you go first.

CRAIG:      I think you should ask the guys I date because I try to guess, but, you know, I’m coming at it with the kids, right? And in San Francisco, there’s not many kids here, and so people are blown away. When I was in China, they would see me with three kids when it was a one-child policy and people would be blown away like, “There’s this guy and there’s three kids? How is this even possible.” And then I got home to Utah and I’d go out to the mall in Orem and I’d have three kids and they’d be looking like, “You’ve only got three.” So there’s different attitudes about kids. 

But San Francisco is more like China. Like one two kids is already like this is crazy. And you have a lot of gay people that haven’t been around kids. And so there’s this weird mix of people who haven’t been around them kind of wish they could be around kids and they like the idea of it but they don’t know about it. And then there are some who are really great uncles and they’ve got lots of nieces and nephews, so they know how to be around kids. They kind of have a knack for it. And then you’ve got quite a few single dads or gay dads. A lot of them are married. 

A lot of people look at me and say, “What were you thinking? How could you do that?” Not in a critical way, but sort of like an admiring way almost. Like, “Wow, you’ve done this on your own.” But I think that, looking back, I didn’t know that it was such a big project. And to have done this with a partner or to maybe have tried harder. I did try hard to get things set up that way. But I have people who wait to have kids until they have a partner. And I might have said before, “Don’t wait. Just go ahead.” And now that I have kids, I might say, “Wait.” So, I feel like, when it comes to kids, I’m not ready to give people advice. 

But when it comes to dating, I just don’t have a choice but just to own it. I’ll meet people on an app and say, “Hey, let’s go over to the park and sit and talk while my kids play on the playground.” A lot of people are like, “You shouldn’t have them meet the kids until three months.” And I’m like, ‘I can’t afford a babysitter in San Francisco.” And it’s just going to be part of life. They’re going to meet the kids pretty early. But the kids, I have a lot of friends and they don’t know who I’m dating and who I’m not. They kind of have a sense. And I’m pretty straight up right from the beginning when I talk to someone. And probably meet more on apps than somewhere else. It might be in a bar and I’ll kind of come right out and say I’ve got kids. 

And it’s a wide variety of reactions. But, after they’re with you and the kids are around, two or three times, it’s kind of done. They can see what it is and they can see whether it’s something they might consider. And so I just say it’s not possible for me to keep the kids out of the picture for three months. And so I’m just out there with it. And the reaction, like I said, there are some people who fall in love with the kids. And there’s some people who would like me to go off to Bali with them. They want someone who can travel. And then you’ve got a lot of people in the middle who don’t know. And they’re kind of open to it, I think. I think it’s kind of a novelty here to have kids. And people are kind of like, “Wow.” And let’s see, Marshall, weren’t you talking about how you were two professionals and you felt like you had extra money, extra travel, extra time, but you felt like something was missing.

MARSHALL: Yeah.

CRAIG:      I think there are people like that here, I think I would like to be involved with someone with kids. You know, it may be an interesting thing to think about. But, case-by-case, I’m just saying I’m out there from the beginning and then just see where the chips fall. If it’s someone that I like, they like me, and the kids get along, then we move ahead and try dating. And it’ll be crazy things. Someone I was dating last year, we maybe dated two or three times. And then we did an overnight. We stayed in a motel in Gilroy which is an hour south of here after a Santa Cruz thing. And we just made it work. Or maybe you go camping so you have time together and you kind of check things out. 

 I kind of do what I would anyway, but just bring the kids along fairly quick because that’s just how I live. One of the guys I dated last year, I met at Costco because it was just convenient for me because I’ve got to shop there anyway. We met by the rotisserie chickens and I really liked him. And so we were like causing this traffic jam because and the kids are like, “Let’s go dad. We want to go.” And I’m, like, just trying to talk to him. But that’s just my life. And it worked out and maybe it’ll work out with this guy. But that’s how we do it.

JEN:          Are you still dating him?

CRAIG:      Well, we kind of took a break but I talked to him over the summer and we’re going to get together. But he’s somebody who wants someone who can go to Porta Viarta and Bali and travel the world. So it takes him some time to think whether he wants to do this. Which is great, because I don’t want someone to jump in and then for it not to work out. 

I haven’t really dated someone that’s gotten so far along that they’re close to the kids and it becomes an issue if we break up and the kids are like, “What happened.” That’s where the rubber hits the road is where you introduce them, or they’re around a lot and they stay over. And the kids have said to me, Gary said to me, “If you married somebody, then I’d have to lock the door when I go to the bathroom.” They’re kind of thinking about how it might change their life if someone were to come into my life. Which is great because I think it would change things. And I like them to be thinking about it but not stressed about it. 

They’re first, and we’re a unit and that’s fine. But that can make someone feel boxed out. The guy I dated last year, he said, “You know, I’ll never really be their dad. They’re close to you and I’ll just kind of be a sidecar.” And I was like, “Well, it doesn’t have to be that. We can kind of see how things go.” So it’s tricky because I do feel like we’re a unit and might box someone else out, but I also feel like, “Hell, I need help.” So come on in. If you’re willing to take the kids to soccer today, I”ll just go take a nap.

JEN:          I miss your early videos. You used to post videos of parenting three littles on Facebook and I loved them. I miss those. How about you, Candice?

CANDICE         That question is such a heavy question. And it’s interesting because with Craig, I can see how for a gay man there’s the element of novelty like, “Hey, if someone was interested in being a dad one day, what a perfect guy to find Craig where you don’t have to go through the expense and all the steps that it took to get the kids. You just get to inherit through love, kids.” And I think that sounds so beautiful. For women, it’s different. I think, for me, dating with kids has been really difficult. I never wanted to be a single mom. That was never in the cards. When my wife and I were talking – I’m such a baby.

JEN:          I cry every episode. It’s fine. They’re used to it.

CRAIG:      Parents need to cry. It’s good for us. Really, it’s good for our kids to see us cry because we go through a lot and we don’t hide it. I love you’re willing to share Candice, that’s awesome. I feel it.

CANDICE            When I was working towards having kids, and right before, I mean, it was right before we ordered that very first vial. We had this serious conversation between the two of us that if, when we put kids in the picture, that’s it. It’s you and I and we are never splitting. You promise. You promise. And part of that’s because I came from a divorce family and I was projecting a lot of my personal fears on what it's been like to share holidays and have parents that – my parents don’t hate each other. They’re actually very polite to each other – but the difficulty of going through a divorce has had a huge effect on my siblings, very much. And they’re all amazing, wonderful people with grit.  I love them so much. 

But it’s been tough on my childhood and my family. And I had a lot of projections of what divorce does to families. And I did not want that for my kids. And things happen, and you thrive through survival sometimes in the beginning. And I was very lucky in the beginning because my kids were with me, kind of like I said before. And it was having them that was keeping me going and waking up and motivated. My daughter had a moment with me where I would cry and I would try really hard to keep that from her because I didn’t want her to go through the grief the way that I was. And she caught me crying and was trying to drag me into the bathroom. And said, “Mommy. Mommy. I want you to watch me go potty. And doesn’t making me go potty make you happy?” Like she was trying to make me happy. And I was like, “Oh, sweetheart. You are the thing that makes me happy.” 

And when I get lost, my kids ground me so much. And I’m supposed to be the parent. I’m supposed to be the safe one and the grounding one. But my kids have been this really safe, loving, unconditional space for me even when it’s hard. Even when my son pours an entire gallon of chocolate milk on the couch, you know. I still look at him and I think, “I love you more than the couch and we’re going to get through this together.” And sometimes dating is not a safe space. And knowing who to bring around the kids, there are times my kids have met people that I’ve gone on dates with, but they think they’re my friends. And it’s because they meet a lot of my friends. And I don’t, personally, I don’t act couply around them because I don’t want my kids to fall for somebody and lose them like I did. 

And that’s projection too. And I’ve only had them meet one person where they realized I was dating that person. And, actually, I was really proud of that, how I went about that, and how that person was very kind to my kids. And even though that person didn’t work out with me, when I lost that person, kind of, teaching my kids about – when they asked why this person wasn’t coming around anymore and having that conversation with my kids was really good for me. 

And it’s interesting because my kids, they’re innocent and they’re sweet and they don’t know any better sometimes. But there was one day I was reading a story with my kids at night. And it was a story about a family. And my daughter had said, “Momma, I’m confused.” And I said, “What baby?” And she said, “Other mom has somebody who loves her, why don’t you have anyone that loves you?” And that’s tough. That’s tough to hear from your kid. And I wanted them to see I can also be loved. And that’s why I let them meet this one person that I dated. And I date but my kids are such a precious part of my life that it’s hard for me to date. It is. I don’t really date much. And when I do, I get really nervous about it. So that’s kind of where I’m at.

JEN:          I don’t know if our viewers will go hunt for you on TikTok or on your YouTube channel. Sorry, that did sound like I was talking about dating. I was talking about parenting. I look at your videos for real. You’re such a fun, engaged mom. I think it would be hard for someone to compete with that. For the joy that you get out of your kids and stuff, somebody’s going to have to be pretty amazing to compete with that.

CANDICE:    I mean, really, me having the co-parenting now the one weekend off, one weekend on with my kids, in the beginning was so hard for me. I was depressed by Sunday every time it wasn’t my weekend with kids. I started a Master’s program and this best friend kind of waltzed into my life. Just like Craig was saying the person who wants to go. She’s my travel buddy and she’s taught me how to thrive without my kids in a way that I think I’m more ready to thrive without my kids in the dating world. But I’m still just scared as can be of getting hurt.

JEN:          I was going to actually say to both you and Craig, Marshall’s going to be on my team here, They get older and then they need you less and then that changes everything. Like, you can take a vacation when your kids are a little bit older. Two of you guys have super young ones. Marshall, our kids-wise are kind of compatible age-wise. So I just want to tell you guys you’re awesome. We specifically talked about you guys because of the way that you parent from our objective, outsider view. And you’re amazing stories. And it’s not easy to know that six or seven hundred people are going to be listening to these vulnerable parts of your life. So I want to express my gratitude for that, for you guys being willing to share those sorts of things, just to kind of open our eyes as a whole society really, to the ways that queer parenting might work and what that might look like in everyday life. So I want to thank you guys so much for coming.

MARSHALL: Can I just add one thing real quick that I wish I had said earlier?

JEN:          Please do, Marshall, for sure.

MARSHALL: Is that, so I’m in Utah and a lot of queer people think that they can’t do foster care. They can’t do that or adopt and I just want people to know that queer people, single or married, can foster and we welcome people from all walks of life. So don’t think that because you're single, a single gay man or queer whatnot, you can’t foster because you can.

JEN:          Foster parents are so amazing and essential. Thank you for saying that, Marshall. That’s, I’m pretty sure, true in every state, at least currently. So thank you for that. Thanks again, guys.

CANDICE            Thank you. That was really great to talk to everybody in here and the different perspectives. And I really hope the people who watch this aren’t intimidated by our journeys because it can be difficult with lots of procedures and lots of steps. But I mean, I just always wanted to be a mom and sounds like  Craig, clearly devotedly, wanted to be a dad. And Marshall, clearly wanted to be a parent also. And if you want it, it's available and it’s not just available. It’s accessible. You take it a step at a time and if that’s where you want to go, that’s where you’re going to go.

JEN:          Talk to you guys soon. Thank you guys so much for coming.

CRAIG:      It’s been great.

CANDICE            Thanks.

JEN:          Thanks so much for joining us here in the den. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your friends. We’d also love it if you could take a minute to leave us a positive rating and review on whatever platform you’re listening to us on. Good reviews make us more visible and help us reach more folks who could benefit from listening. But, review or not, we’re glad you’re here. For more information on Mama Dragons and the podcast, you can visit our website at mamdragons.org or follow us on Instagram or Facebook. And if you’d like to help Mama Dragons in our mission to support, educate, and empower the parents of LGBTQ children, donate at mamadragons.org or click the donate link in the show notes.