Shonda Rhimes is opening up about family, surrogacy, and breaking stigmas in a new interview with Alex Cooper on the Call Her Daddy Podcast.

The creator behind Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and countless other dramas, recently opened up about her journey to motherhood and the path that led her to her three daughters, Harper, 22, Emerson, 12, and Beckett, 11.

The award-winning writer, who welcomed Harper and Emerson through adoption and Beckett via surrogacy, shared that her experience didn’t always come without questions, specially from her family.

“You know what’s wonderful is my parents [got] on board but had a lot of questions about adoption,” she told Cooper on the podcast. “They had a lot of questions about what that was going to mean and how that was going to be. Although in my family, it sort of never mattered how you came into the family. You’re just part of the family.”

The topic of surrogacy, the-55-year-old admitted, opened up a few more delicate conversations. “Surrogacy brought up a lot of questions from my family,” she said. “That just felt…I mean, I don’t think I’ve to this day, I still haven’t had the sperm donor conversation with my father. Do you know what I mean? Like those conversations.”

But beyond any curiosity or hesitation, the Bridgerton creator said love has always been at the center of it all. “The minute there’s a baby, my whole family is in love and embraces [them],” she said. “Our family is really great in that way. We’re a very big, loud, boisterous family who, like everybody, is super embraced.”

When the Call Her Daddy Podcast host noted how beautiful it is that there are so many ways to build a family, Shonda shared that it took her time to feel confident in her own story. “For a while, I think I felt like I had to justify it. You know what I mean?” she admitted. “I felt like I had to sort of, I don’t even know. I felt like I had to justify it for people.”

Her perspective shifted with time and growth. “And that’s ridiculous,” she said firmly. “At a certain point, I was like, however I decide, you know, it’s like nobody puts in the paper like so and so had a baby via C-section. Nobody says this is their C-sectioned child. So how my children came into my family is not the issue.”

Photo Credit: Shonda Rhimes Instagram; Call Her Daddy Podcast Instagram