Building Our Legacy

Meet JaCarlos, Britton & Zak Davis-Washington

Navigating Love

JaCarlos & Britton recently celebrated their sixth wedding anniversary. They have been able to communicate and find new strategies and ways to enhance their relationship as they have grown together. Open communication is their biggest secret weapon that has helped them in their relationship. They both found it helpful to express their wants, concerns, and needs to each other without holding back and respecting the boundaries they have set together. The keyword that has helped them maintain their love life is TEAMWORK. Once they could intertwine teamwork and communication, they discovered that it helped them navigate love and put them on the right trajectory for the future. Another big success for them was being able to meet other couples that had similar things going on in their life and being able to piggyback on different relationship situations that they shared. Britton shared, “It’s great to focus on your partner, but even more exciting when you have others around you that you can share the love with and celebrate them and their love life as well.”

Navigating Life

Life has been interesting for the Davis-Washingtons. As they both have grown older, they are also very open about their social life changing. The ups and downs that come with love also impact your social relationships. During this phase of life JaCarlos and Britton ran into some not so good friendships. There were people posing to be in their corner, but they really weren’t. They think back on an old saying, “Don’t let everyone in your house.” That could be true literally and generally. Lies, and Deceit come along with navigating life. You can find out who really has your back if they can maintain who they are through your times of elevation. Friends come and go, but they are excited to finally feel like they have their forever circle around them this season.

JaCarlos stated, "I never realized that there were so many people around us that were not for us.” They have realized that their job in life is to treat others how they desire to be treated, and if the friendship dissolves, then it is okay to cut ties and move forward. Britton's motto in life is: "My life goes on with or without you." Not only does that motto apply to friendships but it also applies to family as well. During this journey they have realized that not only do friends come sour, but family too. Even in this joyous phase of life there were family members that weren’t so supportive of the process. You can blame it on being stuck in the past or you can come up with your own ideas, but the Davis-Washingtons chose to just continue to live life without their support. JaCarlos mentioned, “It’s sad that some people can’t get out of their own head. I won’t allow myself to stop moving because someone else thinks I should stop. In this community we often position ourselves to beg for acceptance, and I will no longer reach out to be loved, cared for, or accepted if that person doesn’t willingly do it on their own.”

Navigating Family

The most significant announcement JaCarlos and Britton have made has been the expansion of their family. They are now parents to their son, Zak. They received this blessing from birth via adoption. The success didn’t come overnight. It was a long process that lasted 513 days. Each day was a different day and neither of the two knew what to expect. It was all new to them as they had to deal with various agencies entering their homes randomly throughout the week.

Britton added, “I just didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. They leaned on building relationships. When we were going through the adoption process it was easy to get discouraged and impatient but the village and team that we have in place became like family.” Leaning on them helped ease the fear as we were going through the process. Their lives changed overnight and they have been on the go ever since. Although this was an addition that rocked the boat in their household, they handled it with grace. Immediately upon picking up their bundle of joy from the hospital they had already started to change their way of life and how it would look going forward. Who would drop off and pick up Zak? How they would need to alternate working out, grocery store runs. They wanted to make it as easy as possible. The teamwork really paid off for them. As a black gay couple in

Houston, TX, they have managed to navigate through building a family and reaching their personal and marriage goals. At one point they felt that this was something they would long for forever until they did the work and accomplished it.

"We realized that in this community, there are so many things that we feel we can't touch or don't have the right to attain. We have learned that we are more than capable and deserving of everything in this life if we put our minds to it and chase it" -JaCarlos Davis-Washington. Many people that they have come across have mentioned that they were unaware someone that looked like them could adopt. The answer is, YES YOU CAN. There are so many kids that need families and whatever your age preference is there are agencies that can assist you with expanding your family.

JaCarlos and Britton think back to when they were going through their surrogacy process and it was deemed unsuccessful for them for various reasons. They were both devastated and discouraged. JaCarlos had a coworker who mentioned adoption and he was against it for years. She would often tell him a story of a couple that she knew that was in the process of adopting their children they got at birth. Although the story was compelling it was something that the Davis-Washington family was not trying to pursue. A couple of years later as JaCarlos was doing research he joined an adoption support group offering advice to those that may have been interested in adopting. He met a guy who was excited to see another African American interested. As they exchanged conversation, the story started to sound very familiar. After all of these years, JaCarlos was talking to the couple that his coworker had mentioned years ago. Once this occurred, they knew that this was God, and they started the process to adopt. The process we chose was not easy but worth every moment. There are many ways to accomplish the same results, but we did what we felt would work for us and WE DID IT!

Since the completion of their adoption, they have gone on to help other couples achieve their goals of expanding their family with one couple already receiving a match. It is important to have representation and the Davis-Washington family aims to give us that.

If you have more questions about how they navigated through their journey feel free to reach out to them. Instagram @thedaviswashingtons or via email @bookdaviswashington@gmail.com

The Davis-Washingtons have accomplished so much during their six years of love; this is only the beginning. They hope their story inspires and motivates someone to live in their truth and attain their goals, whether for love, life, or family.