How do you build a family when the system is designed to tear it apart?
In this powerful episode of A Joyful Rebellion, writer, professor, and father Lane Igoudin shares the deeply human story behind his memoir A Family, Maybe: Two Dads, Two Babies, and the Court Cases That Brought Us Together. Lane and his husband Jonathan were among the first openly gay couples to adopt through the foster system in Los Angeles County. What followed was a three-year legal and emotional rollercoaster that tested their resolve, their relationship, and their sense of justice.
We talk about the failures of the child welfare system, the invisible labor of parenting under legal threat, and what it really means to create family—not just legally, but spiritually and emotionally. Lane opens up about raising two daughters, navigating stigma, building community, and the quiet strength it takes to hold your family together when others have the power to pull it apart.
Show Notes & Chapters
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[00:00] Grafting onto a new family tree: How love can create roots
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[01:00] Meet Lane Igoudin: Writer, father, and accidental memoirist
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[03:00] The first chapter: curbside delivery and becoming instant parents
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[06:00] Birth, sepsis, and a cooler bag full of formula
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[08:30] Parenting under legal threat: Living through uncertainty
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[10:00] Two babies, no safety net, and a perfect storm of life transitions
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[12:00] Why Lane always knew he wanted to be a father
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[14:00] The landscape of early LGBTQ+ adoptions in the 2000s
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[16:00] Legal limbo: Being married in one state, single in another
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[18:00] Parallel paths: Parenting, career change, and teaching
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[20:00] The emotional cost of parenting through a courtroom
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[23:00] Denied status, silenced voices, and fighting for your family
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[25:00] The problem with “best interests” being decided 30 miles away
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[27:00] What true attachment looks like—and what disruption could do
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[30:00] Building bridges: Allies, moms, and chosen community
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[32:00] Identity, culture, and raising bicultural kids with care
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[34:00] What the girls know, and what they want to know, about their past
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[36:00] Reactions to the book—from readers, family, and adoptees
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[39:00] Why Lane wrote the story he never planned to write
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Lane’s Website: http://laneigoudin.com
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Book: A Family, Maybe (Available via Amazon, Bookshop, and his website)
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Publisher: Ooligan Press, Portland State University
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Instagram: @laneigoudin
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Facebook: Lane Igoudin
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