Living in the messy middle for three years. Lane Igoudin and his husband Jonathan raised two babies — a newborn and a one-year-old — while not knowing if the court would let them keep them. They were shut out of the court cases determining their daughters' futures. As an interracial, same-sex couple during the pre-marriage equality era, their relationship wasn't legally recognized. And the birth mother? She was a teenager in the state's custody herself.

This is a conversation about life transitions, foster adoption, and navigating major life changes when the system isn't designed for families like yours. It's about the both/and of building a family on uncertainty — the anxiety of desperately wanting to be fathers while knowing it could all be taken away. For anyone holding joy and grief, hope and fear, love and loss — all at the same time.

Lane is the author of A Family, Maybe, a memoir about his family's three-year battle through the Los Angeles County foster care system. He's a professor of English at Los Angeles City College and has shared this story on NBC, NPR, and dozens of podcasts because it's a story that rarely gets told: what makes a parent? Is it biology, or is it care and commitment?

In this episode:

-What it's like to live in the "maybe" for three years while raising babies you might lose

- The both/and of foster adoption: attach fully AND be ready to let go

- How Lane and Jonathan were treated as "non-related caretakers" despite being the only parents their daughters knew

- Why the foster care system prioritizes birth parents' rights over children's wellbeing

- What happened when the judge at their adoption hearing didn't even know their children's names

- The spiritual takeaway that sustained them: love your partner more when everything feels impossible

- Why Lane reads tarot cards (only for himself) and what they told him during the process

- The question his book explores: What really makes a parent?

No toxic positivity. No fix-it mentalities. Just real language for the feelings you couldn't name, and permission to hold all of it at once.

Get Connected & Support the Show:

- Listen to the companion podcast: It's Both- Guided Meditations for Anxiety, Emotional Regulation, & Real Life Transitions

- Follow Lane on Instagram, buy his book, or visit his website 

- Subscribe, rate, & review It's Both on Apple Podcasts