Adoptive Dads Share Journey of Going From Couple to Family of 5 ‘Overnight’

Two dads from Tennessee have shared their journey of going from a couple to a family of five practically overnight.

PJ and Thomas McKay, who post under the handle @pjandthomas on Instagram, told Newsweek that they “always knew” they wanted to have children and had even picked out names two weeks into dating.

“In hindsight, [this] was a little cart before the horse, but we knew we wanted to have a family one day. It was just a matter of how we would go about it,” said PJ McKay, 38.

Thomas and PJ McKay’s Instagram reel, which has racked up more than 10 million views, captured how their lives “changed forever” after they became foster parents.

Though the couple wrote in the caption that their family transformed “overnight,” they also explained that their foster journey began in July 2019, when they took in a trio of siblings, whom they officially adopted in 2021.

“They opened our eyes to an entirely different world, one where things we previously cared so much about suddenly didn’t seem as important anymore,” PJ McKay told Newsweek.

The couple, from Chattanooga, Tennessee, said they considered various paths to parenthood, including surrogacy and private adoption.

After numerous Zoom meetings with agencies and being accepted into several adoption programs, the McKays found themselves drawn to foster care.

Inspired by friends who had shared their rewarding and challenging journeys as foster parents, the couple decided to open their home to children in need.

Highlighting the urgent need for foster parents in their state, Thomas McKay, 33, said, “Right now there are over 9,000 children in the foster care system in Tennessee alone, so the state is in desperate need for good foster homes.”

The McKays’ world turned upside down when they started caring for their three children—Allan, Riah and Anna—who were aged 4, 2 and 1, respectively, at the time.

“We had never raised children in any capacity before. I had never even changed a diaper,” Thomas McKay said.

He added: “Then suddenly our children came to live with us, and we were changing diapers on three kids while making three meals and snacks for five people [every day], and everything was different.”

In their first week as foster parents, the couple grappled with doubts about their ability to handle the upheaval. “That first week was challenging, and we wondered if we had gotten in over our heads. ‘What did we do? What if we can’t handle this?’ were common questions that ran through our heads that week,” PJ McKay said.

Despite their initial fears, the McKays quickly adapted to their new roles. With the support of foster care classes and by confiding in their sisters who have children, they fell in love with their new family of five.

“It had only been a week, but it became our new normal, and we couldn’t imagine our house and our life without them in it,” Thomas McKay said, adding, “We settled into our roles as foster dads, and it just felt right.”

Initially, after three weeks of living with the McKays, the children were moved to a kinship placement—an arrangement in which a child is placed with a relative or someone with whom they have a significant prior relationship, as opposed to nonrelative foster parents.

Eventually, the children returned to live with the McKays permanently.

“We know that doesn’t always happen in foster care placements, so we feel extremely fortunate in that regard,” the couple said. “When our adoption day came, it just felt like a formality, which it technically was, because the love had been there all along.”

PJ and Thomas McKay added that while every stage of childhood presented new challenges and adventures, their lives were fuller than ever with their children—who are now 9, 7 and 6.

“Everything seems brighter now, like we’re seeing life with more color and dimension,” the couple said. “Our family is bigger than it was before, but it feels complete and like it was always supposed to be this way.”