Internet Rejects Our Open Adoption! | KARAMO

You may recognize my next guests from TikTok. Ashley and Steven have documented their emotional journey of starting a family on TikTok and have gained millions of supporters. But where there's likes, there is also haters. And Ashley and Steven are no strangers to receiving backlash. Let's find out what's going on.

When Ashley and I got married, we always knew that we wanted to start a family.

We were heartbroken when we struggled to get pregnant month after month. But we knew before I struggled to get pregnant that we wanted to adopt a child.

We were over the moon over the moon when Mikayla picked us to raise her son Abriel, but when we started posting our family on TikTok, we received a lot of backlash.

People always make comments about Abriel being a different race than Stephen and me. We've received hundreds of negative comments about our mixed-race family.

When we decided to adopt, we didn't care what race our baby was. We were ready to love our new baby as our own.

We know how important it is for Abriel to understand where he came from. We went against the laws in Iowa to have an open adoption with Abriel's birth mom Mikayla. We are one big happy family.

And it's time for the haters to stop. We announced on TikTok that we were ready to have a second baby.

Right after, Makayla texted us saying, "I'm your only baby mama." Now we don't know what to do. Karamo, we really need your help.

All right, everyone.

Please help me welcome Ashley and Steven to the show. How are you doing? Good, how are you? Good to see you. Come on, give me a hug. How you doing, man? I'm good, take a seat. So I wanna know, first of all, how did you two meet?

We actually met on Tinder.

Yeah?

Yeah, he totally catfished me though. Did he?

You catfished?

You know, I had to do what I had to do.

I wanna know, why did you always wanna start a family?

I just always wanted to be a mom. I have like a big family, a big fam, like I have a Lebanese family, it's a big family, we're always together. I was on birth control for maybe 10 years. So I was like, I should probably go off it for a while, you know, get my cycle regulated. But I wasn't ovulating correctly without medication. And Steven's like, sorry, sperm count was low and like low motility. So they're like, the chances of you guys getting pregnant naturally is probably like slim to none. Like it's probably not going to happen. And so we were really heartbroken and this is like going on, you know, 2 years of trying. And so we're like, let's pull the plug.

When we first met, when we talked about having kids, we said, you know, I used to want 3 kids and adopt 1, and she wanted to have 4 kids and adopt 1. And so—

So adoption was already in the picture.

It was already in the picture. We just thought it would be later down the road, not first.

So when did you meet Makayla, your son's birth mother?

So we matched in July. We met her like a week after our lawyer called. And then she was, Yeah, she had Abe in November. So it was pretty quick. Wow. Not all adoptions are that quick. Ours was really quick.

So tell me about the day you met your son, Abriel.

When she was in active labor, we were in the room next door. We could hear the baby cry when he came out and we were like hugging and we were so excited. And then we walk into the room. Everything that you don't believe, even though you know it's not true, like child stealer and like maybe you shouldn't have babies and all of those things, Why were you feeling so much guilt in the moment? I think you just let hate comments get to you, even though we didn't have a platform at the time, we didn't post anything, but my niece had posted something that had went viral and gained the first set of hate comments that we'd ever seen. And I think you just let people get inside your head, even though you know your intentions are good and you're coming from like the best place possible. And so—

It's interesting like how social media can affect the way that you see yourself and see your actions. Yeah. I wanna know, why did you want an open adoption though?

We thought it was the healthiest thing for Abriel.

Okay.

So especially knowing that there were other people involved.

You're in Iowa, right? Yeah. That's against the law there.

Yeah, so.

To have an open adoption.

There's no such thing as open adoption in Iowa.

Exactly.

It's just closed. But we like, we're like, no, we want to keep in contact. Like, he is still your son. You'll always be his mom. Like we want you to see him as much as possible. Like we want him to know his family, know where he came from.

We want him to know that he was given up out of love, not because he wasn't wanted.

Yeah.

So.

So why did you post your family on TikTok?

Yeah, it's kind of crazy.

I'm sure you get that question all the time.

Yeah, we waited, we waited a long time.

We did. So the viral post that we were talking about earlier was her, we had a family member who posted on, Twitter as our adoption announcement. That took off, went viral. We're like, this is kind of crazy stuff, you know? And she had an Instagram account at the time. She was a fashion blogger. And I would always sit there and watch TikTok. We had some videos saved up on our phone, and one day I said, hey, you should just try it. We just thought it'd be cute to post our family. We did not know it was gonna take off like it did. We had no intentions of that.

When that tweet went, like, I don't know, viral, I didn't have Twitter. I had like my Instagram like he said and people would come there and like say hateful comments. So I would like block people. So I was afraid to post anything about our adoption after that for a long time.

And we've gotten death threats before too. So it's pretty crazy.

So we have some of those negative comments you received. I wanna show them right now to my audience. Why is this white person raising a black baby? What is the fascination with white men adopting black babies? Are there no white babies that need adopted? Wow.

Yeah.

What were your response?

Well, one thing I always thought that was interesting is if we would've had a preference that we only want a white baby, okay, then, oh, it's racist. But if we said we only want a Black baby, they'd say you're only doing that to prove you're not racist. And so no matter what, we can't win.

Honestly.

We had no preference and—

So I know my producer told me you got a lot of comments like this. You kidnapped the baby.

So I'll be honest, reading those comments was like gut-wrenching again, you know? You say like, okay, they don't know us, they don't know our story. They see like a 30-second video and then they just make assumptions.

We had a lot of comments that were positive also that said, you know, you're so influential, you know, you help us get through the day, you're inspiring, you know? And so a lot of people did give us a lot of love for it. And so we said, you know, are we gonna let the negativity like stop us from posting? Are we gonna get off the platform or are we gonna ignore it and roll with it? So we decided to just roll with it and make light of the comments and ignore 'em. So yeah.

Now I don't read that.

Good. Yeah, you can't, listen, you can't pay attention to comments. It's the first thing I tell everyone. I see them comments. So why do you need my help? 'Cause it sounds like your family's good.

So we want another baby, right? Like Abe's getting bigger, he's gonna be such a great big brother.

So would Makayla be involved in the second child if you went that route?

So we would love, and Makayla graciously offered to be our gestational carrier. Do not adopt from anyone else.

And then logically it made sense because Abe, would be tied into this in a sense. Like him and his sibling also came from her. And so we think that it would just be great all the way around.

Yeah.

Okay, so there's some difficulties with this second child decision. Is there anybody in your family who's against you working with Makayla again?

I wouldn't say like against working. My family loves Makayla. I think like my mom's concerned that will I like be regretful one day if I don't experience getting pregnant?

Ashley's mother Dixie has strong opinions on their plans for the future. Take a look at this.

I love my grandson, Abriel. He's the sweetest, funniest little boy, the most loved child. And I'm so grateful to Makayla for the gift she gave to our family. But I'm here because I don't want my daughter, Ashley, to give up on the dream that she has always had. I don't want Ashley to make a decision that she might regret by not carrying her own child.

Everyone, please welcome Dixie to the show. Hi. How are you?

I'm good.

Nice to meet you. Take a seat. Thank you. So Dixie, I'm gonna ask this question even though I know why, because as a parent and I don't know my mother, but why are you so involved in this situation?

I know people are thinking I'm getting involved in something I shouldn't, but I was there when she would cry all the time. It took me 9 years to get pregnant. I knew what she was going through. And as a little girl, she always, always wanted to carry her own baby.

Everyone, welcome Makayla to the show.

Hi, Makayla.

Hey. Hi, love. How are you doing? I'm good. Good to meet you.

Sit on down.

Well, this is a beautiful blended family. This looks like a little TV show.

I love it.

Okay. All right, so I just wanna jump right in. Tell us about the day you gave birth to Abriel.

It was extremely hard. I can remember calling Ashley and telling Ashley, "Hey, I'm gonna get induced," you know, like all of that.

I've seen many of these open adoptions You're very involved. I've never seen the birth mother be this involved. Do you think you're too involved?

Sometimes.

Okay.

I do. For the first 6 months, I didn't want, like, I honestly, I didn't want, I wanted little pictures here and there, but not, and I would text her and ask her for them.

And why was that? 'Cause you were trying to disconnect?

Yeah. Social media, I actually deleted and blocked him off Facebook.

Are you worried about when he gets older?

Sometimes I don't want him to be mad at me. I have a conversation already ready to go for him, you know? I actually have a letter that I write every year on his birthday to tell him what he's missed at my house or like what accomplishes I have made.

Why would you volunteer to do this a second time when you still have these emotional ties?

Just hearing how Ashley felt, I guess, about like she didn't want Abe to feel left out and all of that like whole situation, I was like, well, I would definitely be willing to not have another baby for you. Of course, yes, yes. But then have it be my DNA, like my child, like that is a whole nother feeling. This is coming from a birth mother, you know what I mean? Like you have to understand that. Do I love Abriel? Absolutely with my whole entire heart. When we're in the same room and when we're conversating, At this point, it almost feels as if I'm an aunt in an aspect. And it sounds sad, but mentally I had to prepare myself for that. You know what I mean? Like put that in the back of my head. I had to, and I've said that. I said, I don't wanna be called Mama Makayla. I wanna be called Auntie Makayla. You know what I mean? And Ashley was like, no, you're his mom. That's weird. That's confusing.

Abe calls you Mama Makayla? Yeah.

Mama Makayla.

Mama Makayla?

Yep.

Because that is his birth mom. You know what I mean? And you know, when she said like, sometimes I feel like I'm overstepping, she'll like call me, like we talk a lot and then she'll be like, I'm not calling you tomorrow. Like we just talked a ton today. Like I feel like I just bothered you all day. Like I'm gonna let you.

There are other people who I've experienced who have been adopted who do feel confused.

Yeah.

Who when they turn 12, 13, 14, 15, start to end up resenting you because they weren't in the home. They start ending up feeling as if There's other issues like maybe you're not my family. All these comments you see from folks talking about they stole the baby and you know, and listen, Black folks, we understand. We've seen what people say about white people adopting Black babies.

A lot of the hate comments come from African American women who should be helping me, I guess, or not helping me, but help empowerment, you know, like coming together and working together.

Turn off those comments. Like people forget that on social media, you can keep comments off because I don't think people should have access to your life in the sense of being able to comment. And I say that for one reason. Abe is about to be able to start reading. Yeah. And he's gonna go to those comments and even if he doesn't, friends are gonna go to those comments.

Yeah.

And so I think the sooner you could turn off those comments is the sooner that your family can live your life as open as you want to. Yeah. But he doesn't have to be exposed to that and it gives you an opportunity to expand explain some of these boundaries. I see nothing but love in your heart and I see nothing but love in all of your heart, but I don't think the time, the emotions are raw. I think there's still boundaries that need to come through. We still need to figure out things. I love the things that you are doing, but it ain't time yet. And I think in your heart of hearts, you know it's not time yet.

I don't know.

You know in your heart of hearts, it's not time yet.

I do not know.

And I would say, Mom, you know, keep giving the advice because I don't think you're so far off. And the reason I say that is because every time you said it, she nods her head. And she also said, I think that the fear of you not being able to get pregnant, and I think the fear of possibly thinking that you might have to go through something where you end up not being able to have your own child biologically, I think that is crippling to you. And I understand why. And I think that you're also wonderful, amazing human beings for adopting. Thank you. I'm just gonna let you know that.

Thank you.

Abe has a lot of love around him.

He does.

All right, listen everyone, thank you so much for being with us. Come back next time, friends, so we can keep talking and growing. You know I love you all. Hold on, where you going? I'll tell you where you're going. Right here to subscribe and right here to watch more.

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