Journeys of Hope Podcast- Episode Eleven

When it comes to building a family, LGBTQ couples often face unique challenges and triumphs. In this episode of Journeys of Hope, host, Rebecca Solomon, explores the heartfelt journey of Ashley and Emily, who share their powerful story of love, resilience, and the joy of finally bringing their miracle child, Calliope, home after remarkable rehabilitation and therapy at Blythedale Children's Hospital. Their experiences shed light on the complexities of parenthood in the LGBTQ community and offer inspiration for others on a similar path.

You can also listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.

Key Takeaways:

1. Persistence and advocacy can change outcomes
2. Calliope's survival is a remarkable story of resilience
3. Community and compassionate healthcare make a profound difference
4. LGBTQ+ family building still comes with unique challenges
5. Hope is not certainty, it's choosing to keep going

TRANSCRIPT

Rebecca Solomon (00:05)
Hello and welcome to Journeys of Hope, a podcast from Blythedale Children's Hospital inspired by the strength, resilience, and unshakable spirit of medically fragile children. My name is Rebecca Solomon. On this episode of Journeys of Hope, I'm joined by Ashley and Emily DeTar Birt, the inspiring moms of baby Calliope. Callie is a true miracle child born at just 22 weeks and three days, her weight equivalent to a can of soda.
Now we'll talk about love, LGBTQ family building, the medical journey that changed their lives, and the joy of finally bringing their daughter home. Emily and Ashley, thank you so much for being on here with me.
Ashley And Emily (00:48)
Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us.
Rebecca Solomon (00:50)
How are you guys doing? know it's only been a couple, not even a week, but since she's been home, how's it been going?
Ashley And Emily (00:57)
It's been good. It's been good. Chaotic, but good. Yeah, a little overwhelming. Still figuring out the routine as every new parent does, but good.
Rebecca Solomon (01:06)
Take us back to the beginning. How did the two of you meet and what first drew you to each other?
Ashley And Emily (01:12)
Do you me to start? Sure. All right. So we went to seminary together. I was starting my second year. She was there for her first.
And so I'm sitting at the registration table. My friend gets off the phone. She's in charge of registration and says, all right, so and so is almost here. She's on her way. She drove from Cleveland to New York. She got lost like four times, but she's almost here. And immediately I thought, who is stupid enough to drive from Cleveland to New York by yourself?
And then in she walks and I look and it's like, ⁓ no.
Rebecca Solomon (01:53)
You're like, I take back everything I said.
Ashley And Emily (01:55)
Yes, I was.
Pretty
much. was quite the whirlwind. Especially, I mean, I was excited right after right out of college, ready to move to New York City for my seminary degree. I was ready to start my career in ministry. was like, yes, let's go. So, yeah, of course, I took a rental car and got lost four times by myself on a road trip to New York City.
got to New York City. I found my way to the orientation.
table of seminary and it wasn't long after meeting Ashley. Ashley kind of was, ⁓ like many of the seminary colleagues that were helping us with orientation, of our like guides and like leaders helping us walk through seminary life, but there was just something about her that I was like, ooh, what's this? I knew I instantly wanted to be friends and then soon after kind of realized that like I think I want to be more than friends and that I was crushing on her.
saw her, immediately thought she was cute. We
coming weeks.
even other people were like have you met Emily I feel like you would get along it's like yes, we have
And she had played video games in my room and she bought lunch. And so I was like, hey, you just bought me lunch. Let me pay you back. I'll take you to dinner. So we went down the street, got Ethiopian food and we were headed back to campus and said, oh, let's get dessert. So we like walked and it's like, what do you want ice cream? Do you want cake? What do you want? It's like, we'll figure it out when we get there. And we walked like 20 blocks. Yeah, we just kept hanging out. Because we just like wanted to keep hanging
Rebecca Solomon (02:59)
you
Ashley And Emily (03:23)
I had been out as at least to myself and to friends in college as bisexual I even called myself and my roommate the messy bisexuals because we kept our room really pretty messy at the time but I never actually had been in love with or dated women ⁓ until until my lovely wife here who was in charge of all the LGBT clubs at seminary yeah
Rebecca Solomon (03:29)
Okay.
Okay.
my gosh, wow.
Ashley And Emily (03:47)
I was getting dressed up, I was like, this is new, this is okay, so I think I like this. And towards after walking and spending the night together, going to cupcakes and whatnot, walking back to seminary, I asked her, this isn't a date, right? There's one answer to that question. No.
Rebecca Solomon (04:08)
That's before you could be honest with each other.
Ashley And Emily (04:09)
If you have to ask, the answer is no.
So she heard that as rejection when I was actually like being pretty curious and wanting to know where we were, which is why a few days later... It was the next day. The next day, yes. The next day when I admitted like, hey, I think I'm falling for you. It landed a little like, what? It all worked out though. Yeah.
Rebecca Solomon (04:32)
It all
worked out. Lunch and dinners for the rest of your lives together. That's it. I love it. Well, I love your energy together as a couple. At what point did you know you wanted to actually build a family together?
Ashley And Emily (04:45)
I felt pretty hard and quick for this wonderful woman over here. And we were dating throughout my first year of seminary. It was actually towards the end of my first year of dating her. that would have been maybe eight months or so
that I started envisioning a proposal to her. I didn't really know what it meant. I hadn't even lived with her yet. We really hadn't dated. And I'd be like, Emily, this is crazy. This is too much. You're just excited.
carried away so it was privately to myself but over the years that dream didn't go away it kept kind of persisting itself and eventually a version of that dream actually did happen as my proposal where I where I proposed to her later about three years later and in 2020-2015 at a drag show at a seminary drag show yeah and really all of my friends
Rebecca Solomon (05:35)
⁓ I love that. I love that. Not everyone can say that.
Ashley And Emily (05:41)
My friends and colleagues are so...
Ashley helped continue to sponsor the drag show as her leadership as the head of the LGBTQ caucus at the I created the drag show. Thank you. She created the drag show, made it happen at seminary. So was a piece of her legacy at Union that was really important to her.
And it was a complete surprise to her though to at least, I kept ⁓ known by at least eight to ten people there at the drag show. They were very good at keeping a secret. Yeah.
Rebecca Solomon (06:01)
Wow.
That is
awesome. What a story.
Ashley And Emily (06:13)
And I will say,
I've been babysitting since I was 10 years old. I'm 40 now. ⁓ Any church job that you can possibly have with children, I've done it. I've been a youth leader, Sunday school teacher, director of Christian Ed, ⁓ pastor of children, youth and families. I've done all of these positions. I love kids. I knew very early on in my life that I wanted to be a parent.
So anybody that I ever talked to or was interested in, any relationship that I envisioned myself in, I knew would have to be with somebody who wanted kids and who was excited about that. And it was so great ⁓ meeting Emily and seeing her energy, her vibe. We have similar values.
And for me, what's surprising in my mentality going into seminary, I knew I always wanted to be a minister. And ministry is hard in relationships. Ministry is just hard in general. So I actually, from a young age, assumed I would be a single mom because of the profession that I love as ministry. And I'm really grateful that I found someone who understood
Rebecca Solomon (07:19)
Hmm.
Ashley And Emily (07:26)
my vocation but also that I changed my relationship with my vocation to make more space for family life and relationship
I've always wanted to be a mom first and then, ⁓ you know, the dream of marriage entered and there the family came.
Rebecca Solomon (07:39)
Thanks for sharing. That's really special and in control of so much of how you're going to do things and go on the dates and propose and have those conversations about family. The one thing you really did not have much control over was your fertility journey. And we know this is a reality for so.
many people. Your fertility journey was a major chapter before Calliope even arrived. What were some of those emotional highs and lows of that experience as a same sex couple navigating parenthood?
Ashley And Emily (08:11)
Yeah, so I am one of those people who loves to be prepared. And so like, were we even engaged when I was first like, all right, well, let me look at cryo bank sites just to get used to them and see like what's available. It's like, we're not having kids for a long time. It's like, yeah, I know. I remember the first time you looked it up, actually kind of scared me.
But was just like wanting to be familiar so that when it was actually time, which didn't happen for a really long time, ⁓ that it wouldn't be the first time looking at something.
pandemic definitely postponed it. ⁓ I left the church that I was working at that postponed it. And eventually it was like, all right, like, there's never a perfect time. We know there's never gonna be a perfect time. We need to try. And we need to like, just start talking to doctors and getting information. And we went to one fertility clinic where it was...
It was honestly a bit of a challenge.
We weren't necessarily listened to super well. ⁓ There was a lot of unknown bias that we didn't know about around weight. And that was not properly communicated to us. And we tried to be as communicative as possible. I'm not a small person.
But the things weren't handled super well there. And then
It took us months to hear back about our results and we had been very upfront that I was kind of ambivalent about carrying, but if it was possible for me to try for me to be ⁓ the egg donor, I would like to do that. And she really wanted to be pregnant, so it's like, all right, we are willing, obviously, to be flexible, what the numbers are, what the numbers are, but...
if there's a way for us to at least try, we would like to try, and if it doesn't work out, doesn't work out, like, life will go on. And we went in, and my numbers weren't great. And
the question asked, like, are you saying it's impossible? And they said, no, I'm not saying that.
but you would have to do X, Y, Z, and here are all the concerns, and basically, you would have to lose 100 pounds, and so you should, we should just talk about Emily, and see, like, can we use hers, because her numbers are better? And it was such a demoralizing conversation, it was really frustrating.
we didn't know what to do. It's like, do we have to change the plan? And I think you suggested, you went online and talked to some colleagues who had gone through this and they said, try to get a second opinion. And so we went to a different place and told them all the situation
doctor that we had there was
very straightforward and very honest, but also very kind and very
And we got retested. It came out a little bit better, but not a lot. And she told us our chances, ⁓ which was maybe a 20 % chance.
And we talked about it said, all we want is a chance. And so we went with that fertility clinic. I did five egg retrievals in the span of 11 months.
at any point in time I was either taking medications, recovering from an egg retrieval or waiting for insurance approval.
⁓ And we did all of that to try and make sure that we could do all of this in the amount of time that the insurance would still cover it, because we maxed out our insurance and so it was being covered. And it's like, we put this off any longer, we're going to have to pay again, and it's going to be a lot of money. And on the fifth try, we got...
a viable embryo, was tested, we knew it was good, and that turned into Calliope.
I was hard watching Ashley go through all five retrievals. It was hard watching us go through that first consultation with that other fertility clinic. And at the end of it, I just said, you know, I want to get a second opinion because all we want is a chance to try. We understand the realities that it may not work. All we want is a doctor who's going to give us a chance to try. And we found that with Columbia Fertility ⁓ and Dr. Janet Jerosi who was fabulous ⁓ in New York City. ⁓ We're so happy for that team. We're so happy for the compassion
There was so much respect. like,
It's a fertility clinic in New York City. It's not like they've never seen a same-sex couple before. But everybody was rooting for us. They were so kind. There were openly LGBTQ staff members working there who told us some of their journeys around fertility things. All of the nurses were just so loving and kind. it's such a relief to walk into a space and not have to think about...
Or am I going to be respected? Am I going to be treated well? Am I going to be harmed? And just being able to go through this really stressful situation and relax on that end.
any body at any size can have kids. ⁓ I understand that for specifically fertility clinics that are not in a hospital, there are some cautious understandings of behaviors around anesthesia and around wanting to have numbers that look really, really good. But any body of any size can go through IVF. There are clinics out there that will help you.
Rebecca Solomon (13:54)
enter Calliope, right? A small, a very, very tiny Calliope. Our listeners may not understand this, but just how early 22 weeks and three days is, I mean, that's insane when you think of a full-time.
Ashley And Emily (13:57)
boy.
It's exactly four
months early. I was five months pregnant.
Rebecca Solomon (14:11)
wow.
Ashley And Emily (14:12)
To give you a little bit of the backstory, right, after this whole IVF process, you know, had the, ⁓ insemination. We were able to confirm that I was
My first trimester was great. My doctors were like, it looks great. It was my second trimester that was terrible. My second trimester, I started bleeding within the first week.
Rebecca Solomon (14:30)
injured soon.
Ashley And Emily (14:33)
went to the emergency room and then I was bleeding on and off and spotting regularly and then suddenly it became bleeding almost consistently continuously ⁓ in a way that almost like I had a three month period ⁓ I was regularly going to doctor visits and they kept being like we don't see where there's a tear we don't see what's going on your baby's heart rate's fine your baby looks great I don't know what to tell you you just might be bleeding through your whole
Rebecca Solomon (14:46)
Wow.
Ashley And Emily (14:58)
we had our 20-week ultrasound, they did find a, I forget exactly the medical term. Sludge was the actual medical term they used. Yeah, they used sludge, is evidence of bleeding around, like in the amniotic fluid, and then there was, they did find a small tear or something, ⁓ sub, sub. They found a hematoma. That's it, they found a hematoma.
Rebecca Solomon (15:21)
Okay.
Ashley And Emily (15:22)
But they looked, My Baby's Anatomy was great. They're like, the heartbeat's great. They're like, yeah, you're pretty All the fingers, They gave me a good thumbs up at 20-week ultrasound. We were feeling great. And the next week, I started losing amniotic fluid. And that's when my OB was like, well, OK, we have to monitor you now very carefully.
Rebecca Solomon (15:32)
20 weeks. Yep.
Ashley And Emily (15:44)
was then getting ultrasounds about every other day from that point on and it was confirmed. At first it was like, you don't seem to be losing amniotic fluid, maybe it's okay, but by week 22 it was you're losing amniotic fluid. And everything about this was hard. Constantly going to the hospital was hard, constantly doing the ultrasounds was hard, getting this news was painfully hard and
The doctors were honest, and the honest answer was they didn't know. So we were told you could, we could lose the baby. We were told the baby could get carried for not full term, but maybe up to like 35, 36 weeks. ⁓ And then we would deliver by induction or C-section or something like that or anything in between. And so there was just this wide bridge of
possibilities that could happen.
the advice that I had gotten from all of my friends, because I was a nervous wreck through all of this, was leave your wife alone. Give her some space to not have to be around your anxiety. And so we had a friend come stay with us and she was lovely and helpful. And the day our daughter was born,
⁓ My friend and I left to go to a basketball game. We're big Liberty fans.
right as tip-off is starting, I get a call saying that she's not feeling well.
About five minutes
I get a second call from my friend who's like, leave.
So left the game, we got there, I think about 10 minutes behind her, and we knew it was 22 weeks and three days, and we knew what all the doctors had told us, and we knew this was not gonna work out, and the OB on call came in very apologetic, I'm so sorry, and then maybe five, 10 minutes later came back in and said, the head of the NICU is here.
they might be able to do some interventions, which we'd like to hear about it. We said yes, and she came in and once again, very straightforward, very direct.
Your baby might be stillborn. She might be born, but not breathing.
then things happen so I was in the middle of talking I was in the middle of talking to the chaplain about my feelings around this whole reality when all of a sudden I feel the
I knew labor was coming fast. It wasn't even 20 minutes into my epidural. And I'm being wheeled out. Like the doctor checks, the head is certainly there. I'm being wheeled out of the hallway. I feel her
And then in the hallway, I gave birth. On the way to the OR, I wasn't even in the OR. was given birth. She was there. I missed the whole thing. I was getting gowned.
When I came in, my wife was in one place with a bunch of nurses and doctors in the corner where like at least half a dozen if not more people around the kid and I'm just standing there like, what the hell happened?
Rebecca Solomon (18:58)
What did I miss?
Wow.
Ashley And Emily (19:02)
It
was such a surreal experience because I'm in the middle of labor, right? Just because the child is born doesn't mean labor stops. And at 22 weeks, the placenta is larger than the child. So the labor for the placenta took three times as long, took about 15 minutes. But in the middle of me continuing the labor, the doctor says, oh, by the way, she's alive. And by the way, she's breathing. I was like, she born breathing. She was born breathing. I was like, what? Wait, we just spent the last how many hours going through all the possibilities. And this was not one we talked
Rebecca Solomon (19:22)
my gosh, my.
But even so, mean, she's delivered and she's only 390 grams. She's tiny. And doctors still weren't sure that she would even survive another day because of that vulnerability. And off to the NICU it is for Callie, right? This isn't like, right. So many parents describe the NICU as both terrifying
and transformative, what did those months teach you about yourselves and your partnership and your strength there?
Ashley And Emily (20:06)
just experienced the day that we had and then looking at this tiny, this tiny being and being told like, all right, so here are the things we're looking for. Here are the things we're to
it could be one day, it could be three days, it could be a week, it could even be four months, and then it was over eight months.
there was a lot of anxiety and frustration, a lot of ⁓ fear. I still jump when my wife's phone rings. ⁓
Rebecca Solomon (20:35)
Mm.
Ashley And Emily (20:37)
because I was always scared that we were going to get a phone call that the worst had happened.
We did in fact get that call one time
and she survived that
a child of many miracles
but over time one I just started to surrender to the idea that there was nothing I could do to change this situation. ⁓
There was nothing I could do to make it better. She was in a place where there were people who were able to make it better, but I couldn't do that. And so it was this just really weird moment of recognizing that I'm not in control of this and that all I can do is be on the ride as well. And then
We also kind of aggressively decided at some point that if we were going to be stuck in the NICU for god knows how long, we were going to try to make things as quote unquote normal as possible.
We did story time. We celebrated any holiday that we could possibly do.
different stages of the NICU journey, right? Especially depending on, well, for everyone, I think. The first few weeks, the first few months are very, very, very intense, right? Every day was life and death. Every day we didn't know whether she would make it or not make it, what needed to be added, all the complexities of all the different health things that we were looking out
another thing that I realized is when I talked at a like parent meeting at the NICU I was like yeah have you guys met PACT? They're really great the palliative care team and everyone's like we we didn't meet them and I was like yeah that's right. Because our kid is a little a little different but also one it's it's incredible when you do get to have the miracles
Rebecca Solomon (22:29)
Yeah.
Ashley And Emily (22:35)
of this kid who keeps surviving, the bond that comes between you and the doctors and the nurses and the team.
Rebecca Solomon (22:40)
Well, we know that love definitely continued in one of our most special places that we like to talk about, Blythedale Children's Hospital. This was a significant part of Callie's short but really...
empowering journey and for you too and we know Blythedale became such an important part of that journey. What was it like watching her go from needing 100 % oxygen support to almost breathing entirely on her own?
Ashley And Emily (23:14)
amazing. We're so proud of her, how strong this child is. I can't imagine a being so small, being so resilient and being so persistent. It's incredible. I'm gonna, I know I'm gonna face that stubbornness in her, you know, "threenagers" very soon, but ⁓ I'm very proud of her. And it's just, it's just amazing to see that transformation. Yeah, I remember when we had the family meeting in the NICU and they told us that rehab
was a possibility like are we gonna keep her here 'til she goes home or do want to take her to the rehab hospital and we got a list of different places in the greater New York area
And every single person, nurses, doctors, fellows, ⁓ NPs, all had positive things to say about Blythedale. And one of her favorite nurses had pulled up the Blythedale Instagram and was showing other nurses like,
look, this is where she's gonna go, look at all the things that they do. And it was so scary, because like I said, we had formed this community there. But to go to this place and it felt so warm,
It made us feel like she was gonna be in good hands and then she got there and was getting so much care, so many therapies, trying so many new things and there were things that we were told she may never be able to do.
that she is doing or on her way to doing. And it's absolutely amazing to see how far she has come in that short amount of time. And it's all thanks to the wonderful work of the people at Blythedale
Rebecca Solomon (24:55)
you see that progress and you see every day the little victories and it must be so fulfilling as her parents, but the reality is she faced risks involving her lungs and her brain and her eyes. And every day she continued to defy expectations. And was there like a particular moment when you finally felt, we're in a good spot?
she's going to make it.
Ashley And Emily (25:23)
That took a minute. ⁓ I think, I'm trying to remember. I think there was a transition that happened somewhere maybe in... ⁓
in August and then it had to be replaced again in October because our kid got COVID in the hospital in September and had to be re-intubated.
August when I realized it's not that any day now she might die, it's, ⁓ she's going to be here. We just don't know what life she's going to have. Right. It was just kind of a switch in transition as far as like, ⁓ she's got this probably happened more like December, January.
So in September, she had pulmonary hypertension and pneumonia. And then they discovered COVID, which they think is what caused the other two. Then right after New Year, she got the flu. And then when she came to Blythedale she had the stomach flu. And then maybe a week or two later, she had a cold. ⁓ By the time we got to the cold,
I don't mean to sound callous here, I obviously am very concerned about my sick child, but also it's just like, ⁓ it's a cold? Okay, I mean, like, she survived way worse than that, like, that's gonna be okay.
Right before she left, like maybe a week or so before she left Blythedale, ⁓ one of my friends from college came up to see her and she had seen her pretty early on ⁓ when every time the monitor dipped or something went off, I would just be paralyzed with fear. ⁓ And she was an amazing friend. She was so comforting. She was so loving. And...
We were, she was holding the baby and we were having a conversation once the kid was in Blythedale and an alarm went off and I just kind of rolled my eyes and went and turned the alarm off and I didn't even look at it because I already knew that it was a false alarm. The kid was totally fine. She was playing. When she moves her feet a lot, the pulse ox doesn't read it correctly. And my friend just looks and it's like, you've come a long way. And it's like, oh, oh yeah.
I guess so. And I don't think it was until that moment that I realized like you are not afraid that the worst is going to happen to her anymore. And like you're not even acting afraid.
Rebecca Solomon (27:45)
It's interesting how you're in this situation that no one would want to be in, but organically, Blythedale is giving both of you the tools and the strength and the mindset that you need not only while you're at Blythedale, but then to be able to take her home. That's one of the things that you don't realize day to day. You're like, you you're in it one day and then...
But for you to be able to do that and for your friend to recognize that who isn't in it the way you are, that says a lot,
to that point, you were able to bring her home, and now here you are at home with her. And congratulations, you celebrated your first Mother's Day together. How'd that feel?
Ashley And Emily (28:27)
Yeah.
Kind of crazy. Kind of crazy. mean, compared to last year when we didn't even know if we would have a kid, we didn't even because that was the 21 weeks was Mother's Day. we didn't we didn't know what was going to happen with her to this year where we have a baby. She's here. She's alive. It was lovely.
Rebecca Solomon (28:49)
all the feels on Mother's Day, right? ⁓ And I know you haven't been out of Blythedale for too long, but is there anything that I know it might...
sound like a weird question, but anything that you miss about Blythedale that you think about and you're like, oh wow, like, you know, I didn't realize how much I would miss this or any,
Ashley And Emily (29:14)
I know I missed.
Lisa in the infant room. I miss the sensory time. That was my answer. For the kids that are there because now that she's home, but she's still medically fragile, we don't have as much freedom to go socialize with a of other kids. So Blythedale was really unique in that way. And yes, I do miss the nurses at being both a mom and a nurse at the same time is a little overwhelming. We have the tools thanks to Blythedale to be able to do it, but we're still adjusting. And my goodness, we miss all the nurses help.
And from day one at Blythedale , things would go off. They're like, oh, yeah. If there's something, let us know. But otherwise, you can turn it off.
And it was very much like, you need to be hands-on so you can prepare for the moment when your kid leaves. And that was a huge adjustment, but it was so helpful. And it does make me miss them, because it was really cool having folks there to help us learn things and watch us and very gently encourage us as we're learning how to put in an NG tube or how to...
tape her prongs to her face or to do all sorts of things or like give her a bath every day and so definitely miss them. I will say though I think it's a toss-up for
We really loved the folks that we had for PT and OT. Thankfully, we still get to do some outpatient services, so we will get to see them. But yeah, sensory time with the low lights and the music was always such a good highlight. And it was a really fun time for us to bond with her and connect with her.
and to share a love of music. So definitely missing that.
Rebecca Solomon (30:54)
All right, I'm curious to know, because I hear there might be a unique story behind Calliope's name and why you named her Calliope. Please share.
Ashley And Emily (31:06)
I'll share the heavy stuff and you share the fun stuff. So the heavy stuff for us is that again when you are giving birth to such a micro-premium in a NICU and you are filled with uncertainty you don't know whether this kid is going to stay alive or whether this kid is going to pass away. We had a name planned for years that we wanted to give our first child. We didn't know if Callie was going to be our first child. We really didn't and I was getting discharged in three days and they kept being like fill out the birth certificate fill out the
certificate don't forget the first certificate so we didn't choose the name we had chosen for years we chose a name a beloved name that we love that is now her name forever but we had to figure out a name that we wanted to name her and we chose Calliope and I insisted on Amber because Amber is Ash's middle name and his baby looks exactly like her yeah so
Rebecca Solomon (31:57)
my gosh.
Ashley And Emily (32:01)
A few years before we even started the fertility process. ⁓ I'm a big Grey's Anatomy fan.
Calliope Torres, or Callie Torres, ⁓ was one of my favorite characters. ⁓ Longest running bisexual character in American television. I think that's still true, ⁓ but not sure. And I asked Emily, hey, what if we named the kid Calliope? And she said, absolutely not.
Rebecca Solomon (32:20)
interesting.
Ashley And Emily (32:27)
And so years later, we're in this situation. It's like, all right, so we've come up with a name for if the kid lives and we've up with a name if the kid doesn't live. We don't actually know where we're at right now. What are we going to do? We need to give her a name because it's way harder to submit the birth certificate outside of the hospital.
how do we feel about Calliope? And she's like, that's really pretty. OK, let's do it. Yeah.
Rebecca Solomon (32:52)
my gosh, just
like that.
Ashley And Emily (32:54)
And honestly, I kind of love
it. It really fits her. once we started telling people her name, they were like, my gosh, that's such a great name. And people were really excited about it. If you name your child after a beloved character on a medical TV show, the doctors and nurses get really excited about it as well.
Rebecca Solomon (33:19)
story.
Ashley And Emily (33:19)
even, I
didn't really know about it until looking into it, but even the Greek name, right, the head of the Greek muses is Calliope, muse of ⁓ epic poetry and song. No, definition is beautifully voiced or beautiful voice, which for a baby who for months couldn't have a voice because of being intimated, she definitely has a voice now and she knows how to use it. So it feels very fitting.
Rebecca Solomon (33:45)
How appropriate
in so many, in every sense of the word and the name. That's amazing. And her name, that's a good transition into my next question. We know you are proud LGBTQ mothers raising a daughter during this time of growing visibility and representation. And June is Pride Month. So ⁓ what does that mean to your family now?
Ashley And Emily (34:10)
Since we are lucky that our story is being shared publicly, it's fascinating that the public gets to comment on it. And we're still getting comments of disgusting that there's two women being mothers and how terrible is this? ⁓ It's amazing to see where we are politically versus where I feel like we were maybe five or 10 years ago. what we're doing and the fact that thankfully we live in New York State, we have some
protections and some really great laws. We have access to health care in a way that we don't in other states. I'm very, very grateful for our family. For me and for our everyday lives, this is just our lives. This is just us wanting to have a kid. This is just our dreams we've been working on for 10 years. This isn't a political statement. It's just us being a family. And I wish that the whole world could give people the health care access, the rights and the comforts to decide what they want to do with their families and how they grow and
And at the same time, like, I am very proud to be who I am, to be a bisexual, queer, black woman pastor married to a bisexual woman pastor. ⁓ I'm really proud to be the parent of this amazing, resilient, beautiful child who is gonna show the world
who she is and ⁓ I'm so happy to be the person or to be a person who gets to love her whoever she is and to celebrate her for whoever she turns out to be and I'm just so grateful for that and like yeah, there are people out there who don't like that.
Okay, sure. ⁓ If you have a bigger problem with our kid having two moms than you do with people trying to take away Medicaid from babies like that or from...
the fact that there's such high issues with black maternal health rates or anything like that. If you are more concerned with that than the fact that our kids survive through all of this, the fact that other kids don't necessarily get to survive through all of that, that other families don't have the opportunities, then I don't know, that's a you issue. Because we're here, we're living our dream and...
I'm extra proud this year that we get to do it with her and we get to surround her with friends and family who are different from us in so many ways, who are similar to us in so many ways, and who will show her the beauty of what it is to live in the world.
I think it's important to just be mindful of the challenges that come with LGBTQ families and parents. So a good example of that is ⁓ second ⁓ parent adoption. So in New York State, I'm very grateful that there are protections for us as her parents and us being on our birth certificate so that we can go to hospitals and go to her medical appointments and do things without being asked who's the rightful parent or who's a biological parent, right?
But in other states across the United States, say if we went to Florida and our kid was in Disney World and medically fragile, needs access to oxygen in the ER, right? Unless I adopt my child, even though I gave birth to her, I wouldn't be able to be in a hospital with her. Not in the state of Florida. when we talk- Not a lot of states. Not a lot of states, right? So when we talk about LGBTQ rights, we're talking about everyday American families having access to the rights that make their lives possible.
Rebecca Solomon (37:49)
unbelievable.
Ashley And Emily (37:58)
being able to take care of their kids, being able to take care of their spouses, being able to build families, being able to go to work, being able to get housing. This isn't some, ⁓ freaky lifestyle. I'm sitting on, just like every other parent, trying to balance formula and feeding times. I'm not doing anything scandalous. Right, and then you still have to adopt the kid you gave birth to. Yes. That's wild.
Rebecca Solomon (38:24)
That's wild to me. mean,
that is like as if your fertility journey wasn't challenging enough. I'm like, or not even that, Callie's journey, her medical journey wasn't even enough. That's really unbelievable. So what are you, what's your game plan?
Ashley And Emily (38:31)
I have a face. And lawyers are expensive.
⁓ We haven't really progress yet because we're dealing with the baby coming home. ⁓ But we have some legal resources we're going to reach out to. ⁓ I have a friend who this is not her field of law, but she has been trying to educate herself and pass along information. And even Blythedale gave us some resources of organizations and people to reach out to. Yeah.
Rebecca Solomon (38:45)
Still figuring out the formula.
Well,
good luck.
Ashley And Emily (39:09)
We've
been focused a little bit on the medical and again luckily because we haven't left the state and we live in New York state we're really grateful for those protections but whenever things settle a little bit more with getting Callie set up medically we'll tackle this next hurdle.
Rebecca Solomon (39:23)
Well, I will add that Callie is extremely fortunate and lucky to have both of you as her moms because of your advocacy and your intelligence, which maybe you wouldn't think you would have to be so smart and in tune with everything you're going through, but you're doing the research and you're putting in the work and it's not easy. So really kudos to both of you and only good will have to come from this. And she really is.
going to just thrive because she has both of you as her mamas and her role models and all of that. ⁓ just, really am in awe of both of you and your stories and keep being who you are because as we should all know, love is really the strongest of it all. you know, that's more important than any of the trolls on social media or wherever, so.
That's the reality of it. And with a little help of some basketball along the way, because we know you both love New York Liberty. ⁓ there's some excitement right there. ⁓ In New York Liberty, big part of your family culture. ⁓ How did your fandom begin? I know you talked a little bit about it already, and that passion already becoming a part of Callie's life.
Ashley And Emily (40:21)
Yeah, that's social media.
Yeah!
you
Can I talk about that? please.
Yeah, I will try to rein in some of the excitement because I can go off the rails. ⁓ So I have been a WNBA fan since the very beginning.
So like the league started I think in 1997 after the 96 Olympics and my favorite player on the Olympic team was Rebecca Lobo. She was the New York Liberty. So even though I lived in Pennsylvania, New York became my team. And like I remember when I was in college, I did an internship for a summer in New York and I was so excited because I was finally in the city and could like, I went to the All-Star game that year. It was like so thrilling
years ago, ⁓ my wife surprised me for Christmas and got me a package of, five games. And it was so exciting. And then the next year, she got me a half season of tickets.
And I was so absolutely thrilled ⁓ getting to go to so many more games. And then this situation happened. And it was like, I don't know what we're going to do. And what actually ended up happening is we had a kid in NICU. ⁓ The great thing about the NICU is they are the best babysitters. The best. And so we would go.
I would do work during the day and then I would go to the hospital to see the baby and then we would go to games still. And it was our way of having some normalcy and being able to try to catch our breath in this really impossible, scary situation. And so we didn't miss a game. ⁓ It worked out really well.
Rebecca Solomon (42:32)
And like how full circle that Ellie the Elephant, the mascot of New York Liberty, and then you go to Blythedale elephants are our mascot, and you know, wow.
Ashley And Emily (42:41)
One of the things that helped comment down
on the new was a vibe.
Rebecca Solomon (42:46)
Wow, that's a can't wait till Callie's old enough when she can go on her first elephant ride somewhere and get get that on camera, right? that's great. I love it I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure Well, she's already watched a little bit right or yeah here and there
Ashley And Emily (42:55)
We can't wait to see her do a game. Yes.
On
her birthday, I had recorded the game that I left on DVR. so, like, I knew what happened, but we watched it together on her birthday. So we had a nice little full circle moment.
Rebecca Solomon (43:18)
I love that. That's awesome. All right, so when Callie is old enough to hear this episode one day, what do you hope she understands about love and determination and the community that carried her through really her first year of life?
Ashley And Emily (43:36)
that there were so many people that loved you into being. So many people we don't even know, people that we don't even know were praying for you. People I don't even know in real life were thinking of you, who knew your story. Doctors, nurses, countless people are helping, trying to make you come alive and loving and supporting you, including us. You have so much support. There was this one time, I'll be very brief on this, ⁓ someone didn't mean it this way, but they were shocked to hear my baby was in the hospital.
Rebecca Solomon (44:13)
weird. Yeah.
Ashley And Emily (44:16)
I feel like...
The world is constantly telling us that we've got to be smarter, stronger, faster, tougher, like all of these things. And I agree with everything Emily just said. I want her to know that. But I also just want her to know, like, when the world is telling you what you have to do or who you have to be, you don't actually have to listen. You don't have to try to do any of that stuff. You already have. It's already in you.
And the reason that you have gotten this far is because of the love of all of these people, but also it's because of you. I don't know what went behind the kid's decision making process, but that kiddo, every step of the way, chose to be here and just keeps going forward with this fierceness and tenacity and...
know, you don't have do anything but be yourself. You've got it. Amen. I've never known a stronger, more tenacious, willful person in my entire life, which is why it's a miracle to watch her just exist.
Rebecca Solomon (45:34)
That's it.
Wow.
I can't wait to watch her journey as she continues to grow and it's going to be really special. That's great. Okay, I have one more question for each of you. I know, surprise, but I would like you to please ⁓ tell me what is the meaning of hope?
As I'm asking to ministers. I know, right?
Ashley And Emily (46:14)
I think that's a really hard question. That's on the spot. This is this is a thing.
Rebecca Solomon (46:16)
I don't think so.
Ashley And Emily (46:26)
Hope is not something you do or don't have. It's not something you can just create. You can't force it to happen. Hope takes time. And hope isn't like this pie in the sky. isn't it nice? And just have hope. The kind of positive thinking that people say, it'll just be positive. In the middle of the darkest days, in the middle of the darkest times, that stuff doesn't cut it because it's not hope. Hope is we don't know what the future holds, which means there is a possibility for better.
Are you going to be able to hold out long enough to have that possibility show up? Are you not going to just give up now? This baby, even in the earliest days, made it through the next day. And sometimes when I was going crazy, I'd be like, if she can make it, I can stay on another day. If she knows that the story isn't over yet,
I can stay here another day. That's hope. Knowing the story isn't over yet. Not that you have a clear path, not that you know the future, not that you have some kind of idealistic, everything's going to be all right, knowing that you have space for something else that's not you left in the story.
Rebecca Solomon (47:36)
Wow, can you top that?
Ashley And Emily (47:36)
That was an amazing answer. ⁓
Nope, definitely can't. What I will say is this makes me laugh. I was just talking last week with my therapist.
And he's heard me talk about like hope is terrible and it's dangerous and it's painful and all these things and then he was asking me like how did it feel to bring her home and like where are you at now and I was saying all these things and it's like so you know that's hope right like the thing that has been keeping you going this whole time like you know that was hope all along and Begrudgingly I had to acknowledge that he was correct ⁓
But yeah, for me, hope has, for a very long time, hope was a literal and figurative four-letter word. ⁓ But in kind of observing it now, it's just persevering under the idea that things can be better. Yes.
Rebecca Solomon (48:39)
Yeah, you can shape it. You can shape your moment, your day, the way you live the life. That's awesome.
Ashley And Emily (48:49)
More than that, for me, I guess I'll just end on this, I'm so sorry. You asked help to two pastors at the end of that interview. I came up with like a sentence. I know you did. I think for me it was understanding that she was my hope.
Rebecca Solomon (48:52)
No.
Ashley And Emily (49:02)
Right. I couldn't control anything about her journey. I could control what I could control. I could be there every day. I could read to her. I could be present. I could tell her that I love her. I could sing to her. She was the one making the choices to live or die. She was the one saying that she was still in it. Hope is making room to see what happens next, to know there is a next. There is a next coming. And my gosh, did she show us that there was a next coming.
Rebecca Solomon (49:31)
That's beautiful. Ashley and Emily, thank you so much. Wow, what a story. What stories we have shared on this episode. Thank you for just opening up and being you, being who you both are.
The best is yet to come. It's very exciting. Keep us posted along the way. Awesome. And we hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of Journeys of Hope. If you want to hear more about Callie's journey, we have been following it almost every step of the way. You can head to our website, Blythedale.org And if you have any ideas for future topics, we'd love to hear from you. You can email us at podcast at Blythedale.org Thanks so much, and we'll see you next time.