Nicole | "A God Wink"

0:00Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. We're the Nelsons. I'm Lynette. And I'm Sean. Before we jump in, I have to tell you a really funny story that happened at work the other day. So as part of my responsibilities, I get to do interviews pretty frequently at work. And when I was running the interview, I introduced myself and said, hi I'm Sean and I'm Lynette. Because apparently we've been working on this podcast a lot that that phrase has been stuck in my mind so much that just automatically came out of my mouth. And then I had to explain to the

0:31applicant why I would say that I'm both Sean and Lynette. Anyway, that's awkward. We are Sean and Lynette and we're happy to be with you. In this episode, we're going to be sharing an interview. We love interview episodes. I feel like a broken record. We're always talking about our interviews and how much we love them. But we do. We're really excited for you guys to hear this one today. Today we're talking to Nicole, a birth mother who placed her daughter for adoption about 22 years ago. She'll share her story and what her relationship looks like with

1:04her daughter today. And a little bit about Nicole to start off. Nicole loves yoga and working out in her spare time. But she says that mostly she looks forward to Sundays her day off so that she can spend time with her husband and her kids. She lives in Chicago, Illinois with her husband and two children and she visits often with her oldest child who she placed for adoption. She's an amazing mother and she has a great story. We're really looking forward to sharing it with you. At the end of the episode we'll also share this information but she's on Instagram at the birth mother story. If you want to follow her she is

1:38wonderful. We'll also put that in the show notes. Alright so we are here with Nicole and we are really excited to hear from her. Nicole first off can you share a bit about yourself? Sure I am a birth mother

2:09new to the community. This beautiful community of adoption right kind of like sharing my story I guess is the new thing. I was very hush-hush about it for many many years so this is a very therapeutic session for me to kind of be here with you guys and just like kind of be open about everything. So great thank you. Yeah. Tell us your your journey in adoption. Where did it start and just help us understand your experience. So I was a very young mom I was 15. It was my

2:48very first love first boyfriend and infatuation you know lust love the whole thing and we made a little bit of a mistake a blessing in disguise. I found out I was pregnant at 15 and freaked out but ultimately chose adoption. It was the best thing for my situation. Once I chose adoption I like never looked back. It was just that's what I was doing. After you placed you said that it's been kind of this part of your life that you haven't really shared very much. Mm-hmm. But tell

3:20us maybe some of the feelings that you've had in the time that you haven't really talked about it with people but what have your kind of emotions and feelings been along the way and then yeah we can start with that. Okay so I feel you know at such a young age it's very confusing to start with you know I think is I was so young like looking back I'm like I can't even believe that I made the decision I made at such a young age. I guess I'll start with I went through an adoption agency so I had a counselor that kind of like guided me

3:51through it which made it a little bit better because I could talk to her about my emotions and my parents went there and she kind of helped me figure things out. So she really really helped me float through all that because it all seems like a blur right for me because it was very traumatic experience for me. It wasn't like oh my gosh like this is my only choice like I have to do this. This was like I made a conscious decision that this is what I wanted. I wanted to

4:22hit my baby to have a better life. So it was very like gut-wrenching and hard and emotional and I felt very guilty and ashamed and and because I like I pulled myself out of school my parents pulled me out of school because when you're 15 you don't really show. I was like didn't get didn't gain a lot of weight. I did not have a lot of prenatal care because I didn't tell my mom right away. I feel like a lot of my battle was the shame I felt that I made this humongous mess

4:56right for my family for myself and then now for this little human being that had no choice. So it was it was a really tough time as a young girl and I you know my purpose and even like talking about this with you guys is to hopefully like help somebody that might be in my situation and so that they know they're not alone and that they adoption is such a beautiful decision even though it feels so hard while you're doing it. You know how they say history repeats itself.

5:30My mom actually had me really young and I never had a relationship with my biological father so I my who I call dad adopted me so I kind of know it from both I get it from the birth mother side and the adopted child side like I so I had all these emotions going through it you know it's like just such a roller coaster but in the you come out on top in the end right it's it can be such a

6:01beautiful thing. Yeah awesome so you said you told us a little bit about like your initial thoughts when you found out you were pregnant. Tell us a little bit about your family or your mom's reaction when you told her or your friends that knew. I did not tell a lot of friends. I went to my mom immediately. I actually had one friend that drove me to a non-for-profit center to actually get a

6:32pregnancy test to know for sure. I had an ultrasound too and like heard a heartbeat and I was kind of a little more further along at that point so I didn't have a ton of choices really to be completely honest with you. So once I found that out I went back I told my mom and of course that was a very very hard thing for a mother to hear about her 15 year old daughter because we all say we're not doing the deed but we are and we immediately told my dad and my dad was

7:07like well what are we gonna do and I just was like I want to give her up for adoption. That was like my only choice really. I came from a family of four kids so my dad worked his butt off and we didn't have a lot of money so my parents didn't even offer to keep her. I didn't even have my driver's license like I didn't have a job you know I couldn't I couldn't take care of a baby. So then my mom made all the hard phone calls called the adoption agency did all the doctor

7:37appointments. I went to the adoption agency I looked through profiles of parents perspective parents and um I I literally knew immediately when I saw Jeff and Sharon are their names when I saw Jeff and Sharon I knew immediately that they were the parents for my child. It was like immediate for me personally. So what was the hospital experience like for you? It was sad it was very sad for me. Going through the adoption agency that I went through so Amanda is my

8:12daughter her parents that were adopting her Jeff and Sharon basically gave me three days in the hospital in our state in Illinois that's the law too but we had already it was already set you know that they were gonna have her so they didn't even really asked to come I said hey if you guys want to come to the hospital you're more than welcome they decided to just let me have that time because they knew how much I was struggling which now looking back I was

8:42like thank God I had that time with her I have so many pictures I have stuffed animals I have I just have those special little moments so it was sad but I'm just thankful that I had that time. What advice would you give to expectant mothers who are planning on placing a baby who are going to go through that same hospital situation what advice would you give them for the hospital? Literally document every moment you can. I know now I mean I gave birth in she's

9:1322 so what was that like 1998 or 99 so we didn't have like a ton of like cell phone usage or anything like that so I literally had like the old like Kodak click cameras I just we took my mom was there she took a ton of pictures of me and Amanda and I changed all the diapers I could change it at all the feedings I could do I stayed up all night I like just slept with her in my arms and made sure the nurses would come in every 15 minutes and check on me and

9:44it just soak it up all the smell the baby smells and the kisses and the snuggles and the hugs and that was the best. I love that loving our babies is the sweetest and I'm sure that I'm sure that experience for you together helped some bonding happen that you needed to happen. Yeah you know I think as a birth mom it's like you you struggle with okay I'm giving up my flesh and blood right

10:14and are they gonna remember me like is is this gonna traumatize them for the rest of their life what am I what am I doing you have these thoughts right these racing racing thoughts as you have this baby in front of you but then I think I really had to dig deep and think Nicole what do you what's your purpose what is this really about and once you realize it's for a better life for your child you just do it. Do you have any advice for adopted parents during the

10:47hospital time? Oh I feel so I felt so bad you know that they in my experience weren't with me because it is such a magical time but just pray and thank God that you have this beautiful life coming into yours and sleep because the second the baby comes home you won't get any and I just I feel like we were all just

11:17so thankful we were all like thanking God that we were in this beautiful situation and that's that was it. I think that's some great advice. I don't know it's so hard it's so hard to say you know like I don't I don't know it's from both sides it's so hard. That's great advice. All right so how did you know that your child's adoptive family was the right one? Oh this is a good one which I have a crazy I have such a crazy story so you know when you go to an

11:51adoption agency they would get at that time it wasn't digital it was like the actual like files so I would like flip through the files and I was looking at photos and they wrote like an essay and I I appreciated that so much they wrote about their marriage what they did to better their marriage they told me that they helped out at church they volunteered they were outdoorsy which

12:21was not how I am at all so it was like oh that's cool like they'll take her camping and she'll go fishing and she'll go hiking and I really liked they actually had adopted prior so she has an older brother that's adopted I really that really was huge for me because I felt like she would have somebody to talk to they also had dark hair and I have dark hair so I didn't want her to feel like she's stuck out like a sore thumb and they just looked happy they

12:51were smiling and they were joyful in their photos and I took one look at it and I was like that's them. Yeah we did an interview with our daughter's birth mother a little while ago and she had very similar thought like I just looked and I knew and that it's yeah kind of written in the stars meant to be yeah of connection you know I listened to them one and that was such a beautiful story oh my gosh I love what you're sharing by the way so it's so perfect oh my gosh

13:21thanks I hope it's I hope it's good this one might make you a little bit more vulnerable but what have you struggled with since placement and what do you wish others knew or understood? Oh man that's such a tough question personally I feel that the stress and kind of I don't want to say trauma because I've worked through it but giving up a child is kind of traumatic really has shaped the rest of my relationships in my life so as a birth

13:54mom you kind of feel like you don't want to get too close because you could lose that person I've had many many years of like counseling and trying to kind of work through that even in my marriage now it's hard sometimes to just come be completely vulnerable like you said giving control over to somebody else with your child that's like a harder hard thing like are they gonna reason with morals and values and what's important to them versus what's important to me that's kind of huge I don't know there's so many ups and downs

14:28through the years it's like I still have ups and downs with my daughter even though it's an open adoption so so many things can you share what your relationship with your daughter looks like and how it's evolved over time yes when I gave her up I had the mindset as a birth mother to allow her adoptive parents to reach out to me when they were ready because I didn't want to be intrusive on her life like those are her parents now she needs to be with them so

15:04in the beginning we did everything through the agency like any letters pictures it would go to the agency then the agency would send it to us and we would get photos and letters after a while like meet once or twice a year in person me and my mom would just be like hanging out with her adoptive parents and one day I was like oh yeah I live here and they're like oh yeah we live here and we just exchanged addresses and it was like nothing so we then we started like directly mailing things to each other I started seeing her once or twice

15:37a year and then once she got into high school she kind of distanced herself a little bit she did her own thing I was totally okay with that like I let she needed that right and then about three or four years ago her adaptive dad actually passed away I think losing another parent and through that time I had just had my second baby he was only like eight months old I was married at that time and she knew all that but never really came around she distanced

16:10herself after her dad passed away she started coming around a lot more and our relationship got a lot stronger and my current husband has really stepped up and just like loves her as his own and my kids it's like their sister and it's never been like a secret in my adult life you know everybody just loved Amanda comes to Christmas and she comes to all the things now so it's really big yeah it's become like just a normal thing for us and I love I love her I mean she's

16:44amazing so you get to see each other pretty frequently now yeah like I was like hey can you come babysit on Sunday like me and Scott want to go out to dinner she's like sure I can't wait to see the boys like it's just it's it's weirdly normal yeah yeah so awesome so you mentioned there was this kind of time in high school where she distanced herself just a little bit mm-hmm was it the was it the passing away of her father that made that connection kind of come back or were there other things that led to that I don't want to answer

17:19it for her I feel like when her dad passed away it was almost like a part of her another part of her went missing and like her parents together filled that oh my gosh I'm adopted I'm missing something and then when one of that piece was gone that pieces of that puzzle was gone I kind of came in and filled that back for her if that makes any sense at all I know it's kind of crazy but adoption has so many twists and turns in it and it's hard to explain

17:51to people that don't like walk the walk and I think Amanda has like ebbed and flowed with me like there's times where she's really really angry and then there's times where it's like she's okay I love you bye I'll see you later you know and that's okay like I'm here for all of it whatever it is I'm here and so it's her mom yeah and I love how you preface that too like we can't really tell somebody else's story but I think the way that at least from your

18:23perspective that's how it's happened and it's beautiful I love also the description of so many twists and turns and unless people kind of have walked the walk it can be really hard to comprehend it's so unique open adoption is so so unique and that's why I I decided to finally like be open about it because I me and actually Amanda's adoptive mom went through our adoption agency and like spoke on a panel to parents in person who were waiting to

18:57adopt and didn't want to do open adoption so I was kind of there to like tell them like how amazing it was and then I've reached out to like local high schools and just like try to help people and you either have to be certified or you have to have some sort of license and I'm like you know why why don't I just talk about it openly on Instagram like that's the best way to reach a ton of people and then literally it was like a godsend you guys were like and it just like worked out yeah we're glad that our paths our paths have crossed I'm telling

19:36you it's like you make a decision with your whole heart like adoption and the craziest things happen we found out after Amanda was adopted when she was five my mom my mom so Amanda's grandmother and Amanda's adoptive mom our cousins that's cool wow that is crazy and we live in Illinois and my mom and her cousin are from Michigan but we all ended up in the same 30 mile radius

20:12that is crazy I'm not even kidding that's so awesome it's my mom took me out to dinner and she's like I have to tell you something you're gonna be so mad at me and I'm like what she's like Amanda's mom Sharon is actually my cousin and I'm like wait what that's amazing that's like a God wink like yes you did the right thing you know yeah I think because I think that I don't know what your guys experience was or like how you went through your adoption

20:43process but with the agency when we were doing it I know that they were like grooming the adoptive parents to be act a certain way and I remember Sharon when I told her it was a girl she like lit up and was like oh and then she kind of had to like take herself back down because they were telling her to try to be indifferent but when I actually went and like met her in person that's what stood out to me the most was that she was so excited about having a girl and I was

21:16like I'm totally making the right decision she's so happy yeah and I think I think the hope is that agencies are doing a better job of helping people be authentic on both sides right mm-hmm mm-hmm but it's hard it's a hard line to walk I bet I edit it's always it's always gaging excitement about like because you know until until birth parents relinquish their rights like

21:47they they can change their mind at any point right it's so true you know but in most like adaptive situations and I could be wrong but the ones that I know of it's like if the mother is somewhat in the right state of mind emotionally I feel like once you make that decision it's very hard to go back on it yeah that's true it's not a decision yeah there's going to make lightly it's right

22:20like oh I'm just gonna it's yeah it's a lot of thought and emotions that go into it yeah and you know I think sometimes in media we hear the negative stories more often positive and so sometimes those type of stories where someone changes their mind last minute circulate more than all of the great adoption stories that are happening yeah isn't that true of the world you know everybody wants to hear the negative more than the positive so stinks every situation is different but what advice would you give to an expectant mom

22:52that's considering adoption for her baby oh gosh I would say even though it feels really really hard now it will feel a hundred percent right like the like you made the right decision in a little while so give it time it may feel like torture and gut-wrenching and all this heartache but if you keep focused on

23:22why you're doing it in the long term it all pays off that's beautiful and yeah hindsight is 2020 for sure for sure so maybe on the flip side of that coin what what advice would you give to hopeful adoptive couples that are in in the process of waiting or maybe about to adopt I feel that adoption has this weird like universal timing like it will happen and like you your baby is already

23:59meant for you and we'll find you it will happen and just like pray pray pray pray and I always feel that God in the universe like provides waiting is hard but waiting for your baby a little easier like you said before I everything has like the right timing I feel like that is so true with adoption it's so interesting to me that it feels like there's often this perception of meant to be an adoption and it doesn't

24:33matter what religion people are I feel like even my friends who aren't religious who are in the adoption world just feel like this meant to be serendipity I don't know it's really interesting it's different I a hundred and fifty percent agree with you like I think it's so incredible how it always just like works out somehow it always does just how it's yeah yeah right yeah and I have friends too that sometimes will ask like do you ever like wish that

25:07things would have worked out differently like have being able to have biological children and now I'm like no way like this is our story and this is how it was meant to be the best yeah our kids are our kids and it wouldn't be the same and our lives wouldn't be the same our family culture wouldn't be the same we would be so different and I feel like as the birth parent like playing off what you just said I wouldn't be who I am today if I didn't go through the

25:37experience that I went through life could have been so different in so many ways but it's not because we did all of us birth parents adaptive parents we did we did this song and dance and we made these beautiful babies and it doesn't matter how they come to us but they do love that well and then our family just grows so much right like now right our kids birth families are part of our family and our family's gotten so big and it's amazing I it would be so

26:07empty without the way it's built is just amazing yeah and we've talked about this on the podcast before but like our kids have 16 grandparents that that's awesome they all love and like own them as their grandkids and this village has come together over time and it's just beautiful and sweet that's so awesome and that wouldn't be our story and that wouldn't be our situation had things worked out in a different way yeah you know Jeff Amanda's adaptive dad always

26:41said like I always tell Amanda there's just all these people that love you there's all these people that love you don't ever be upset it's just more family it was just like a normal thing for us it wasn't like oh that's your adaptive and that's your birth it was like we're just we all love each other this is our situation and we're gonna make the best of it I love that so much yeah I'm so used to being on zoom calls I want to like put a heart emoji like I love that comment all right what questions are you most frequently asked

27:20about adoption oh my gosh I oh that's so hard to say I feel like people are like oh my gosh you had a baby at 15 like that's the most shocking thing for people I think in my personal story like oh my gosh and you made that decision at 15 and then after the shock and awers off it's like oh what does she look like oh where does she wait do you see her often like people have questions about how the specifics work with open adoption and then once you tell them

27:53they're like oh my gosh that's so cool how amazing yeah I love that sometimes it's like the initial like logistics or little details but then it kind of opens up to like all the beautiful parts and I love that we can then isn't it crazy once you tell somebody that they're like oh my gosh so my uncle was adopted and then it like everybody has like a beautiful story yeah and I mean there's there's hard stories in adoption too but I love that I I don't know from our

28:27perspective at least getting to hear more often than not there's just really beautiful things that come out of these connections of course and like before before the rainbow comes the storm you know what I mean like there's adoption is not like easy at all I just feel like I've come out on the other side so by telling my story hopefully that person that's in like the mud and the dirt and

28:58the disgusting part of it right now or they just are going through a really hard time like you will make it through and that process like that difficult part might last longer than is comfortable yeah but I love the analogy to that the rainbows come after the storm and there's yeah you can find beauty in every situation if you let yourself for sure for sure what do you so maybe thinking about people that don't know a lot about adoption what are some of the

29:28things that you wish that they understood I'm talking from just purely like the birth mother standpoint because again I can't really talk for everybody else because I was kind of so young I didn't really think about anybody else I feel like the one major thing that I felt I had to work really really hard on in counseling after think I for my mom she put me in counseling immediately after was I had to I don't like a disconnect from being a parent so I was

30:05still a mother because I gave birth and I loved this human being but I was not the parent giving the morals and the values and the structure that you give a child and that was extremely hard for me because you don't know what your child's going through in that household you put all of your trust into these people by just reading a profile and meeting them a few times so yes you see your child it's an open adoption but like how much do you really see you know so for me

30:38that was my my thing that I wish that I some you know there's a fly on the wall that could tell me hey this is what's gonna it's gonna be like I would have liked to have known that it would that was like the toughest part for me was like dealing with that and that brought on all these other feelings and emotions too you know yeah that's hard yeah oh such good yeah I mean are I think if we

31:09had like an objective for the podcast it would be to bless the lives of adoptees by educating the community and we want to help oh yeah for sure everybody that's a really good point though that's a really amazing point I mean everybody in adoption is like hurt in some little way and I think that that's why we're all here to kind of help ease that pain yeah and I think it's beautiful too that that hurt that we all have can unite us and we can turn that

31:44you know really hard difficult thing into something beautiful it's so true because even if I see an adoptive parent or somebody who's been adopted or a birth mother it's like we all just hug each other because we know what we've all been through it's like yeah just a different community of people and it's amazing anything else that maybe questions that we didn't ask you or parts of your story that you you would want to share or that you could share

32:16that you think would benefit I know that's like a question it totally and there's so much it's like I feel like with adoption there's like not enough hours in a day you know you could go back to like your guys's story or my story or somebody else's story and talk about all these little like side note emotions that happen kind of all around it I just I guess my main purpose in

32:46being here is I just want that young girl that's out there to know that she's not alone because I felt so alone in my journey in the beginning I was the only girl in high school that went through it it was like I had the scarlet letter on me you know and who if you're out there and you're listening you hear this it's just you're not alone and if you need somebody there's people like me that you can come to and talk it out with that's not your parent or an elder you know or

33:19a teacher or a classmate or a friend I'm a hairdresser I'm a hairdresser so I'm really good at just like hanging out and talking why don't we why don't we meet tomorrow morning you have a cup of coffee and just like hang out and talk about adoption so we know that you're on social media where can where can our listeners find you on I am the birth mother story on Instagram story yeah we'll put we'll put a link in our show notes to awesome to your Instagram it's been

33:54awesome to talk to you at your story is incredible and I'm so glad that we can stay connected to yes yeah awesome well thank you so much for yeah party or night tonight thank you we really think you are amazing we loved hearing from you yeah keep inspiring the adoption community and share I'm gonna try it's hard like I feel like I started this like little page and like I don't know if I have enough content like I'm trying to little by little help people I've had

34:26people reach out so we're all doing our thing right yep awesome well thanks again thank you guys thank you for listening to this episode of the open adoption project we loved hearing Nicole's story it was really fun to talk

34:58with her she has such a great personality and I think she's gonna be a great voice for birth moms all over and and helping them go through and understand the experience of being a birth mom next week we're going to be back with another interview episode this time it's an interview with an adoptee and as always we're really excited to share it with you and so look for that next week and thank you so much for listening

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