Search and Support

0:00Welcome to the Open Adoption Project, this is episode 75. We're the Nelsons, I'm Lanette and I'm Shaun. Before we jump into today's episode we thought we would just give a couple updates from us. It's so fun to get comments on different social media platforms when people say, you know, I feel like I know you, I feel like we're friends because I hear you every other week in my ears. So anyway, a couple things in life that are new. First off, this past week Lanette graduated with

0:35her master's degree with a degree in public administration which is awesome. Ah, thanks. I feel a little bit of that midlife crisis kicking in though, just what do I do now, right? I don't know if that's what I should call it, but yeah, just that identity crisis, I don't know. It's like most people don't have midlife crisis after they graduate college, but I mean I am a little older. It was an executive program, but yeah, thank you. Yeah, we're excited about it. I know the kids are excited to have mom back on Thursday nights. Yeah, you guys are

1:08all excited about it, but I am just freaking out about it. It's good though. We'll see what the next step holds. Yeah, we'll see. But yeah, stuff is good lately. So we are getting ready to start a new series on the podcast with Devonnie. We had an episode with Devonnie just like a month ago and she's amazing. She's an adoptee. She loves using DNA and researching and helping other adoptees to find their biological families and she is hoping to help

1:41adoptees on our show with that and so we've been preparing for that and getting that ready and we are launching the application today. Yeah, so if you or someone that you know has a closed adoption or they're not connected to one of their biological parents or both, but yeah it could be one because for Devonnie it was one. Yeah, she had an open adoption with her birth mom and didn't know who her birth dad was. Yeah, so if you or someone you know is interested in connecting but have come into like some dead ends in your searching or maybe

2:16this is the time that searching becomes more serious, we want to help. Yeah and so happy and grateful for Devonnie. I love that she wants to do this like just as a gift to other adoptees who she just cares about and wants to help with these tools because she spent so much time learning how to do this in her own adoption situation and just wants to share that knowledge that she's gained which I love. So we have an application, the link is in the show notes and that

2:50will be open for I don't know a few weeks and then we might do this again in the future but if you want to check this out later from the time that we're recording just check our website and see if we're still doing anything with this and that's openadoptionproject.org. Perfect, so we're interested to help and potentially even share some of the details in that searching process with our listeners. Yes you can see the application on our website or in the

3:23show notes and get more details there. I think on a related note as you mentioned the website I thought of this maybe you're not aware but we do do a newsletter for the podcast and it's kind of like supplemental right it's it's not the same we try to keep it a little different. Yeah so if you're interested in receiving the newsletter you can go to openadoptionproject.org and there's a page that's titled newsletter you can fill out the form there and you'll get our monthly newsletter. Yeah our friend Alicia she's from a previous episode too

3:55she's wonderful and she helps us with that so fun stuff. Well in today's episode in the spirit of this idea of connecting adoptees to a biological family we thought that we would kind of reminisce a little bit in some of the conversations that we've had with adoptees as we've mentioned many times on the podcast we want to be really adoptee focused and so today we're going to refer back to several clips from conversations and interviews that we've

4:26had with adoptees. Yeah yeah so with the focus on searching and reunification and so if you are an adoptee hopefully this is helpful in finding tools and thoughts on how you can go about those searches and if you're a parent an adoptive parent or a biological parent I think that there's a lot of helpful thoughts from these adoptees about how you can support and really help keep that

4:56adoptees needs center stage. Yeah and I think a lot of what they highlight in some of their comments also helps support the notion of open adoption helping adoptees feel whole and understanding where they where they come from and the benefit that that can be in a lot of situations so I'm thinking I say that because I think maybe there's a perspective adoptive couple out there

5:27who's navigating this for the first time and is going into potentially having an adoption situation and I think a lot of what they highlight could help us or help that group of people understand the importance of having some of those connections from the beginning. Yeah yeah having that open adoption I think is so valuable and one of my favorite thoughts this was actually from Devonnie we're talking about Devonnie a lot today but she said if you can't have an open adoption then at least have an open dialogue or an open conversation about

6:00everything that you know share whatever you have with your adoptee right and so that was a thought for adoptive parents but I think that's just so important to be open to be transparent and to be yeah willing to really prioritize those needs of our children. Yep. So we're going to start looking at some different clips and these are all from the last season I know a lot of you probably don't really

6:30know which season we're in our podcast it doesn't really matter it's really for me and my planning but these are all from season three which is what we're in now so from the last year so we're going to start with Sarah Odacio and love her go back to her episode if you haven't heard it yet but she works with and counsels adoptees specifically but also adoptive parents but she's counsels adoptees and helps support them and so here she's talking about the struggle of she has tried to find biological family and hasn't been able to at this point

7:03but trying to find ways to help support other adoptees in their searches and reunions and how that looks. Yeah so if you yourself are embarking on this journey of searching or you have family or friends that are searching I think a lot of the council or things that she shares can be quite useful. Okay so let's jump to that clip with Sarah. This actually has been the topic within the adoption realm that I struggle with the most when I help people just because

7:36it's one of those things I have no I haven't been able to experience it so my mind even like thinking in that way oftentimes but what I in thinking about this question beforehand I would I definitely encourage people to just in general know themselves and be self-aware know their their triggers know their expectations of what they're hoping to find if it's to like fill a

8:06certain void which which we all have being in the adoption setting like know that it's filling a void and that maybe that void might not be able to be met or that it will be met in a different way than you're expecting so really know your intentions in every step of the searching process know your intentions know your expectations know your triggers it doesn't mean if something does trigger you to stop it just just knowing how to address it if something because it will come up definitely and I think when people don't cope they're

8:38actually coping just unhealthily because you're always gonna cope somehow it's just being intentional to do it healthily or unhealthily and then and then also I would just this is something that really helped me kind of creating this narrative of caring for yourself at the age that the trauma happened and I think that can be really helpful when you're in some really hard scenario of a step-by-step searching process or if you do somehow form a connection with

9:11birth parents it's kind of like you as your adult version is like yes I'm ready for this but then we also have that kid in us that might not be ready or that we just need to attend to and it's kind of weird it's almost like you have to see it's you have to see yourself see your kid self or baby self whenever that trauma happens see that as outside of yourself and care for that person that's still you so I really liked starting this conversation with Sarah's thoughts

9:43because they're quite preliminary right making sure that we take take the temperature of the situation making sure we know why we have this desire for connection knowing that there are just a myriad of possibilities and being okay with the many possibilities of potentially connecting and knowing that it might not be what we want it to look like yeah thinking through things beforehand and I love that focus on self-care and recognizing what that's

10:18going to look like or what that might look like I think as a caretaker or as a support for someone in this search process it's really important to talk about that as well and see how you will be able to support throughout the journey and what different scenarios might look like what you could do to help yeah so one of the adoptees that we talked to that eventually did reconnect with biological family at least with some siblings later in his life was John Santuñon and I love this guy he's so fun to talk to great personality big

10:54personality yeah he's wonderful so John talks about that core curiosity and need to find more information about yourself or about oneself as an adoptee one thing I recall from our conversation with him was that he off and on have that desire in his life but it wasn't until much later in his life that it was that I got to the point where it led him to actually searching yeah and you know something that he said that I really loved you're gonna hear this in the clip but he said something to the effect of you know you have to understand that not

11:29everybody who you might find is going to want to be found but at the same time that's their problem it's not yours right and so just that really challenging juggle but I think that the way he says that is really wise so listen for that yeah so we'll jump to the clip with John right now the journey of an adopted parent is going to be laced with some some intriguing things to build that character in the and overall curiosity and to knowledge of the child they get

12:00as well it's not them versus us as parents it's none of that you know but that that takes some intellect as well to digest that information too as a parent yeah yeah we're learning and experiencing that yeah it was an experience I'm sure that my mom wanted to share that with me but at the same time and I could not break her had I done it though I would have found out sooner I would have known but I know my own relationship would have been

12:34strained and I didn't have that curiosity like it really wasn't there at the time is that what was I going to do with the information now yes now I have that curiosity now I really wanted to know and it's although it's unfortunate that I didn't catch them when they were alive it's okay I have no regrets about that it's awesome I found out that's all that matters to me now so I'm thinking

13:04about other people and maybe the similar situation where you were at 50 who have this curiosity who are stepping into this journey what advice would you give to them that are searching well you know you you're gonna hit as in life you're gonna hit up so many roadblocks you're gonna just be think that there's no point in doing this and there is there are there are I guess the one thing that I hate to hear over and over again Shaun is when somebody says no and why why

13:39can't you think outside the box there's always a solution no and that that never has worked well for me because if that's the case then what do we do we just stop and can't do something of course we can we can figure out a solution so that's what I would say to them be be curious know that there's gonna be some major obstacles figure out ways around it through it over it it's that quest that

14:09will will be it is in fact a journey it will be unbelievable just by the little tidbits of information that you get because you will have some sort of peace that you putting back into where you came from and but I think you must be mature enough to understand that not everybody will be appreciative of that discovery as well as possibility but that's that's their problem not yours and

14:40so you can insulate yourself with that curiosity and confidence I think it works well but if you're not at all confident you're worried about what people are gonna think or do then perhaps you're going to be hesitant and scared and nervous but but I if if anyone would at least know where they came from I mean that's that's invaluable they have an idea and and as I

15:11think as the older you get you're more curious as to who who the lineage was before you how did they arrive because you're about to leave a lineage and as well and so I was definitely curious about all that and I think that that's that's what I tell and share with people be be ready just look for every opportunity you never know who who's willing to help and when you do ask I mean they come out to help I love talking to him and one thing that is

15:44just kind of resonating with me and that I think will be beneficial to the adoption community especially as open adoptions become more and more prevalent and it's kind of maybe the norm in the conversation but if if you have a child or a family member who is in a closed adoption and they are interested in reconnecting being supportive like I know that he he didn't want to search earlier and he mentioned this that he didn't want to break his mom's heart and

16:18he felt like that would which is so sweet but at the same time yeah making sure that we're empowering those adoptees in our lives and helping them know that we support them and want them to find all those pieces if they want to right yeah and I mean ultimately he shares how just knowing where he came from like that's all he needed and he was able to find that and I think that there's so many people in that situation yeah oh I love John alright next we're

16:48going to hear a clip from Amanda Justice and she is so amazing I loved listening to her talk to about the importance of doing work on yourself before you start that searching process so we're going to cut to that and here are some of her thoughts on that we went through every possible outcome at the end of the day you could never be 100% prepared my advice for the adoptees is do the work on yourself first do whether it's you know healing or whatever you have to do

17:20do the work on yourself first because you need to be mentally mentally and emotionally strong as strong as can be and I'm gonna say that because I'm an emotional person so you really have to be prepared for any possible outcome not saying to prepare for the worst but just know that it's every reunion is not a good reunion mine started off like a dream come true it was something that I only dreamed about and it turned out ending in a nightmare so who knew that

17:53it was gonna end like that so that's what I have heard but you know adoptees make sure you just do the work on yourself you know have a great support system find somebody that you're comfortable with and make sure that you're doing it for you don't do it for the pressure because you see other people are you know reuniting or you know this that that they're make sure you're doing it for you and that you know you you'll be able to pretty much kind of get through or kind of cope with whatever the decision is for adopted parents if your child comes to you and they say that they you know they want to

18:27find their biological family be supportive be supportive do not tell them that they can't you know be open and honest with them like I guess my mom did and said you know these are the different outcomes this is what it could be but be honest with them to be supportive because you don't want them to just turn their backs on you or you know or regret you know just you know I guess get mad at you because you weren't supportive and then next thing you know you know that as soon as they get a chance to do it then they're gonna leave you you know whatever I mean I don't know maybe it's a little bit dramatic but

18:58you never know the support is better and then also for biological parents they need to know that you know we were both been through trauma you know biological parents birth parents and adoptees if your birth child wants to connect with you let them connect answer some questions even if you know you're not planning on having a relationship they deserve answers and they deserve to have at least some bit of closure just allow them to do it even if it's from a

19:30distance just give it to them because nobody wants to live their life having all these questions unanswered or just up in the air and trying to figure out what if or what did I do wrong you know let them know that it's not their fault because that could help them move forward in life I love how she addresses everyone in the adoption triad right yeah I love that too I loved her feedback to adoptive parents be honest be supportive to biological parents to answer questions and to be as present as you're able and yeah just such great

20:03advice I really really love that next we're gonna hear a couple thoughts from Devonnie and now we know that her episode was recently released but she has so much good to share and I love the story that she'll kind of walk us through in this clip yeah so it's an abridged version we made it shorter and you can go back and listen to the whole thing in that episode but this is just Devonnie's experience with the actual search right with the finding I was 12 or right before I turned 12 my birth mom sent me for I think it's Christmas

20:36because I'm a January birthday so I think it's either Christmas or my birthday my 12th birthday my birth mom sends me an old photograph of one of our ancestors and on the back is a family tree and that was my first exposure to I mean my first like cognitive exposure to family history and the very dawning of my obsession it was just like I saw this picture of this woman from Ireland this beautiful young woman she's like 22 she it's a black-and-white photo and I think it was taken like the 1870s and on the back it says something like photo of

21:12Anna Colgan taken right before she got on the ship to come to America and she came all by herself and and then it had this family tree and at the you know at the very bottom it had Carla's name like you know trickled down like it trickled down from like Anna Mary Colgan and you know she's my ancestor from Ireland and who came to America and then you know it shows everyone else in the train and it trickles down to me and like right above me is my birth mom's name Carla and then

21:43right next to her name is this other name she broke down my birth dad's name like what like in my brain I had never thought of a birth dad I don't know what I just what so that kind of blew my mind and so I called her I'm like will you tell like actually know what I don't want to like see the wrong time frame but I don't think I called her or asked her about it really I mean it's weird I don't even think I wasn't registering it I don't know that's so weird I think

22:17about it but she I called her and I was like wait maybe maybe when I got it or like a couple years later like will you tell me more about I'll just say David because the name on it was David and anyway so I was like we tell me more about David and so yeah she told me a little bit about it you know he was a student at University of Washington and you know like said something like we we met when we were playing pool or something and you know she just like she she told me what she remembered and yeah it's probably I think I was about 14

22:52when I asked her the stuff so I had the family tree for like a couple years but but yeah so I just started asking her about it she gave me some information and but like it was from what I remember like he he I think he might have known that she was pregnant but like said something like you know I can't I can't do this I'm you know I I'm a student like I don't know exactly how the conversation went down but she just decided like I'm taking her this on my

23:22own you know so I think I don't know he didn't even know what happened to me you know that was kind of that was that was like the story that I was told and so when I was about like 20s oh I'd always like this is before Google like I was like how can I find this guy because she didn't know where he went I just had a lot of curiosity I didn't need a new dad I had a lot of curiosity about my birth dad I just want to know like okay I want to know more about it like I

23:52really have this love for family history and genealogy that's like I want to know all the things I saw this ancestry DNA commercial and something inside of me just like burst and it was just like you need to do this and I was like okay yeah I haven't heard from him I'll just take the DNA test so I can learn about my ancestors maybe if I find DNA matches I can just find out about our family history right so I take the DNA test and I don't know if you know much about genetic genealogy or just like ancestry DNA or whatever but when you get your matches you can a lot of people who do it through ancestry they like family

24:26history so you'll see their family trees that they have posted so I started looking through my matches family trees and none of their ancestors had the last name of the man that she had told me was my birth dad and I was like this is really odd like and it's something just didn't feel like it was adding up and I contacted someone with a family tree for under mod and I said hey I here's my story I was adopted I'm like I was born in Seattle the way that we're genetically related looks like it could very likely be closely related to you and perhaps

24:58one of your close relatives is my birth dad and this woman like she emailed me back right away she's like oh my gosh I have the chills she's like you know all about it my ancestors and she said all three of my brothers were in Seattle in the 1980s and I was like three is this Mamma Mia what no she's like let me contact them and then they'll like me like I will or they will get in touch with you so like a day later two of her three brothers got and emailed me one said I'd love to help you with family tree I like family history as well let

25:31me know if you have any questions here's what I have and the other one said hey I think we should talk because I sent a picture of myself and my birth mom for her to send to them and he's like hey I think we should talk so anyway long story short he likes like just had like email conversations for a while and then he's like I you know and he's like I'd love to help you I'd love to do a DNA test for you he's like I think there's a strong chance that I'm your birth dad and so he took the DNA test and yeah 100% he's my birth father and his name

26:02is not David his name is Hans it's crazy because a few years ago I saw this study that had come out in New York City they had done this they started this study before 9-eleven like before they knew obviously anything was happening about what the effect on knowing your ancestors stories had on your life and they were studying children ages 10 to 12 and they said they started to study and then all of a sudden like 9-eleven happened there's a massive trauma that the whole city is going through the whole country right and they kept the

26:35study going and they found like with verifiable evidence that the kids that knew their family history were much more resilient and much more happy and like after going like after going through trauma they were they were much more resilient and they were able to be really happy just knowing yeah and it's a really I have the study it's a second but it's just fascinating because I feel like that really anchored it really gave me like a strong sense of like just

27:07like resilience I've just been like oh yeah like I'm not just this like like alien that just came down and landed on the space needle my dad always joked about that actually it's kind of funny I thought I was pretty good at cheesy dad jokes but it sounds like Devon he said was so so we have found some studies have found that there is this connection where ancestry is associated with greater happiness and well-being and so we have a couple of studies we found we can put links to those in the show notes but really interesting where if there's

27:38a stronger sense of ethnic identity and connection to one's heritage people tend to have higher levels of life satisfaction and self-esteem and when they have a lot of stress they tend to fare better than those who don't have that connection with their roots yeah and so I thought that was so interesting and I just love Devon he's passion for DNA and searching and just the way that she wants to help other people with that and so we're really excited about the

28:10upcoming episodes where she'll be helping others and so excited to hopefully help other people feel that connection yeah well we're gonna wrap up our adoptee portion of this episode by listening to Amy Wilkerson and I love what she shares yeah we wanted to end on just this note of remembering that this is absolutely an appropriate and important thing for adoptees and the

28:43importance of empowering them and helping them and supporting them if you are part of that support system yeah I really really like what she shared so we'll jump to that clip right now I would want people to know that it is a hundred percent in their birthright to be curious about search and reunion a lot of times I hear about adoptees being shamed or minimized or abandoned or rejected because they have those curiosities so first and foremost I

29:13think it's natural that people want to know and have those connections and that's a hundred percent within your birthright there we can't always know what how that's gonna be received nobody has a crystal ball I'm sure all of us wish we did have a crystal ball that would be a lot of these situations a lot easier a lot easier but I think that there's something really beautiful about the the process of this because it helps us really get a deeper sense of who we are at the core of our hearts and our souls and what we need and what our

29:45triggers are and so it can be really hard but I think that it's really meaningful and it's important work to do so I was to say that we don't know how that's gonna be received and I will I want people to know that it's within their capacity to be able to work through whatever is thrown their way when you are in active search and reunion I would say do your very best to build up your support around you because there's gonna be a lot that you need to process and being adopted already can feel like a very isolating experience and so

30:17making sure that you have people in your corner to the best of your ability that and hold space for you that aren't minimizing that are validating and affirming and I would say that figure out what your expectations and what your boundaries are again to the best of your ability always leaving room for that to be flexible and to shift if it needs to so that you can also set boundaries if when you enter reunion things aren't feeling emotionally safe or things aren't feeling like you're being attuned to in a way that you need to knowing

30:50that's also within your boundary to set to protect yourself as well just leaving room for flexibility I always tell people just let your heart lead you because you're not necessarily gonna know what you need until you're in that moment and there's never any shame and whatever comes up and whatever is curious for you you're a person who went through a tremendous loss and so it makes sense that your system needs to do what it needs to do to reconcile that so is it bad that I'm like super proud of us as I listen to all of these interviews I'm like wow how have we had so many awesome amazing people on our

31:23show oh yeah love Amy love all of her thoughts and advice I love what she said about making sure that you're setting boundaries and caring for yourself as an adoptee and giving yourself that grace yeah love that and yeah what are your thoughts on yeah I just I don't know I my sentiments are similar to yours that we've had such amazing individuals that we've connected with about their own experiences but we can gain so much from them and their lives

31:57like multiple lifetimes of experience as we listen to and just try to process and understand experiences that people have had yeah yeah it's been a huge huge blessing to be able to learn from all of these wonderful people so we're gonna start wrapping up today's episode quick reminder that if you or someone you know is hoping to connect with biological family that we are wanting to help and

32:29just go to open adoption project org and you can find the information that you'll need there yeah and it's also going to be linked in the show notes so please reach out if you have questions about that and fill out the application if you're interested or if you know someone who's interested send them our way because we and Devonnie would love to help perfect well thank you so much for listening to today's episode I'll just reiterate a big thanks to each of those adoptees who shared their experiences with us previously if you haven't heard

33:00their episodes go back listen to them they're all wonderful wonderful people and great great things that we can learn from them yes so incredible such an honor to be able to be a platform to elevate different adoptees voices and experiences all right thank you for being here and we'll be back soon

34:16you

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