22. "Single Mom, By Choice" - Why Lori Decided To Stop Waiting

Lori Leonardo wanted love, marriage, and a kid (in that order).  But when she found herself in her late thirties, divorced, and frustrated with her options, she decided to take matters into her own hands.  In Ep. 22, we’ll hear about Lori’s leap into single motherhood, by choice, including: 

• How and why she decided to do it
• Reactions from her friends and family 
• How she had a very slim chance—one shot, actually—and decided to take it 
• How she found the resources that made this all possible, and 
• What she wishes she’d known, plus larger insights for the rest of us who might feel we’ve reached a dead end but might not have considered other, ‘less-traveled’ paths. 

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Transcript

Lori Leonardo: [00:00:00] I just thought that's crazy. Who would do that? Turns out it's me.

Life Leaps Podcast: Welcome to Life Leaps Podcast. Hear inspiring stories of ordinary people who made extraordinary life changes. What drove them, what almost held them back. Insights for the rest of us considering life leaps big or small, because hearing someone else do it reminds us that we can too.

Happy Wednesday, everyone!  Today we’re with Lori Leonardo - who wanted love, marriage, and a kid (in that order).  But when she found herself in her late thirties, divorced, and frustrated with her options, she decided to take matters into her own hands.  Today we’ll hear about Lori’s leap into single motherhood, by choice, including:

(1) how and why she decided to do it;

(2) reactions from her friends and family

(3) how she had a very slim chance—one shot, actually—and decided to take it

(4) found the resources that made this all possible, and 

(5) what she wishes she’d known, plus larger insights for the rest of us who might feel we’ve reached a dead end but might not have considered other, ‘less-traveled’ paths. anda quick add-on.To me, Lori's story includes alot of luck and access to resources forsure. And she fully acknowledges that in our conversation. but it's also about being really, really brave  and like so many of our conversations on this podcast, it's about that magic startup juice. That drive that makes some people, the life leapers push to do things that might feel so right to them and yet so different from what other people might know or expect. So today we'll hear about how Lori did a big thing.Yes. Oh my gosh, y'all, she: had a baby by herself.by choice. Like, we're gonna hear about that, but we're also gonna hear a story about the importance[00:02:00] of finding a community that's doing what you're doing about building your scaffolding, your support to prepare you to do hard things, and then how we keep  it together when S H * T hits the fan anyways, But that's enough outta me. Here is Lori.

Life Leaps Podcast: Lori, where did you grow up? 

Lori Leonardo: I grew Metro Atlanta, just like in the suburbs.

 I have two younger sisters. 

I'm the oldest, although like I've now been demoted to the youngest because my. Younger sisters

 their kids are older than mine. So yeah. So I'm just like, I'm trying to do my best out here. But yeah. Yeah. I am the oldest. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Fair enough. And you live outside of 

Lori Leonardo: Atlanta

 And your profession, which obviously we're not here to talk all about your job, but Just for backdrop, 

you're a lawyer. Yeah. 

I'm, in-house counsel, for a payments company and I work on all of our vendor contracts. 

so are you a lawyer that works the crazy hours of law firm world, or No, [00:03:00] in fact, that's actually like a really relevant question to my decision to become a single mom because I have a very flexible schedule.

like it's busy, it's high volume, it's intense work, but I'm not billing time. 

Life Leaps Podcast: So you've got a little more work-life balance. 

Lori Leonardo: Yeah.

But in, I think this is an important

Samson Q2U Microphone-3: backdrop set

Samson Q2U Microphone-2: up for your larger story. You didn't always have this work-life balance. Life actually threw you a curve ball first when you were an early lawyer, right?

so I. Got a job at a big firm in Atlanta. I was like living the life.

Lori Leonardo: I was billing time and then 2008 hit and my whole summer class got laid off and I was like, oh my God. what am I gonna do? Because tons of associates at the time had just been like, dumped into the market. And I would look at the job listings and it would be like rural Louisiana, unpaid internship.

Like those were the kinds of things that were being listed. I was like, okay, [00:04:00] like I have all these loans, I have all this debt, what am I gonna do? And so I somehow got connected with one of the federal judges in Columbus, Georgia. and somebody had left their clerkship early and they needed to fill it.

So I was like, choose me. Absolutely. Like I'll be there Monday and I think I got the job. The Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and then the following Monday, I was living there in Columbus. I had never been there in my life. and I was there for 10 years after that. yes, 

Life Leaps Podcast: separate leap. Okay. 

Lori Leonardo: Yes, exactly. Oh my gosh. And I don't know anybody, and I've never been there and I've never lived in a town that size. And it was just, it was wild. and so I worked for the judge for a year, and then the judge's brother has a law firm there.

And I worked for the law firm for a couple years. And like this whole time I was like, maybe I'll go back to Atlanta. Maybe I'll go back, maybe I'll go back. And then it just never worked out. Like it [00:05:00] was just my life was there. and. Then I got married, which is a whole thing, but always is yeah, always is.

Yeah. Yeah. Then I got married and then I got divorced. and then I was 37 years old and I had in the meantime, I had transitioned from, the law firm to a company that is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia, in the payments industry. And so I all of a sudden had this terrible marriage and this great job, and it was like the best of times and the worst of times.

Life Leaps Podcast: And did you know all along that you wanted to have kids?

was this something that, that's a really 

Lori Leonardo: good dawned on you later? I was thinking about that as I prepared for this and I think I was really ambivalent to having kids. especially when I was married, I was just like, I don't know about this. And then when I got divorced, I should have been really relieved, because I knew that I was leaving a marriage that [00:06:00] was not good.

But I was devastated and I was like, oh my God. Like, why am I so sad? I'm so confused. and I went to oh my God, I went to like years of counseling and we just talked about this like over and over again. And I just, I couldn't let it go. Like I couldn't let go being a mom. 

Life Leaps Podcast: okay, so when you were married, you were ambivalent.

But once you got divorced, that's when you were like, oh my gosh, I'm losing my chances of becoming a mom according to what you thought at the time was your chance, and that's what you were so devastated about, suddenly. 

Lori Leonardo: Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And I realized, I had made like a lot of concessions, like in my marriage and like with the people that I had dated.

And I think it was all because I knew that I wanted this opportunity to be a mom, you know? And so I would stay in these relationships longer than I should have. And oh my gosh, if I had known that this was a path that was open to me, earlier, [00:07:00] I think I would've done lots of things differently.

wow. I would've stayed in relationships less time. I would've just, but instead I was trying, Make a lot of things work that I probably shouldn't have put that energy into 

Life Leaps Podcast: because you felt like you needed to find that person to have a child before you felt biology said no longer.

Lori Leonardo: yes. Like I was okay just constantly trying to keep that door open and I think my ambivalence was really about the person rather than having the child. And so when all of that context of like, how would we raise a child together, like what would it look like for this person to be a father?

Like when all of that stuff was removed, it was like all of a sudden like very clear to me that I wanted a baby. And that, that I had had this instinct of wait, this not, may not be the right choice for me, but it was all about the person and not. [00:08:00] Child. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Wow. Okay. Yeah. 

Lori Leonardo: Yeah. and my bad, right? Because I had set up that life, like I had made all the choices to have that life because I thought that's what people did. because I didn't have anybody in my life who had been like, oh, here's what being a single mom looks like. Like you should really think about it.

I just thought that's crazy. Who would do that? Turns out it's me.

Life Leaps Podcast: okay. All right. So you get resources, right? sounds like you talk to someone, a therapist's 

Lori Leonardo: wonderful therapist for a long time. Yeah. 

Life Leaps Podcast: I'm gonna, I'm gonna get her name offline. Yeah. I'm kidding. Not 

Lori Leonardo: kidding. Yes, she is. Fantastic. and we just, we kept on talking about like, why are you sad?

What do you wanna do next? and I just keep kept on coming back to this. And she kept on saying like, why do you wanna be a mom? And I was like, I dunno. I don't know if you had a similar experience with going into parenthood, but I couldn't really articulate Yeah. If I wanted to be a [00:09:00] mother or like why it was like the most devastating thing that it ever happened to me, or, anything.

It was just like this very like innate feeling that's what I wanted from my life. Wow. And she, it's funny, I was thinking about this she kept on saying, if you are a parent, your life becomes very narrow. But if you're child free, then you can give a lot to the world and you really have an opportunity to think about What are the areas that I wanna give?

Like how do I wanna live my life? And I just never understood that until I became a mom. And then I was like, damn it, she was right.

We're 

Life Leaps Podcast: not yet at the section where you talk about regrets, but 

Lori Leonardo: No, it's just like, I feel like it's important to be realistic. Yeah. when telling the story, because I don't want it to seem like, oh, it was this fairytale that I had, And then I lived happily ever after. It was just like a choice that I knew I had to make. And it was, it's [00:10:00] been hard, and it would've been hard the other way. Like it's just, it's a balance and it's a path and it's a choice. 

Life Leaps Podcast: So speaking of that choice, 

It takes you how long to unpack, oh my gosh, I really want a child.

Lori Leonardo: it's weird because it happened over several years and then also all at once. so I think immediately when I was so sad about my divorce and I was so confused, it became like very clear, very fast. That's the thing I was sad about, was like losing the life I thought I would have. So losing somebody who would've been a good partner and our house and our life and our friends and our work and like all that stuff.

But that never existed in the first place. so that was clear. And then it took several years of me just like going back to therapy and saying I'm still sad about it. I'm still sad about it. I'm still sad about it. Yeah. and my therapist telling me like, grief doesn't have a timeline and there's no normal when it comes to [00:11:00] grief and there's no rational and you can feel two things at once and like all the things.

And it just kept on lingering with me. And so simultaneous to that, I kept on looking at moving back to Atlanta because that's where I was originally from. It was a bigger town. I thought, it's been a couple years since I've gotten divorced now, like maybe I'll date there. So in 2019 I moved back to Atlanta 

 I start dating and like Karen, it was like a freaking wasteland. Like

I was filtering on men who wanted kids, and they would be like 45 years old and say once kids someday on the app. And it was like, you're five years old, don't you know what you want? And I just felt so isolated because I wasn't finding people who were dating with the same sense of purpose as me.

And I get it. Like [00:12:00] the point of dating is just getting to know people and being casual about it. Like I totally get it. And part of it was me. Like part of it was like I just could not. Take a step back and get myself in that space because my decision wasn't, oh, if I meet the right person, I'm gonna have a child.

It was like, I have to have a child, so I have to meet the right person. and that Cal calculation just did not mesh with the online dating world in your late thirties. wow. Lori, 

Life Leaps Podcast: in some ways like. Sidebar. Number one, I think it's okay to unapologetically be dating with purpose and intention.

And like I think a lot of us fake a casual approach to things when in fact For us it's anything but, okay. So just, Yeah. Quick disclaimer on that 

Lori Leonardo: reality. Really good point. A hundred percent agree. 

Life Leaps Podcast: So there's that truth. Okay. On the other hand, I also hear you when you're saying like, [00:13:00] however, for me there was that extra pressure cuz I was like, I, cuz you were basically seeing the relationship not only it's a means in and of itself.

Mm-hmm. You felt like you had this really time pressure because you wanted to have the kids so it didn't help, right? 

Lori Leonardo: Right?  Cause you have to meet the collection of men who are also in that space, right?

and I just wasn't. Meeting people like that. 

Life Leaps Podcast: So at this point you're not thinking I can go this on my own. Has that idea even crossed your mind yet? Or are you still only equating love marriage kid all as like the only path 

Lori Leonardo: basically I am just like full speed ahead, like trying to figure this out.

and in fact one of my friends had done I V F years ago and she told me I wish I had frozen my eggs when I was your age. And I was like, maybe 35 at the time. And I was like, oh haha. and it just stuck in the back of my mind. I should probably call somebody and I should probably think about freezing my eggs, but it was like expensive and scary, And I [00:14:00] just kept on putting it off. and I just kept saying one more date, like one more week, like a new job, a new friend, like something. I don't know. It was just easy to do. But then March, 2020 hit and the pandemic happened, and all of a sudden I was stuck in my house for like two years.

Karen. 

Life Leaps Podcast: you put it that way, Lori, 

Lori Leonardo: but we all of a sudden, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like we all were. and that was the time where I was like, all right, dating wasn't happening at the time. Not 

Life Leaps Podcast: in the same way. Okay. 

Lori Leonardo: Okay. Yeah. And so like with complete respect, the devastation that the pandemic cost to people,

It was almost a turning point for me in a good way, because it made me stop putting it off, Mm. I called the fertility doctor and I was like, I wanna freeze my eggs. and that really started the actual journey.

Life Leaps Podcast: Wow. [00:15:00] Okay. So is that when it occurred to you that you could become a single mom or, 

Lori Leonardo: yeah, I think that's when it started becoming more real to me.

I definitely wouldn't have gone into freezing my eggs if I didn't think that, I would've used them on my own because it was extremely expensive. It was like maybe, $13,000 and then another $6,000 for the medication. it was a good amount of money. and so I wasn't gonna do that and then, just not follow through with it if I didn't meet anybody.

Life Leaps Podcast: Didn't you say that your job started offering the fertility benefit right after you did it?

Like it didn't offer it 

Lori Leonardo: to you? I missed it by like three weeks.

yeah, absolutely. more companies now are covering fertility benefits as part of their offerings. And I think Starbucks offers it to their baristas. there's a lot, [00:16:00] there's a lot of resources out there, but ultimately Yeah, to afford both the time that you need to do it and the money that you have to pay for it.

Yeah. You need, you need to have that privilege.  it was extremely expensive. 

it sounds ridiculous now looking back on it, but paying the money was a thing that was like, yeah, I'm not gonna pay all this money and do all this medically invasive procedure without like really having a plan.  I think I've been dancing around this long enough.

and so I got my family on board, which was really important to me because, I knew that I would need the support. and I told a couple close friends 

Life Leaps Podcast: . And when you shared that with people in your life? Were they like, Oh my gosh.

Lori Leonardo: so I told my mom and when I told my parents it was more like I'm thinking about becoming a single mom. And I like didn't even finish saying it. My mom was like, yes, absolutely do it. [00:17:00] We're in. And I did not expect this, my parents are so by the book, they're so I don't wanna use traditional.

 but they're very much not people who take major risks and take big leaps. So I was shocked that was the reception that I got.

And then I told a couple of close friends and I told like my most practical friend, and she was like, yeah, you could totally do it. And I was like, what? what is this? What is happening? you were like, weren't you 

Life Leaps Podcast: supposed to 

Lori Leonardo: discourage me? what? Yeah. all of the people that I thought would say, that's terrible.

you're crazy. You don't do it. Were like full, fully in. and I don't know whether other people behind my back said, oh, she's crazy. what is she thinking? And I'm sure that happened, but no one said this to my face. and I have pretty Honest friends, like I feel like I have pretty deep, honest friendships with people and I got a lot of support.

[00:18:00] So yeah. 

and I just went for it. And when I talked to the fertility doctor, it's interesting because people do this like a variety of ways, right?

Like a lot of women do an iui, which is more of like an insemination without the egg retrieval first. but when I talked to the doctor, she was like, look, you're 39 years old. I was about to turn 40. I turned 40 I think the week after I started my egg retrieval.  And she was like, I wouldn't want you to spend time trying a couple iis.

They didn't work. Maybe you get pregnant, maybe have some adverse outcomes. And then it's six months later or it's a year later, and then we're trying to work with a 41 year old. Because I guess, I really like fully reject the the traditional wisdom that 35 is like the end of the road for you.

It's not, but it's 40 to 43 It really [00:19:00] is. in terms of what I learned when I was actually going through the process, I have lots of friends that had really good outcomes at 40, but once again around like 43, even maybe 45 people have had to think about alternate things to do.

Okay. So I thought that felt true to me. it just felt if you're gonna do this, like just do it in a way that is low risk. And so that's when I did the egg retrieval. And so this is the part where the story, it feels like it was a long road and then everything happened at once. So this was like maybe June.

Of 2021, Because I was about to turn 40. Okay. 

Life Leaps Podcast: So I thought initially, that it was just gonna be like an egg retrieval, freezing my egg. And then once I got into the cycle and you, start finding out like what your ovarian reserve is so [00:20:00] they can, they watch you like every day and they can see and predict like how many eggs that you're gonna get.

Lori Leonardo: And it wasn't a lot. And they started saying, think about whether you want to freeze embryos instead of eggs because the embryos are more stable. They can be tested for genetic and chromosomal and abnormalities, and at the end of the day, you know exactly what you have versus if you have 10 eggs and then you go to use them in a couple years.

You could have nothing, at the end of that cause, and then you again, then I'm in the same place, right? Because I'm 43 or 44 or 45 and I have to do another egg retrieval. 

Life Leaps Podcast: And the embryos of course are the fertilized eggs. Yes. 

Lori Leonardo: Okay. exactly. I thought that was again, like good advice and I thought, look, like we're still in the pandemic.

Like we are still like fully locked down. I think the vaccine had just come out and we thought that it with a hundred percent effective. and learning that maybe it [00:21:00] wasn't, and the whole like overlay of the pandemic just makes this story extra wild. so yeah, so I picked a sperm donor, which was not a great process.

it was just like online dating, but. In this really pivotal, serious way. but I picked somebody. and so then when they did the egg retrieval and I ended up with six eggs and then it's it's a attrition by 50%. So they call you like every couple days and they tell you what your status is.

So I had six eggs and then I think half of those made it and they fertilized the eggs, So three fertilized two made it to whatever day that they needed to actually be frozen. And then one after testing ended up being genetically normal. So I had a single chance to be a mom.

And that's that to your question is when I was really like, okay, We're done, like we're [00:22:00] done with the dating, we're done with the waiting. I'm just gonna do this because I just gave myself a hundred shots and spent almost $20,000 and I have one chance to do this. And that's when it really became real.

And I was like, I don't wanna wait and then find out like in three years that this embryo that I didn't get pregnant. and then the IVF world, it's like they tell you like, if you have three, you have almost a hundred percent chance of having a live birth. But I don't really know what the status, if you have one.

And I couldn't really find it out probably for the best. That's really when I decided to go for it. So like it, that's the part where it's, it happened really fast cuz I did my egg retrieval in June and by the end of September I was pregnant. Whoa. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Yeah. That's really fast, 

Lori Leonardo: right? Yeah. that's, it's really fast.

It's really fast. You're one shot. If you do any of the online [00:23:00] calculators, it tells you like at your age with like your respecters and whatever. I had a 6% chance of becoming pregnant after the first round. And it happened. Yeah, it was just 

Life Leaps Podcast: wow. Incredible. Wow. And that one shot Is your daughter?

Mm-hmm. okay. Yeah. Wow. 

Lori Leonardo: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. My only embryo. Yeah. So like at some point and like

this is the part, that's, yeah. A little emotional. it's okay. 

Life Leaps Podcast: It's okay. 

Lori Leonardo: At some point it was just that having her. He became less scary than not having her.

So that was 

Life Leaps Podcast: the turning point. Wow. That's when you 

Lori Leonardo: knew. Yep.

Life Leaps Podcast: I can only imagine like what? What's going through you at that time? That sometimes when we're faced with [00:24:00] like really not having something, that's when it becomes crystal clear, Yeah. How much it matters to us, Yeah. 

Lori Leonardo: Yeah. And I think it's important to acknowledge like how privileged that decision is, Yep. Because I had, like we talked about, I had the job, I had job flexibility, I had been able to move really close to my parents and my parents are healthy and they're able to help and we have a good relationship. So there's all these things I think, that I had that allowed me to make that decision.

But not everybody has that, you know? And not everybody's fertility procedures work and I think it's just important, acknowledge that and hold space for that because I got really lucky. and this is not it's there's lots of things in your life, where if you just work hard enough, you can get, and this just was like nothing about this journey was about like, [00:25:00] Working hard and being the best, like it was just being really lucky, 

Life Leaps Podcast: which is probably all the more like flooring.

For someone who, I'm guessing Someone who's an achiever and is used to being able to control it or put in the work Yeah. To get the outcome. Exactly. And you couldn't do that here. 

Lori Leonardo: It's very humbling. Yep. Exactly.

Wow. 

Life Leaps Podcast: So you find out that you are pregnant, that this 

Lori Leonardo: And 

Life Leaps Podcast: a new journey starts, right? Like at that point, did you have any moments. what were your moments of doubt,

Lori Leonardo: was it only real in a good way? Good question. I think, so throughout the process, I think we got so wrapped up in what the process was because the IVF process, like I said, like it's full of so many toll gates and it's like each [00:26:00] gate that you go through, 

 it's like, are you gonna be a mother ever or not? that was so intense, right? And so that kind of helped me.

Like, all my energy was so focused on that, that I didn't really have time to have a lot of doubts, while I was going through the process. But I'll tell you, when I got the positive pregnancy test, I called my mom and I said, oh my God, I'm pregnant. And she said, oh, that's, that's great. And we were so happy.

And then I said, what am I supposed to do? She was like, just watch tv, take a nap, do something. And I just, that, that point in time felt so weird because I thought somebody should give me a pamphlet, like somebody should check me into a hospital. I don't know, like I can't just sit here and be pregnant and no one's doing anything about it.

so that was, but So you had 

Life Leaps Podcast: the Universal Oh shit feeling. 

Lori Leonardo: yeah. and then I was really excited [00:27:00] and, like I had things that I was worried about. Yeah. But I guess I never had, I I never had doubts like it felt at that point.

It felt like such a choice. And I felt like I had lived, I wonder if women who become mothers in their twenties are different than women who become mothers in their forties in this way. I felt like I had done things in my life that I wanted to do, and so I was financially ready to become a mom.

I was emotionally ready to become a mom. I don't know. Like I was just ready for it. and so the, I think the benefit of having such a long process was that I didn't have a lot of doubts, once it actually happened. Now once she was born,

and I've been able to like really understand truly what it's like to be a mom. I wouldn't describe them as doubts, but I'm more just oh, okay. this is what we're doing now. Okay. it's [00:28:00] been, motherhood has been surprising in some ways for me. Tell me. 

It's so constant, and I knew that, intellectually, but experiencing it has been another thing. My kid doesn't sleep, like I haven't had a full night's sleep since June 8th. 2022. 

Life Leaps Podcast: I was gonna say, is that when she was born, Yes. Okay. 

Lori Leonardo: She's 10 months old now. okay. Yeah, So I haven't had a full night's sleep in a while. 

but it is, I am fully. Invested and accountable, and she's a hundred percent of my time and that's what it should be. Right?but it's relentless. It is relentless. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Laurie, what kind of supports have you built around yourself to make this journey 

Lori Leonardo: doable?

Life Leaps Podcast: what is your 

Lori Leonardo: scaffolding? Yeah. Okay. So I ended up getting connected at some point, I think it was [00:29:00] maybe like eight or eight months pregnant. Like I was pretty far along in my pregnancy and I got, connected with the national organization of,

 single Mothers by choice. And there was a chapter in my area. And so I got signed up and I got connected with their Facebook group. And it was incredible. Like all of a sudden I found like hundreds of women who had made this choice. Wow. and they welcomed me in and I all of a sudden had a group of friends in my area and these are women that are like professional and beautiful and accomplished and funny, and they just have so much going for them.

and we all had a similar path of like kind of disappointments and then figuring out like, no, this is really what we wanna do. And then, living the realities of motherhood together. so that group has been amazing and I wish that I had found it earlier. I wish I had known, anybody earlier that had done this because 

 [00:30:00] yeah, looking back, overall, I wish this had always been my primary plan and that raising a tribe with a partner had been a backup plan because I think I would've done a lot of things differently.

wow. But I never knew anybody that did it. And then all of a sudden I joined this Facebook group and I was like, wait, like hundreds of people are doing this. And in fact, I found, I reconnected with a friend from law school that was also becoming a single mom, and her baby is two months younger than mine, oh, wow.

It's just such a crazy, small world, and so that has been really helpful. And then, oh my gosh, Karen, I could not do it without my mom. Okay. she has just been so involved. I kept on getting sick from my baby, getting sick from daycare, and, I had to call her one time at 2:00 AM because I got the stomach flu and I was just like, you have to come here.

I cannot get up with this baby, like every three hours. and she [00:31:00] came in the middle of the night and that's what you have to have, you have to have somebody that you can call.

and then my work, like I said, my work has been incredible. Like they've just, my boss has been so supportive and,even some of my child free friends have just been like, Hey, can I come sit with her for a couple hours, while you get a nap? 

 it's just been really nice during the times that it gets really overwhelming to know there's a list of people that I could call and just knowing that kind of has gotten me over the hump. and Lori, 

Life Leaps Podcast: would you say that of the other, cuz now you're connected with all these other moms, single moms by choice.

Would you say that they all have built a village around themselves? who is their person? Like I'm wondering if there are other structures that happen to differ from yours that are also working 

Lori Leonardo: for people. Yeah. So a lot of them do not have the same level of parental support that I do, and 

 they also rely on each other a lot, 

and I think some of them have supported each other, like at the birth, I wish I had known them earlier because a lot of [00:32:00] them are really connected with doula services and postpartum services. and I didn't have any of that and that would've been really nice, but I just didn't know what to, where to start with that.

It's weird. It's once you get in the community and once you start making connections, you realize that there's like a whole village out there, but you have to know where to start with it because it was very invisible to me before 

and a lot of the other women, like to your earlier question about different structures, like a lot of the other women have planned this path for years.

 And so they, Took a lot more intentional steps than I did. to set up their lives in order to do this.

Life Leaps Podcast: Got it. Okay. Laurie, what have been some of the biggest struggles, and it's probably hard To separate those out from the struggles of New Parenthood for anyone everywhere, but to the extent that you've become aware of the sort of [00:33:00] single parent Lori, lifestyle related parenting struggles, if you could share 

Lori Leonardo: some Yeah, I think it's a couple of things.

So my baby does not sleep, doesn't like it, not there for it. She has too much fomo, wants to stay awake. I would read all these sleep consultant books and they would say things like, have your partner take the first shift and then take the second shift, or, vice versa.

So like everybody is getting at least five hours of sleep. I didn't have a partner, so I was waking up every three hours every night for 10 months. Like last night she woke up at, oh my god, 11 and three. And that was like a great night for her and I was okay, I can do this forever. but like she was on the newborn, wake up every three hour schedule for the first eight months of her life.

so that was really hard. And then, she was in daycare 

 But, she was getting sick all the time and that was just like so brutal because [00:34:00] she would get sick.

I would get sick, and then I would still be awake with her, like taking care of her. And so I was just like constantly sick, taking care of a baby. and then that's when you can't call a friend, like when your kid has like a stomach virus or whatever. and so there was one, she got hand foot in mouth at daycare.

Ugh. Which is like apparently a thing. Like I never even knew. And she was awake for two entire nights, would not go in her crib for two nights, and I had to sit up with her. In the rocking chair for 48 hours. And at the, in the middle of the second night, I was like, we're not doing this anymore. I can't do it.

And so we quit daycare, I took her out and we got a nanny. And I was like, I'm just never gonna retire now. Like it's gonna work forever. so that kind of stuff is really hard. and then the other thing that's hard is,I have friends who co-parent and [00:35:00] their husband can take their kid for a night while you go to dinner with your friends, or maybe they get an hour to when they get home from work to go to the gym or take a bath or just have, alone time.

And I don't have that, it's always like asking for favors or setting up A thing versus having somebody just built in that's there. But again, I feel like it's really important to acknowledge that just having a partner doesn't give you that privilege. It's having a partner that you can trust that is a co-parent that like Knows your baby and knows what to do.

And not everyone has that, even if they're partnered. So I don't know that it's necessarily the difference between being a single mom and not. I think it's being a. Like in a shared partnership and not, because I don't know if I had done this differently, if I would've [00:36:00] been married to somebody I could have trusted to leave my baby with, and that would've been worse, right?

Because I couldn't have just called a babysitter. that's a really 

Life Leaps Podcast: important distinction that you've made. Yeah. It's it's not just having a partner versus Like doing what you're doing. It's Even a smaller subset of people who are both partnered and have a good one 

Lori Leonardo: Yeah. Yeah. I would so much rather do it on my own. Then have to do it with somebody who I wasn't on the same page with 

 I feel like the hierarchy, right, is like having a trusted co-parent, being single, being with somebody you can't trust who like yeah, is present as the other parent, but doesn't really parent. And I just think about that all the time.

 I think for women who are like, I. Hanging onto relationships that maybe aren't for them because they think that they have to have a family that looks a [00:37:00] certain way when really, that's not the case and it's not easier.

It's really not. It's harder. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Have there been moments, Lori, when you were like, what have I done? And I'm not asking you to own up on video here where you're like, no, I had this child and I should, but really? 

Lori Leonardo: Yeah. No, I think it's so important, Karen, to I really, I don't wanna oversell this because it's hard and it's not a path for everybody.

And I think I would be really be doing a disservice to other women and future children if I was just like, it's great. Sign up. Like it's not, it's hard, and there have been lots of times where I was just like, what have I done? Especially the 48 hour. No sleep hand, foot and mouth.

That was like probably like the lowest part of my parenting journey so far. I was just like, I was almost like, I wish I was still married. It was that bad Karen. It was that 

Life Leaps Podcast: bad. I 

Lori Leonardo: thought, I wish I was still married.

yeah, no, that's a really good question cuz it's like I [00:38:00] said, it's important to say that this is not just all dressing my cute girl and going for cute walks and being like an Instagram influencer vibe. Like it's hard.

A lot of times it just is. 

Life Leaps Podcast: What do you wish that you had known or been told? 

Lori Leonardo: a couple things. One is that I wish I had known that this was a viable path earlier. I wish I had known that this whole like community of single mothers existed.

and there was this like national organization and tons of great, awesome women were making this choice. but I didn't know any of that. and I wish I had known that early on. I wish I had frozen my eggs earlier.

 It's weird. It's like it felt so, so scary going into it and now having done it and I'm like, yeah, I would totally do it again. no big deal. And then I wish that I had been more connected in the mommy, like universe because I had a really tough birth and I [00:39:00] wish I would've had a doula for that.

That would've made a huge difference. I wish I had signed up for a night nurse. I wish I had a nanny coming in like a couple times a week. Like I, I actually ended up with that while I was on leave because my amazing friend, had somebody to recommend and send her over a couple nights a week.

And that was a game changer. so I wish I had just had all this infrastructure pre-planned because I think once I realized I needed it, like I said, I had this baby and it was just impossible to do all the leg work that I needed to put that stuff in place. So then I just never got it.

I know people parent all the time with less things than that.

So I'm not trying to say that in order to be a good parent, you have to have all these things. I am saying that for me to be like a good parent who's happy about the choice that I made, like those are the things that I needed 

 but I think overall, like just knowing that other women exist that had done this and taking control of [00:40:00] my fertility earlier and doing the egg freezing, those are the main things I wish I had known early on.

Life Leaps Podcast: And You know, I always ask people in the end what insights do you have for other people making life leaps big or small? obviously your LEAP is deciding to have this child on your own and

at a certain point it's like hard to globalize.  yours is probably a little more specific to your situation, which is okay and 

Lori Leonardo: amazing. What, so I have a couple of, I think I, I have a couple of takeaways when I think about it, right?

One is that there's a couple of different ways to do this. some people do it by making a ton of concrete plans early on and having this goal For years, my life never worked like that. there were too many like twists and turns and like too many things like moving back to Atlanta, thinking you're gonna date and then getting hit by the pandemic.

Like none of that stuff was ever things I could plan. So I ended up having to look at where I was currently And make [00:41:00] a best case scenario out of where I currently was. Versus if I had, I don't know, I almost feel like if I had tried to plan this, it wouldn't have worked out. if I had tried to plan this earlier on, it wouldn't have worked out as well as it did.

So my path was more about seeing what was available to me, given my circumstances than the opposite. and then two, I would say what happened with me, you might tell your family and friends something crazy and they might be all in, and that's surprising, but you don't, you never know until you take that leap.

and then three is if you wanna do a thing and you don't necessarily see other people doing it, seek that out because it might exist. Like in my case it did. But it wasn't something that just came to me. Like I really had to be intentional about fighting it. And then once I did, I was like, oh my gosh, these people are [00:42:00] everywhere.

And I just didn't know about it. 

Life Leaps Podcast: Lori, I've really glommed on, even in our talking about the whole, you're not knowing about this community and then finding out about it and suddenly feeling not alone and things felt so much more doable.

And because that keeps coming up again and again, really is people who want to make Yes. Oh my gosh. People who wanna make changes. It's constantly what group can I find that's got the same problem or that's got the same goal, or that's asking these same questions like where can I find it might be an online community, it might be a book, it might like, whatever it is, but it's most often like some sort of group of other people who are trying to do the thing that you're doing or asking the questions.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's funny because your leap is so different and kind from so many of the conversations I've had in terms of the specifics, right? But the underlying themes of life was not turning out as planned.

Mm-hmm. Something was missing. [00:43:00] I wanted it, so many things were out of my control, and so what could I do that was within my control and what resources could I find? Mm-hmm. To get me anywhere from A to B or even figure out what B looked like, 

Lori Leonardo: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. 

for me, like I said,  there came a point where not having her became more scary than having her, 

Life Leaps Podcast:  I don't know what would've happened if I had waited. another month or two?

Lori Leonardo: Thank you all for being here. We're a brand new podcast, so if you enjoyed it, go ahead and follow rate and review us in your podcast app so that we can know what you liked and others can find us. It would mean a lot. Last but not least, we'll keep you posted on brand new episodes each week when you follow us on Facebook or Instagram at you Guessed it like LEAPS podcast.

Life Leaps Podcast: Till next time.