Love Is Blind contestant Emma Betsinger has always been a solid maybe on whether or not she wants to have kids one day, which has been fine with the people she’s dated in the past. So when Emma entered the Love Is Blind pods, she wasn’t expecting this to be her most serious issue, she tells Glamour.
She was prepared to discuss a few other key things about her background—such as her adoption and medical history—but on her own terms for once. Emma was adopted from China by a white family and as a child had to undergo several surgeries to remove a potentially dangerous birthmark, leaving her with a significant scar. Most people’s personal histories aren’t quite so visible, and Emma was looking forward to taking her time with telling her story to the men she was interested in.
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“In the past, it was kind of like, you could see me and you could see my parents, and you can put two and two together,” she says. “I think when you take that physical appearance aspect out…I wanted to tell my story and how it impacted me and my life, and I wanted to share that with someone that I cared about. And Mike and Connor really made me feel safe and seen.”
When Emma decided to tell Connor and Mike, her two strongest connections in the pods, about her personal history, it was because she could see a real future with them. The question then became whether they could see a future without kids.
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For Emma, her adoption is a big part of her ambivalence to having children. On the show Emma said she worries about passing down genetic problems she doesn’t know about. What if her child inherits a birthmark like hers and has to go through what she did? Plus, there are other concerns. Like, what if she is too selfish to be a mother? What if there are sudden financial problems?
But Mike had an answer for everything. He suggested getting genetic testing. He promised that they would weather whatever storms that came together. He also seemed convinced that Emma could make a great mom. Rather than put Emma off, she tells me she began to open up to the possibility of children in a real way. “Mike did share about his birth story too, which was very, very touching and so full of heart and meaningful. And I think that was a moment where I was like, This could be it,” she says. By the time they left the pods as an engaged couple, Emma was seriously considering children, though the question was by no means settled.
“I think something that the viewers might not know is that I was working through these things in real time,” Emma says. “So my pauses or my tears—those were such true emotions that I had to work through and then go straight into a pod or a date.”
It’s true that much of the conversation online has been in reaction to Emma’s heart-on-sleeve personality. Some suggested, in a way that has been suggested about women on this show before, that Emma needed therapy not the altar. But, Emma says, “I was very proud of myself for working through and being able to have these conversations with Connor, Mike, and Steven in such a crunched pressure-cooker time.”
In an interview with Glamour, Emma tells us all about getting into the big questions with Mike, Connor, and even Steven.
Glamour: Have you gotten a chance to see the first six episodes?
Emma Betsinger: Yeah! I and some of my friends, we got up at 3 a.m. and we watched it. We did, like, a fun little sleepover, breakfast, marathon.
Do you have any initial thoughts?
I was very pleasantly surprised at how they captured my journey. Like me talking about my adoption, my surgeries, and talking to Mike, Steven, and Connor about it, I think they did a good job reflecting that, and also my authenticity and character. I cried a lot, but I also laughed a lot and I was sarcastic and I was goofy and I think I was very surprised at how well-rounded my story was in the six episodes.
I would love to talk about your sort of ambivalent feelings about kids. Did you anticipate that would be such a big deal for your dates?
I was very surprised going in how many of the men did want kids. I was prepared to speak on it, but I think what was really interesting was the conversations with Mike. He was asking questions that I never really had to discuss with my partners before. So I think that was a big thing for me to work through and answer and talk through with him.
What were some of those questions?
One was just about genetic testing. And me explaining and connecting the dots of like, I am afraid to have children. Like, I have birthmarks that could be passed down, and I think that genetic testing could help that.
I think a big thing as well was just getting the validation from Mike, as well as Connor, about me being a good mom. ’Cause that was also something not in my consideration set. So taking that pause and being like, “I’ve lived for myself for 27 years.” I’ve had partners before, but to be told that was really special. Like, that’s a big responsibility and you see that in me.
Early in the season Steven asked out of the blue if you’d ever adopt a child; it felt like that was a green flag at first.
So I knew going into the pods that my adoption and my medical history were going to be big parts that I wanted to discuss, but I did not want it to be a fun fact that I tell everyone. So the adoption question was at a time when I was still kind of feeling it out. And I think that would’ve been a great entrance, but for me, going into the pods, I really wanted to uphold my boundary and my value of giving that information to people that I truly care about. And at that moment I didn’t know Steven like that.
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When you left the pods, it really felt like Mike was committed to convincing you to have kids. How did you feel about that?
Mike made it very clear that he wanted kids, so I definitely understood the leap I was taking with him as we entered engagements and entered Cabo. I knew the gravity of the situation of kids or no kids and that it was going to be a hot topic of conversation for both of us. I was willing to take that step and have those conversations because he was so open and he was so welcoming to have those discussions
Did you and Mike ever have conversations about adoption?
Yeah, that’s a really good question. I think adoption could have always been on the table because we did have conversations of like, “Well, what if I can’t get pregnant?” So we were open to adoption, but he really wanted a child; he wanted to bring someone into this world.
What was it like seeing Connor for the first time outside of the pods?
In Cabo, me and Mike were so happy, and Bri and Connor were very happy. And for me, the breakup that we had in the pods was our closure and our breakup. We said what we needed to say and we can hang out in groups and be friends, but that was my closure.
Last one! I loved all of your looks in the pods. How did you decide what to pack?
When I found out I was going to be on the show, I was like, “I have nothing in my closet. I have nothing of color. I have black T-shirts and black halter tops.” So me and my mom went shopping. I work in retail merchandising, so I love fashion. It was so fun going to the stores and putting things together that I probably would’ve never worn before. I basically bought everything new. I’m so sad ’cause there were some outfits that they didn’t show that I was so excited about. Like, my dad picked out this denim vest with this cow-print skirt that was so cute and that never got shown. So I’ll have to do something to show everything that wasn’t shown ’cause I loved all my outfits.
