Sharolyn | "So Wanted & So Loved"

0:00Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. We are the Nelsons. I'm Sean. And I'm Lynette. In this episode, we'll be sharing our first interview with an adult adoptee. Our whole mission for the podcast is to encourage dialogue around helping adoptees and really to try to amplify their voices. So we're really excited to get to share one of their voices with you today. In this episode, Lynette gets to interview our friend, Sherilyn, and as mentioned, she is an adoptee. She'll share her story and also include her search for

0:35her birth parents. It's an incredibly powerful story and we know that you're going to love it. Sherilyn is a librarian who enjoys traveling, cycling, and reading. She also is fascinated with family history and loves that she has so many family lines to keep her busy. Sherilyn lives in the western United States with her husband and has four children.

1:10Alright so we are on with Sherilyn. Thank you so much for being here with us. Excited to talk to you. I'm glad to be here. For starters, can you share a bit about yourself and your adoption story? So as you heard, my name is Sherilyn and I was adopted in 1967. So back when I was adopted, all adoptions that I know I've ever heard of were closed. So of course, my adoption story is completely different from your adoption story. To kind of start

1:41with my story, I was born in New York City in the late 60s as I said and my father was working at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. They were actually from out west but they were there going to school. My adoptive parents had a boy and then my mother couldn't get pregnant again and she happened to be helping with a family that adopted a child and they

2:11told her about it and she decided that she wanted to try to adopt and she waited about a year before she found out she was going to get me and they were so excited but she was two months pregnant. They decided not to tell the adoption agency that she was pregnant because they thought there was a possibility they could lose the baby or as she said, she'd waited so long she figured that she was ready for two babies. But six months later, she's

2:41in the doctor's office and she's just huge and she says to the doctor, I'm so big, are you sure I'm not pregnant with twins? And he said, well yeah, you probably are. And so he sent her to get x-rays. I know that's a big no-no now but that's what they did. Sure enough, there were twins and I asked my mom later, I said, why didn't he not know until you were that far along? And she said, I'm pretty sure he did. He was just afraid I'd be suicidal with a new baby. So I have twin sisters who are six months younger than

3:17me and then there's my brother and then ten years later, my mom got pregnant again and so I have a little sister that's ten years younger. As far as knowing that I was adopted, I've always known. I don't remember being told so I asked my mother once, I don't remember you tell me I was adopted. When did you tell me? And she said, oh you don't remember? I cried and cried when I told you and I said you did and she said, yeah, it was a day after you came home from the adoption agency. I said, okay, I don't remember I'm six weeks

3:48old this conversation but it was never a big deal in our family. It was always, we're so happy that we have you, we wanted you for so long, we love you so much and honestly it wasn't a secret anywhere because my sisters are six months younger than me. So there were natural questions that came up. I think sometimes they might have overdid it because my mom told me a story once about how my sisters came in crying to her room and said, we want

4:20to be chosen. So she had to reframe the story a little bit so that we were all chosen. So anyway, I had a pretty normal childhood. My parents did get divorced when I was 12 but always felt loved and the rest of my siblings, it was never, we were never different from each other in the way that we were treated. As I was growing up, my mom and dad used to say, oh someday if you want to find your birth parent, we'll help you and they would just

4:53say that my mother was young but they have this file, this adoption file in this cabinet and in the adoption file there were two pieces of paper and one piece of paper was my adopted birth name. So I knew what my birth name was. On the piece of paper said that my mother was five seven and she had brown hair and brown eyes and she was half English and half Yugoslavian and that my grandfather, that my grandfather was a minister and that my

5:26father was 19 and that's just the basic stuff that I knew. So I always was curious about my birth mother. I don't think I thought as much about my birth father as I did my birth mother but I was definitely curious about them both. Thought someday I would get around to figuring out how to find them but hadn't really done anything until I was about 33, 34 and I had a neighbor whose husband was adopted and she was trying to find his mother

5:57but they did know her name and it was a very common name and she was having trouble and I said to her, well I could find my birth mother or father. I didn't know what my last name was from but it would be pretty easy and then I told her my birth name and so it's a very unusual last name. She went back to her house and about 45 minutes later she came over to my home with a piece of paper and on the piece of paper were two people that she found in the whole United States with the same last name. So she gave me the piece

6:30of paper and with the addresses. So this was about, it was the end of July and I wasn't sure what I wanted to do because I needed to think about it and a few days later my brother in law passed away suddenly and so my mother and I flew out to Florida for his funeral and I just started thinking you just never know like my medical history and life's short and whatever so I talked to my mom about it having these names and my mom was so excited.

7:06She was more excited than me. She couldn't wait to meet my birth mother and she just was just crazy about it. So when I got home I wrote the two letters. One was in Ohio and one was in New Jersey. So then this was the end of July and around Labor Day I had gone up to my sister in laws for Labor Day weekend and we came back and I was supposed to go to work. I had a message on my answering machine and it said please call me at and she left

7:40a phone number. Well I was in a hurry to get to work but I did open up the phone book and I looked where the zip code was, where the area code was rather and it was South Carolina and I thought well that's strange because I thought if this is a call it should be from New Jersey or Ohio. So I went to work and I got home really late and my husband was gone in the morning when I woke up but there was a piece of paper on next to the phone that said call RO and then it stopped which wasn't unusual because my husband can't spell

8:16and then it said, I can't remember if it had the last name but anyway it had the phone number. So I was thinking about calling and I may have even called and left my phone number I can't remember but a few hours later I got this phone call and it was from this guy and he said I'm not related to you but I got your letter and I thought I'd tell you a little bit about the family. So he proceeds to tell me about his family and he said some of the things he said in the conversation. He told me that his mother was from England and his

8:51father was from Croatia which is part of Yugoslavia it used to be and that they got married, they met during the war and got married and immigrated to the United States and I said oh that's interesting because I'm half Croatian and my mother was half Croatian half English he's like oh and then he starts telling me some more and he said oh do you have light skin or dark skin? I said oh I have light skin he said oh well I have dark skin but my sister has light skin and blue eyes pop up every once in a while in the family and I said oh

9:24well my son has blue eyes and then he started talking about how unusual their last name was and he said it's so unusual that when my sister was living in New York City in the late 60s it was the only person with the last name in the whole phone book in New York City and I said oh I was born in New York City in the late 60s how old is your sister? And then he kind of like climbed up and he's like I don't know she was born in like 49 or 50

9:57and I said oh because that's when my mother would have been born and he's and he said well if you think it's my sister it's not and at the same time I'm thinking there's no way in the entire world it could be anybody else. So he kind of ended the phone call abruptly and now I remember because I had not called then I called that phone number and left a message and then I was getting ready to go to work and I got this phone call and she said and I'm your mother and I said I know but does your brother? Apparently he did not

10:30know because the story was that she went to NYU at 16 and she had so she was very young and she met this boy that also went to NYU at 16 who she's told me about and said was my birth father and she had gotten pregnant over the summer and went back to New York City and didn't tell her mother that she was pregnant. She had lost her father the year

11:00before she went to NYU and so I'm not sure why but she just didn't share it with her mother and she said that when she found out she was pregnant with me she just knew right away that she was going to have the baby and not have an abortion. Of course abortions weren't legal back then. She did have a few people who told her that they knew a way that she could get an abortion. So she had me and she said oh also she told my birth father

11:31right away that she was going to get me up for adoption so she said she never really they never really talked about another option. A few weeks after she gave me up she got a phone call from the adoption agency and they said we need you to come in and sign the paper your mother to come in and sign the papers and she said what do you mean I signed the papers and they said well you're a minor you can't sign the papers. So that is when her mother found out that she had had a baby but I was long gone by then. She just never told

12:03her brother her brother was like 12 years old so her brother in fact never did know until the moment he talked to me and figured it out. And then after I met her we bonded pretty quickly in fact probably too quickly I would say now but talked a lot on the phone had just so many conversations and then I kind of I wanted to get to know who my father was also and she knew his name and she knew randomly she knew his father's name. I said

12:37oh his father was a Methodist minister in Philadelphia. I said oh I don't really want to contact them and tell his parents about me if he doesn't know. So she said she'd have her friend look into it and her friend never got anywhere so I just decided to take it upon myself so I called the some kind of Philadelphia Methodist office or something like that and I asked about my grandfather and they said oh he's passed away and I said oh well I was

13:11actually looking for his son and they told me that his son had also passed away but they gave me the number of what would be my grandmother and his sister. So I called and left a message with both of them asking me to call and I got a phone call from my birth father's sister and she was outside in the parking lot of a Philadelphia Eagles game when she called me and I said that I was Tom's daughter and the first thing she said was well you can't

13:44be because he's gay and I was like well I don't know what to tell you. So she asked me a few questions and then she talked to my birth mother and then she was pretty convinced and I did say a few times well we could do some DNA and she's like no she knows enough about him that I think this is true. So I met her, I went out to New York City and I met my birth grandmother and my birth mother. I did meet my birth mother she came out at

14:15Thanksgiving time and she met my family and she met my mom and just so excited and my father who lives in a different state he was so excited he couldn't wait to meet her. My parents they always said you can never have too many people who love you or that you love and so they just embraced her right away and she flew me out to meet her mom and she drove me to Philadelphia and we met my birth grandmother and my birth aunt and I went out there a few

14:49times and met them and so I got quite close to everyone and eventually my birth grandmother passed away and when she passed away my birth mother wanted to move here and so she actually took some of the money and we ended up buying a house together and that didn't work out in the end but that's another story. It's been really interesting to get to know her both good and bad. So I have contact on and off with her a little bit not a lot at the

15:19moment then you fast forward so that was in 2003 and in 2017 I decided to take a DNA test just for fun and to kind of see where my ancestry was from and the whole nine yards even though I had done all the genealogy I had done a lot of genealogy for my birth mother and I had done a lot of genealogy on my birth father's side so I knew that my birth father they were

15:49German they were Pennsylvania Dutch so they had come from Germany. I did the DNA test and I didn't get any results for a long time and I happened to be in England where my husband was working at the moment and I'm in his apartment and I'm in the back bedroom and I open up my computer and I look at the DNA test and it comes up and it says that I'm half Jewish and I was like totally surprised and I remember yelling to my husband I'm like Eric I'm half

16:21Jewish and he's like what I'm like yeah I'm half Jewish so kind of to backtrack a little bit when I met my birth mother she said this is your birth father but in all honesty I should tell you there's just this little teeny tiny chance that there's this one Jewish boy that I slept with one time but the doctor said that there's no way that the dates are off so there's no way this boy could be your your father so obviously she was wrong so

16:51I texted her and I said I'm half Jewish and she said I always thought I was Jewish but I never knew how and I'm like you're not Jewish number one and number two you wouldn't know if you were all Jewish and I'm half Jewish and so she said something and I said do you even know his name she said so she did she didn't remember his name but she remembered that he was from Brookline Massachusetts and he had also gone to NYU I think that's about

17:26all that she remembered about him with the DNA test I had some relative matches but they were like third and fourth cousins so they weren't close enough for me to really figure it out yet and that was in the end of April and then the beginning of December I got a match that was either a grandparent an aunt or an uncle or a half sibling I think I can't remember but very close match and I looked at his age and everything and I knew that

17:58it had to be an uncle so I wrote to him and just gave him an explanation of who I was and he didn't write back so I wrote to him again and he didn't write back and I got no reply from him so finally I was like okay I gave them a chance so now I'm just going to go find him kind of and so there was another person that I work with I'm a librarian and so we're pretty good at research skills and she's like oh let's just go ahead and look

18:30so we start looking around and since we knew his name and we knew being from Brookline Massachusetts we looked we found his name in this private school so then the uncles and so we tried to go back to the age that we thought the age range that he would be and couldn't find anything but this was a private school where we found him so then we went to the public school and we found his name and then we googled his name and he happens to do some acting and so he had a page for his acting you know about himself

19:06and in there there was an email address so I just sent the email address and he contacted me and he said he that there was a possibility I was his daughter and he asked me a few questions and a lot of questions about how DNA works and everything else and said that he did know that my birth mother was pregnant because so back then NYU had an upper and a lower campus and they were on different campuses but he happened to be on that campus one day

19:38and she was visibly pregnant and he asked her about it and she just lip-lip said oh it could be yours and walked away and then when he went to ask later about her he found out from his friends that he that she'd had the baby and given the baby up and so he said he'd always said that there was a slight chance he had a baby somewhere out there a child he wasn't completely shocked and then a few months after that I my husband had work in

20:08New York City so I went out and I got to meet him too and over the last couple years we bonded pretty well and he it's kind of sweet because he calls me every Thursday so he's never missed a Thursday yeah so that's my story it's an amazing story so you touched on this a little bit but I wonder if you have anything else you want to add what was the conversation around adoption in your home like when you were a child it was mainly around how much they wanted me how much how long they'd waited to have a baby and how excited

20:42they were going they were to have me and as far as my birth mother went it was just how she was young and how hard it would be to raise a baby when she was so young and how thankful they were that she had given me to them to take care of also just kind of on part of the adoption story was these pieces of paper that I had and I asked my dad about it and my dad said that when I was a year old the lawyer accidentally sent the papers

21:15to my father before the permanent adoption and it had the birth name on it and they realized and they called him and he said I didn't tell them that I would destroy it but I may have led them to believe I would destroy the paper but I would never do that and then he said the little piece of paper with identifying kind of non identifying information he had just written down as soon as they left the adoption agency he just wrote down everything that they that he could remember they told him so adoption was just kind of a happy event

21:46and it was very I should say for somebody who born in the late 60s it was very unusual I have friends over the years who found out they were adopted later and it was very traumatic for them but it was never traumatic for me because it was a happy event and it was a normal event and it wasn't something that needed to be hidden. Wow it sounds like your parents did a lot of things really well too like they were always advocating for you trying to have information for you wanting you to feel like you could

22:17look for your birth family. I think it's pretty amazing because they never they just weren't jealous people and they just really felt like love is something that you can have with more than one person and it doesn't take away for you to love someone else too so. I love that that's awesome. So when do you think you really understood what being adopted meant? I don't think I ever remember not knowing and I don't know when I really it clicked with me and I don't remember that change the only thing I ever remember was when I was

22:49like eight or nine one time I was on the playground and somebody started teasing me and said oh you're adopted and I just said oh yeah well at least I know my parents have me because they wanted me not because they felt sorry for me and that ended the teasing and I never had anything else happen that anybody else tease me after that so I just think when you treat things as being normal then they are normal. Yeah so what were your feelings toward adoption as a child?

23:20I think as a child of course I always wondered what my parents look like and I would just picture in my head like them coming to the door and me seeing them and of course I pictured my mother looking just like me and I had those kind of feelings and I wondered but I never some adopted people feel like they're looking for a mother or they're looking for a father and I never had that void in my life that I felt like I needed that but I was always curious what do they look like what are they like do they like the same things I like and

23:54that curiosity never really went away I still all the time hey did you ever this or did this ever happen to you and so I'm constantly this whole nature versus nurture thing is a curiosity to me and I actually one time they I didn't follow through but somebody was trying to find what they call unrelated multiples and since I'm considered unrelated triplet because they study people like us to see like my dad told me once we all for

24:24the first five years of our lives you know we basically went to bed at the same time and woke up at the same time and ate at the same time and played you know much the same thing and so it's always been curious to me how different I am from my sisters. Yeah that's interesting yeah and so after meeting your birth parents do you feel like you saw a lot of similarities and a lot of that? Yes I there's definitely some similarities and some things that I definitely got from them which is interesting and then in other ways there's things that I know I got from

24:57my adopted parents and so it's an interesting mix but it's just very strange how much genetics play into who you are. Yeah so interesting I mean on a side note my daughter she says things just like her birth mom and we see her birth mom but not so much that you would think she'd have these interesting talking patterns that Shawn and I don't say things like oh I was thinking on this but her birth mom says that all the time and so does she or it's like she hasn't picked it up from hanging out with her that much I don't think

25:31but it's just like this interesting genetic thing that I don't know it's very interesting it's cool. Yeah it is pretty cool. Yeah we get a lot of questions about searching for birth family and reunification stories your story is fascinating it's so good. How long do you think you were thinking about searching for your birth family before you started? I believe most of my life I thought about them but as far as seriously thinking about it when I had my oldest child when I was 22 it started making me think about it just because

26:06here's my child and you know how are they like me and it was the first time that I had someone who looked like me in some ways even though he kind of looks like his dad but I say he looks like me in some ways and so as I had my kids these questions kept coming up and especially like my second son who now is 6'5 and my husband's family is not that big and people would say oh where did they get this from or how come he's so tall or how come this about your kid and so those thoughts started coming through my in my thought

26:39process having a child with blue eyes when I have brown eyes and my husband has brown eyes that that was fascinating to me. I remember reading about some like birth registries and thinking oh I should do that sometime but I never followed through and honestly it was having that friend that brought the names to me and made it so simple for me to just write and get get information that was

27:10that was pretty cool. Yeah and I definitely wasn't looking for the DNA for my birth father because my birth father was I thought I knew who my birth father was so. Yeah that's a really interesting part of the story so did you tell his mother and sister and I mean I don't want to say luckily because it's not lucky that somebody passed away but both my grandmother and my aunt had passed away by the time I found out and I only say that because they just were so thrilled because my birth father number one he never had any

27:46more children and his sister never had any kids and so for my grandmother I still think of her as my grandmother sometimes but she I was like the only grandchild and it brought such joy to her life and I used to call her and write to her and when she got to meet the kids it just was so happy for her that at least I feel good that it brought some joy into her life but I never had to tell them and I'm glad because it would have broke my heart to have to say that to them. Yeah and and I don't know they were just so trusting and I and I had mentioned we could

28:21do a DNA test but they never wanted one so we never had one. Well and it sounds like they felt like family too. Yeah they felt like family too and they were just very nice people and so I'm glad that I met them also glad I didn't have to tell them either. Yeah. Do you have any advice for people who are thinking about looking for their birth parents and looking at their unification process for first steps or things to do as they're getting ready for that? First of all I think you should be psychologically ready for any outcome because sometimes it's

28:57just all roses though I don't know anybody who it's been all perfect but but sometimes there's rejection and that's something that you have to be ready for that you might be rejected and for me it's been very up and down with my birth mother pretty much pretty steady with my birth father but I will say my birth father didn't go through trauma and a birth mother really does go through trauma and it causes some issues but as far as finding someone I think in the last few years a lot of states have opened up birth certificates

29:32so you can get names. I think DNA is excellent it brings you some relatives that you can start trying to work through the family tree and figure out and contact them. I know there are people called search angels there's a Facebook group DNA detectives and there are people there that can help you with that DNA also looking at public records so for my birth father it really was a matter of just searching for his name and looking

30:02in yearbooks and finding any information that I could from it and other than that I think it's just sometimes it's just patience when I first got the DNA match it wasn't like oh and this is your father this is your mother like it happens for some people so sometimes it's just a matter of time but more importantly I think just be prepared. How did connecting with your birth parents pan out compared to your expectations? I think my initial expectations were more I'm going to meet them I'll find out about

30:38them talk to them occasionally and then get the medical information and that will kind of be the end of it. I didn't realize how quickly I would bond with them and how quickly I would there was just I think kind of a need to be close to them and to know who they were that I wasn't aware that I had because I never felt an emptiness and I think also I would say some of the heart ache that my birth mother went through that I don't think she ever quite got over and

31:13in my mind as I pictured as I was younger and I picture my birth mother and the way my mother kind of told the story that you know then she was able to move on get married have children and have this you know her a life that was a family life and she never did get married she has in its sense but only the last few years but she didn't have children and she didn't go on to have this like perfect life that I just envisioned that she had that

31:46she was able to move on and I think it just was always difficult for her to move on and that's probably the most hard for me because it makes me sad and it and it's hard because sometimes she'll say I'm depressed because of you and I think but I didn't make you depressed and that's where we kind of have problems sometimes because I'm like you have depression maybe based on an incident but I didn't cause that I'm just a result of choices so that's really hard yeah do you have any advice for family members and loved

32:21ones of adoptees who are going through tough times trying to build those relationships with birth parents I think it's just the most important thing is to be a good listener but the second most I'd say is to be accepting of the having these people come into their lives and that it's not any reflection on the adoptive family or that all of a sudden I don't happen to have any siblings but a lot of people I know they find their birth parents and they have these siblings and they have all these other people that come into

32:54their lives and it doesn't take away but I think in any relationship you have to be careful not to take sides even if you're right you'll lose so I just think being a good listener you know just being loving what do you wish other people understood about adoption there's certain terminology that I that I extremely dislike one of them is your real family I mean my real family is the family that I have and my adoptive family is the family that is my family and I don't have a real mother and a real father I have I want to say birth

33:29mother and a birth father but I know sometimes other terminology people use but and then I have my adoptive parents my who I consider my mom and my dad and so sometimes people will ask me about my mom and it really confuses me because my mother's actually passed away and they but they mean my birth mother and I'm like oh okay and then I'll and then I'll say her name because I always want to reflect back what I prefer for her to be referred to us for adoption it's a bonding and that families are based on someone who's raised

34:04you and loves you and my adoptive mother was always there when I was sad or when I was happy or when I succeeded or when I failed and so there's that bond and that bond with my siblings and with my father and that's all a family and I think sometimes people don't think think that there's this other family out there and I love my other family that I've met and and I love them and they're becoming part of my family but being adopted

34:36doesn't mean that you are rejected it doesn't mean that you are somehow different from other people you are but you aren't you're just have a life like everyone else love that do you feel like your mother and father's excitement about you finding your birth family affected your perception of it or I think I never had to worry about how they felt or that I was hurting them and that really made a difference because I remember first you know getting

35:09up the courage on the plane trip to be like oh mom by the way and just that joy that she had and that she had meeting my birth mother in fact she's like can I be there she's just part of the whole thing and and my adopted father invited my birth mother to our family reunion and and just wanted to to make her a part of our family and just bring her in right away that was just very reassuring as far as the meeting my birth father they actually

35:42he came into my life in an interesting time because I found out about him in April my mother passed away in July when I first met my birth father it was three weeks before my father died it was an interesting time because he would call me and he would console me and he would talk about my father and I would talk about my father and and he was just there for me and so he never had an opportunity to meet them so I don't know how that would have gone I assume it would have gone okay pretty well I know sometimes my father was

36:18very protective of the fact that a dad would step up and I think given the circumstances I don't have any reason to believe it would have gotten poorly. What are some helpful things others did while you were searching for and reuniting with your birth family? Everything happened quickly I had a very supportive husband and that was helpful because he just was accepting of you know me searching and wanting to look and though his favorite thing he likes to say to people when they complain is well some people have one mother-in-law

36:50but I have three mother-in-laws so I didn't have a lot of searching compared to other people and some people spend years trying to find and I think that probably is frustrating and draining on people but everyone in my life was just more thinking about the mystery of it and I think maybe I got a little cut up in solving a mystery and not thinking about

37:23what then what happens once they come into your life and and so that's why my suggestion is to just really consider the what's next before you do all that searching because I mean everybody likes a mystery and wants to solve something but there are steps afterwards. And this is more general how can family and friends better support adoptees in their lives? I think we talked about reflecting terminology I think that's really important not dwelling

37:54on the fact that someone's adopted I think just treating them like you would any other person and if they want to bring it up and they want to talk about it then I think it's fine as far as parents go I just cannot say enough how important it is that you talk about how much you loved having them come to family and tell your births the story of how they came into your life and and talking about what joy it brought you and also listening if the child like has questions or worries or wants to know more just the more open you

38:28can be I think about the whole process the better it is. Awesome I love that. From your experiences what benefits have you experienced from having more openness in your adoption over time and are there any negative aspects to having more openness? Well I think in general we haven't really talked about it but because I grew up in a period when there was a lot of closed adoption I've seen a lot of trauma I've had a few friends who did not find out they were adopted until they were adults or close to being adults

39:01and it was pretty traumatic for them because I think when you keep a secret then people think there's something wrong and so secrets just I think backfire. My parents didn't do this as much but they probably could they were very positive but they also probably could have shared a little bit more about their worries too. My birth mother and my mother did have a falling out for a while because my birth mother said some not nice things about me and then that was like the end of that for a while.

39:33So everything doesn't just happen simply and you have to understand when you look for someone that those parents might have kept secrets themselves that lack of openness can extend to them and the lives that they built and so I've seen stories where people didn't accept the child when they found him because they didn't want anybody in their life to know that they had gone through that. People asking my story and I am happy to tell people my story so people just want to know

40:04and it's okay I don't mind I really mind when people don't ask you questions and then just come to suppositions or think certain things and so I guess that was the way I was raised you just ask questions. I'm glad that I found my birth parents I'm I also am glad that I was adopted and I'm glad I had the life that I had it's it's not a perfect life it's like everybody else's life there's the ups and the downs but I think there's just something so wonderful about

40:36being in a family where you are so wanted and so loved and I think that happens in all kinds of families. Thank you so much for being here today we really appreciate you spending time with us and sharing your story it was wonderful to hear from you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Open Adoption Project we loved hearing Sherilyn's story.

41:06As I talked with her my jaw literally just kept dropping open as she shared the twists and turns of her own story I love her authenticity and her openness and I'm so thankful for her for taking the time to teach us from her experiences. We'll be back next week with another episode if you have any questions for us or topics that you would like us to discuss in future episodes please feel free to reach out on Instagram or email you can email us at openadoptionproject at gmail.com and if you're enjoying the podcast

41:39please subscribe so that you can get episodes as soon as they drop. Thanks so much for listening.

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