Wandering Tree ®, LLC Podcast

S4:E7 The Intertwined Histories of Adoption, Loss and Hope with Author Rebecca Wellington

• Adoptee Lisa Ann • Season 4 • Episode 7

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Have you ever pondered the threads of history of adoption and how it intertwines to shape lives? Rebecca Wellington joins us in a thought provoking conversation that reaches into the depths of her own adoption story, the heartache of losing her sister, and the impetus behind her touching book, "Who is a Worthy Mother? An Intimate History of Adoption." Through her eyes, we journey across the emotional landscape adoptees traverse, with societal pressures lurking like shadows along the path, and discover how shared stories can light the way for many in search of connection and understanding.

The episode unfurls the adoption narrative across time, from the ancient world's openness to the shrouded practices of today. We scrutinize the stark contrasts in history, from Hammurabi's Code to modern America, casting a light on the complexities and transformations of adoption ethics. Notably, we ponder the implications of recent Supreme Court rulings on the rights of adoptive and birth parents alike. Rebecca's analysis is both historic and timely, offering a window into the enduring search for identity that adoptees often face, amidst a culture shrouded in secrecy and stigma.

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Speaker 1:

The point that I think we're both making about Hammurabi's Code and Marcus Aurelius' and the Roman Empire's. There wasn't a level of shame around it and this dissection between the adoptee and the birth community. That I think is sort of almost, maybe uniquely American.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast. I am your host, lisa Anne. We are an experience-based show focused on sharing the journey of adoption, identity, life search and reunion. Let's begin today's conversation with our guest of honor, rebecca Wellington. Welcome to the show, rebecca. Thank you so much, lisa Ann. Well, it is an honor to have you here on the show. I don't know how this has happened, but somewhere along the lines of my trajectory and journey, I've become the book lady for many authors, and you are one of them. I'm going to fall in a little bit. I read your book. There are only a few that have hugely moved me. I like all of the books, but major movement in how I approach things, and yours is one of them, and so the title of your book is who is a Worthy Mother?

Speaker 2:

An Intimate History of Adoption which is a fantastic title, and before we get too much into what it's about, I always like to have the guests share a little bit about their adoption story. Would you mind doing that for us?

Speaker 1:

No, not at all. So I mean my adoption story is the etymology of the book, so they're intimately connected. So I was adopted. I was born first. I was born in June 29th 1975 in LA County, california, born at Northridge Hospital in LA County, and I was the time the law stipulated that there had to be a wait of two days before my adoptive parents could come pick me up. And then they picked me up. I guess that would have been like July 2nd. Yeah, I traveled up to Washington state where I've lived my life. I've always known.

Speaker 1:

I was adopted, but I've always sort of sat in these two worlds. One world that I was told, which I heard all the time from everybody, was you're so lucky, right, you should be grateful. You're so lucky you were saved from whatever. What I was saved from I don't know because I know nothing. And then the other world that I sat in, really quietly and alone, was this really uncomfortable tension of not knowing and being sort of cut off from whatever my past was, and I kind of describe it as like missing a foot, you know, missing a root, and I think I spent a lot of my energy through my life ignoring that uncomfortable silence, part and kind of literally limping around without the foot, without that root. Because you know my story is. I wrote it for my sister, who I lost in 2017 to a drug overdose. She was older than me, she was also adopted from a different birth mother and she also gave a child up for adoption. So I write about in the story that you know she was the one person in my life who, on a really visceral, deep level, kind of got it what it was like that discomfort that we lived with, that we existed with that. You know we didn't quite fit in, that things were uncomfortable and there was a silence around things that we couldn't talk about.

Speaker 1:

Her response to that missing root or that missing foot was to just say I don't know if I can swear. Her response was to say fuck you to everything, like if I can't assimilate into this adoptive family and into this culture and you can't accept who I am and that I look different. I mean, we're both white. We were adopted by white parents, so there was a deep level of privilege there because we could sort of pass, but she couldn't pass as well as I could. I looked enough like my cousins. I looked enough like sort of my parents that I could pass and get away with it. She couldn't. She had like bleach, blonde hair, blue eyes stood out and she couldn't assimilate in. And so her response was just to say fuck you, I'm, I'm doing it my way, I'm going to burn everything down.

Speaker 1:

And I kind of watched growing up, watched her resistance to that sort of that desire that I was always feeling like I have to be the good girl. I have to prove to my parents that they didn't make a mistake adopting me. Right. My birth mom couldn't keep me. I was a mistake for her. I better not be a mistake for them.

Speaker 1:

And my whole childhood was watching my sister just amplify, being the mistake like in your face. I am the mistake. It really wasn't until she died that I, you know, got that so much of her rage was just the pain we both felt around adoption and that there was lack of an opportunity to talk about it and recognize that it was hard. So you know, I lived with sort of this uncomfortable silence my whole life until she died, and then her death was the impetus for writing the book that and also a couple of years prior to her death I had my own two children and to this day, my two daughters are the only people I've ever met who I'm biologically related to. So those two moments of you know, birth followed by death, really catapulted me out of you know, like adoptees will say, out of the fog, that mist of everything's fine, everything's great, just don't question it too much.

Speaker 2:

What I find very endearing in your story is the acknowledgement of you and your sister at two opposite ends of that spectrum the one child that has all of the same feelings you have and how you guys are both navigating the world in that Her attitude of fuck you, as you said, and your attitude of I've got to do the best that I can and be the best that I can, and I can see that in the story that you've told and authored. What I also find absolutely intriguing about your approach, though, this isn't just a story about you and your sister. This is you taking another passion of your life and deeply diving into it, and that passion is history. Can you kind of share a little bit with our listening audience, you know kind of your educational background and what pulls you to history, and then how you leverage that for this book for you and for your sister?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so. So my sister died in 2017, in August, august 19th 2017. And two months prior, I graduated with a doctorate in education history from the University of Washington. So, leading up to her death, I had been spending all my time literally in the archives doing historical work. And, yeah, the roots of my love of history, I think goes back further than that. I taught high school history for a number of years.

Speaker 1:

I just really I think history is so powerful in helping us understand not where we came from, but where we want to go. And I just want to read this quote because I think it's from the book. I think it kind of summarizes why history is so meaningful to me. So this is from who is a Worthy Mother? In her memoir detailing her search for her birth mother, katrina Maxton Graham describes adoption as a quote amputation from history, unquote. To heal the wound of this amputation, the silence and lies that defined us, I had to reach out to those historical roots and threads and reattach them. History, the true stories of the past, became my way of speaking truth to power for Rachel, my sister, now that she had lost her voice in death. History is constantly sticking its fingers into our present everyday lives. Whether or not we're aware of it, history has incredible power. It can paint pictures of where we came from and how the world and people in it looked, acted and believed. This is weighty, because how we understand ourselves and the world around us in this current moment is largely defined and shaped by what happened in the past. This is the power of historical narratives and historical memories. When people's lives in the past are silenced, this in turn silences people's lives in the present. But when these stories are told, it changes our understanding of the present world. And when people's stories are shared, especially the lives of people who deliberately have been traumatized and silenced, those awoken historical narratives directly affect the lives of people in the present and we start to view the world and our place in it differently. History is powerful. So that's kind of, in a nutshell, my love of the power of history.

Speaker 1:

After my sister died, I knew I had to find out about my own history as an adoptee, and I realized pretty quickly how difficult that would be, because I was adopted in California and I'm still, you know, shackled by sealed records. I cannot get access to my original birth records. So, like, literally, I couldn't get to my own history, which, like infuriated me and, like I said, I just finished this doctorate in education history and I, you know, had gotten a certificate that said you know how to do historical research. So I was like, okay, I can do that. So I just started reading everything I could get my hands on about the history of adoption and adoption policy in America to try to answer at least the initial question, which was why can't I get my birth records.

Speaker 1:

And one of the first books I got my hands on was by Wayne Karp. He's kind of like the godfather of history, history of adoption in America. He literally wrote the book Adoption in America. So I wrote, I read everything he wrote and I just was like, oh my gosh, this is just so shocking and horrific. Why don't we all know this? Like we need to know these stories. And so I was like well, okay, I guess I better start writing to know these stories. And so I was like well, okay, I guess I better start writing, putting them all together and writing them. And that was kind of the. That was the path in to writing this book.

Speaker 2:

The reason I fawn over you in this context is because I learned so much about the history of adoption things that I thought I knew, things I clearly didn't know and many like OMG, and I don't even know sometimes if I have the right acronym, expression, abbreviation, to really encapsulate some of the things that you have researched and pulled together for the reader and for adoptees who want to dig a little bit deeper into just base understanding of how this whole thing started, predominantly in America, how it continually grew into what we now know to be this multi-billion dollar business.

Speaker 2:

And those are figures that we can't get a hold of because no one's going to publish. I processed 10 adoptees at 10K and I made a year. That's not going to happen, but we can draw some you know, lines of spark lines, if that's what you want to call them, that say we know in essence there's about X number of births and adoptions in a year at a going rate of, you know, let's say, 10k, 50k, whatever it is. You can create the math problem yourself and go forward, but just having a real core understanding of things that were happening not only to baby scoop era but indigenous eras and all of the federal acts I'm going to call them, you know, kind of like a declaration or an act, got it. I was floored.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, that's why I had to look at the policy, because I in undergrad I studied sociology and I really, I'm really aware I understand the impact that policy and laws and institutions have on the human experience. And, like if I were to understand what happened to me, I had to understand those legal forces that set up systems that made our situations happen. And I do want to say you said it, you know, started in America. I actually learned from my daughter, who's in sixth grade, who was studying Hammurabi's code, which is sort of like that's what you do Sixth grade world history, ancient Sumeria.

Speaker 1:

Adoption was in Hammurabi's code. Right, not a new concept. There have been systems of adoption in different cultures around the world for millennia. But what just blew my mind is in Hammurabi's code. In one of the codes about adoption, it explicitly states that the adoptee has the right to leave their adopted family and go back to their birth family if they choose to. Okay, so that was ancient Sumeria. And here in America over the last 100 years, we have like more draconian laws of adoption and ancient Sumeria. So in a way, it's almost like we're going backwards with the way we've approached adoption. I was just floored. Yeah, I just learned that a couple of weeks ago from my sixth grader.

Speaker 2:

All right, so now I'm going to double down. I am reading a book and I'm going to double down in this way. We do spend a good amount of our time talking about American adoption and I do know that there are threads of conversation that spawn off of the Georgia Tann story, which I live in Tennessee and so I'm very familiar with the Georgia Tann story. I've done that historical research. She was an awful woman.

Speaker 1:

I don't know that story, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

So Georgia Tann is. Georgia Tann was a woman here in the South. She lived in the Memphis area. She basically stole children and gave them to other families for adoption. She made boatloads of money.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I do know that story. Yeah, I do know that story.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and Lisa Wingate wrote the book before we. What's the name of the book Before we Were Yours, I believe is the name of the title. Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So her fictionalization of that story is that book, lisa Wingate, Before we Were Yours, which is loosely based off of the Georgia Tann story which is here in Tennessee, memphis, very corrupt. You layer on yet another depth of history goes a little further back. I am reading. I am reading totally not related to adoption.

Speaker 2:

How to Think Like a Roman Emperor. The book is by Donald J Robertson and it is about Stoics. It is about the philosophy of the Stoics and who are the key Stoics? And it's Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. Marcus's brother was adopted, marcus was adopted, and then there's that whole conversation in the book about philosophers and adoption.

Speaker 1:

But they knew their beginnings.

Speaker 2:

They knew their family. They knew their lineage right, and so it had such a different twist. And my point here is to tag onto yours, which is we do have this maybe blind spot or a little bit of a tunnel vision on how far back the concept of adoption goes, but we can clearly find it all the way back to Roman emperor times.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but the point that I think we're both making about Hammurabi's code and Marcus Aurelius' in the Roman empires there wasn't a level of shame around it. And this dissection between the adoptee and the birth community that I think is sort of almost, maybe uniquely American, like the way we have been crafting it and practicing it over the last century, is just so in this idea that we'll do it. But it's shameful and we have to hide it. You know, that is what makes, I think, our nation's story about it so disturbing is the and that's kind of the claim of the book is that it's the secrecy and the lies that are just just drenched the whole history of it. It's so problematic, right? It's not that adoption happens, it's that there's just really abusive, manipulative lying and coercion and abuse all saturated around it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the practice is definitely bent. All saturated around it. Yeah, the practice is definitely bent. Yeah, it's just hard to wrap our minds around the existence of ourselves as humans who are walking on earth that have this other thing. That also is our identity. It's not going away. I'm never not going to be adopted.

Speaker 2:

I'm never not going to be adopted. I'm never not going to be on this journey and so that just that part of my identity is seated in exactly what you said so much shame and hurt and secrecy and exclusion. It is very hard to navigate some of the just general life things, knowing that as well, some of the just general life things, knowing that as well. And we could find some really good historical practices around the topic if we really looked hard enough and we could hit some reset buttons, I suspect, if we really wanted to. But I will go back to hard to do when it's a very lucrative business.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, it's a market, it's all part of a market economy and it's a very lucrative business. Yes, yes, it's, it's a market, it's a, it's all part of a market economy and it's it's heavily influenced by supply and demand, right, yeah?

Speaker 2:

And you, you tackled that. You tackled that very well in one of your chapters, I believe it was. You'll need to correct me Is it the reclaiming chapter, or was it the mother, the motherhood chapter, where you pretty much called out the Supreme Court without calling out the Supreme Court?

Speaker 1:

Oh, but I do call out the Supreme Court.

Speaker 2:

Well, you call out a particular right, you absolutely call her out. And I thought, oh, you did that was such grace, you're so much better than I am. That's out. And I thought, oh, you did that was such grace, you're so much better than I am. That's exactly what I thought.

Speaker 1:

I was like oh, she's so sweet, she did it so nice yeah, yeah, I called out Amy Coney Barrett, I called out Samuel Alito, because they really they had their hands on the lever of the Dobbs decision and, I think, had the most powerful commentaries in that decision. And it was Alito, particularly in his footnotes and his comments in his decision, where he directly highlights the needed supply to meet the demand of adoptable babies and how, yeah, how, reversing Roe could create a new supply chain of adoptable babies which just, it's the way it's just he describes it. It's like, oh yeah, we're. We're talking about a market. It's the market economy. The babies are the commodity and when you can see that people will pay you know, I mentioned Holt International, which is one of the major international adoption organizations, industries that does transnational adoption people will pay upwards of like $60,000, $70,000 for a baby. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money going into a lot of different hands.

Speaker 2:

I would agree. You wrote about both of these humans. I'm trying to be really respectful in your introduction and I do know it was later on in the book. I'm trying to be really respectful in your introduction and I do know it was later on in the book. I just want to read to you what you wrote and this is the part that I just was astounded, for the whole project of adoption is contingent on making value judgments about a pregnancy, about who is a worthy mother and who is a worthy baby.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to pause right there. Right, because we lose worth through this process. I know we do. I know I do. I'll speak only for myself. It's sometimes hard to remember. We are worthy humans.

Speaker 2:

In legal arguments heard in the Supreme Court case of Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization, justice Amy Coney Barrett suggested that adoption could render the issue of abortion irrelevant. Irrelevant, like how does that happen? You don't have to be on either side of it to say it's an irrelevant act. That has nothing to do with the whole conversation of whether it's right or wrong to say it's irrelevant. That just boggles my mind. I could go on and then I'll start jabbering, and I'm almost jabbering as it is. So there we go. Justice Samuel Alito echoed the same sentiment in his 2022 opinion overturning the 1973 Roe versus Wade decision, in which he justified abolishing abortion rights by arguing that the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted has become virtually non-existent. And I just want to say amen, gosh, it should have been. Okay. That's my soapbox moment. So frustrating.

Speaker 1:

So, frustrating frustrating, so frustrating. Well, I think people can get away with saying that and we can hear him say that and hear her say that and not find it problematic because we don't know the history, when we know the history and we know all the different layers of abuse that have happened for decades to hundreds of thousands of women, millions of you know, if we were to put it all together, the numbers of women who have relinquished babies by force, by coercion, here in the United States, across the globe, and whose babies have been funneled to the United States. Right, I mean, I guess my hope with the book is that it really, really problematizes what those two justices said in their opinions, so that we listen to those opinions differently. You know they don't land as easily for us differently.

Speaker 2:

You know they don't land as easily for us. Well, I would also add to that to use the information that you are providing in your book to become even more knowledgeable and use it as a source for that, which is why I love it. I learned again I think I said it a couple times already. I learned so much about history of the practice that I didn't know. So let's transition a little bit. Has this been a healing adventure for you in terms of the loss of your sister?

Speaker 1:

Well, you should ask my therapist. You should ask my therapist. I mean, it's been really hard. Writing the book was like cutting myself and then pouring lemon juice on the cut and then it would heal a little bit and then I would cut on that same incision again. I mean, that's what the writing process felt like. It was so painful, it was so painful to read this history and then to put it in. You know, look at it through the lens of my childhood and then her and think about how she suffered, especially later in her life.

Speaker 1:

But I also know from my therapist with grief. I mean, I started. It was my therapist who told me Becky, you got to start writing down your stories of your childhood and that was like how I could grieve the loss of my sister, kind of how I started writing this book. So it really started in therapy and I think that where my therapist was coming from was that to really deal with grief you can't circumvent it, you can't just fix it, like you literally have to walk into it and walk through it, into the shit, like you can't get on a boat and go over it or around it. And so I still feel like I'm in it, but I'm in it deeper and I'm further along than I was certainly before I started writing the book. So like I'm like carrying the book with me as I wade into this ocean of shit, but I have the book with me.

Speaker 2:

I truly believe that, just as we speak of adoption as a journey, grief is part of that in all facets, and there is never an end or a start, really, depending on how you really look at it, because you can be in any of the phases. You could start at denial before you're at the other phases, could start at denial before you're at you know the other, the other phases, or you could start at the deep-seated loss stage and then get to denial and go back through several times all.

Speaker 1:

Of that's very practical and and and everybody has to have their own journey. Like there's no one path, like you have your path. If you just gotta walk, walk it, and your path is different from somebody else's path.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would agree. Well, you also mentioned that your two children, your daughters, are the only biological family members you have to date in your life and we've noted. Your adoption records are closed and you've got this big project going forward. What are you kind of thinking is going to be your path to the next step of finding other biological family, or do you have no desire to?

Speaker 1:

Oh, I like, definitely have a desire. I mean, I think that's part of the book is just acknowledging yes, I need to, I would need to reconnect with these roots somehow Right. And so much of the book is just me learning how important that is. And that's where I really tap into some of the really profound Indigenous scholars who I've had the privilege of studying with and working with, who really taught me a lot about, from an Indigenous perspective, the importance of our ancestral connections.

Speaker 1:

Like you can't just sever that tie, the fact that, like our last century of adoption policy was based on this idea that you can just literally hack, hack the umbilical cord and hand the kid to somebody else and just like pretend it didn't happen. Like that's so wrong, it's so incorrect. And like we carry the blood of our ancestors in our body, like our memories are imprinted by their, their memories and their experiences. So, yeah, I think partly the journey of writing the book and meeting all these amazing people is the just coming to awareness that I need to find some connections, whether those people are alive or not, you know, just get some of those answers. So that is my next step after the book tour. After you know, I take a little break. This summer I did connect with some amazing people at Adoption Network Cleveland. Betsy Norris, who's the founder of that phenomenal organization, actually put me in touch with one of the search angels. I don't know if she goes by that title, but that's like a term if you're familiar with what a search angel is.

Speaker 2:

Yep, it's a very common term.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, I mean like that's how unaware I was of the adoption world, even though I'm an adoptee. I just learned recently of this term search angel, and so I spoke with one of them, who works with Adoption Network Cleveland, and she was like, oh, I have helped people born in your same year, born in California, and they've gotten access to records. So I'm like, so just speaking with her, it's like, oh, this door that I didn't even know existed just kind of popped open and so, yes, I will walk through that door, maybe at this summer or something.

Speaker 2:

yeah, I mean, there's no timeline on and I can only encourage you have to do it at your own pace.

Speaker 2:

There's so much to that, that portion of the journey, and I have advocated no matter how much you think you're ready, you're going to be faced with something. I will give an example. Just this past weekend, I had a biological family member post a meme about adoption and wanting to have been given up for adoption, or something along those lines. It was so innocent, it was so innocent. And then there were comments, you know, from other biological family members. You know we wouldn't, we wouldn't give you up, and I was just like I can't read this, I've just gotta, I've gotta close that one out. It was innocent, though, and that's the really, that's the really sad part of what I'm sharing, because I don't hold an animosity towards that person for posting something that is truly, you know in their minds kind of funny, and I'm looking at it going well.

Speaker 2:

Hello over here Like.

Speaker 1:

I'm connected on this social media site.

Speaker 2:

And yeah it's. I wasn't prepared for that, I wasn't prepared for all this. Time has passed since we've connected and I wasn't prepared for a meme to be posted and for the way I felt about it and I almost felt I was slighted, and you not. You not understand all the things I've been saying publicly about this experience. So you know we all have our own journey and you know it's a. It's quite the adventure for sure.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, but sort of in that, in that vein, I think what's happening right now and I mean I think it's kind of unique right now because that's what other people who, who have been public advocates, adoptee rights advocates for years, are telling me that there's this groundswell of sort of a movement of just phenomenal books that are coming out. Right, I want to talk about Gretchen Sisson's amazing book Relinquished I get to do a book talk with her in May in Berkeley, I'm so grateful. Sarah Easterly, adoption Unfiltered I get to do a talk with her soon. And Susan Ito's memoir. I mean there are just these amazing books that are coming out talking about the adopted experience and the birth mother experience, and I think that's going to shift things because when those stories enter the mainstream meta-narrative, then people it kind of questions people when they want to make those comments right. There's more of an awareness around the experience because it's publicly talked about and people will start to understand it more, I think. So it gives me a lot of hope. I think things will really shift.

Speaker 2:

I do too, and there are so many books coming out now. There have been so many good books from my entrance into the community over the last five plus years and really plus years is more accurate that have started prompting and making adoptees feel comfortable.

Speaker 2:

in writing in creative arts, in play production, in music, in blogging and in podcasting and other events. So I agree with you the groundswell is really cool to watch. It's also cool to be part of it and you know, those books that you mentioned are the latest in a large number of really great authors.

Speaker 2:

And what's really good right now about our community too, rebecca, is that I'll talk to you and we'll talk about the books that are resonating with you and I'll share books that are resonating with me, and we'll find that there might be one or two in common. And then we'll also find, oh my gosh, I haven't read that one, or I didn't know that one was available. And that has happened in three or four conversations recently where I have been with other adoptees and they're like have you read so-and-so's book? And I'll be like not even a clue that that one existed, but did you read? You know?

Speaker 2:

her book and they're like no, I didn't even know that one existed. And it's such a, it's such a warming feeling, it really is.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I think podcasts are amplifying those conversations in such a cool way, like there are some just awesome adoption podcasts out there that I've been like binge, including yours. Just look at my drive to work every day and I'm just like wow, there are all these people having these amazing conversations you know who knew Well, and I think that's really important.

Speaker 2:

It's part of the advocation, part of our conversation. My why has always been one person and I'm always thankful. I really am appreciative for every person that wants to bear their soul and talk. It's hard. We end up reliving it sometimes. At the same time, I want to lift up every podcaster that I know of, and if someone says, did you hear about the making of me? And I can say I have, and I'm a listener and go check it out. Or Damon Davis's, who am I really? And I can go, yep, I know that one too. I was a guest twice on that. Man, go check that out. But man, go check that out.

Speaker 2:

He pioneered this portion of the genre of expression for adoptees, along with Adoptees On which is Haley Radke's you know, I've listened to her stuff, binged on that, Patreoned that as well. And those are just the ones that a lot of people are familiar with. But there are also so many others out there that I don't even know exist because the niche in which they're talking to hasn't come my direction. So there are several podcasts and there's room for everybody. There's room for every author.

Speaker 2:

There's room for every podcaster, every blogger. There's so much room.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so what are some of your favorite, your favorite podcasts? Let's get them out there.

Speaker 1:

I mean really, I honestly have to say, lisa Ann, I'm so new to this Like, so literally the books, you know, the last couple months I've been trying to promote the book and that has been my introduction to all of this. So as I've gotten connections with podcasts who might be interested in talking with me about the book, then I just start binge listening to the podcast. So I've listened to a ton of episodes of yours pulled by the root. Oh yeah, love that. Which was that I did an interview with those guys recently. I love H. It feels like a long time ago.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I was on Simon and Ben's.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and what about Melissa Brunetti's Mind? Your Own, karma? I had to really think about it, melissa, I'm sorry.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I don't know about that one oh.

Speaker 2:

I'll connect the two of you. Yeah, I'll connect the two of you. That's a great one as well. So I guess our point is there's a lot of opportunity to continue to grow and and yeah, let's just continue to lift everybody up. Well, as we're closing out for today, what would be an area of advocation that you would like to express that maybe hasn't been expressed yet, and leave our listeners with?

Speaker 1:

Well, I think you know just kind of what we've been talking about. I just think it's really important for people to share their stories and I think we're in this really exciting time where it's much more accessible to tell your story and share your story. And you know, kind of going back to what we've we were saying earlier, I think it's really important for adoptees and people who are have been impacted by adoption in all different ways, to to tell, to talk about it. You know, like I said, I think the worst thing that has happened with our history of adoption is the secrecy. And so how do we remedy that? Is we to stop keeping secrets and we start talking and talking to each other.

Speaker 2:

Agreed. So, as we close your books is who is a worthy mother and intimate history of adoption. You're Rebecca Wellington. I know you have a website and a bunch of stuff coming out. We'll drop that in the show notes and I want to say thank you for being with us today. It's been an honor. Thank you so much, lisa Ann. That was so much fun. Thank you for listening to today's episode of Wandering Tree Podcast. Please rate, review and share this out so we can experience the lived adopted journey together. Want to be a guest on our show? Check us out at wanderingtfreeadoptingcom.