Rebekkah | "I Could Have Parented"

0:00Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. We're the Nelsons, I'm Sean, and in this episode my wife Lynette does an interview with Rebecca. Rebecca is a birth mother and was also adopted by her stepfather as a child. In this episode she'll share about her experience placing her daughter in a semi-open adoption, a little bit about racism and the need for education and adoption, also about adoption language and what role that has played in her experience. And it's just a really great

0:30interview. She's really vulnerable and opens up and shares a lot of her thoughts and feelings. So I think that you'll really enjoy this episode. We'll jump in right now and we'll recap a little bit afterward. We are here on the podcast with Rebecca. Rebecca, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks for having me. Can you start off by telling us a bit about yourself? Oh goodness, I am 43. I am originally from North Carolina. I was

1:08living in Atlanta, met my husband, well now my husband, moved to California so I now reside in Sacramento, California. I have two wonderful daughters and a wonderful husband who supports me in everything that we do. Awesome, I love California. Such a beautiful place. You have a couple of connections to adoption. Can you tell us how adoption is part of your life and just share your story? I do. I am an adoptee. My stepdad adopted me when I, well the adoption took six years

1:40to complete. We started it when I was five and it finished when I was ten. And then I am a birth mother. I gave birth to a beautiful daughter August of 2001. Can you tell us a bit about how adoption became your choice and what that road looked like? I was 22 when I found myself pregnant. I was living in Atlanta. I had

2:11a good job. I had a good apartment. I was fairly stable. The guy that I was seeing, the birth father, we were never gonna be in a permanent relationship together. We both knew that but we loved each other. When I found myself pregnant, I immediately started thinking of how am I going to parent and be a single parent basically. I was scared. I was downright scared. I called my mother because unfortunately I had no intention of going to see my mother at the time. It was

2:45going to be probably six months before I saw her. And that was not gonna be the appropriate time to say, hey by the way I'm pregnant. So I had to call her and I had to tell her over the phone and I just kind of blurted it out and she hung up on me. And yeah she hung up on me and called me a couple of days later and apparently she had been talking with several people and came back with, well the general consensus is that you have an abortion. And I said that's not my

3:21plan. That is not my plan at all. And I grew up in a very small town in North Carolina. My daughter is biracial and my mother told me on the phone, you cannot bring your child and live here. You will never be allowed in this house if you're parenting your child. And so I was devastated at that point that my mother was not willing to support my decision. And so I thought more and more. I had an

3:53older sister that was very supportive of whatever I was going to decide. She was she was even coming up with, well how can you parent in Atlanta and let me help you and I'll support you and everything. And without having my mother supporting me it was not gonna work. And so that's kind of how I came to the decision to to make an adoption plan. And so did you have people in your life who had adopted children or who had placed children for adoption or other people who were

4:24adopted that helped shape that decision? Well me being adopted kind of helped. I had other I don't know that I really had other friends in my life at the time that had adopted or what have you. I know that I had some friends that were in the process of trying to adopt for one reason or another but I didn't really have anybody that really helped me make that decision. It was it was more of a

4:54I didn't want my child growing up in a family where she was not wanted. And so I I said this isn't gonna happen. And in fact my sister my middle sister was graduating from high school that year and my mother called me and told me you have to look as un-pregnant as possible. She said those exact words to me and you are not allowed to come to the house for the celebration. You have to stay at your

5:27godparents house. You will stay there. You can go to the graduation and then you can go back to their house and then you can go home the next day. My sister was devastated. She she couldn't understand why I couldn't go. And because I was taught to respect your elders and your parents I was not about to badmouth my mother in front of her because I wanted her to still be able to respect her. That's so hard and so it sounds like there was a lot of shame wrapped in

5:59there was a family culture. Yeah there was and I had friends in Atlanta where I was living that was like hey if you want a parent you can come live with us. You can raise your child. We'll help you raise your kid. We will be happy to you know have you live with us. We'll help you know we'll be supportive whatever. If you want a place for adoption I have friends I have family that would be happy to to work with you on that. They'd be happy to adopt your daughter and you

6:30know so I had tons of support either way that didn't but it not having my family was absolutely horrible. Yeah wow and what a contrast having such supportive friends but having such a hard time getting support from your mom. Yeah it was it was strange it was very strange for me. You eventually chose adoption we know. I did. How did you get there and did you work with an agency? Did you

7:00receive counseling? What did that look like? Once I decided to adopt the birth father and I kind of talked things out. He was very supportive regardless of what I wanted to do. For him to come to terms with everything he did all of the research as far as how we were going to go through that. Whether we were going to use an attorney whether we were going to do it on our own whether we're going to use an agency and so I remember for about six months he researched different agencies all across the US. I remember he sent me information on one in

7:33Colorado and one in New York and I it was overwhelming for me but he needed to come to terms with everything and so that was his process to be able to help and come to terms with it. We ended up using an agency in Atlanta. We actually used Bethany Christian Services that has agencies all across the US and so we we went with them and it was it was a wonderful experience. I loved

8:04everyone that was there. My counselor was great. Everyone was was absolutely fabulous. So you did feel like you got good professional help? Yes I did. I did. They had great support for birth parents as well as adoptive parents. Awesome. So how did you end up selecting a family? You know a friend of mine equates it to acting like God. You go through all these different profiles and you have to pick

8:36where your future child is going to be and the best situation for them and we went through profile after profile after profile and nothing really clicked with us and the family that we eventually chose actually was not in the process of wanting to adopt. They had already adopted twice before or once before I should say. They had a biological daughter that they had had at the time that was 12 and then they adopted two years prior and they were not in the

9:11process. They were not looking. They were not at all and another adoption counselor within the agency said you know we have this family that's adopted before. They might be they might work for this for them and they quickly reached out to them got their old profile plus a couple of new things together for us and we looked at this notebook and I instantly opened it. I felt this peace come over me and I read a letter that they had done for a letter of

9:49recommendation from another friend and it talked about how the dad was all about family. While he was at work it was work but if he had something going on with his family he would up and leave which is exactly what my stepdad would do for us. I remember in the reading the letter it talked about how the dad would get up from a board meeting or a meeting or whatever and go I'm sorry I got a date with my daughter I'll see you guys later and that's exactly what my dad

10:19would do. My dad worked for the school system and he would be in a board meeting go I'm sorry guys I have a date with my daughter to watch the sound of music I'm out of here I'll see y'all tomorrow and so just reading that letter was what sealed it for me and seeing their family together it was perfect. The dad was black the mom was white so it would be a biracial family the kids all looked they looked like they all belonged they looked like there was nothing different

10:52and so that's exactly kind of what we wanted. It wasn't it wasn't necessarily what we put down as what we wanted originally but when we were going through profiles and we looked at theirs we're like this is it this this is exactly it and it was just so peaceful to make that decision and know that it was exactly perfect for us. Wow yeah that's really beautiful. Thank you. So that was about 20 years ago you said is that right? Yeah she is she'll be 21 this August. That was

11:26about the time when open adoption started to kind of come out but was that an option was that a discussion at that point? It was kind of we have what's called a semi open adoption is what ours is called. We got letters and updates through the agency they didn't know my last name we don't know theirs all contact was done through the agency. It's it's really interesting

11:57because we did have a couple of visits in her first couple of years and I actually haven't seen her since she was two. I kind of imagine what she looks like but I wouldn't know her if I saw her on the street unfortunately although my my mom heart says that I would but I don't know that I would because they get adopted two years prior we kind of took that basis for how we would handle relationship with the adoptive family and they had a semi closed adoption with

12:28their son that they adopted and so and their and his birth family so we kind of took that because we never wanted one kid to wonder why was I more loved than the other why so that was one thing we never wanted so we we didn't want our daughter with a lot of contact with us and her brother not having any contact with his family. So did that contact end up kind of tapering off since you said you don't know what she looks like now? It did and it did and I think they

13:03actually moved to Europe for a bit her dad was a professional basketball player and so we think that they may have he they may have moved to to the Europe area to for him to pursue that. Do you think that you might be interested in reunification if that's something she's looking for someday? If she ever reached out to me or the agency and said that she would like to meet me I would be absolutely overjoyed to do that but it would be on her terms it would know I would never force it on my side it's completely on her. And then what about

13:38your kids that you're parenting do they know that they have an older sister? We did tell them a couple of years ago I wanted to wait until they understood. We have her picture up all over the house and they've asked every once in a while like who is that and we've said you know that's that's so-and-so a friend of mommy's you know no big deal and I've never it's weird because I've never thought of her as their sister because it was kind of before everything but when we did and when we did talk about it we had her picture and we discussed

14:11what happened and what led up to everything and why she's not with us and why I don't have contact with her now but if they ever had questions I would absolutely answer them and occasionally they do but just out of the blue sometimes my eight-year-old will ask me some random question about her. Do you feel like being adopted by your stepdad influenced your relationship with your biological father? Yes my biological father was abusive and my mom divorced him when I was three and I remember some incidences when my mom

14:46when the divorce was final my mom refused to have any contact with him and it wasn't until my parents were married that he said she needs to know who he is so that she can make the choices for herself as far as how she feels about him and so yeah absolutely he definitely influenced my relationship with him it didn't take me long to figure out what kind of guy he was. What advice would you give to step parents who are hoping to legally adopt their stepkids? It sounds

15:19like you have an awesome stepdad. I did talk to the kids no matter what age they are talk to them ask them what they want I remember when we were in the process of the adoption he actually asked me what do you want your last name to be? Do you want it to stay what it is? Do you want to hyphenate and add mine? Do you want just mine? And at four and a half I knew exactly what I wanted a lot of adults say that you know four and a half is too young for them to really know

15:51what they want and it was the best decision I could have ever made and so you know ask the kids they may just change their mind later on the technically yes I could have legally changed my last name again if I'd ever decided that I didn't like what I had chosen it's not that big of a deal but it was it was nice to have that power and choice to make at you know four and a half five years old. Yeah that's really incredible yeah all right so what have

16:22you struggled with over the years regarding adoption and what do you wish other people understood about it? The problem that I have is the the verbiage that people use you know 20 years later I still see people talking about how they gave up their child for adoption like I didn't give up my child I completed an adoption plan I placed my child for adoption the words that people still use insinuate that I was forced and I was never forced to do something I

16:52could have parented my child there's so many stereotypes that go along with adoption of well they must have been a teenager and or into drugs or you know alcohol and you know what have you and I was none of those things I was 22 I had a good job I had medical benefits I had a good apartment I bought a house a year later I could have raised my child I chose to give her a life that was better

17:25than what I had at the time. Such an important thing right the words we use really matter. Yes yeah I wish people could just take a two-hour class just to learn how words can simply change. So what do you wish someone had told you about adoption before you placed your daughter? I wish someone had talked to me about the future because when you're when I was 22 I wasn't thinking about how it would feel when she was 18. There are some things that I wish I'd done

17:56differently I wish I'd been able to instead of having the semi-closed adoption having the the openness and being able to reach out to her just to say hi or have her be able to reach out to me just to say hi. I wish I had the ability and I wish someone had talked to me about how when you move on with your life don't feel guilty about what you did and to look for the future how are

18:28you going to use this in the future. When my kids are born I had no idea how to talk to them and when we finally did talk to them a couple of years ago I had no idea what to say. Yeah those are big things to think about. Yes. So I don't think we really talked about what placement was like for you what that experience was like when you signed papers and relinquished. Oh a lot of tears a lot of crying and the state of Georgia there is a 10-day right to

18:58rescind period and when you sign the papers you have to be off of medication for 24 hours minimum to make sure that there's no legal recourse to say that you were under influence. So I had to have an emergency c-section with my daughter and so I was on meds a little bit longer than normal but I was also in the hospital a little bit normal longer than normal so I was able to sign the paperwork in the hospital. It's actually interesting my nurse my recovery room

19:33nurse or my nurse that was in the hospital when I was taken up to my room she had actually placed two daughters for adoption and she waited 45 minutes after her shift ended to be there when I got into my room so that she could introduce herself and she was there with me three out of the four days I was at the hospital and she was there she was my nurse when I signed the papers. Total

20:03stranger never met her before until I was up in my room and she was huge support for me when I needed it the most along with my counselor and the birth father and so when we sign the papers it was very emotional to sign this little child away and and to give up the parental rights that I knew I needed to do. I knew it was the best thing for everyone at the time but it

20:33was very very emotional and it took us several hours because I would go to sign a piece of paper and I go I need to cry about this now and then I'd come back a half hour and go okay I'm ready to sign this and then I'd have another piece of paper and it was it was a very emotional but thanks to my counselor we took all day I think it took all day to take care of all the paperwork but it was it was nice to do that. So was there anything that you wish had gone differently with that process? No overall it was smooth with using the agency they

21:07actually prepared us for what was going to happen before she was even born. They we saw the paperwork ahead of time we knew exactly what we were going to be doing it was just a matter of doing the official signing. It was just emotional doing that final step. Yeah of course well I love that that nurse was there to support you and help you that's incredible. She was wonderful. So how do you think your adoption experience as an adoptee compares to your experience as a birth mom? So it took six years for my adoption to be final. We would go to

21:41court and my biological father would say I'm gonna sign the papers I'm gonna sign the papers and then he never would and he would reject them and so it took six years and I tease everybody it took me six years and fifty thousand dollars to get my last name and when I married my husband I kept my last name and just added his on. I said just because I fell in love with you and got married doesn't mean I'm all this hard work that I put in is gonna go away. It was definitely a

22:11different experience. The adoption for me took a lot longer and a lot more legal battle than just the one with my daughter. In Georgia the right to rescind period is ten days. She was born exactly two weeks before September 11th and my right to rescind for ten days ended on a Sunday. Well in Georgia when it ends on a weekend or a holiday it goes to the next business day which happened to be September 10th 2001 but God knew and therefore did everything the way that he

22:47did and the timeline that he did it and for a reason and I've always believed that God does everything for a reason and as far as I know her adoption went perfectly fine I think six months later it was completely official. So how do you think your experiences with adoption have changed your perceptions of parenthood as your parenting your two kids now? Oh it's I don't think it's necessarily changed my perspective all that much but I think it's changed my perspective on different families. Over the 20 years I've seen other families

23:19that have adopted and I don't think twice about it. I teach taekwondo twice a week and I've seen families come in and there was a family that their daughter was adopted and I didn't know for three years that she was going to the school that she was adopted and I remember the mom going my husband's as white as white can be and so am I and my daughter is you know much more darker skin didn't you think about it? Like no I I never think about that sort of thing to me it's second nature I don't know the perspective I don't know things so

23:54you know I see different families different skin tones different dynamics and it's not that it doesn't bother me because it doesn't but it I it doesn't even faze my brain to question is this a family is this mom and dad is this their their child it is what it is I just think of them all as family. So what do you think some of the biggest challenges that the adoption community faces are? Stigma and and stereotypes personally and just not having a whole

24:27lot of resources and just the stigma behind everything and I just wish adoption was more open with knowledge. 30 40 years ago an adoption was done in secret and it's you know it's coming around to be more and more prevalent it's not that it's it's happening more it's that more people it's coming out of the the hidden works and it's coming out from behind the the privacy of it and

25:00so I I just feel like as it's coming around more things are coming around and I love how things are more open how more people are having being able to do open adoptions and less about hiding it per se. Yeah I love that I mean I'm sure that that shame that you felt coming from some of your family was just so hard right? Yes. If we can try to get rid of that shame and just make it more

25:31focused on love right? Yeah exactly. If there was an expectant mother listening to this who's thinking about adoption what would your advice be to her? Think about how you think about how you see your life in ten years with or without your child. Think about your life now and what you can offer and what someone else could possibly offer. For me I could I had a one bedroom apartment we could have survived we could have done it I could have moved in with

26:03plenty of friends and family and we could have lived but was that the life that I wanted to give her living in a one bedroom apartment or living in a you know one or two bedroom house with someone else could I have done it? Yes. Was it the best option? It wasn't and so for me that was the best best choice that I could ever make. I don't regret it one bit. To regret something to me is to say that I made a wrong choice and I didn't there was no wrong choice so and

26:38find those people that are supportive regardless of your choice find those friends and family that are supportive and surround yourself with them and don't let the negative people in. That's such beautiful advice. Thank you. All right is there anything else that you'd like to share or talk about? Oh my goodness there's so much I would like to share but I we don't have enough time for it all. I you know I am writing an adoption children's book. I'm looking I'm working on getting it published it's just a matter of finding the right

27:10publisher or publishing it on my own and having the money to do it and I can't wait to be able to share it. I had planned on having it out by the time my daughter turned 18 but it didn't happen but thanks to some friends with my work I've been able to get the graphics done and get everything done and now we're just working on getting that published and I can't wait to have it out for everybody to read. Oh that's so cool that's awesome. So can you share a bit about what the purpose is or what your goals are with that book? You know it

27:41ended up I originally wanted it to be an adoption story in honor of my daughter and the story ended up not necessarily going that direction but it is it does have some hints about it about her story but it is unfortunately you can't cover every sort of adoption scenario in a children's book but it does it does look at adoptions in a good light and it's a very child-friendly child-friendly book

28:14it's it's got turtles of fun but yeah it's it's I've had several adoption adoptive families read it and they loved it and they all came from different styles of adoption. Well that's awesome please keep us posted. Let us know when that gets published. Anything else that you'd like to share and talk about? No I want to thank you for having me on I really appreciate it thank you so much. Thank you I loved hearing your story.

28:54Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Open Adoption Project and thank you so much to Rebecca for sharing your experience with us and being so open and vulnerable with us. I loved talking to Rebecca she is a wonderful person and I loved hearing her story and her thoughts and really just learning from her and her vast experiences. Something that really stood out to me was the importance of support and it was clear in her story that in

29:24some cases she didn't have the support where she wished she had it but I loved the examples of the people that were supports in her life. She had a sister that seemed really supportive she had friends that were willing to let them live with her and supported whatever decision that she made. She had this nurse in the hospital that stayed after hours to make sure that she felt the support that she needed. Her caseworker and the birth father were all really good supports to her throughout this process and I think that's so important

29:57that expected parents receive that support as they're trying to make a decision for what's best for their child whether that's adoption or whether that's parenting or or something else I think they need that support. Yeah finding ways for all of us to be that kind of support system for others and whatever decisions they're making where we're not pushing them one way or the other where there's just this genuine support and love for them wanting to help them with whatever they end up deciding. I loved that too. Another thing

30:28that I appreciated that she brought up was just the stigma or stereotype that some birth parents get and I really hope that we as an adoption community can erase that stereotype or the stigma that and help people understand that expectant parents, birth parents come from every situation you can imagine and that there is not one size fits all description of a birth parent. I wish that we could do something and I think we can as we voice and share. I would

31:02love to erase that from the perceived culture of adoption. Yeah I agree where we can just be more loving. I feel like that's really the bottom line in this episode right? Offering more love, less judgment, and just unconditional care and compassion for others. Yeah in the end she decided to place because she loved her daughter and she wanted to give her more than she was able to. I loved how Rebecca was coming from a place of love and all of her decisions that she was making and how she had all of these supports that were also coming from

31:35places of love trying to help her and validate her and whatever decision she made and just this focus on how we can try to perpetuate a cycle of love and stop judgment and stigma and instead just focus on love, compassion, kindness. Thank you again to Rebecca and thanks to each of you for being listeners of the podcast. We'll see you next week.

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