Redefining Family, Reclaiming Choice: Katie Bryan's Journey to Single Motherhood

One of the greatest privileges of building For Her, By Us has been discovering that there is no single story of single motherhood.

Some women become single mothers through widowhood. Others through divorce, incarceration, or circumstances completely outside of their control. And then there are women like Katie Bryan. Women who make the intentional and courageous decision to build a family on their own.

Their journeys begin in different places, but they are united by the same unwavering love for their children. 

That is why Katie's story resonated so deeply with me. The vision behind For Her, By Us has always been to celebrate single mothers regardless of how they arrived at motherhood. Whether their journey was chosen or unexpected, every woman deserves to have her voice heard without judgment.

Katie is a solo mother by choice and the creator of The Single Greatest Choice, a coaching platform and podcast dedicated to helping women explore solo motherhood. After becoming a mother through IVF and donor conception, she transformed one of the most vulnerable chapters of her life into a community where women can find guidance, encouragement, and the confidence to embrace an unconventional path to parenthood.

But motherhood wasn't always supposed to look this way.

"I always knew I wanted to be a mom," Katie told me. "That was never a question."

Like many women, she imagined marriage would naturally lead to children. She married young, later divorced, and returned to dating believing she would eventually meet the right person. As she entered her mid-thirties, egg freezing - once something she had barely considered - suddenly became a difficult reality.

When her first retrieval produced only seven eggs instead of the number doctors hoped for, everything changed. Time no longer felt endless. Choosing motherhood on her own wasn't the life she had envisioned.

"I thought there was something wrong with me because I hadn't found someone." That belief stayed with her for years, until she began asking herself a different question.

During her IVF journey, Katie started working with a life coach. Little by little, she realized many of the fears she carried weren't facts at all. They were stories she had written about herself, stories that said she had somehow failed because life hadn't unfolded according to society’s norms.

Around the same time, she launched a podcast series interviewing other women who had also chosen solo motherhood. Each conversation chipped away at the assumptions she had carried. She met teachers, entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, and leaders. Women who were thoughtful, resilient, and deeply committed to becoming mothers. With every interview, Katie found herself letting go of the shame she had once carried.

"Every woman I met made me realize there wasn't something wrong with them," she reflected. "Eventually, I realized there wasn't something wrong with me either."

That transformation became the foundation of The Single Greatest Choice. Today, Katie coaches women considering solo motherhood, but her work extends far beyond fertility treatments or donor decisions. She helps women navigate the emotional journey of releasing fear, challenging societal expectations, and building a life rooted in confidence instead of self-doubt. As she told me, the greatest obstacle often isn't the medical process - it's believing your family has to look like everyone else's to be complete.

One idea from our conversation has stayed with me: "I think one of the most powerful things we can do is let people be wrong about us."

There will always be people who question families that don't fit the nuclear family or traditional expectations. Katie no longer feels responsible for convincing them otherwise. Instead, she chooses to focus on the life she's built and the son who is thriving because of it.

What also struck me was how intentionally she created her village. Her support system wasn't something she inherited. It was something she cultivated. A fellow solo mother became her daily check-in partner. A retired neighbor naturally stepped into the role of a trusted grandfather figure. Friends became emergency contacts. Community became family.

That reminded me of something I've heard in nearly every conversation I've had with single mothers: no matter how motherhood begins, none of them are meant to do it alone.

Katie's story isn't simply about IVF or becoming a solo mother by choice. It's about rewriting the stories we tell ourselves, refusing to let fear dictate our future, and having the courage to create a life that reflects who we are rather than who society expects us to be.

At For Her, By Us, that's exactly what we hope to celebrate. Because whether single motherhood begins by choice or by circumstance, every mother's journey is worth celebrating, every family's story deserves respect, and every voice belongs in the conversation.