Katie | Healing & Open Adoption

0:00Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. We're the Nelsons. I'm Lynette. And I'm Sean. We're so excited to share an interview today with Katie. Katie is from Texas in the United States. She is an adoptee as well as a birth mother of two children. In this episode she'll share her story of growing up as an adoptee and then choosing adoption for her kids. In this episode she'll talk to us a little bit about the different kinds of relationships she's seen in her own adoption experiences and also some of the challenges that come with a closed

0:32adoption, seeking reunification, and other struggles that come along with being an adoptee. She also talks about The Table, a nonprofit that she started to support birth parents. We'll have a link to that in our show notes as well. We really know that you guys are going to enjoy this episode. Well, we are now on the podcast with Katie. Katie, thanks so much for being with us. Yeah, excited to be here. Thanks again. Let's just jump in and can you introduce

1:08yourself? Sure. So I'm Katie. I'm a birth mom and an adoptee and I'm in Fort Texas. I love hiking in my free time and especially now that it's cooling off down here in Texas, it's prime hike time every weekend for me. I have a dog and I love spending time with her. I'm a big True Crime podcast fan and then I also really am involved at my church and also have an adoption organization that takes

1:39a lot of my free time as well and that I'm super passionate about. Awesome. We'll probably ask you about some of those things. Maybe off the record, on the record, what's your favorite True Crime podcast? Crime Junkie. I am a Crime Junkie too. So that's a great one. Awesome. Well, let's just have you jump in and share your story with us. Maybe starting with your own adoption and then talking about being a birth mother also. Sure. So adoption has always been a huge part of my identity. When I

2:13was two days old, I was adopted by my parents through an agency here in Texas. So growing up, I had a sister who was also adopted about three years after my parents adopted me. We're not biologically related and we just always grew up remembering knowing that we were adopted. We don't actually remember ever being sat down and you know had some revelation moments that mom and dad revealed to us. But it was just always something that was very normal to us and

2:45you know looking back I'm really thankful that my parents were very transparent about our stories and what they did know. I grew up in a closed adoption so I did not know any of my biological family or really anything about them growing up. And neither did my sister. So again that was pretty normalized for us. When I got a little bit older, I just had a lot of inner struggle. Now that I'm older and I've kind of unpacked my story, I know now

3:19that it's more of me dealing with trauma and I didn't know what that was. A lot of like reactive attachment disorder type things and I also didn't really know my worth. And so I quickly fell into a boy phase and since that was pretty much where I found the attention as this hurting young girl, it just became this cycle for me. And it wasn't long before I found myself in an unexpected pregnancy. I was 18 and I remember thinking to myself, hmm maybe I

3:58should take a pregnancy test because I think something's off here. And sure enough my doctor came in and he was like, hey do you have a boyfriend because you're pregnant? And it was it was really shocking for me at that time but at the same time I grew up in an age where teenage pregnancy was really glamorized and so was you know teen motherhood. Thanks to MTV and you know 16 and pregnant and things like that. So I really just had it in my head

4:30that I could do it. And I think a little bit of me being adopted made me just want to do things differently because I was still really just struggling with that and hurting. I hadn't met my biological family or known anything about them at that point. So my mom did when we found out that I was pregnant she did bring up like, hey you should look at this because you are adopted. And I did look into it but at that time I also really wasn't very mature so I just

5:00was really headstrong and said I'm just gonna do this. Well six months down the road I looked around at my son's life and my life and I knew that I was a child raising a child and it just did not look like what I wanted for my son. And so my parents graciously stepped in and said that they would adopt him. So I'm an extremely open adoption with my son. And then a couple years later while I was settling down a little bit I still was working some stuff out and found myself back in the same position. And with everything the knowledge of before

5:33and just knowing how much that hurt to go through the experience that I did with my son I knew that I wanted to do this a little differently. And so I immediately went to an agency and I began to work out an open adoption plan. And I stayed in their dorm that they had at the time so it was around other women who were in a similar situation and had that support around me at all times. And I started to look through profiles and I ended up picking her parents. A couple

6:06weeks before Christmas I actually was able to tell them that I was having a girl and that I wanted to choose them to parent her. And so during the rest of my pregnancy I got to know them really well. And they were only like an hour or so away from me at the time and so they drove down almost every weekend to spend some time with me to get to know me better. And that really helped the process. I think it just took a lot of pressure off of me because I knew that they were good people and I didn't have to just see that on paper through a

6:38profile book. I got to witness that firsthand. And we blew a beautiful friendship that still is really strong today. I would say that it strengthened our relationship now. But after I had her I placed her about a week later with them and she's 11 now so we have an extremely open adoption on that end. My family usually goes with me to visit to see her. It started out with maybe like

7:11one or two a year. And the more that we just grew together the more that we realized that we could trust one another and that the boundaries were being respected. We eventually came into about three times a year and then I would say in the last two years we came to a place where we said if you want to spend time together let's just say that and we'll see what our schedules look like. So at this point we just text one another if we want to do something fun and we make

7:41it work out. So it's just really grown into this beautiful place. Both my children know that they are siblings and that's probably been that way for about five years now. So that's been really cool to see when they're together getting to see them interact as siblings and just the love that they have for each other. That just fills my mom's heart. So that's been really cool to experience as well. And yeah it's just really neat that while my story has had a lot of

8:12rollercoasters, speed bumps, it's just really been a testimony to how beautifully God has worked in my life. You know I like to say that nobody's beyond redemption and I think that with me it's just things never I wouldn't have thought that I would be where I am today with the way that my life was playing out and my kids are blossoming and I'm thriving as well and so like

8:42it's just been a really great experience for me. With your two kids were they able to see each other much before you talked about how they didn't really realize they were siblings maybe for until a few years ago. So how has that relationship evolved and what kind of steps has it taken to get there? So ever since my daughter was born my son's been coming to all of the visits with me so he knew that she was important to us but he didn't know why and she actually

9:16figured it out before he did. So they're three years apart, he's 14, she's 11 and we had been talking about it her mom and I had been talking about it just knowing that they were getting older and they look very very similar so something was gonna give eventually and on their way to visit us she asked her mom if my son would have technically been her brother and her mom said well let's table that conversation until after our visit and she let us know that she was asking

9:50questions and it's time to tell them so we both agreed that after our visit we would sit them down and talk to them separately and I thought my parents would do that just because in my mind I'm like you're the parents you do it and they were like go and it was probably the most terrifying moment I've ever experienced as a mom. I was terrified that he would not understand and that he would come back with a million questions that I wouldn't know how to answer and

10:21you know typical young boys he was like I asked him do you ever wonder why we see her every single you know year so many times and he said no I'm like do you think you look alike? No. I'm like okay let's just rip the band-aid off and told him well we see her all the time because she's your sister and I chose to place her for adoption but she's really

10:53special to us and we love her so much so that's why we make sure to see her on a regular basis and actively be in her life. I was like okay can I go play my video games now? It was I was amping it up to be so much more and he did unpack it more later and she has too but I think because they've grown up seeing one another and seeing that this unspeakable unspoken bond that we clearly had all as a collective family I think that they knew something was up

11:27and so it's just become normal to them and they've done a really good job at just adapting to that. How has it been having these two different types of placements where you have one where you placed with your parents and one where you placed with a different family and your kids are in these different adoptive families? What have been the good parts, the struggles? Can you speak to that a bit? So there's definitely pros and cons. Kinship adoption, it's challenging at times. I love my parents and I think that they've done a wonderful job parenting

12:01but as most people when we become adults we realize that we don't always see eye to eye with our parents on everything and that definitely is true and I would see some of the choices or parenting tactics that are used but you know at the end of the day it's all like little bitty things that it's not detrimental to their to his life it's not changing anything about the goodness of his life it's just I would do XYZ differently so that can get a little challenging

12:35sometimes but it's more of just like a eye roll and then you know move on. The huge positive about this is I get to see him practically every day and so I'm immersed in his life completely and I haven't missed out on so many moments that I've missed out on with my daughter and so I'd say that's the biggest difference and that's definitely challenging with her. I've noticed that when I'm at visits with her I have a harder time connecting with her right

13:08away as to have with him I grew you know he's grown up with me and so it's much easier for me to know everything he loves and to quickly pick up a conversation about something he's passionate about and so I'd say that's like the biggest difference but also I think I'm not sure that this will sound great but it was a little bit easier for me to heal with placing my daughter through an agency with a family that I intentionally picked just because as

13:44birth mom sometimes we do need that time in that space because it's a lot just knowing the sacrifice that we made because we thought that was the best decision at that time when it's in your face all the time it can be really triggering and it can hurt a lot because I've always considered myself their mother that's never changed my desire to be their mother has never changed it

14:14was just not a reality for us at that time in my life and so I think that those are the biggest pros and cons but altogether you know both of them offer amazing things and you know there's bittersweet moments about any adoption story so you mentioned that you pretty much always knew that you had been adopted is there like a specific moment that you can remember or a memory that

14:45you have when you kind of realize that and what that actually meant honestly I don't think so because I didn't really grasp the reality of what being an adoptee was until I have experienced being a birth mom growing up we as adoptees I think a lot of adoptees can relate to this we hear about the completion of family so much we hear about the joy and the goodness of adoption but we never really hear about the grief and trauma that a birth mom

15:16goes through by choosing this life for her child and when I was finally in those shoes I remember thinking to myself wow I've been the poster child for adoption all these years that I never really realized how much pain this must have caused my birth mom and so I think that in that moment I realized that adoption has so much more to it than what I always saw so instead of

15:50being that proud little girl sharing I'm adopted and I have two families at show and tell every year or you know introducing yourself to the class I quickly realized that yeah that's great but it's not all joy do you feel like I know it's so different for every adoptee but do you feel like for you it might have been helpful to hear more about birth mother trauma when you were younger and helped you have that more rounded perception of adoption or do you

16:24feel like maybe not I don't know that necessarily hearing more about birth mom's trauma would have made the difference but I can tell you that an open adoption would have made the difference if I would have grown up knowing my biological family in any capacity I think that it would have drastically changed my life and theirs there's just so much healing in that and like adoptees grow up questioning if they were wanted if they were loved if

16:56they were enough and I think open adoption really helps validate that the child always was wanted and loved and enough because they get to see that through the intentional relationship with their biological family now I I know that it's not always that easy but I do know from my experience and being in my children's life that they'll never have to question if I love them and

17:26they'll never have to question if I wanted them and they see that in my actions and the way that I love them every single day so I think if I would have had that opportunity as an adoptee maybe I wouldn't have struggled as much but you know we can do the what-if game all day so who's to say if it really would have changed anything but I like I would like to think that it would have that's a great perspective so you mentioned that you grew up in a closed

17:57adoption have you had any reunification with your family yeah so after I placed my daughter I started and really discovering my biological roots I had already received my redacted adoption records so that meant that everything identifying was you know completely redacted out and I had the spaces in between which really wasn't that much information but after I had my daughter

18:29I went through some counseling so that's something that the process that I went through that was required to help me kind of prepare for some of the things that I might find and then thankfully I'm glad that I did that because I I found out some really hard stuff after that and my birth mother and I met for the first time when she was in jail and she has struggled her entire life she's an addict and she just has had a really rough time and has made some really rough

19:05decisions so I met her afterwards and that was a lot to take in as you can imagine I still to this day and 11 years later don't really know how I felt about that initial meeting her moment but shortly after that I met my biological grandparents and my uncle cousins my great-grandmother was alive at that time and so getting to see them that was really great I spent the whole day with

19:35them and I was really surprised at the similarities that I could see in their faces and some of the things that they were passionate about that they told me I quickly was like well that's where that came from my both my birth mom and my grandmother they're very musically talented and they love to be creative so those were some things that I definitely have always wondered about and and then I had like reddish hair when I was born and my uncle has a red beard and so

20:09there's just like a lot of things my faces are very my face is very similar to my grandpa's so just those really cool little things I've had an amazing relationship with them over the years unfortunately with my birth mom I've had to establish some really healthy boundaries for my sake and and so I have to I had to learn through the years that I can still love her but that doesn't mean that we have to have this relationship that's you know all the time

20:42like a typical mother and daughter relationship and I don't approve of the things that she's done with her life and in fact it really makes me sad and I think a lot of it could have been different if she would have had post adoption support because that wasn't a thing back in the 80s either and so she really just grieved and these unhealthy coping skills that she has developed was how she chose to grieve and so that's been hard but with time and maturity and grace I've been able to find a happy medium to where I can show her that I

21:15love her but from a distance so thinking about maybe other people who were raised in a closed adoption who might now be seeking reunification is there any advice I mean you you had kind of talked a little bit about having counseling that that was really helpful but and maybe build on that or any other advice that you would give people who are seeking reunification yeah I would say just I mean y'all only got like a tidbit of how difficult some of the things I found out my birth father side is way worse if you can imagine that and

21:49through that I've learned that I wouldn't take any of it back I have experienced so much disappointment in my reunion that sometimes it's overwhelming because I think to myself no wonder I was such a struggling teen growing up like look at these genetics it's so hard for me to not to not think that and I remember saying that to my biological grandfather one day I was like after I found out about my birth father and in his criminal background I

22:20was just really distraught and said you know well no wonder I was such a troubled teen and he was like no okay they're really amazing people that come from bad situations and good situations and there's really bad people that come from amazing situations and bad situations so that has nothing to do with it he's like you know who you are you know where your identity lies that has nothing to do with it and that really just kind of helped me realize like he's right I know

22:52who I am and my worth doesn't lie in that like my worth doesn't lie in the disappointment that I found or even you know in the hurt that I have wishing that my birth parents for something else I have all these beautiful things that I've been able to get from all of it like my relationship with my grandparents I have two half-sisters that I didn't know about before that I have a relationship with now lots of cousins there's just so many wonderful family members that I do have that really just outweigh it all like I

23:26wouldn't sacrifice knowing them for the disappointment that I faced and then also I would say because it was so much to unpack even if an adoptee's story isn't as drastic as mine it is genuinely a culture shock like going into a family that is possibly always been thinking about you I often sit in my family and think to myself I kind of don't feel like I belong here and it's

23:59not because they make me feel that way it's just because it's still foreign to me even 11 years later it's foreign to me this is not the people I grew up with family doesn't feel the same with them as it feels with the family I grew up with and so I think being able to process that with a mental health professional and to just get those things out and realize that there's still so many positives in that and that it's normal to feel these ways that I do as an adoptee has really been refreshing and validating and healing so on that

24:33note what have you struggled with regarding adoption and what do you wish others knew or understood about it well being a birth mom and an adoptee I've seen even adoptees struggle with how they view birth parents and I've seen how the world views birth parents we live in a world that likes to have this very lifetime movie view of birth moms that we're all drug addicts or that were

25:03teenagers or we never wanted our child or you know facing a lot of hopeful adoptive parents who are fearful of open adoption because they think that we're gonna come find them and take the baby away like those things are still so prevalent today which really blows my mind because we are in such a modern world and I feel like open adoption is very common and I feel like there are so many people that are using their platforms to talk about how great open

25:34adoption is and how it can work that it surprises me that people still just look at birth moms in this shady way and so that's one thing that I wish people would listen to our stories more and even if you have a different perspective of us you have to come in with an open mind and open heart because if you don't you're never gonna grow and you're never going to even listen to what I'm saying

26:08or what I'm trying to you know teach you through my story if you're not gonna come in with openness and then too I would say like this open adoption in general I think a lot of people are fearful of it but when two parties respect one another establish healthy boundaries and intentionally want things to blossom it works I love that you said that so well that was beautiful I know

26:42we shared maybe just a little bit on Instagram but so we have four open adoptions and I just love and you kind of highlighted this when well these are kind of some of the feelings I feel after everything you're saying like maybe if you had an open adoption things could have felt a little bit different growing up this family that you've now been reunified with is family but sometimes doesn't feel like family and I wonder if that would be different too if they'd always been there right and so I don't know it's just it's just had it

27:15highlighting a lot of things like and that you wonder about yeah and I'm really glad that we're doing some things the way that we are with our kids so that maybe they can avoid some of the you know hurt or those deep questions I just really appreciate that you you articulated it very very well how does your adoption experience as an adoptee compare to your adoption experience as a birth mom well I mean the obvious one is closed adoption versus open adoption and just how much how much more beneficial open adoption

27:50is because I can be you know living my love out loud with my kids and I just didn't get to see that and so I struggled a lot with my identity as as an adolescent and it just I think that that kind of was the heavy bit of it because I didn't know who I was I didn't feel like I was worthy of anything and I let other people place their labels on me and but I would say like definitely as a birth mom you just understand things so much differently there's a

28:23lot of adoptees that are out there adult adoptees that are labeled as angry adoptees and I can't really relate to that because I've seen full circle now I don't know what it's like to be an adoptive parent but I do know what it's like to be the most vital parts of the adoption adoption triad an adoptee and birth mom and I just feel like there's so much pain there but like that's not all it is you know when we when we talk about the grief when we talk about the

28:55trauma I want people to understand that while those are there the joy is still there too they can coexist it doesn't have to be one or the other and it shouldn't be because we do want that completion of family right like I feel like a lot of times we get caught up in this being of like well they should have just parented because then my life would have been better well we don't know that we don't know what the outcome would have been we can't play that out but

29:27what we do know is that her decision put you on a trajectory for the life that you have now and I think with my birth mom like I've been able to see this a little differently because I've seen like how much she struggled and I know for a fact that my life would have not been great if I would have been raised by her but I think I just like understand more that their decision was intentional and it was made with love and I think that a lot of times adoptees

30:00like to say that it wasn't but I think it was love in the best way that birth mom knew how so you said something a while ago that I'm wondering if you can unpack a little bit for me I've heard a lot of adoptees say this phrase like I was wondering who I was or I didn't know who I was can you break that down a little bit for us like what about your identity did you feel like was missing I think it's just simple things you know I it's silly but I would fantasize about

30:32who my birth parents were because I didn't know anything and I mean I would make grandiose dreams about how they were celebrities or you know rich and famous people but ultimately I think I just always had wish that I knew who they were it wasn't so much that I wanted to know them because I don't think I even got that far with processing all of that I just wish that I knew my legacy and I didn't and then also I think growing up you just like wonder

31:09where these things come from and if you grew up in a biological family like you can look around and see that and for me I was just like why am I so different than my sister or why am I not this person that my parents want me to be and I think a lot of the times I was assuming what they wanted me to be it wasn't that they were saying like you must fit in this box to be the perfect child but a lot of adoptees in fact I saw this on someone's social media the other day a lot of us just really live up to these false expectations thinking

31:44that we're supposed to fit into this box but we don't even know how to be that because we don't know enough about ourselves to assimilate to that and so I think that we just grew up with a lot of unrealistic expectations about ourselves that we place on ourselves just because we're missing so much information if that makes sense yeah so understanding a little bit about more your heritage and then it kind of made me think of like the nature versus nurture right like a

32:15lot of who we become is because of how we're nurtured how we're raised but there are parts of us too that are very enriched like entrenched in our genes right like we see it in all four of our kids where they have like you know personality quirks or like even mannerisms yeah there's so many things that are exactly like one of their birth parents and then there are things where I look at my son or my daughter like wow you did that just like mom or just like me

32:46right and so I can imagine having half of that like puzzle piece missing being making it really difficult so how do you think your experience of placing your baby for adoption has shaped your perceptions of your own birth family and your adoptive family obviously it's been a really rough road trying to even understand my birth mom and I think that when I first met her I was really angry

33:16I was angry because I felt like since she had placed me for adoption like I had just done when I knew that that meant that I could do better for my kids and that's what I wanted to do I expected that of my birth mom and obviously I met her and 23 years after she had placed me so I realized very quickly that she did not do that and I was very angry about that I was angry

33:47that she had every opportunity to start fresh and you know make something of herself and hopefully someday when I came around that I would be able to see that but that just wasn't a whether that was a priority or not or whatever you know that's just not the reality of what happened with her and so I think that's one thing that I really had to work through and quickly well not quickly but

34:19about after a year of being really angry I just had an epiphany and I was like okay but she loves you like even though her life looks like this now and she has struggled it's only because of her she loves you so much that she did what she told you she didn't she told me she did not want to place me for adoption she felt like that was the only option and so for her to have that much love for me to realize like this is my only option I don't know that spoke to me and so

34:56that's why I choose to love her today and to not be angry at her anymore because she did do something really hard and I benefited from it my life has been hard but it's been great also so I think that that's something that helps me just understand her better was just realizing like how difficult it was because every time I think of the day that I've relinquished my rights for both of my children is it's very difficult like every time it chokes me up it that pain

35:29will never go away nothing will ever make that feel any less just awful it was it was awful it's the worst moment of my life but I also have seen how much they're thriving since then and so like I just understand that decision so much better and I love her for it and I think who I adopted parents you know they did a really great job with just being so transparent with me growing up and they

36:01tried very hard when I was going through my extremely rebellious basically a decade and they they tried they loved me very hard they did everything that they possibly could think of but we just weren't as aware of adoptee trauma back then as we are today and so I think that that has helped me understand some of their decisions today of just realizing that the resources weren't there and I don't think mental health professionals or adoption

36:32professionals even understood the whole realities of what adoptees can go through and so I think that on both sides it's given me a lot of grace to see just the full picture and to understand that everybody is I think it's Bob Goss that says you know if we can just assume that everybody's always trying to do their best that we would treat people differently and I think that's kind of what it's done for me to see the whole picture that I just have

37:02so much more understanding and grace for people that we all are just trying to do the best we can in super difficult situations and sometimes it doesn't look great sometimes it's messy but that's life and that doesn't mean that something beautiful can't come out of that. That's so true yeah life is messy life is hard and you know you need to connect with people and process things and I love that thought too just assume everyone's doing their best or trying

37:35their best and it's gonna be better so you have a group or an organization called the table right and it's a group for birth or birth mothers that's a support group right or can you maybe share with us a little bit more about that? Yeah so one of my fellow birth mom friends Lacey and I we started an organization called the table DFW and we met in a support group at the agency that we both placed at and we had seen each other around seated panels and

38:08stuff together as well but we started to realize that a lot of birth parents were not taking up the resources the agencies offer because the hurt that they're feeling is associated with that agency and so they can't even get past that hurt to even consider like what they have on the menu of post adoption support so we just really sat down with one another and said how can we reframe this so that it's more approachable because we really there's so many

38:38birth parents that are missing out on healing and support from the network that we've experienced from having friendships with other birth parents and so we decided to just start our own organization and the depths of the pandemic and you know it's really just been super fruitful and we started out just kind of winging it and we were connecting with people on social media because that's all really we could do during the pandemic and sharing stories

39:11and raising awareness so that everyone in the adoption community could learn from birth parent stories and then we started implementing in-person events which they're like really casual they're usually happy hours or meeting at some restaurant on a patio and it's really just a bunch of friends talking and so that's been really fun and then we started a support group which meets every third Thursday of the month and we have women that are coming in from even

39:45Canada to meet with us every month and we usually have a topic that we talk about but it's very very casual it's not therapeutic so it's not the typical support group that a lot of people are like oh that doesn't that doesn't sound lovely I don't want to do that well really it's just having a video chat with friends and we just happen to put a topic up there and if it takes off somewhere else and that's what we do with it and so that's been really great

40:15we've just made a lot of connections to people we're so honored that people have found our space a safe place and a place that they find joy in so much so that they want to fly across the country to come see us in person and so yeah it's just been really cool to just meet all these different birth parents and see what's going on in their life and to just have to pull up at a table and for

40:48someone to share your story and then for someone to in response say hey I get that and you actually believe them it's so life-changing to know other people who have been in your shoes and they can support you differently than the rest of the world can so it's just been cool to grow with all these other birth parents that we're meeting and say you know we were so honored for them to share their stories with us and to use our platform to amplify their voices so we're excited

41:23to see what continues to grow out of it but it's just been really awesome for the first year and a half now. That's great. We're connected with a lot of birth parents so is there where can we turn birth parents social media wise if they want to connect with you too? You can find us on Instagram and Facebook at the table DFW. I mean as you said that I thought of times where we've sat across the table with friends who are struggling with infertility or friends who just recently got approved

41:56to adopt and unless you've walked in their shoes it is really hard to relate with people and to to really feel like people can understand you so I love that you're providing a platform for birth parents that can connect that they can connect with so many people that have really gone through something really hard and that they can support one another and that I love that. Yeah that's very neat. One of my favorite things is seeing our kids birth parents become

42:27friends and family eventually to each other and create those bonds I feel like that's such a neat opportunity to help foster those connections. Yeah birthday parties and stuff we had like we had a birthday party a couple weeks ago and we have three of our four birth moms here and one of the one of the birth dads was here too and just to see them like interacting together and just talking and you know we have so many. They get on levels that no one else does. Yeah it's awesome. I'm so glad to hear that one of the birth fathers is involved because that's

42:59something that we really wish was more prevalent but unfortunately there's just not many birth fathers that are looking for that community or support but that's why we've always said that we are a birth parent group because we want birth fathers to feel like they have a space too because it's important for them to have that support as well. Yeah we I mean we're actually it's very unique but we're actually connected to all four of our kids birth moms and birth fathers

43:31obviously into different degrees but we have connection and communication with them. That's awesome. All right so what are some of the biggest challenges that you feel like the adoption community faces? You have this unique perspective from an adoptee point of view and a birth mom point of view where I feel like you can really shed some good light on what you think might need some help. Yeah so I think one of the big ones which might hurt to hear would be that

44:05we have I don't know I see it a lot in the adoption community that we sometimes unintentionally place ourselves on a pedestal of glorification. You know that saviorism complex can really come in and I've been guilty of it too. I've gone on mission trips before and I've fallen in love with kids and the you know third world country and I'm like looking up adoption laws so I'm like I want to bring this baby home but I have to quickly check myself because I'm like

44:37no no no this baby needs to stay in there in her community. I cannot come in and save her. I do not know what she needs and I don't even know that I'm equipped to raise a child from a different country and so I think that those are things that we need to be asking ourselves when we're looking to adopt like am I equipped? Am I doing the work? Am I doing this for me or am I doing this because a child needs a loving and safe home? And I think that while those are really hard things and again really hard to hear someone call

45:10out it's super vital to providing a loving and safe home. If you're not doing it for the right reasons, if your heart is not in the right place then you can't be again open enough to hear the things that you need to do in order to be well equipped and trauma-informed to raise an adopted child. So I think that that's one thing that we just could do a lot better with checking ourselves going into

45:40being a hopeful adoptive parent or you know if you're wanting it to adopt again just really checking your heart and checking your intentions, equipping yourself, making sure that you I mean like TBRI from the Care and Purpose Institute is really great learning how to be trauma-informed so that you can deal with the complex emotions that your child could face so that you're not like quickly like I can't do this anymore after a couple you know outbursts. Just

46:13things like that. Are there people in your community that can come alongside you and help be a mentor and role model in your children's life? If you're adopting internationally or trans racially, you have people that are already in your immediate circle who are helping speak into that child's culture. Are they going to be role models and mentors again for that child specifically to their you know culture so that they can learn what that looks

46:45like because as much as we want to we can't provide all the answers we cannot normalize everything for our children. So those are just some hard questions I think that people could be asking themselves when they're facing the process of adoption. And then of course I mentioned birth parents earlier just like continue to dig into our stories, listen to us. We go through a lot and you know we're resilient but it's unfair that we ever had to be and I

47:18think that if people really grasp that then they'll see that adoption is beautiful but it's not just beautiful because it simply was a completion of family. Like there's so much more that adds into that and I think that if you're not grasping that you're missing out on a lot that could really just be really beneficial to you and to your child. And then I think lastly like adoption reform is huge. We're hoping to change things then I do feel like I feel

47:52very hopeful that things are changing their agencies that are really you know checking their practices making sure they're being ethical. Things as simple as like when a woman is in an unexpected pregnancy and she is considering her options she is an expectant mother. She is that child's mother period and even after if she does decide to become a birth mother which means she placed her child for adoption and it has been the papers have been signed and that has

48:23been finalized. She has been a birth mom and I think like just even the little distinction in those two titles is huge because you're not placing this pressure on a woman to become something that she hasn't decided for herself yet. And so I think that those are like huge things in the adoption reform world of just realizing like what is ethical and are we asking the right questions when we're especially from an adoptive parent perspective like if you're going into an

48:54agency ask the questions ask what they're doing to support birth parents after they place ask how they're approaching expectant mothers what services do they provide. I just feel like if we continue to ask all the questions and make sure that we're hyper aware of what is happening in the agencies and organizations around us and we can help be a part of the change for good. Awesome I love that. We are so in line with everything that you just said like yeah I mean I think it's really on the shoulders of adoptive parents to

49:29improve the ethics of adoption and to ask the questions that need to be asked of agencies make sure are option counseling being offered or is it just counseling that's leading you to become a birth parent right. We want to make sure that people are treated ethically and fair and not coerced in any way so we love that love that. Well thank you so so much for joining us on this episode you have articulated things in ways that others haven't and I think helped us see

50:03a perspective that that many don't get to see so thank you very very much. Awesome well thank you all so much for asking me to do this I love connecting with adoption community and I look forward to hopefully getting to know you all better through your social media. Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of the Open Adoption Project and a big thank you to Katie for sharing her story with us. If you want to

50:37follow her on Instagram she is at katyd underscore 88 and her nonprofit is at the table DFW. We'll be back next Monday with a new episode where we hear from a panel of people about infertility and their thoughts on how to nurture relationships when you're going through really difficult times. Thank you so much for listening we'll be back next week.

51:29you

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