Two paths to parenthood, with help from JHU

Melissa "Missy" Mason's phone pinged on Jan. 29, 2024, with a surprising text message from the adoption agency coordinator who had placed a baby boy with her and her husband in 2022. She was shocked upon reading it but quickly recovered—then excitement set in.

Their exchange, in part, went like this:

"Are you interested in a sibling and ready to do this again?"
"Are you serious?"
"She's expecting again and would like to see if you can keep the siblings together."

The birth mother of Mason's 2-year-old son was once again pregnant and couldn't keep the baby. Mason, a nurse practitioner with the School of Medicine's Johns Hopkins After Care Clinic replied instantly with an emphatic yes.

But she wondered: Can we afford this? With support from the financial adoption component of JHU's Family and Caregiving Programs, they could—and did.

Domestic adoption can be expensive, often amounting to tens of thousands of dollars when considering agency and attorney fees, travel costs, and medical expenses for the birth mother and the baby.

"The Hopkins assistance program enabled us to adopt again," says Mason, who earlier had undergone six years of "devastating" and ultimately unsuccessful fertility treatments. "It makes a significant difference. Without it, adoption wouldn't have been possible."

She also credits her JHU community at the aftercare clinic "for being so flexible and supportive of the entire process," she says, adding that her colleagues organized a fundraiser to help the couple defray some of their additional adoption expenses.

Today, she and her husband, Ryan Ariosa, are the parents of two children, Gage ("which means 'oath' or 'pledge,'" from Old French, "a name we chose with the birth mom because we made a pledge to her that we would take care of him"), and his sister, Josie, ("a derivative of 'God adds,'" from Hebrew), 6 months old, both children from the same biological mother. Theirs is an "open" adoption, meaning they maintain ongoing contact with the biological mother.

"We were thrilled to be able to keep these siblings together," Mason says.

"It's a blessing beyond measure," she says. "I couldn't imagine being anybody else's mom. They are perfect and precious in every way. We hit the jackpot with these two babies. They are worth all the love and support the Hopkins community has given them, and no other achievement or accolade compares with being their mom."

Johns Hopkins University recognizes that not all families are created through traditional pregnancy and childbirth. Potential parents also can build their families through adoption and gestational surrogacy, the latter when someone carries and delivers a baby for another person or couple. Mindful of this, JHU designed its parental benefits programs to support all the paths its employees might seek to bring children into their lives.

"Since I've been at JHU, I've made it a priority that our benefits support our employees and their families," says Meredith Stewart, interim vice president for human resources. "For growing families, we have very robust and inclusive benefits from adoption to surrogacy and fertility services. In 2017, we committed to supporting families by launching a new parental leave that didn't exist prior and to increasing the adoption benefit to assist with costs. We want to support staff and faculty at JHU wherever they are in their lives."

JHU's financial adoption assistance, which is open to full-time faculty and staff, reimburses newly adoptive parents up to $17,280 in 2025 for eligible expenses associated with adopting a child younger than 12.

The gestational surrogacy program also is open to full-time faculty and staff and, like adoption support, provides up to $17,280 in 2025 for eligible expenses. The allowance is for the employee using a surrogate, not for an employee who is acting as a surrogate for someone else.

Parental leave, which is designed to enable parents to bond with their children, is available to parents adopting children younger than 12 and to parents of children born via surrogacy, just as it is to parents who give birth. The four weeks of fully paid leave can be taken all at once or intermittently throughout the year following the child's birth or adoption. (Those who give birth also receive six weeks of birth recovery leave, which must be taken immediately upon childbirth.)

As with Mason, medical issues precluded pregnancy and childbirth for Bethany Powell Gray and Linnea Zimmerman and their husbands.

Gray, an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences in the School of Medicine, chose adoption. Zimmerman, an associate professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health in the Bloomberg School of Public Health, opted for surrogacy.

"We were at the older end of becoming parents and learned it was very difficult to adopt an infant and would take an extremely long time," says Zimmerman, who in 2021 had a hysterectomy. "We wanted to be able to experience having an infant and bonding with a child at an early age. Surrogacy made more sense for us than adoption."

She and her husband underwent in vitro fertilization at Hopkins to create their embryos, then used a surrogacy agency to find a carrier. The process of finding the right match took almost a year, with extensive screening throughout. The carrier of their child has two biological children and had been a surrogate before.

"We had a really wonderful surrogate," Zimmerman says. "We were very lucky. It took with the first try."

Her son was born in December 2023 and just celebrated his first birthday. "He looks exactly like me," Zimmerman says. "He is great. He is so social. He loves to be the center of attention. Everybody wants to hold him. Everybody loves to play with him. He is the king of the playground."

Both sides stayed connected throughout the pregnancy—Zimmerman and her husband were present for the birth—and have remained in touch. "We send her pictures of our son with every milestone," she says.

She and her husband are grateful for the Hopkins benefit.

"Surrogacy is very expensive, so every bit of support you can get is helpful," she says. "I very much appreciate what Hopkins has done. I think surrogacy is an amazing option, but it is an expensive option, and having an employer who contributes to it is a privilege that not many people have, and I hope other people get to take advantage of this benefit."

Gray and her husband, Nathan, an assistant professor in the School of Medicine and a palliative care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital, were foster parents before deciding to adopt. One foster placement—siblings, a boy, 4, and a girl, 2—lasted almost four years, unusual since most foster care is short-term. The long period produced an attachment to the youngsters. "We were devastated when they left," Gray says. "We really missed having children in the house."

Adoption had always been on their minds, she says—they talked about it even before they were married—and their fostering experience only solidified their desire to move ahead.

"We felt like there were a lot of kids who needed homes, and we could provide one," she says. "I didn't feel the need to have a pregnancy and a biological child. My love would be the same."

Micah, now 22 months old, joined their family at birth, although the journey to Abilene, Texas—where his birth mother lives and which also is Gray's hometown—was anything but smooth. Nevertheless, it ultimately ended happily, thanks to the help of friends and family determined to ensure the couple's timely arrival for their son's birth.

"We got a call on a Thursday night that a birth mother had chosen us and wanted to meet with us," Gray recalls. "On Friday, we talked to the agency and they asked us to fly there to meet the birth mother. It turned out to be spring break for every university in Texas, and flights were hard to find."

She and her husband flew to Dallas, assuming they could rent a car and drive the three hours to Abilene—but no rental cars were available. Friends who live in the Dallas area offered to lend the couple their car, but they were out of the country and had to enable entry into their house remotely so the couple could borrow their car.

They made it. "We got there and met with the mother on Sunday, and Micah was born the next day," she says. "It all happened so quickly."

The baby, who had lingering medical issues, had to remain for several weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit. Fortunately, Gray and her husband were able to stay in her family home, although her parents, too, were out of town that week, visiting Gray's brother and his family in Kentucky. But they cut their trip short to return to Abilene to meet their new grandson.

Like the Masons', the Grays' is an open adoption. "We text and send the birth mother picture updates, and we visit," she says. "She knew she was not in a place to care for him and made the bravest decision she could make. She is just amazing. Her love and care toward him are phenomenal."

The JHU adoption benefit, she says, "was a surprise to us." The couple had just moved to Baltimore to join JHU and were unaware of the program.

"Learning about the adoption benefit was just wow. I had no idea," she says. "It was a wonderful surprise. It's crucial that employers recognize that families come together in different ways, and it's very meaningful to me that my family situation was treated the same as if I had given birth to my child."

Will they adopt again? "We definitely are considering it," she says, adding, "but we would like our current child to sleep through the night first."