Even before Stephanie Woodward and her husband, Ryan, got married, they knew they wanted children. Stephanie dreamed of having five or more kids, while Ryan preferred a smaller family. Little did they know Stephanie would ultimately win that argument, though perhaps in a way they hadn't imagined. Stephanie, 36, and Ryan, 35, both grew up as wheelchair users in the Rochester, N.Y., area, but their paths didn’t cross until later in life when Ryan applied for a job at the same company where Stephanie was working. At the time, she asked the CEO not to hire him.
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00:00I mean, I've always known that I was going to be a parent, I don't know who Ryan was or when he was going to be along for the ride,
00:06but like, I made it clear to him from day one, like, we're going to have five kids, that's my plan.
00:10We really struggled with, first, a lot of caseworkers assuming that we shouldn't be adoptive parents,
00:33which is fascinating to me because we were only showing interest in children with disabilities,
00:38so who better to raise kids with disabilities than two adults with disabilities?
00:43Our two boys got placed with us very quickly after we were approved and it's been over a year now with them,
00:48and they're the coolest kids on earth.
00:53Our two boys got placed with us very quickly after we were approved and it's been over a year now with them and they're the coolest kids on earth.
01:02Our two boys got placed with us very quickly after we were approved and it's been over a year now with them,
01:08and they're the coolest kids on earth.
01:15It was a surprise. A very big shocking surprise.
01:31We didn't want to get our hopes up for a long time and so we kind of held it in for a little while that that was happening
01:40and that we had triplets even though we were extremely excited about it each and every day.
01:45So we created TikTok really as a space for our family and friends to just follow along in our journey if they wanted to see it.
02:10We had no intentions or inclinations that anyone else would even be interested.
02:17I love when people say like I have a disability and I want to have kids someday.
02:44some day and like your videos make me feel like it might be possible. I also
02:49just love the messages that people will say like you've changed my perspective.
02:54I didn't think that people in wheelchairs could have kids but like this
02:59has completely changed my perspective and if we can change people's minds so
03:08that another wheelchair user doesn't have to deal with it like good our world
03:13should be getting better and anything that we can do to contribute to that is
03:17amazing.