Doug and Telisha Williams of Wild Ponies have a family now. With traditional procreation not an option for them, they turned to adoption and fetal embryo transfer to get their children River and Iris. Dreamers, as an album, documents this process along with the joys, pains, and anxieties of being responsible for tiny lives.
“We looked at it like a quest like Legends of Zelda,” Doug said. “It didn’t matter what you had to do to get the parts, but you had to collect the pieces to make a family.”
As much as parenthood has changed their day to day and touring mindset, it’s also changed them.
“I’m up a lot earlier than I used to be, but it’s really fun to watch them learn and pick things up and think things out and interact with each other,” Doug said.
”It’s also beautiful to see your partner — we’ve been together since we were in high school — and it’s been such a beautiful experience to see Doug as a dad,” Telisha added. “He’s a great dad. He’s so patient and so quick to do the most fun things. I’ve known Doug most of my life, but now I’m seeing this whole new human.”
The anxieties and pains of parenthood are ever present on this album. Few songs will ever hit quite as hard as “Love You Right Now,” a description of caring for a foster child right before they’re due to be moved. Small sweet memories like making breakfast have to be stretched a lifetime. And yet, you can’t think about preserving them in the moment.
“I think the trick to doing that is not having an attachment to that particular outcome,” Doug said. You’re focused on the future instead of not letting it slip away.”
The foster process resulted in the couple and their partner Laura getting to keep their son River. But it also produced some heartbreak, like when the government came to place a child a week earlier than expected. Suddenly, the family had a few hours to say goodbye.
“What a zen experience it is to foster, because you just don’t have a lot of information about the history on these kids and you also have no idea what their future holds,” Telisha said, admitting that she regularly cries when performing “Love You Right Now.” “You have no idea how long they’re going to be with you. I had to be all in in every moment that we did have them in our care.”
The family is still in touch with that child and speak glowingly about where he ended up.
“It’s a complicated grief, because I’m so thrilled that it’s working out for this kid,” Doug said. “But you can’t help but to grieve a little bit for someone who’s not going to be in your life in the same way anymore.”
Other anxieties and sorrows are present throughout. “Bury The Young” was written in response to school shootings, and gun policy is just one reason the Williams thruple are considering leaving Tennessee despite loving Nashville.
“We live in a state where when we had a big school shooting in our city, our governor and state legislature super majority decided that the best response was not to get guns out of schools, but instead to pass laws to allow the teachers to open carry in the classrooms and require firearms training for the students,” Doug said. “It’s just weird to look at the rest of the world and see what works and to see folks in America moving in what’s so clearly the wrong direction.”
The fetal embryo transfers had their own issues. Though Iris is alive and well, their first attempt didn’t take.
It’s a bittersweet context to the song “Heartbeat,” where Telisha is thrilled to hear new life developing within and holding as tight as she can to it.
In Tennessee, where abortion, drag queens and certain books are regularly listed as among the top threats to kids, this queer family is giving their all to making foster children feel loved and finding any way possible to bring life into the world, even if it meant the baby shared neither of their DNA. Iris has genetic siblings, just with different parents giving birth to each one.
“It came with a community,” Telisha said. “It came with a whole other set of people who get to be a part of our family.”
The joys, the unconditional love, the hanging onto memories and tradition, those feelings make up just as much of the album as do the difficulties. It’s an honest album that captures every high, low, and nuance in between. It tells a truly unique story authentically and should be heard by all perspective parents, even those seeking a more traditional experience. In the end, it’s a later track that sums up the Williams’ determination that somehow overcame all the harsh realities stacked against them.
“Wind, love, and water go damn well where they please,” Telisha sings. By embodying that love, Wild Ponies completed their quest and elevated themselves to the status of force of nature.
Above is the full episode as aired on WUSB’s Country Pocket, including both my interview with Wild Ponies and the songs we discussed, starting with Love You Right Now, which details a hasty goodbye to a foster child and regularly produces tears for the band at live performances. The interview begins with the second video in the playlist. You can hear the show live every Tuesday at 12pm on WUSB 90.1 FM or check the blog to watch it as a YouTube playlist. Visit http://www.WUSB.fm and https://www.wildponies.net for more. Photo by Laura Schneider.
Country Pocket 