Emily | My Experience as an Adoptee and an Adoptive Mom

0:00Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. We're the Nelsons. I'm Sean. And I'm Lynette. We are back from a short break and today we're kicking off season two and we're really excited. We're really excited to be back. In the past few weeks we've been keeping pretty busy. As we mentioned at the end of the last season, I donated bone marrow working with an organization called Be The Match. I'm gonna add a link to Be The Match in the show notes today and also we'll put it in the blog post for this episode on openadoptionproject.org which is our

0:31new website. Yeah, so our kids are back in school and I am too. So we're all keeping busy. We have more structure in our lives which I love. Sean and I ran a half marathon together yesterday and that's basically what we've been up to. Getting ready for the season. We've been doing a lot of interviews already. We're getting really excited for the opportunity to share some of these stories and insights people have with the adoption community and we really hope that it's a valuable season. I think it is. I'm really excited for the things

1:03that are coming up. And as Sean mentioned, we built a website which was exciting and so we've launched that. It's openadoptionproject.org and you can find a blog on there where we post about these episodes. You'll also find links to our social media. If you want to contact us, one-stop shop for the Open Adoption Project on openadoptionproject.org. Yes! Alright, so today we're going to hear from Emily. Emily is from Indiana in the United States and she is an

1:34adoptee. She's also an adoptive parent so this is another opportunity to hear from someone who has perspectives from multiple sides of the adoption triad which is so neat. Such a cool experience to hear these thoughts from someone who's lived as an adoptee and now is an adoptive mom and seeing how those experiences intertwine and affect each side of her experiences. Yeah, along with a lot of things, she shares some insights that she's gained over the years and thoughts on how adoptive parents can be more sensitive to things like trauma and

2:09the needs that their children might experience. We hope that you enjoy this episode with Emily. Alright, well we are now on the podcast with Emily. Emily, thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Well, let's start by having you share a little bit about you and your family. Okay, well I'm Emily. I was born and raised in Indiana and I grew up with my mom and my dad and my sister and we always had

2:43just dogs as our pets. My sister rode horses. I was more of a sports person, not really much into the animal thing, but then I went to college for nursing and I met my husband freshman year of college and so we dated throughout and then got married after graduation and so he works for a company. He's a clinical research scientist and I work as a nurse PRN so once or twice a month and then the other

3:13days I stay home with the kids. We have three kids. Jack is three, Henry's two, Oliver is nine months and Oliver is the one who we adopted and we adopted him through the same agency I was adopted through when I was five months old. Awesome. What are some of your guys' like family interests? What do you guys like to do? So we like to play outside. We just redid our backyard so the kids love their swing set, they love their bikes, they love their scooters, we go for walks,

3:43we play at the park, we kick soccer balls around, and we visit family a lot. My parents live five minutes from us so we see them all the time and then Eric's parents live three hours away. It's a little farther but sometimes we'll go down for a full weekend or have them up here but we like going on vacations even though it's hard with three little kids but we went to Hilton Head last year, his new world the year before that and then Colorado this year and so we try to do at least one vacation a year even though like I said we have kids and it's

4:17hard to fit in the time but it's definitely worth it and the kids love it even though they're little people are like oh I wouldn't fly with my three little ones but they have so much fun and it really isn't that bad. That sounds really really fun. We would love for you to just jump in and share with us your experiences both as an adoptee and adoptive mom. Just share with us your story. All right so I was born and raised in Indiana and I was adopted when I was five months old. My birth mother tried to parent and it didn't quite work out

4:51for her and so she picked my family and that was kind of that. So I was the youngest of three we were all back to back to back and she just didn't have the support she needed to parent a third baby and so my family was obviously super thrilled and my mom said that when she got me home I was five months old so she kind of sits me up on the floor and she says what do you like what do you do can you sit and I could kind of sit up kind of nod and then she goes do you eat real food do you take a bottle like what do I do with you but they obviously

5:25figured it out and it was it was fine and it was good and they adopted my sister four years later and so there are the two of us with my mom and my dad and I always had a really good experience being adopted I know not everybody does my sister kind of had mixed feelings growing up about how she felt about it but I thought it was like the coolest thing ever I was like wow I am so loved like my mom and dad wanted a baby so badly that they adopted me and my birth

5:55family wanted to give me a better life so they placed me into my family and I thought it was so cool that I just thought I was the best thing ever that everybody loved me and so I didn't really have a lot of like doubt or insecurities being adopted my parents were super good at telling us from day one you're adopted this is what we know what questions do you have and they always answered them they supported us and whether or not we wanted to reach

6:25out or if we wanted it to be more kind of closed but back in the day so I'm 27 so it's been a few years since I was adopted they didn't really have open adoptions as much so it was more semi closed or semi open so we exchanged pictures and letters every year and so my mom and dad always shared those with me and then did the same for my sister I wasn't always super privy to like her conversations and like what her letter said it wasn't like a big big family

6:59affair or we read aloud or different letters but I always knew that I was adopted and this was my story and then when I was 10 I got to meet my birth mom for the first time and she actually passed away a few months after so I'm kind of glad it worked out when it did because that was the only chance I got but I feel like it wasn't the best thing ever it wasn't bad but when you're 10 or 8 or whatever and your parents say okay we're gonna go meet this person think of

7:32your questions how are you feeling what do you want to know like you're just kind of like oh I don't know like it feels like you're going to visit like great aunt Sue at a family reunion where you know it's someone in your family and that it's the big deal but you don't really have the capability to process it so it was fine it was fun my two birth sisters were there and they were a year or two older than me so we just played at the hotel bar our parents talked and I didn't have any questions it wasn't some like mind-blowing event that

8:02forever changed my life but I'm glad looking back that it happened and then that was kind of that my mom told me that she passed away a couple months later and I was going like okay like obviously it's sad but it didn't like affect me personally just because I didn't really know her but then when I turned 18 I got a letter in the mail from my birth father and he wrote to me and said that he had been in and out of jail and doing who knows what for the

8:33past like 18 years that he was finally on the right track and wanted to connect and so it was just kind of weird because I was like I know nothing about you like where have you been like I don't know if I want this like is it safe like are you normal is it okay I'm not telling you where I live like but I wrote back to him and we kind of took it slowly because he knew nothing about me he's like do you have a mom and a dad do you have siblings like what do you like to do and I was like wow you really know nothing okay so we kind of started like

9:03baby steps writing back and forth and then at some point in college right after college I met with him and Eric came with me my husband just and it made me feel better and I was kind of nervous as an adult because I kind of understood the gravity of the situation unlike I did when I was 10 and it was fine I was really worried that like what if he's weird what if I'm weird what if it just is awkward or I don't know I didn't know what to expect but he was super nice

9:34super normal he was married so his wife is there he's still married now but um and they now have four kids but they only had the two girls at the time and they were so cute so nice so normal so it was a huge wave of relief that okay like the years had passed but I think this can be okay and something I'm interested in continuing and I feel like from there like we still see them occasionally they moved so we don't see them all the time anymore but we took

10:07our kids to see them and it's funny because he's married and has kids that are my kids ages which I don't know whenever I think if my mom and dad had another baby at the same time I'm having kids like that's really weird but for some reason I think God just had a plan for him in his life and it wasn't being a parent 27 years ago so it's cool to see his journey unfold and him become a loving husband and dad and I think that that's reflective of the person he is even

10:37though years ago I don't think anyone would have said too many nice things about his decision-making yeah that's kind of that and because I had a good experience being adopted when Eric and I were in our marriage prep class there were like well what if you can't have kids so we're Catholic so they're like let's talk about family or family planning we're like okay yeah we want a family we want kids and so they're like okay and what if you can like what does

11:07that look like for you and so we decided hands down we'll just adopt and that's fine I was adopted I like myself I think I'm okay I turned out okay well this is adopt and then we got married kind of didn't really talk about it again decided to try for a baby nine months later Jack is born we're like okay that's fine good that's that's great like let's have another ten months later Henry was born like wow okay let's let's talk about this do we want more and if so do we

11:39still want to adopt and if so kind of why and we decided no we don't want to adopt anymore like what if we take someone's baby who's been trying to have kids and can't or what if no one ever picks us or what if what if this what if that so we went back and forth back and forth but we just couldn't get rid of that nagging feeling like our family just isn't complete and we couldn't figure out like why and so then we decided let's just call around and see so we talked to an international agency or kind of like ooh traveling with two

12:11under two to wherever for six weeks or you know whoever and probably not for us okay fine what about fostering that seems like a good idea sure why not and then we talked to a foster agency and they said well we want you to do birth order and your youngest is like six months old so we don't really think it'll work out for you come back to us later I'm like shoot okay once again maybe we weren't meant to adopt and then my mom was like well have you thought about

12:42like a domestic infant adoption I was like no I don't know why I didn't like that's where I came from you don't have to but and so we called the agency that I was adopted through and they're still around and they said yeah we're taking families are you interested in attending our classes so we said okay fine let's just third time's the charm let's give it a go and so we did and we went live and two months later we brought our son home so it happened really really fast

13:14and which is good it was exciting it's what we wanted but I think we just kind of crammed in so much education and learning and family time into like a small amount of time everyone said well you guys are kind of young your kids are young it'll take a while for you to get picked okay that's fine and then it didn't and I feel like it was meant to be but it just felt like we had to kind

13:44of flip gears a little bit because our agency always said like everyone can be a good mom everyone can be a good dad but not everyone can be good adoptive parents and we were like wait what what does that mean even though I was adopted I was like okay tell me more about that and so they kind of just walked us through like how to be a good adoptive parent and they brought up things like how to tell your adoptee from day one and they said don't wait there's no reason you need to keep it a secret like there are books there are different

14:18things you can do there's social media there's videos there's everything out there like don't wait for the perfect time because there isn't and so they said with little kids one thing to do is I wonder if and so we do that all the time if Oliver is laughing at something we'll say oh I wonder if his mom laughs like that or if he's eating Cheerios oh I wonder if his sisters like Cheerios too and it kind of helps our three-year-old and two-year-old feel comfortable about

14:48it so that one they're not like 10 years old being like I didn't know my brother was adopted but it also makes it less weird I feel like like it's just part of normal every day and so obviously Oliver is only nine months old so I don't know if it is working or not but I'm hoping that we get better and better and so as he gets older and older and has more questions it's not like the first time we've ever brought it up so yeah I guess that's kind of kind of what led us to

15:21adopt in a little bit about our agency one other thing I was just thinking about that the agency kind of talked to us about that was really hard for us at first was think about Thanksgiving in 15 years and your kid wants to go spend a holiday with his biological family like how will you feel and I'd be lying if I said I'd feel good about it like selfishly as a parent no one wants their kid being gone on holidays and stuff but they said there's a chance you will have

15:54an empty seat at your table and you have to be okay with that and so we're trying as parents and adoptive parents like how do we get from not being okay with it to being okay with it and supporting him and his feelings and thoughts because I would love it if he was able to do that but the selfish part of me is like a mom it's like no don't go stay with me so that's I think one of the big differences between adopting and having bio kids and we're still navigating that

16:25and who knows maybe he won't want to but part of me kind of hopes he does go and spend a holiday or two with his bio family that would be cool well that's really cool it sounds like your agency does a really great job with educating and talking about those hard conversations that's neat so you talked about what you guys are doing right now to have a conversation about adoption with your kids what was the conversation about adoption like for you when you

16:55were growing up with you and your sister so for us it was never a secret or a surprise from day one we always knew so my parents I think bought every adoption book under the Sun for every age group and I just remember like it's why was I adopted and it's by every author like there's ten of them on a bookshelf and some of them are more picture-based or maybe a two or three-year-old and some are more in-depth about decision-making and maybe for an adolescent and so I felt like the conversation was always positive and my mom and dad would always

17:29support us in our feelings and ask us how we were feeling and I always felt good about things and I think because my sister didn't it was harder for them like what worked with me didn't work with her and so they just had to learn how can they frame it as a positive thing because adoption is beautiful and can be but also there is trauma associated with adoption and some people deal with that grief differently and that loss and that that's okay and so it doesn't mean that

18:02they're bad parents it doesn't mean that that they did anything wrong it's just that adoptees are entitled to their own feelings and some feel great about it and some don't and I think that framing it positively and being open-minded really helped them connect with me and her even though we felt differently throughout our journeys. So would you say there are were any experiences or things that you went through personally as a as a younger child that were hard about

18:36being adopted or was it always kind of like the the bright side and easy? I think I'm the rainbow unicorn and I know a lot of people aren't but I think the one thing if I had to pick was just it was a part of me that was different so if you're at school and like my friends weren't adopted and so I didn't think of it as a bad thing but anytime when you're a kid and you're different it kind of makes you feel a little self-conscious about it and it wasn't

19:06something that everybody knew either so I always had a little bit of trouble like saying like say you're at the grocery store and someone's like oh you look just like your dad do you say well actually I've adopted or do you just kind of smile yeah I get that a lot thanks and kind of move on and so it wasn't necessarily like a negative it was just kind of weird and even now with kids and two are biological and one isn't we go out and our youngest has brown hair the same color as mine and the other two a blonde hair and so

19:38everyone's like well he has brown hair just like you and same thing like it hasn't changed I'm always like okay the grocery store clerk doesn't really need to know also like I don't know it's just kind of a weird thing like who to tell and how much to tell like for me it's my story so I feel good about telling people whatever I want but as an adoptive parent now I try to be cautious not to overshare his story so that he can form his own opinion and tell people

20:08the positive and negative from his standpoint but it's also hard because he's a nine-month-old baby so I don't know what that'll look like for him I don't know if he'll feel like I did and think wow this is great or you might hate us and think why would you ever adopt me like this place sucks which he can think that and that's fine too and I'm worried a little bit that my own happy like upbringing and my positivity associated with adoption like if he doesn't feel

20:38that way I think I'll have to like I'm fine if he doesn't but I don't really know how to support him yet just because it's it's weird I don't know it's awkward and it's okay that he feels that way or he might feel that way but I'm trying to be open-minded and knowing that he could feel however he wants and that's his opinion and his experience and that's okay too. Yeah I think just having the door open always to having those really open and frank and just raw conversations and letting our kids feel how they feel and validating those

21:11feelings I think is a really good good perspective. So you talked about how you got to meet your birth mom one time when you were about 10 do you think that meeting her and that experience affected your perception of adoption during your teen years and as you were growing up? I think it might have just given me a little bit of closure because my sister's adoption was a little more open than mine like her birth mom is still alive so when she got Christmas gifts

21:42and say I'm 14 and she's 10 and I knew that my birth mom had passed away and at this point my birth dad wasn't in the picture I think it just helped me be like oh okay that's that's fine it's not fair but it is fair because it is what it is and so I think it just kind of made me not wonder quite as much I think if she was still alive I might have I don't know would I have wanted to reach out to her maybe but I have wanted to have a deeper relationship maybe I don't know but since it wasn't an option I think it was I don't want to say helpful but in a

22:15way I like didn't have to wonder what if just because it wouldn't have gone anywhere. Maybe one more follow-up from your story you talked about being the youngest of three biological children I guess in that family are you connected at all with your older biological sisters and what does that look like? So the oldest one moved away kind of cut family ties after college and no one really ever heard from her again I think she's fine and doing well but she kind of is doing her own thing and then the middle one or the one that's right above

22:49me is living about an hour away from where we currently live and we are friends on social media like Facebook and Instagram and we've messaged and talked on there but we haven't met but I would say it's like a good relationship and I don't know if we ever will meet like I've never asked her hey you want to meet up sometime and I don't know she's busy I'm busy but I think she would if that was something I wanted to do or if she invited me somewhere I'd probably go just because kind of why not but it is also weird in a way like not in a bad

23:24way it's like shoot what do we talk about like I don't know anything about her she knows nothing about me like I know her through social media but I don't know like her like what her childhood was like what her interests are like did she what does she remember like what was she told about me and it's just kind of like that's a lot to unpack over a cup of coffee so I think sometimes I'm like never mind like maybe one day maybe not so I'd be open to it but I think I'm also fine just kind of seeing her life unfold through social

23:56media navigating relationships is as hard and to know like how much and when and kind of the why behind it all that's yeah yeah I loved hearing you talk about meeting your birth dad do you have any advice you talked about how you were really nervous about that do you have any advice for other adoptees when they're meeting their birth family for the first time for how to prepare yeah how to prepare emotionally I think the biggest thing I would say is I truly do

24:28self-reflection on what you're hoping to get out of it because I think that kind of frames how it might look so like I had a great dad a great mom I wasn't looking for like someone to fill a void in a parent role I wasn't looking for answers to questions that I had about why I was adopted yeah we did talk about that but I was meeting him because it felt like the right thing to do but I think if someone was thinking oh I don't know like what if like what if someone

25:02didn't want to be found like what if I was the one trying to initiate contact with him and he had wanted nothing to do with me like how would I feel if that haven't kind of play like the what-if game just so that realistic expectations can be said but that shouldn't scare someone away from trying to reach out to their family if that's something they're interested in I would say go for it by all means like kind of why not but also be prepared maybe for disappointment knowing that adoption is kind of complicated and I thought it was

25:33beautiful that my birth dad is married and has kids but I could see how someone might have their feelings hurt kind of like well why are you taking care of them but you didn't take care of me so I guess you just never know what you're gonna find when you start looking or digging which could be a great thing you could find out all these amazing things that you also might kind of uncover things you might wish you didn't really know so and that goes both ways like he could look at me and be like wow I am not a fan of how you turned out

26:04type thing which wasn't my case but just everybody's different and you don't know who they're gonna be and people change and sometimes that's for the better and sometimes it's not but yeah I would say go ahead and try it if it's something someone wanted I think a lot of people wonder kind of like where did I come from like what makes me me like nature versus nurture so I think reaching out can answer some of those questions and fill in any gaps that someone might have about where they came from or who they are what their family's like and so I

26:36think that part is kind of cool. So do you feel like when you met with him you kind of saw some of the nature versus nurture like a parent and him and you like similarities? So I didn't notice anything but my husband was there and he said some of the things reminded him of me or like when he was watching him talk and interact and interact with his kids it reminded him of me and then like the next weekend we went to my parents house and he was watching me closely with them

27:07and he goes never mind you're just like your parents instead so like when we were there he thought I was like my biological dad and then the next weekend he goes no you're exactly like your mom like you talk like her your mannerisms are like her your sense of humor is like your dad so he's he was the one who said I have no idea like it's kind of 50-50 like nature versus nurture yeah yeah yeah it's been interesting so all four of our children are adopt were adopted and it's so interesting to see because there are some things where I'm like it's exactly

27:38like her I'm like no you're exactly like your birth mom right now or like you did your mannerisms just like your birth father so it's kind of fun to see we get older too I'm sure yeah more of their personality develop yeah yeah so you shared a little bit when when you were sharing your story about considering adopting as an adoptee and how maybe that influenced your decision you also mentioned that you know you and your sister had kind of different

28:12experiences so new so knowing that there was kind of this for wide variety of experience that an adopted child could feel like you did that play into your decision-making when you were looking into adoption I think it almost gave us more confidence when we decided to adopt and I say that because I could see myself if our son who's adopted hated us or even for a time period now I mean I think every kid kind of goes through a phase where they like hate their parents

28:42but that would be that'd be really hard for me and I would wonder what did I do wrong is it me is us maybe we shouldn't done this maybe we weren't the best fit what were we thinking but having seen my sister kind of go through the ups and downs of that my parents did everything perfectly right like it wasn't on them it was just her like how she processed her grief and her adoption and they helped her navigate through it and they kind of held her hand and they were with her and they did all of the right things and so it it worked out even though it

29:16started from different places so I think it just gave me hope that even if we kind of get stuck in the trenches for a bit that at the end of the day there's still light at the end of the tunnel and it can still be a beautiful relationship for everybody involved even though it might not always seem like that day to day I love that perspective that's awesome so how do you think your experiences as both an adoptee and as an adoptive mom have influenced your

29:46perception of adoption over time how it's changed I think just over time it's changed a lot it's kind of gone away from like maybe being on a wait list and just getting called to I like to think that birth moms have a lot bigger of a say nowadays but with that being said I still feel like there's a long way to go for all adoptions to be ethical and I feel like that's kind of disappointing sometimes like just because I want birth moms to feel like in control and validated and not coerced into placing their baby but I also know that that's

30:19not always the case and so it's kind of hard because birth moms do get a bigger say nowadays but also I feel like there are multiple different pressure points like the social media and agencies and consultants and I don't even know private matching and everything kind of in between it just makes me wonder where it's gonna go in the future yeah I we have very very similar concerns and hopes that the ethics of adoption can improve and the treatment of adoptees and with

30:56birth parents or expected parents that they can have you know options counseling they don't feel coerced yeah so I think as adoptive parents we have a big role to play in changing the culture of adoption for the future I think so too and one thing I might add that has been a little interesting since we started trying to adopt like when we were hoping to adopt is I got a lot of pushback like on social media from other adoptees now a lot of adoptees have great experiences

31:30and a lot don't and I totally get that but it almost felt sometimes like because I had such a positive experience that I was doomed to be a good adoptive parent and I just obviously that made me feel super crummy and so there were times when I doubted like myself and Eric and God's plan I said maybe we shouldn't do this because my own beliefs and stuff might be skewed and I don't know if I can do it but I kind of pushed all those worries aside and just you know put faith in God

32:00that his plan would work out and that when the time came everything would be fine but it was kind of disappointing as an adoptive parent that because I was an adoptee that thought that I wanted to adopt I was kind of feeding into the unethical like adoption and I was like well it doesn't have to be that way but I think a lot of people see adoption as beautiful and a lot of people see it as like this evil thing because they had a terrible experience which just makes my heart hurt thinking that someone hates adoption so much that they don't want to

32:32push for ethical adoptions or push for better adoptions like I think it's always gonna be a thing so instead of like trying to stop it how can we help make it better? In some ways with social media the way that it is and and people sharing kind of their truth adoptive parents and hopefully adoptive parents are becoming more and more educated so hopefully we can hold agencies and legislature more responsible to to make more ethical practices so yeah if you

33:04could share one thing with every other adoptee that's kind of a big big one thing or maybe just a few things like what what would you share with other adoptees about your experience or or anything that is on your mind? I think the biggest thing is kind of related to adoption and it kind of isn't it's just to not give up on your own happiness and I know that looks different for everybody and it changes like when you're five your happiness might be like

33:35you know three cookies instead of two cookies but as you get older what happiness looks like changes and I know that there are different barriers and obstacles through every phase of life but it's worth it to stay true to yourself and your values and form positive relationships with those around you so that you have a support system to build you up even when things don't go as planned and in regards to adoption that could mean if you're an adoptee in a bad adoptive family like how can you kind of overcome that and

34:06still be a happy adult and a happy person or if you had an amazing experience being adopted okay fine I guess maybe it's happiness isn't related to being adopted then and that's fine too but just everyone deserves to be happy and I think sometimes people just have to work harder for it than others but I think it's important to kind of overcome any grief and you owe it to yourself like to get the help you need if you need it that's counseling if that's physically mentally emotionally I'm not sure spiritually but yeah make

34:38time for you so that you can be a happy person and make others happy too I love that all right so if you could share one thing with every other adoptive parent what would that be this one was tricky for me too so I feel like as an adoptee and an adoptive parent this has changed for me over the past nine months and I think the biggest one is be honest and I think that starts with yourself so

35:10for Eric and me we didn't have any infertility but they we had okay so are we adopting to just have a baby and if so that's fine but we need to overcome maybe that grief if there is any so that we are able to be adoptive parents for me because I had such a rainbow sunshine adoption knowing that our son might not have that I need to kind of put aside my own feelings so that I can support him and his and I think it also looks like with adoptions these days like as far as

35:43openness goes that can mean a lot of different things so we have a pretty open adoption with our son's mom and I think that's an amazing thing but I also would say that how awful would it be if we weren't honest with her about what our intentions were with how often to do visits or texts or emails or pictures because I can't imagine like telling her one thing and then not falling through on that and so I think that can be really scary but also it's super important

36:16like be honest with yourself so that when the time comes that you're matched with a family or picked that you can honor that relationship and that mom and stay true to your word could you share just a little bit more about what your open adoption looks like with his birth parents yeah so it's just birth mom birth dad isn't really in the picture we're not actually sure who he is as a right now but she originally wanted a closed adoption and we're like okay like

36:46we can't make you have an open adoption but our agency kind of talked to her and they believe that open adoptions can be the best thing for the child so they strongly encouraged her to change her mind and she said nope I think it's easier for me to just have it closed okay that's if that's what you want they're around for the birth moms for 18 years for like counseling your services or classes and they do the same for the adoptive families too but they said okay like we'll reach out to you we'll reach out to you she goes I don't want it I

37:17don't want it I don't want it and then he was born and we went to the hospital and you know she signed the papers the next day and she she laughs she wanted to see him one more time and that was that I was like okay like we had each other's phone numbers so I said I'll respect her and I will still send texts or emails or pictures like an email account that way in five years she reached out then I would have something like here this is him when he was a baby here's this and that but when he was about a month old she texted and said

37:47you know what like this is hard like I would love to see a picture I just want to know that he's okay and so I was like oh of course here's like 50 pictures so I downloaded an app where I can upload pictures in case something ever happens to either of our phones there in one place which was a recommendation by the agency which I after they said that why didn't I think of that like that makes sense and so we texted pretty pretty frequently maybe about once a week twice a week and then I send pictures about the same frequency and so we tried to

38:18visit twice and it has fallen through both times but I think we're gonna try again two more times before the year is up they live about three and a half hours away from us so we're fine making the drive up there it's a little more challenging for them to get down to us so we're still trying to navigate what that looks like and it's not perfect but we feel like we owe it to her and we owe it to our son to give it our best best shot and the biggest example I can think

38:51of is so we're Catholic and we got him baptized in our church and we're like should we invite her and I was like oh yeah that'd be nice but also like I don't know like all of our extended family is gonna be there like our friends are gonna be there like what if she feels weird I don't know and then we decided well okay so what if we don't then what like okay so when he's 12 and he says why didn't you try if I didn't you invite her and we say I don't know

39:21we chickened out like so we decided you know what like well we'll invite her and if she comes that'd be great our families are super open like I was adopted so they get it Eric has adoption in his family and so she couldn't make it that weekend which is fine but I was kind of sad that she wasn't able to come because I think it would have been really really nice and so I am hoping that moving forward maybe around the holidays this year I'm not quite ready

39:51to send them off and have an empty seat at my table when he's one years old but if she could come down and we could celebrate holidays together I think it would be a good start and then years to come it would never be weird like the first one is I feel like always the weirdest yeah and it would get easier and easier yeah I think that we had I think we were pretty I don't know the close-minded when we first jumped into the adoption world and like oh well

40:24it's Christmas we want the holiday for our family right but in the end it's grown into like yeah our family includes all of their birth families right it's like yeah come over on Christmas like we'd love to see you and I love what you said like starting early on and just making it the normal thing from the beginning makes that really natural and then ten years down the road it's not like oh well what do we do right yeah yeah I love that advice that's great that's awesome so I know you've had a really good experience but what have you

40:57what have you struggled with regarding adoption and what do you wish others knew or understood about it I think I just wish people knew how complicated it is I don't know what people really think about adoption but I feel like they don't really think about what that means and so like as a mom I just can't fathom being in a position where adoption is even like I try to think to myself okay

41:27at what point would I consider adoption for one of my kids and I roamed over backwards to do anything everything I could to not have that so it would have to be such like a desperate situation and I think it just truly is sacrifice and love because I can't even imagine what that would feel like and look like and then it doesn't go away it's not like five ten years later you just get

42:00fixed from it like so I always think about that like I wish people sometimes were a little more careful with what they say about birth moms because sometimes people say things like oh I don't know just I don't want to make up examples but kind of insensitive things and it wanted kind of first my feelings for like my son's birth mom and for my biological family and I don't think people should be judged negatively ever for being a part of the adoption triad

42:30and then I would also say I really don't like when we tell people oh like we adopted or whatever and they say oh he's so lucky and yeah I felt lucky as an adoptee but I don't really feel like my son is lucky I feel like we are the lucky ones like how awesome is it that his mom chose us to parent like the best gift in the entire world like I feel lucky I got he's not lucky I am like I think that's just like a cool part of adoption in a way like someone loves

43:04their kids so much that they say here take my child raise him as your own love him forever and ever and ever because right now I can't and I think that's just like the craziest thing that can happen to to humans and I think it's such a blessing but also what a weight to carry like I told some I looked her in the eye and said I will love your baby do everything I can to make him feel safe and healthy and loved for every day of his life and that sometimes

43:34like that's so overwhelming but I also feel like it's the coolest thing but yeah beautiful that's so well said I know so good I'm like almost teary like thinking about like the same like the promise that you make as a parent well is there is there anything else that you would share about adoption or feelings around adoption either as an adoptee or an adoptive mom that you know that you

44:06would want other people to know or feel I think what you just shared was great but if there's any other thoughts I think that's really it I appreciate you guys taking the time to talk to me about both of my experiences as an adoptee and an adoptive mom because I feel like a lot of people just focus on one or the other and it's kind of a an interesting spot to be in to be both and so I feel like it's just kind of nice to be able to share a little bit about my experience with other people who I feel like are also involved in the adoption community

44:38yeah it's not I mean it's not often that we have a member of the adoption triad that fits two of the pieces right and so it's great to get perspective so thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and everything with us thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the open adoption project we so appreciate Emily sharing her story with us we're really excited to share more

45:08with you in the second season and our first season we heard from a lot of people we had a total of 17 adoptees five birth parents and four adoptive parents in addition to ourselves so we're really excited we also had one adoption professional in the last season but that's going to change yeah this season we're going to hear from even more members of the adoption triad so more of everyone and more adoption professionals and next Monday we'll be back in a new episode where we'll talk through things that hopeful adoptive

45:39parents should consider when it comes to physical or medical conditions with a focus on neonatal exposure to drugs and alcohol now this is a topic that we've gotten a lot of requests to cover but because it's a sensitive and private topic we'll be talking with Jeremy Stone who is a fourth year medical student and adoptive dad who has developed a resource for parents hopeful adoptive parents that are making adoption decisions when some exposure might have occurred thank you so much for joining us today and to connect with us remember

46:11to go to open adoption project org and have a great day

46:42you you

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