Ep. 89 Lane Igoudin

On this episode I am joined by Lane Igoudin. In his candid and poignant memoir, A Family, Maybe Two Dads, Two Babies and the Court  Cases that Brought Us Together,  Lane details his and his husband Jonathan’s fraught path through the Los Angeles County’s foster-to-adopt process. A Family, Maybe offers an unprecedented look into the adoption process as it affects the lives of everyone involved, from the children taken into the system, to the suffering birth parents, to the couples hoping desperately to start a family of their own.

In the fall of 2005, after years of preparation, planning, and waiting for a chance to raise a family, Jon and Lane were given the opportunity to foster an infant named Marianna. Lane and Jon fell in love with the child and decided they would give her the best life they could. Marianna’s mother, a teenager in foster care herself, had voluntarily placed her in foster care before going AWOL. With her birth mother absent and father unknown, Marianna seemed to be on the fast-track to becoming adoptable.

The couple could not have predicted the return of the child’s mother, still in foster care, and the news that she was expecting a second child. With the second child also came the sudden appearance of the baby’s birth father, a man 10 years older than the mother, which would complicate the kids’ cases and begin to pull Lane and Jon’s family apart.

A Family, Maybe documents the ensuing spiral, rife with legal challenges, emotional blows, and no less important, political strife. In the early 2000s, with gay marriage and adoption still illegal in most U.S. states, Lane and Jon’s family would join the first wave of out LGBTQ+ families fighting for respect and equality. A Family, Maybe is a story of hope and heartbreak; of relatable first-time parenting highs and lows, but also with the pressure of knowing the family you’ve built could be ripped from you at any moment.

Lane Igoudin
Lane Igoudin (@laneigoudin) • Instagram photos and videos

Ashley ~ Filled Up Cup podcast (@filledupcup_) • Instagram photos and videos
Filled Up Cup - Unconventional Self Care for Modern Women

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Filled Up Cuppodcast.
We are a different kind ofself-care resource.
One that has nothing to do withbubble baths and face masks, and
everything to do withrediscovering yourself.
We bring you real reviews,honest experiences, and
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(00:21):
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Ashley (00:32):
I am very excited.
I have Lane Igoudin joining me.
He is a writer, activistprofessor of English and
Linguistics at LA City College.
We're gonna talk about his book,A family, maybe Two Dads, two
Babies, and the Court Cases thatbrought us together.
Thank you so much for joiningme.

Lane (00:52):
Thank you for having me.
I'm so excited to be here.

Ashley (00:55):
Did you always wanna be a dad?

Lane (00:57):
I always wanted to be a father.
Probably it's because I helpedto raise my younger sister who
is almost 10 years younger thanme.
And that experience was veryimportant to me.
It really sort of implantedsomething in me as I explained
in the book that I didn't knowif I was going to be married.
But I knew that I woulddefinitely be a dad.

Ashley (01:17):
Which is always so nice to see, like when you have that
dream, be able to bring it toFruitation.
Is that why it was alwaysimportant to have two children
because you had such a beautifulrelationship with your sister?

Lane (01:29):
So the vision of myself that I had back in my, I would
say early twenties, was that Iwould be a single dad with two
kids.
And it was kind of like a, youknow what I was imagining some
sort of a triangle where it'd beme and them and it'd be the two
of them together interacting.
And so there would always haveeach other.

(01:50):
That's kind of, what I saw formyself in the future.
It is interesting enough, Ididn't really see Jonathan in
it, you know, that came later.
I didn't think of myself as thiskind of a long-term commitment
kind of person, but I look at itas 26 years later.
So I guess that was there too.

Ashley (02:08):
How did you meet your husband?

Lane (02:10):
It was a very special day.
What's interesting, that was oneof the chapters that is not in
the book.
It wasn't the book.
And I took it out because I feltit wasn't really so much about
the children's story, but it wasa very special day.
At the time I graduated fromStanford, I was working in
Stanford news service, and thatwas the day when president
Clinton, so Bill and Hillarywere dropping off Chelsea at

(02:33):
Stanford.
If I remember correctly it wassomewhere in the mid September
of 1997 17th or 19th.
I don't rem remember the exactdate.
So that day I was working oncampus.
From like 5:00 AM till late atnight.
And the next day I was leading Iwas actually flying to Europe
for a conference.
So I came home to San Franciscoand everything was packed and I

(02:56):
was like, I'm going out.
I mean, I was so wired from theday there was so much going on,
being there chaperoning themedia, being in the presence of,
you know, the Clinton familyfor, quite some time.
So I went out and that's where Imet Jonathan.
I went out to a bar and we met,we chatted all I got out of that

(03:17):
very short conversation was abusiness card.
So when I took the businesscard, I said, listen, I said,
I'm going to Europe and I'mgoing to visit three countries
would you mind if I send you apostcard from each country I go
to?
And he said, sure.
And so I did.
So I went to Greece and Turkeyand Israel and I sent a card
from each country.
And when I came back, I calledhim up and I asked him, I dunno

(03:40):
if you remember me, you know, myname is Lane.
You gave me a business cardabout three weeks ago and I sent
you a postcard.
Did you get them?
He said, yes, I did.
Thank you.
You know, it was really, reallysweet of you.
And then I was kind of likenervous, and I said, well, would
you be interested in going outto, before I could even finish
sentence?
He said, yes.
So I knew he was sort of waitingfor that phone call too.

(04:01):
So that was our first date.

Ashley (04:02):
That's such a cute, like people I think forget, like
pre-cell phones to actually getsomething in the mail.
Like, that's such a cute gestureto be able to send post cards.

Lane (04:14):
Well, he certainly thought so.
He still has them.
He still has my postcards.
Oh, that's so sweet.
He keeps him in his office desk.

Ashley (04:21):
What made you guys decide to do the Foster to Adopt
program instead of maybe seekingout a surrogate or going a
foreign adoption route?

Lane (04:33):
So at the time we went into the process, I was in my
early thirties and he was closerto 40.
We have a seven year differencebetween us and we were both, you
know, working, we're both middleclass, right.
So he worked in insurancecompany.
I was working public affairsmarketing at the time, and so we

(04:54):
made pretty decent living forthe two of us.
We had multiple routes availableto us.
We could have gone the surrogacyroute that was already open to,
gay men.
We could have adoptedinternationally.
There was some opportunitiesthere too.
Or we could have gone the fosteradoption route and we strongly
felt that we really didn't feelthat much of a need to produce

(05:17):
more children or whoa, you know,I gotta have my own child
biologically, but like, thatreally wasn't that important to
us.
But we really wanted to, helpreally, and, we thought like,
why should we go to some faraway country?
There's so many kids right herein la Even though we didn't know
much about the process, we werevery much aware that that Los
Angeles, I don't know where weread about it, but we knew that

(05:37):
Los Angeles had the largestfoster system in the country.
And it still does, by the way.
So at the time we entered theprocess, there were, you know,
between 30 and thirty-fivethousand kids in the foster
system in Los Angeles, which wasa quarter of all the.
Foster kids in California, whichitself was a kind of a sizable
portion of a half a millionfoster kids in the United States

(06:00):
during that time.
It was also very good timing forus to do that because the state
of California, you know, it's apretty, liberal state.
Progressive state began to openup to allowing gay men coupled
and single to take and kids to,foster with an intention to
adopt.
It was done a little bit underthe radar.

(06:21):
It was before, like all thesecampaigns, reaching out and
sending out flyers.
And now you've got, like, youknow, if you drive through Los
Angeles or Long Beach, where welive, you can see banners, you
know, with happy, couples withtwo dads and one, two or three
children.
It was before that, lemme tellyou that.
But, I started going to themeetings of, prospective
parents.
And then with John, we startedgoing to the meetings of the pop

(06:43):
luck club, which is stillactive.
which is an organization of gaydads based here in Los Angeles.
We saw men like us and loads ofkids running around.
So we're like, wow, you know,this is really possible to do.
We learned about the process andwe learned about the agencies,
which were open to gay men orspecializing, working with LGBTQ

(07:04):
community lawyers if you neededthem.
So there was a whole kind oflike list, you know, kind of a
pool of resources that open tous.
And it was doable.
But it comes with risks.
That's something we also learnedvery, very early on.

Ashley (07:18):
For anybody that's not aware, can you touch a little
bit on sort of the history ofgay people being able to adopt
and why it could have been sucha challenge in some places and
maybe what has changed, ifanything.

Lane (07:34):
So unlike gay women who've had more of an opportunity to
have children biologically Iwould say probably my guess, 95%
of, the children that gay menhad prior to maybe 19
ninety-five were children.
Which continued from theirstraight marriages or
relationships.
And among our friends, weactually have friends who have

(07:55):
been married before.
And their ex-wives would've, youknow co-parented the kids that
they had, I would say the stateof California began to open in
certain places.
I wouldn't say, you know, it waseverywhere, but in certain urban
centers to kind of under theradar reaching out to men.
they have to realize that beforemarriage equality we're all
single, you know, to the stateand to the federal government.

(08:17):
At the time, and we're talkingabout late-nineteen-nineties,
early-two-thousands.
It wasn't in every state and themore gay men and women, the
LGBTQ parents began to sort ofpop up on the radar of the media
or, and in the news, some moreconservative states began to
even put more legal barriers.
So there were states where ifyou know, there was a famous

(08:40):
case in Virginia.
Where a lesbian mother lost herbiological child to the
ex-husband, because of beinggay.
There were states which I thinkit was Oklahoma it's in my book.
'cause I kept tabs and all that,where basically if you move into
the state and your same sexcouple, only one of you can be
recognized as a parent or youradoption is null and void.

(09:00):
There all kinds of crazy thingswere going on.
I would say there were probably15 states where around the
country where it was relativelyeasy for gay man to go into the
system and foster child.
And luckily for us, Californiawas one of'em.
I

Ashley (09:16):
like heartbreaking and frustrating that when you take
the thousands of children thatare looking for a home, hundreds
of

Lane (09:23):
thousands of children.
Yes.
Hundreds of thousand children

Ashley (09:27):
that.
Just want somewhere safe to beand wanna be loved.
Mm-Hmm.
That it just seems sofrustrating and almost
unfathomable that people woulddisqualify other people just
because they don't agree withtheir choices.
Which again, at the end of theday, it's like you want the
children to be happy and healthyand loved and it really

(09:49):
shouldn't matter whether it'stwo moms or two dads, or a mom
and a dad, or a single person.
Or a

Lane (09:54):
grandparent, I would say any functioning adult.
Yes.
I mean, the bottom line that Itook away from my years, my
decades of experience and fromthe people that we know, any
functioning adult, you know, Iwould say among our you know,
friends, neighbors, extendedfamily, I can count a mother who
is single by choice.
I can count a grandmothergrandparents raising children.

(10:19):
Very successfully, you know?
Yeah.
And aunt and an uncle whoadopted, and also single and
married gays and lesbians whohave been able to bring, so I
would say functional adult.
That's really, really key toparenting success.

Ashley (10:33):
Yeah, absolutely.
When you had gone in throughthis process, I know that you
had talked about how you hadlike the pop Luck organization
was Mm-Hmm.
A resource that you had used.
Knowing what you know now andlooking back on it, is there
advice that you would've givenyourself in the beginning of
this whole process?

Lane (10:52):
Definitely, definitely.
And I should also mention thatwhen you mentioned the pop luck,
that it was only the two of us,we didn't have brothers or
sisters or parents to help us,you know, Jonathan's parents had
passed away.
Mine lived in the Bay Area.
And so we didn't really have anyhelp besides just the two of us
working.
We developed a network offriends and, neighbors gay,

(11:17):
straight, whatever, you know,mostly with children with whom,
you know, we could sort ofshare, you know, some of the
difficulties and also help themand that would help us.
That's been very important tous.
So kinda like an extended familyof friends that was part of it.
We went into the process with avery, I would say, rudimentary
knowledge of the system.

(11:38):
And if, you know, I tell'emlike, you know, myself good 20
years ago, right?
We should have learned moreabout.
So learn about the system andarmy itself with resources as
much as you can going in.
Then know your limits inchoosing a child and stick to
them.
And by by limits I mean thatgoing into the process, you know
be clear with yourself as to allthese parameters of the child

(12:00):
that you're looking for in termsof gender in terms of age, in
terms of the number of siblings.
And I would also say in terms ofthe amount of risk involved and
the risk here is the risk thatyou won't get to keep the child
and the child will go back tothe biological family.
That's the risk that any fosteradoptive parent is facing and
some are not comfortable withit.

(12:21):
Some are comfortable with acertain amount and things like
that.
That's what I would look at.
In terms of going back to thebeginning of the process.

Ashley (12:29):
Do you feel like the way that your situation went, I
don't know whether trauma wouldbe the right word, but do you
think that it changed how youwere able to parent?

Lane (12:41):
There was a certain amount of trauma that affected our
older child because she livedthrough the first year of her
life was with her birth mother,and then later in a temporary
foster home from which we tookher.
And then unfortunately, some ofthe things that she faced during
that first year continued to bereinforced while we still had
visits.

(13:02):
Those visits were not doing herany good, lemme tell you.
And so, because our processwhich, described in the book
with all its crazy twists andturns, took about three years.
I was the primary personinvolved in the process itself.
Dealing with the system, dealingwith birth parents, dealing with
attorneys, social workers, youname it.
It definitely affected me too.

(13:24):
It affected Jonathan to a lesserdegree because I was in a way
shielding him from some of that.
Because I understood the systembetter and I wanted to protect
him emotionally to some degree.
I don't even know if it affectedat all, at some level, but I'm
still, I'm yet to see it.
Our younger daughter whom wetook in as a newborn.
We are the only parents she'dever known.

(13:46):
And so she grew up with hersister, that's her biological
sister, but she was a newborn.
So has that affected myparenting?
I would say that exactly becausethere was so much uncertainty,
so much drama so much push andpull and not knowing.
If we get to keep one of them,both of them get separated.

(14:07):
What will happen the next day?
I think I bonded even strongerwith them.
Exactly, exactly.
Because I had to fight for them.
And so at some emotional levelwhich comes sort of like on top
of just the parental bond thatyou develop with a one-year-old
and also newborn.
There's this fear, I guess oflosing them.
That has never really left me tothis day, I would say,

Ashley (14:30):
which I think is completely understandable,
especially when you have to livein the unknown for so long that
it would be really hard to sortof recover from that almost PTSD
in a sense.
And to take it back a teensy bitbefore after you guys had
decided that you wanted tofoster to adopt and you decided

(14:51):
to go through all thequalifications to become a
foster parent.
Mm-Hmm.
What kind of came next?
I know we had kind of touched onlike the adoption fair,

Lane (15:01):
right.
So we were certified, but fostercare systems have so many
children and such shortage ofsocial workers that they
contract out a certain number ofcases.
So in Los Angeles County, which,as I mentioned before, the
largest foster system in thecountry has multiple agencies,
which manage some of thecaseloads, I would say similar

(15:23):
thing to like, to charterschools, you know, which also
Los Angeles has the largestnumber in the country.
We began to receive matches.
And then the matches wereusually, let's say outside of
the age range we're interestedin, or gender or whatever else.
So the risk was sky high and weknew we couldn't handle that, or
there are all kinds of medicalconditions that we knew we
weren't prepared for.
As part of the certificationprocess, we filled out this

(15:44):
questionnaire for the, potentialchildren, potential matches
we're interested in.
And there were quite a fewmedical risks that we were open
to, or at least willing todiscuss.
But neither of us is qualified,you know, in sort of like
medical nurse-like capacities.
So, we'll be getting as well,thank you, but we're just not
the right type of family to takein that child.

Ashley (16:05):
Which I think is really important to admit to yourself.
Yes.
So that you aren't settingyourself up and a child up for
failure, having to potentiallysend them back.
I think that it's really good,although in some ways it almost
feels like a dating app.
It's like, we're gonna swipe noon this, but we're gonna swipe
yes on this.
But I think it was really goodnow, well, this was,

Lane (16:24):
this was probably at least a decade before the first dating
app came out.
Yeah.
But, that's what's reallyfundamentally different between
adoptive parenting andbiological natural parenting,
you know?
Because basically you do get tochoose the child.
This is a benefit in a way that,that you do get to sort of set
the limits, but that alsobecause that offsets some of the

(16:45):
risks that come with experience.
So in a way there was a kind ofa marketplace aspect to the
whole thing.
But we're still quite open andwe started getting all these
matches.
And then, so sometimes we'll getlike a few of them during the
week, and sometimes the wholeweek would go by.
We get no phone calls or emails.
So there are multiple venues.
We realized we wanted to getmore proactive and so we heard

(17:07):
about, for example, that thecounty had photo albums.
Not the county.
This is interesting.
It was actually the state ofCalifornia also had some
agencies which dealt with someof the foster cases in Los
Angeles.
I hope things have gottenbetter, but the information
about all these kids going inand out of the system,
thousands, tens of thousands ofthem was so scattered.

(17:28):
There was so much overlap andgaps and multiple players and
all this.
So we realized we really need tokind of expand and the agency
told us about the adoption fairsand so the county would bring
out the children, usuallysibling sets that are harder to
place, usually older as itturned out when we actually went
to them, I think once a quarterto different places around Los

(17:50):
Angeles County and do kind oflike an arts and crafts and, you
know, lunch activity for themwhile allowing prospective
adoptive parents to come and seethe kids.
So we went to three of'em, andif you're interested, I can
actually read to you a chapterfrom my book called Saviors, or
Vultures which describes one ofthese fairs.

Ashley (18:11):
Yeah, I love that.

Lane (18:13):
Okay.
The sun's wide disc was beamingwith growing ferocity.
The Milky Marine layer, all butburned off a dotted line of
airplanes, like a mapsuperimposed over the sky, was
lining up to land at LAX downhere in the dry hills of Kenneth
Hahn recreation area.
The air was warm and heady witha sense rising from the fennel

(18:36):
bushes and the eucalyptus leavescrashed underfoot.
Kids tots to teens were busyingthemselves with arts and crafts
at rainbow-colored tables.
A social worker stood guardlooking on.
This was our third adoptionfair, a quarterly outdoor event
to which the county brings outthe kids available for adoption.
Mostly sibling sets, which areharder to place.

(18:57):
The previous two had been heldin the far ends of the county in
Sylmar and Arcadia in bothplaces.
The sun was so hot, I burned myneck just filling out the forms.
This time, John and I were inthe very heart of Los Angeles
Between Baldwin Hills andLaudera Heights kids, social
workers and the sun had been ouronly constants here at the fair.

(19:18):
Adults were circling the tables,casting long looks at the kids,
conversing in hushed tones amongthemselves and with the social
workers.
By now it felt almost natural tobe squatting at a toddler table
to color Barney cutouts, tryingto make a connection, straining
to observe as many details aspossible.
There was talk of lunch doublingas an opportunity to see the

(19:39):
kids' food preferences and tablematters.
There was talk of a clown.
This being our third fair socialworkers greeted us by our first
names, we felt valued.
A hot commodity, adouble-income.
No kids yet gay couple with alarge house and an approved home
study.
Miles is such a great athlete.
They talked this sibling's groupof that and look at Taisha and

(20:01):
her sisters.
They've got such good chemistry,aren't they?
Just adorable.
I wondered if a child's naturalbeauty is the most decisive
factor in being considered.
The moment I saw him confided afriend who had found her
nine-year-old, browsing thephotos of adaptable Russian
orphans.
I knew he was the one.
For the one, the blondeclear-faced handsome boy.
She had traveled half the worldand braved Russian bureaucracy.

(20:24):
She was yet to discover that histrue age was understated by two
years.
His smaller build was due tomalnutrition and that he had a
very mean temper, a result ofthe federal alcohol syndrome,
compounded by years of abuse ofthe orphanage.
Still, he hadn't displayed ahair lip or crossed eyes or
hairy forehead did he?
Beauty, however, isn't the onlyfactor in the adoptive kids

(20:45):
selection age.
I learned matters too at thesefairs.
I read signs of resignation onthe faces of older kids who knew
the game and their dwindlingchances of winning it.
It was a knowing sideways glancethat they gave you when your eye
glided over them to youngerkids.
Some also knew they had to takecharge.
Life wasn't just going to handthem a permanent family on a

(21:06):
plate.
A girl, nine or 10, by the way,she looked, but with a
prematurely sharp unsmilingexpression, intercepted us as we
were getting up from a crafttable.
Look, you like it?
She jerked up a plastic beadbracelet to my face.
Oh.
It's lovely.
I commented, taken slightlyback.
You like making bracelets.

(21:27):
What do you actually like to doat home?
Oh, many things.
Her face relaxed a notch.
I couldn't quite place her darkchestnut skin, red and black
hair cropped in a bob.
Yet her face looked oddlyEuropean.
She could pass for South Indianor Sri Lankan, except are very
few of them in Los Angeles andprobably not in the system.
I'm tiny.
She said.
I want you to see my brows.

(21:47):
Come on.
She grabbed John's hand and wefollowed her through the Dusty
Park playground to meet a fourand 7-year-old of a similar
heritage.
Probably a mix ofAfrican-American, and Latina.
Andrew and Mario.
Tanya hollered, not letting goof John's hands.
Come say hello.
Adrian and Mario obliged.
They clearly looked up to her,the big sister.

(22:08):
See, they're very nice, notfussy.
Never ever.
She informed us and we're goodat school.
This was heartbreaking.
A nine-year-old playing motherto her shredded family,
advocating for her brothers andherself.
John gently extricating himselffrom her grip and walked off
disappearing behind a row ofplayground swings.
Listen Tanya, I said, we'rereally glad to meet you and your

(22:29):
brothers, but can I talk to mypartner?
He isn't feeling all that well.
We'll catch you later.
Okay?
She nodded, but didn't move withher two brothers standing
sheepishly by her side.
I found John sobbing by the parkfence.
This is too much lane.
I can't do it.
Let's get outta here.
Can we leave now?
I was moved too, but I wasn'tabout to lose it.

(22:50):
We were all there for a purpose.
All these kids trolled out bythe county wanted to have a
family just as much as we did.
But if this wasn't traumatic, Idon't know what is.

Ashley (22:59):
It really does break your heart the idea that they
have to, present themselves asthese perfect children in the
idea that somebody might wantthem.
That must have been really hardfor you and John during that
time too, of feeling like you'renot sure, but also getting on
the same page and reallydeciding whether it was going to
happen for you and whether youwanted to keep pursuing it.

Lane (23:21):
It was, and also when you get a call, with a perspective
lead or perspective match, theydump on you.
Basically the drama that's goingon in the family.
So-and-so is in prison.
So in drugs, you know, there'sabuse of this kind.
This went on that went on, andyou find yourself sort of at the
crossroads and someone else'smess, like instantly in it.

(23:43):
You realize that, if you want totake in those children and if
you hope to give them a, future,then you'll have to deal with
that too.
One place that we looked at,when we went to the state agency
to look at the photo albums wesaw this sibling that were kind
of like John really kind of fellfor, because he himself is mixed

(24:04):
race.
So there were three kids ages aone, four and five, if I
remember correctly, that's in mybook.
They were adorable.
They were mixed race and it feltlike you were meeting John's
family, and I know John's familypretty well.
So that was on a Friday, right?
And so on the weekend we wentfor a walk and we kind of began
to sober up.
I was like, John, you know, herealizes three kids we're going

(24:26):
from zero to three.
I don't know if we have enoughspace.
You know, neither of our carscan take three kids.
You know, might as if like kindof a, you know, sedan, you know,
it's not, it's not a big car.
How are we gonna manage it?
Don't you think it's a littletoo much?
So he was like, Hmm, yeah, maybethree is too much.
On Monday I called the socialworker and said, you know, I'm

(24:47):
so sorry.
You know, we said it would beinteresting in potentially
meeting these kids, but we feellike we're really not equipped
for three right off the bat.
It's just the two of us and wedon't know if we have the
resources to support that.
And she said three who said itwas, oh, she said, I just got
more information.
It's not three, it's actuallyfour.
That picture is years old.
And the mother is pregnant witha fifth and at the last parent

(25:10):
visit, she ran off with a childand there's a warrant issued for
your arrest.
Are you still interested?
Like, okay, well I guess thatwas not the best match for us,
you know, maybe for somebodyelse, but not for us.
So you get into this veryinstantly, you know, and you
have to deal with that.

Ashley (25:26):
Is there a fear if you say no, that you won't get
another call, or with the volumeof children that just happened
to be in la you didn't reallyhave that fear

Lane (25:35):
at the beginning.
There is like, oh my gosh, can Isay no?
Can I say no?
Yes, you can say no.
And if anything, actually it'skind like the other way around.
The longer you stay in thepipeline, at least in Los
Angeles County, the higher youare on the priority list, which
happened to, in one of thesituations when we were called
about a newborn, and I calledJohn to say, you know, do you

(25:58):
think we should do this?
And by the time I called backwith a yes, somebody else was
called, and then, they went tothe hospital and there the
social worker from the countymet them and turned them away at
the door saying, Hey, you know,we found somebody else higher
than you on the waiting list sothat couple will get the child.
And then we were told the wholestory and I told John, you know,

(26:19):
that could have been us rushingto the hospital with a car seat
and everything else just to beturned away at the door because
somebody else, all of a suddenpopped up in the system who was
higher on the list.
It was a like an uphill, I sayit was a rollercoaster.
It was a rollercoaster of, of,of everything.
Yeah.

Ashley (26:34):
Can you tell me about how you got placed with Mariana?

Lane (26:38):
This is very, very interesting because she actually
did not come from the county.
We were certified by a fosteradoption agency, which did some
of their business was placingchildren for foster adoption.
Some of it was pure fosterplacement.
They had some homes which werespecifically taking kids just to
foster them on a short-termbasis, kind of on an emergency

(27:00):
basis.
And it was in one of them thatthere was an infant who was put
there voluntarily by her motherwho was very young.
And I don't want to give youmore information about it
because you will see this in thevery first chapter of the book,
how young she was and what thesituation was.

(27:20):
But California has a provisionwhich allows a parent who for
some reason is not able to takecare of a child, to petition the
county to take the child over.
Without losing any of therights, without placing the
child in the foster care systemfor up to six months.
during which time you push yourlife back together and you visit
the child and you take the childback.

(27:42):
That's exactly what it was.
I think it's called the PetitionN- 300 process.
So there was a child who wasplaced in that emergency foster
care at, seven months.
And that was baby Mariana.
The mother visited her a fewtimes, irregularly and
disappeared.
So the child was basically leftabandoned in the foster home.

(28:06):
The county had no idea where themother was.
And we were told about hersaying that, she was left.
And basically she's abandonedand looks like, you know she'll
be going straight up foradoption.
Basically within days, theDepartment of Children Family
Services will be petitioning thecourt to detain her.
That's the term, to detain hermeans, like to put her under the
court's jurisdiction and thendecide how to, I'm using the

(28:31):
legal term, dispose of her todispose, mean to decide what to
do with her legally, put her inlong-term foster care, return
her to the birth family.
That's called a dispositionhearing.
And so we said, well, it soundspromising.
Yeah, let's meet her.
And so we met her at the agencywhere the temporary foster
family, an elderly lady and herdaughter brought her in and we

(28:54):
saw her and she was absolutelyadorable.
She was such an adorable childwith a round face.
She was just a very cute littlebaby.
She wasn't walking, and actuallyshe wouldn't walk for another
seven months.
So she was crawling, but she wasfull of life and full of
interest in things and toys.
She, at that time, at the veryfirst visit, we didn't hear her

(29:19):
say any words.
She was just kinda like gruntingand making noises.
But at the second visit, wefinally, we heard the first
word, and the first word wasElmo, she really, really loved
Elmo, so we were really smitten,if you could use that word,
we're smitten with her, and wesaid, yes, we would like to
visit her again.
So we started to visit her inher foster home, and we met her

(29:40):
Foster, I would say Mother,which was the grandmother and
her daughter, two fostermothers, if you will.
We got to know her routines.
We started taking her out to theplayground.
We brought her in into our housefor four day visits.
So things began to move I wasworried because on two levels,
on one level, because she wasn'tofficially detained, she was
still fully under the parentalrights and everything else that

(30:04):
comes.
Basically she was stillofficially with her birth mother
even though the birth mother hadbeen gone for two months at that
point.
And nobody knew where she was ortwo or three months.
So she was not at the courtyard.
So, I mean, that was wormy.
That's when it was like kind,raising a red flag.
What's gonna happen if the birthmother comes back.
And on the other hand, I wasalso worried that this is just
one child.

(30:24):
And Jonathan would be reluctantfor us to go back into the
system and look for a secondchild later on.
And I'll be honest, I'm actuallyvery religious person, you know
faith has been very important tome over the years.
I've been getting stronger.
And I felt that in a way she wasmeant to come to us.

(30:46):
She was meant to come to us, notfor our sake, but for her sake.
It's not in the book.
I'm not putting much of that inthere.
But I feel that she was meant tocome to us because the Lord
wanted her to have a stablehome, which would allow her to,
thrive as much as she possiblycan after what she went through

(31:06):
the first year of her life.
In that sense, we were chosen.
We weren't given that child.
We were given to her more thanshe was given to us.
Her sister is a different story.

Ashley (31:18):
I definitely agree with you in that sense that it's like
kismet that what is meant for uswill come to us.
But I also think that it's sucha blessing that she did end up
with you and your husbandbecause she also got the
opportunity to be with hersister.
Yes.
Whereas.
If she had ended up withsomebody else or if the
situation with her mother or herbirth parents had been

(31:40):
different, that may not havebeen the case.

Lane (31:42):
There are all kinds of possibilities that could have
come in.
I mean, the courts do try tokeep them together, although as
we also learn, they can alsosplit them apart, especially if
they're half siblings, as wasthe case of our kids to me
they're full sisters, butlegally they're half siblings.
They have the same mother,different dads,

Ashley (31:59):
which I definitely agree with you that it really should
still prioritize because halfdoesn't really make you any less
the family.
But for the people that don'trealize when they are half
siblings and say with Gabby'ssituation, which is your
youngest daughter, the dad waslisted in that case.
Whereas for Marianna, there wasno father listed.

(32:20):
So when the dad was interestedin Gabby.
Potentially their relationshipwas prioritized and instead of
keeping siblings together, isthat correct?

Lane (32:31):
That that is correct.
And at some point it wasprioritized disregarding her
having a half-sisterdisregarding the fact that she'd
been with us since birth anddisregarding the fact that, I
don't know if I should say now,but I guess I will.

(32:51):
That without getting too farinto the complications of the
case, the father was an adultwhen the child was conceived and
the mother was not, and she wasalmost 10 years younger.
Wow.

Ashley (33:06):
It's also one of those things, so kind of taking it
back.
Into the beginning.
A lot of things I think peopledon't realize if they've never
dealt with the system.
I think that TV and movies makeit seem like the best interest
of the child is prioritized,which in some cases, like yes.
But when you get into thepaperwork or the bureaucracy of

(33:28):
it all, it really does becomethis weird paper trail of like
not it kind of thing.
If that makes sense.
And so when we're talking abouthow Mariana's birth mother had
willingly put her into fostercare and then kind of
disappeared, that the systemwouldn't necessarily take that
time that she had been in thefoster care.
That

Lane (33:48):
is correct.
That is correct.
It's not really until theystarted the clock from zero,
only when they finally detainedher.
So the fact that prior to thatshe had been in foster system
for seven or eight months,didn't matter.
Didn't matter, which is also so

Ashley (34:04):
frustrating and like so mind boggling that they wouldn't
look at it as a whole,especially developmentally that
she would go through so manychanges in those first like, 6,
7, 8 months

Lane (34:14):
that I don't want to generalize that the children's
best interests are not always atthe center of every case.
I'm not a social studiesscholar, but I will tell you
that from my perspective asadoptive parent of these kids
and from everything we've seenthrough our own case, through
the case of our kids, theirinterests were never, never at

(34:36):
the, what was at the center wasthe birth parents.
And then.
Whether they will be able toreunify, whether the county will
be able to send the children oneor two to the birth mother or
one of them to the birth father.
Or at some point they even cameup with a crazy idea of sending
both siblings to the birthfather of only one of them, even
though he had absolutely noconnection to the other child.

(34:58):
And that's also in my book, soeverything was really about
birth family.
And when I started looking kindof deeper into this, what I
discovered is that, you know Iwasn't born in the United
States.
I was born in the Soviet Union.
My, you know, I came here withmy family we came as refugees.
So I am American and this is myhome.

(35:18):
This is my country.
But, I also come with a wholeother sort of set of cultures
and expectations and knowledgeof the world that tells me I.
That things that we take forgranted here in the United
States are not necessarily theultimate truths.
So the idea that the child is aproperty of their parents, that
in a way a child is written aschattel as, property of, the

(35:40):
adult, as much as everythingelse in the household.
That actually goes back to thefirst statutes defining
adoption, which were developedin Massachusetts in the 1850s.
Before that, actually none ofthe American states or prior to
that colonies any, had anystatutes of what to do with
children.
They're kind of automaticallytaken.
So that's where it becameenshrined, the idea that the

(36:01):
property, and you start with thebirth parents, and as the
adoption laws began to spreadthroughout the country, they
were based in many ways on theMassachusetts precedent.
Which enshrined that one.
That their children, are theproperty of the parents.
Secondly, that a judge willdecide what to do with that
property.
The judge has the ultimateresponsibility, not the social

(36:23):
services that know the parentsknow the family, the social
service, children's services.
They testify before the court,but they can make
recommendations, but the judgecan easily overrule all all of
it and go with what they believeis right.

Ashley (36:37):
Which is terrifying.
It's essentially, it's likerolling dice.
You really can never predictwhat the family court.

Lane (36:42):
Right, right.
And we have friends who havegone through the process
relatively painlessly.
We also have friends who hadmuch worse situations than ours.
And that's described in the booktoo.
And in our case, what I saw wasbasically the battle over trying
to keep up reunification forwhat seemed to me were
completely unreasonable.

(37:02):
Times then really bend in thelaw.
The law, I thought stated there.
Clearly, if the C child isadmitted under the age of two,
the reunification is supposed tobe cut within, you know, they
should only be six months forreunification.
And we saw in our case, like Isaid, it dragged out for almost
three years between the tworeunifications combined.
So all these things were sort ofbeing bent and like, you know,

(37:24):
postponed, postponed, new thingscome in, things get restarted,
like nothing happened before.
It was unthinkable.
Just unthinkable.
And in the end, to me, whowould've suffered the most from
losing us?
Oh, absolutely.
Who would've suffered?
When the children's attorney,tells us after we've been

(37:44):
raising Gabby the newborn for ayear.
That's the first year of herlife.
Who do you think she knows asparents tells us like, oh, well
if we send her to live with herbirth father, with her, you
know, biological father, then, ayear or two down the road and
there'll be another drug bustand she'll be back in the
system.
We'll give you a call.
How can you think of a child inthose terms and I told her, I

(38:05):
said, she is not going therefrom, I mean, if, well, what can
I possibly do, powerless as Iam.
But I knew that this is not akind of scenario.
I'm gonna try and play along,you know, because to us, when
you raise a child, you know,when you raise a, you know,
1-year-old or newborn, whatever,you attach yourself to them, you
bond with them.
You know, you don't see yourselfas foster parents.

(38:25):
You just see yourself asparents.
It doesn't matter to us what thejudge would rule 20 miles away
in the courtroom.
The judge that by the way, willnever meet this kids, the
children's attorneys that nevermet the kids during the process,
that they make decisions basedon what's in the file to them.
They're 2 dimensional, basicallyreports to us.
There, the kids that we'reraising around the clock 24 7,

(38:47):
day after day, month aftermonth, year after year.
It's one of the huge ethicaldilemmas of the process where
basically if the court decidesto, terminate, to cut the
parental rights before that,you're supposed to be able to be
ready to give'em up at anymoment.
After that, you're supposed toraise'em as your own for the
rest of your life.

(39:07):
Like something has happened herein our house between them and
us.
But nothing has changed.
Nothing has changed.
We're prepared to sort of likethe, various sort of
schizophrenic, if you will, wayto punctualize as two completely
different sets of parents tothese children.
If, we weren't, but if we didact as if we're ready to give'em

(39:27):
up at any moment and keep ourdistance, can you imagine that
would've done to theirattachment?
Like, you know, I love you, butonly up to this point for sure.
I'm not gonna let myself to get,there's a term for that over
attached to you because I shouldbe ready to give you up at any
moment.
And you should be able to moveon to the next basically,
destination in your life, youknow?

(39:48):
So that whole setup isn'tworking.
I'm telling you it isn't workingand my book kinda shows, the
emotional.
Costs.
I would say there are alsofinancial costs to that.
I think if you look at that fromthe social standpoint, the
statistics of Los AngelesCounty's department Children and
family services put out the yearthat we took our kids in show
that only forty-five percent ofthem were able to reunify.

(40:10):
Well, that's wonderful for thatone out of two children who gets
to go back to the birth parents,although, you know, makes you
wonder what exactly they'regoing back to if they were taken
out of that to begin with.
But let's say things are great,wonderful, they're back with the
birth parents.
What about the other child thatyou put through this process and
that you still weren't able toreunify?

(40:30):
What about that child living inthe sort of like in-between
situation, between the familythey're with and the birth
family with whom it's notworking out.
It's not working out.
It's not working out.
In the meantime, the child isgrowing.
Yeah, even if you don't thinkabout us adoptive parents,
because we're really completelymarginalized in this process as
sort of non-entities.
Think about the child, thinkabout everything that they have

(40:52):
to go through during thatreunification, which may or may
not be successful.

Ashley (40:57):
With what we know now even about mental health in the
last 20 years, what we'velearned.
Mm-Hmm.
You would think that thepsychology of it and how it does
have that toll on the kids andwhat long-term damage that you
are doing teaching them thatyou're stuck in limbo.
Maybe somebody wants you, maybeyou'll go here and not really
have that safety of knowing thisis my home and this is

(41:18):
potentially my parents thatshould be factored into it more.
And it is just, it'smind-boggling that somebody that
is appointed to speak on behalfof the children wouldn't even
have to do like a one-on-onemeeting with them.
And I get like with aone-year-old, you could necess
met necessarily, like do that inthe same sense.
But to have that connection of.
Really taking it back to like aperson-to-person issue instead

(41:40):
of this is the paperwork, thisis the rules that we're gonna
follow.
It is what it's,

Lane (41:45):
this system is very biased because people that are in it
have their own biases, agendas,attachments, and desires.
This is what people don'trealize about children's court.
And Children's Court, by theway, is closed to public.
So my book is, I think probablyis one of very few opportunities
if anybody's interested to seewhat's going on behind the
closed doors of the children'scourt.
It kind of gives you a glimpseyou know, kind of gives you a

(42:07):
peek into what's going on.
What is going on is that you'vegot multiple parties in the
room.
Each of them has their ownagenda.
The judge doesn't want the casesto be remanded and the judge has
their own beliefs, right?
The judge may bepro-reunification, as was our
case.
The judge may beanti-reunification.

(42:28):
The judge may not care or caretoo much, you know, oh, the
judge is a human.
And the law can be interpretedin many different ways.
True.
The law, like I said, the law issix months.
However, you can do exceptions.
Well guess how many exceptionscan you pile up or you might not
grant an exception.
So you as a judge have a lot of,leeway into how you decide on
the case.

(42:49):
I also feel certain amount ofcompassion for the judges
because they are overworked.
I looked up the statistics.
A judge is supposed to haveabout 170 cases in insurance
court in California.
They have up to 600 cases.
Can you imagine?
No.
Can you imagine?
I would probably guess themajority of the larger the
system, the more the cases.

(43:10):
So when after everything we wentthrough and we are at the
finalization hearing, and thejudge looks up and says, oh,
today we're supposed to gothrough whatever the adoption of
Elizabeth.
I'm like, what?
Elizabeth said, oh.
No, it's a different one.
It's, oh, Mariana.
And then she did remember thatwas was Mariana, but she said,

(43:31):
is she the daughter of, that'swho she remembered.
And to me, it told me one moretime, this was never about
Mariana, this was always aboutthe birth family.
So you've got the judge, you'vegot the county council who
represents the interests of theDepartment of Children Family
Services.
What's her job?
Her job is to protect the countyfrom being sued for any sort of
wrongdoing that might haveoccurred while the children are

(43:54):
in the custody of the state or,in any way that the birth
parents' rights were abridged orbecause of the county.
She's not protecting children.
She's protecting the countyitself.
Then you've got the birthparents.
Each birth parent has their own,of course, you know, desire, but
also their own issues.
They've got their own courtorders.
This wasn't our case.
Whether they comply or notcomply, they've got their own
attorneys.

(44:14):
And then we've got thechildren's attorney and the
children's attorney.
We had two could be.
Very caring about the childrenand really fighting for them.
It could be kind of like, we'llsee where the cards will lay,
you know, we'll see how thingswill pan out or what I do know
is these children's attorneysare also overworked and in our
case, at least, our children'sattorneys, both of them never

(44:36):
met the children.
They receive a stack of files,they receive reports from here,
there, you know, they sometimessend a court representative to
report on the conditions in thehome.
I think once every six months.
Those visits would last about 15minutes.
Right.
The report back to the court.
Yeah.
I saw the children.
They're alive, they're fine.
You know, they're unblemished.
They seem to be well fed, butthey don't see them, so they

(44:59):
like, okay, open the next file.
Open the next file, open thenext file.
So, as it happens.
You throw in another, let's sayif one of the birth parents
herself is in the custody of thestate and also under the DCFS,
you've got a whole other layerof complexities there.
And so these people change.
Social workers, as we also sawchange, they come in with their

(45:22):
own biases.
Which is very well described inmy book, you know how they bring
their own take on what's thebest for the children or, how
they treat the, you know, we didget a very strong homophobic
vibe from one of the socialworkers, you know, they change,
they can drop you in the middleof the case challenge, you know,
children's attorneys may change,which also happened.

(45:43):
So with all that, what I beganto see was.
I began to sort of learn aboutthese agendas.
I began to see this sort ofshifting in alliances and
hostilities in the courtroom.
And I began to learn how to usethe information that was
stricken down to me in a waythat would be helpful too, as

(46:05):
far as I was concerned to thekids, how old are your girls
now?
They're 17 and 19.
They're young ladies.
The older one graduated fromhigh school.
She had many issues later on.
Let me just.
That, that stand from a verydysfunctional first year of her
life.
We did our best to give her thebest, you know, childhood.

(46:28):
She possibly could have, youknow, she is a very gifted
person.
she was able to graduate fromhigh school.
And at this point, you know,when the book went to print she
was starting college.
At this point right now, shewasn't able to keep up with
classes, but she's livingindependently.
We're still helping her.
We still found, we just set ofShabbat dinner last Friday.

(46:49):
She was over.
So yeah, we're still, you know,very much continuing.
But I would say my primary goalwith her.
Given everything she she'd gonethrough was to see her to
independence.
She is living independent with acertain amount of support from
us, but she's livingindependently.
She's working.
I would say she's in a goodplace.
Her sister who is 17, she's asenior high school.

(47:12):
She applied to UCS only becauseshe has a very high GPA.
She's like 17, going on 30.
She's keeping us in check in away.
She's a very safe, secure,confident, young woman, you
know, and I really want to say,you know, in many ways she's
very much adult and we'll seeher, I'm sure she'll get

(47:34):
accepted into a few campusesgiven her community service,
given her academic achievements.
And so I'm beginning to reallygrieve her moving off to campus
later this year.

Ashley (47:47):
I know there is that saying, my daughter's she's
gonna be 17 this year.
But it's like that saying thatthe days are long, but the years
are short.
It really does kind of go in ablink that they're babies and
then all of a sudden they'rejust outta the house.

Lane (48:01):
And I should tell you that they just read the book.
Actually our younger daughter isreading it now.
She really had no interest inher story.
Over the years I've been openingthe story more and more to them,
you know, age appropriate, ofcourse you won't tell a
five-year-old that she can tella fifteen-year-old.
Right?
For sure.
So I was opening up the storymore and more so they do know a
lot of it, but not of course inthe detail that you see it in

(48:23):
the book.
The older one just posted on herInstagram that she finished the
book in one night and that shecried and she put there how much
she loves us.
I think she understands so muchmore now what we went through in
those years.
And during the process.
I also hope, and she understandssome of the struggles that she
herself went through years laterthat sort of stemmed from that

(48:45):
experience, you know, that wetried to mitigate the best we
could.
I would also tell that, youknow, we have a few of our
friends adopted, you know andthe foster care experience
leaves a mark you love them andyou try the best you can to,
mitigate it and it can fade, butI don't think it ever goes away,

Ashley (49:06):
After their adoption was complete, did the birth mother
ever come back into their lifeor she kind of left you guys be?

Lane (49:15):
Ours is a closed adoption, so I would say the contact with
the birth mother and the birthfather of our younger daughter
ended at the time of thetermination of their.
Parental rights.
The visits with the birth mothercontinued all the way to the
termination of parental rights.
They had been no contact to myknowledge.

(49:36):
And we're talking about yearsago when the cases ended.
They both left the state forvarious reasons.
I do not know where they are.
I really hope that things workedout for them.
They were both young, especiallythe mother.
What I will tell you is that theone thing that has changed for

(49:56):
me over the years is at the timewhen I was in the process, you
have to realize the process wasnot between us and the birth
parents.
The process was between thebirth parents and the court.
We.
Were never in the courtroom allthe way until we're called in
for the adoption hearings.
As far as the process itself, wewent in asking for the de facto

(50:19):
parent status, like about likesometime early on, but we're
thrown out.

Ashley (50:23):
So can you explain what that is for anybody who might
not know?

Lane (50:26):
Okay.
So after Mariana had been withus longer, than she had been
with her birth mother at thatpoint, you know she was close to
be two years of age.
We hired a lawyer and wepetitioned to be granted the de
facto parent status, which meantthat we were her de facto
parents, like, acting as her.

(50:46):
Factual parents as we had beenat that point for eight or nine
months around the clock.
And so we could be part of thecase, like being in the case,
this had actually no effect on,the parental rights of the birth
parents.
But this would've allowed us tobe part of the process to
testify in the court and knowwhat's going on and all that.

(51:09):
We paid quite a bit for thelawyer.
He was supposed to be the toplawyer in the whole children's
law milieu.
And we were denied the petitionvery quickly.
And once the petition wasdenied, we were asked to leave
the courtroom immediately, whichwe did.
So all this 50 page depositionswith pictures and all that was

(51:31):
basically was just routinely.
Denied, and we were very kind ofheartbroken over that.
But then I also realized itwasn't entirely over because we
kind of made a very strong claimfor us as the concurrent track
with whatever was going on inthe courtroom.
And that fifty-page, you know,deposition actually traveled
around everybody's hands.

(51:52):
They now knew for sure what wasgoing on in the household where
Mariana was, and that we wereproviding a very, very good
narrative alternative for thefuture that Mariana might have
if she stays with us, as opposedto going back to her birth
mother.
But I'd like to go back to thebirth mother, who, like I said,
was extremely young at the time,at the time we were in the

(52:14):
process, I was very, I was, Iwould say, very angry with her.
For what she was putting thekids through and me as well with
the visits and the claims and,all these things.
It was very immediate to me.
And this was, by the way, thewhole, I mean, as I was taking
notes and'cause I thought, youknow, I should really write
about this, but when the casesended.

(52:36):
I realized I can't, it was soraw.
I was hurting so much and like,I couldn't even face those boxes
of documents.
It took me four years to get tothe point where I was like,
okay, I think I'm ready now tosee what's in those boxes and
see if I can sort of reconstructthe case.
And then it took me anothereight years to write that
because I could really onlywrite during the summer when I'm
not teaching, you know?
I have like summers off with thekids and so that would be with

(52:58):
the kids and also writing that'swhat I was doing.
But during the writing and doingsort of reconstructing as I was
moving further and further awayfrom the process, the more I
would say my compassion for thebirth mother really grew.
I could see her more as a personand as a person who was so
traumatized on her own.
And of course she had.

(53:18):
No business, you know, trying tobe a parent for these kids.
I mean, it's pretty clear to,anybody who will read the book
and see what's happening there.
I could also see how hard itwas, how devastating it was for
her to see that there might begoing away and how deeply
attached she was to them.
So I, I really felt so muchsorrow, and I still do, I mean,

(53:39):
if there's one person that I,is, the birth mother for
everything she went through andfor her loss, I really do,
empathize with her.

Ashley (53:51):
I think that does come across in the book.
So I think your

Lane (53:54):
book does.
Okay.
I'm glad.
I'm glad.
'cause I did.
I didn't want it to be in anyway.
You know, I'm trying to describethe events and the events are
not very positive for her.
But it's like, I'm not trying toput her in a negative light.
I'm just retelling what Iwitnessed.
But I didn't want to do any sortof snar No, no, no, no, no, no.
Because she was hurting and itwas coming outta many different

(54:16):
ways.
But I also realized she's stillis hurting.
She must be.
She must be.
I'm glad it came through in the

Ashley (54:22):
book.
Yeah, it definitely, it's verylike, this is what happened.
You can tell that your emotionis raw, but like you said, it's
not snarky.
It really is factual and to thepoint.
And what I like about your bookis that it is so raw and
vulnerable that it does touch onyour relationship with your
husband and what was going onbetween you guys during this
whole process.

(54:42):
Right.
Your connection to yourdaughters and like milestones
and what was reallydevelopmentally going on for
them.
About like the system and howyou guys were dealing with it,
and again, what was happeningwith the judges, with the
lawyers, with DCFS and all ofthe players and part of that.
And then also the biologicalfathers family and all of the
other people that kind of werecoming into it.

(55:04):
I also really liked that ittouched on the fact that, you
know, politically what washappening with gay rights and
what was happening with gayadoptions so it kind of ties it
all together and it is somethingthat, you know, is heartbreaking
and devastating, but also islike as a parent to be like, I
can remember the teething, or Ican remember the potty training,
or all of those kind of things.

(55:25):
So it really is heartwarming ina nice way as well as being sad.

Lane (55:30):
It's eerily, relevant because in some ways 20 years
later we are dealing again.
It's like it's a new turn of thespiral.
With a threat to the LGBTQfamilies, as you know because
things basically at the timewhen we finalized our adoptions,
we were still nobody to eachother in the eyes of the federal

(55:51):
government because of theDefense of Marriage Act.
In 2008 same-sex marriage becamelegal in California, and we had
a very kind of laid-back cool,cute wedding in San Francisco,
which is in the book.
I should say this was after wehad been together 11 years, and
the kids were two and four,right?
But then later that fall, Propeight came down, Proposition

(56:12):
eight, which froze same-sexmarriage.
We added up among those 18,000gay couples, gay and lesbian
couples in the state who weremarried in the state of
California.
We were nobody to the federalgovernment.
And then others couldn't getmarried.
And they couldn't get marriedall the way till 2015, if I
remember correctly, when theSupreme Court in the United

(56:33):
States finally ruled that,marriage between two adults is
marriage between two adultsbasically.
What your sexual orientation is,doesn't really matter.
So, during that time, we wereinvolved even during, in 2008
you know, I was involved in, inMarriage act which would

(57:13):
protect, same sex marriage so,we did, we submitted a written
testimony.
It's part of the congressionalrecord, which was depicting how
we were being mistreated at thattime, being a married couple
with two kids, with two legallyadopted kids who are nothing in
the eyes of the federalgovernment.
We're like two single adultsraising two sisters it was

(57:34):
bizarre.
The phantom taxes, all of that.
But then of course after 2015,you know, it looks like we've
got full marriage equality and,our families are doing great.
I see this new generation ofLGBTQ kids grown up with that,
with a sense of acceptance and Iwant to just scream at the top
of my lungs.
You can lose it all like this.
It was very hard to get, andit's very easy to lose.

(57:56):
Look what happened to theabortion rights.
It can be changed, it can beleft up to the states, and we'll
be back in the situation whereyou can't adopt in the state or
you will lose your parentalrights when you cross the state.
And there are all kinds of crazystuff.
So, because family law is stillstate prerogative.

Ashley (58:13):
It really should be federally regulated.

Lane (58:14):
I see the first sign of that with a, so-called with a
case in which we also submittedamicus briefs, friends of the
court letters which is Fulton vversus city of Philadelphia, in
which a religious fosteradoption agency refused to place
kids with certified LGBTQfamilies parents.
It went all the way to theSupreme Court and the Supreme

(58:35):
Court ruled in favor of theagency.
That was just was it a year ortwo?
Two years ago.
I think it was now, two yearsago.
2022.
And I think it created a, verydangerous precedent, which
basically says that we can placewith you if it fits this.
We don't have to.
If it doesn't, you know, I seethe sort of like eroding, of

(58:55):
rights.
All these bills coming up allaround, the country.
Threatening LGBTQ rights.
I feel like we might be back towhere we were and we'll have to
be out on the streets again andfight again and do all the
things we kind of forgot how todo

Ashley (59:10):
there's not even a word of like how incredibly stupid it
is that we do make all of thisprogress.
And then it's like, justkidding, we don't have enough to
fight about.
Let's keep creating issuesinstead of pushing things
forward.
And it's like you see that, likedon't say gay things coming up
in Florida or that people arehaving to flee states just to

(59:30):
keep families together or havethe opportunity to create a
family.
It's terrifying and it's mindboggling.

Lane (59:35):
Let's define what's good for the children.
Let's start there.
In our particular case or cases,it was not about that.
It was about birth parents andlet's see if we can build them
up.
And get them off.
Basically get'em out of thestate system because we got
thousands more to deal with.
You know, that's how it was.
But it was not about the kids.
So that's how they felt too.
We're.

(59:56):
As functional as any otherfamily you can think of.
So, absolutely.
People may be politically on,different parts of the spectrum,
but you know, let's set it asideand let's think about the
children.

Ashley (01:00:07):
Absolutely.
I think that everybody, like yousaid, that is a functional adult
capable of, giving love, right.
And providing a safe home.
I think they should be able to,regardless of what their gender
is, regardless of what their ageis, regardless of who they're
married to, I think that themore happy families that we can
create, the better.
I think that we need to stopputting limitations or make it

(01:00:30):
harder for those functionaladults to be able to have
families and I just think thatwe need more of it.

Lane (01:00:39):
I agree.
I agree.
I hope things will continue todevelop in this regard.
I'm being hopeful here, beingvery hopeful.

Ashley (01:00:45):
Well, and I think that the media is quick to divide,
but when you really do get downto that human-to-human level, we
do realize that we are, in mostcases, we are so much more alike
than we are different.
That I think havingconversations where people can
hear different opinions and thatthey're actually hearing what
the person is saying Mm-Hmm.
Instead of putting theirassumptions of what that person

(01:01:06):
might be like makes such adifference.
So I really appreciate youtaking the time to have this
conversation with me today.

Lane (01:01:13):
Thank you.
And thank you for reading mybook and reaching out.
I mean, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I'm so happy that I was able tocome on your show and speak
about it.

Ashley (01:01:21):
Oh, thank you so much.
Can you let everybody know.
If they're looking for youonline where they can find you?

Lane (01:01:28):
Oh, sure.
I have a website, which is lanei goodin.com.
And I'm also active on socialmedia.
You can just look up Lane, LANE,Igoudin I-G-O-U-D-I-N on
Instagram or Facebook.
That's probably where I post themost.
And reach out, you know, if youhave questions, if you'd like to
talk, by all means, I'll behappy to share what I know.

(01:01:50):
Awesome.
Well, thank you so much, Lane.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday for this episode of The
Filled Up Cup podcast.
Don't forget to hit subscribeand leave a review.
If you like what you hear.
You can also connect with us atfilledupcup.com.

(01:02:13):
Thanks again for tuning in andwe'll catch you in the next
episode.