Wandering Tree ®, LLC Podcast
Wandering Tree ®, LLC Podcast is the ultimate audio companion for curious and adventurous minds, offering a journey through thought-provoking discussions and unique perspectives on life, culture, and the journey of an adoptee. This show has been established with the simple goal of reaching other adoptees who may benefit from just hearing other adoptees share on the lived experience. Host, Adoptee Lisa Ann, will share the tangled roots of the life long journey as an adoptee, the search for biological connections, the good and bad of reunions and how saying "I am adopted" has connected to so many others. The candid discussions between Adoptee Lisa Ann and her guests will tackle the term "adoption" and how it is covers so many aspects of our society.
Wandering Tree ®, LLC Podcast
S5:E2 Jenny Becknell's Story of Resilience and Hope Series 2 of 3: The Open Adoptions Experience from a Birthmother.
What would you do if you had to make one of the toughest decisions of your life? Join us on the Wandering Tree Podcast as we explore the heartfelt and emotional journeys of a birth mother navigating the experience of open adoption. In this episode, Jenny Becknell candidly shares her lived journey, from the moment she went into labor with her daughter Anna, through the tender hours spent in the hospital surrounded by family, friends, and Anna's adoptive parents. Through Jenny's moving journal to her daughter, listeners gain an intimate glimpse into the profound bonds and emotions forged during this life-changing process. The narrative reaches its emotional peak as she describes her last night in the hospital, holding her baby and grappling with the impending separation.
And so we left the hospital and Anna went in her car, in her little baby car seat, with her parents, and I got in the car with my mom and we drove away and we followed them back to their house. That was the first time I'd been outside in a couple of days.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast. I am your host, lisa Ann. We are an experience-based show focused on sharing the journey of adoption, identity, life search and reunion A journey it has been To date. Here are what I personally have learned. Our numbers are many. We yearn for support and understanding. We desire to better ourselves. We desire connections For some. We strive to aid others through groups, books, blogs and podcasts. These items really do segue into session two of our three-part series Creating Connection, understanding and Empathy Between Birth Mothers and Adoptees. With us again today is our guest of honor, jenny Becknell. Jenny is going to share with us today the next phase of her personal experience post-adoption the first 18 years. So welcome again to the show, jenny. Thank you for coming with us today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Lisa. Thank you for having me back. I'm ready for the next part of this as I take a deep breath.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a great discussion in our first of three episodes and we learned so much about your decision-making process and it was just absolutely a great conversation. So I'm looking forward to today. A great conversation. So I'm looking forward to today. Now, one of the things I want to kind of level set is we are going to talk about an open adoption experience. It is not one that I've had. I am from the closed adoption era. I don't have things about my life pre-adoption available to me, my life pre-adoption available to me. I had to take some extraordinary measures to find my family over the course of the last few years, and so I am very intrigued about the open adoption perspective, and specifically from a birth parent. So I'm going to turn it over to you.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to turn it over to you. Okay, so I will just start. I guess when I went into labor with Anna, and as we talked about last time, I'd been keeping a notebook for her and the last time that I had written in my little notebook for her was on September the 28th and she was born on October the 10th. So I was just letting her know at that time that I had gone to the doctor, that her parents and her sister had come over to my house the day before I was had already kind of the letter before. That was really explaining to her how, how scared I was for what this was going to be like, and so I'd sent her this. The last time I wrote in here was just telling her that her parents are the best people in the whole world and that we just love them and that the time was very close and that I can't wait to see her beautiful face, that we were all really excited to meet her. I'm just telling her that I love her and that I would see her soon, and I said I love you, Jenny, your birth mother. And then the next one that I wrote to her was on October the 14th, where obviously she was four days old at that time and I had been home from the hospital. I had just gotten home from the hospital. But just to backtrack a little bit, basically I went into labor with her and had gone into, my water broke and so she did some errands and dropped off my little brothers to my aunt, and so we just kind of had a little party, I guess, before going to the hospital. And I remember at that time, just really as we're driving around, I just remember being so excited to meet her but not wanting to part from her, and that was just really, really hard for me to even understand or to come to terms with what that was going to be like. And so, anyway, so I went into the hospital with her, was in labor with her for a very long time. I don't want to give like there's only so much time that we have, so I don't want to say too too much, but yet I want to make sure I'm saying the important parts.
Speaker 1:But in this letter that I wrote to her on October the 14th, I tell her everything that happened. I tell her how I'm feeling. I told her that I, you know, I felt fine, but I was upset because I knew that before I knew it that she and I were going to become individuals and not one person any longer, and so that, of course, had me really upset. And then I really went into like when I, what time I got to the hospital, when I was admitted, when I got an IV, step by step, when I got an epidural, like all of those things. Who all was there when they came in, what time they got there, what time they left.
Speaker 1:But anyway, so at 8.27 am she was born and her parents had come back and forth to the hospital and her mom was in the room with me when I had her. My mom was also in the room with me and so was my best friend when I gave birth to her and she stayed in the room with me the entire time we were in the hospital. I fed her, I wrote down you drank a half of an ounce of your bottle. I heard all of those things talking about her wet diapers and just different friends that had come and gone.
Speaker 1:There was a lot of people that came in and out of the hospital while I was there. Lots of my friends came, my family all came to see her, her whole family, her grandmother, so a lot of people came in and out of the hospital. It was very busy. It was good for me and that it allowed me to not feel anything, because I was constantly busy and thinking about other people, what was happening, who was coming, who was going, and making sure to maintain my smile on my face the whole time to show everyone that I just knew this was such a fabulous thing that I was doing and that these people were going to be able to be parents to another beautiful little girl and that my daughter was going to have these wonderful parents, unlike myself. The time that was really difficult for me was sorry.
Speaker 2:So, janine, let's take a pause right here a minute before you get into the next part, which I suspect is going to be really hard for you because I can tell from the buildup. I want to go backwards a little bit. That is the day of birth and all of the activity around that and, as you were sharing that, you mentioned her parents multiple times in your dialogue, times in your dialogue, and so what that tells me, as part of this open adoption formula, you had had regular contact, interaction prior to even the birth. Can you give us just a little bit around that process and then we'll circle back to? You're coming towards the end of having given birth and the hard day is approaching.
Speaker 1:I don't have memory of any of this. Honestly, if it was not for these journals, I would not remember any of these things, but I did not meet her parents until like a month before she was born. I met her in September, so it was 32 years ago this month, possibly even on this same day as we're recording that. It could have been that I met them for the first time. I was in counseling during my pregnancy, so when I had come back from college in May, I had started seeing a counselor at Catholic Charities to help me through the adoption process. Where and when exactly I made the decision that I knew for sure this was what I was going to do. I have no idea, I don't.
Speaker 1:At that time it seems like I knew that I was going to choose an adoption plan for Anna, which is the wording that we used at the time. From the moment I found out I was pregnant with her. I mean, it's kind of crazy. I couldn't obviously have known that immediately, but it seems like I did. I think part of that is because of my sister being pregnant and knowing already what was happening and the advice my parents were giving her, and they were my only connection to how life goes, because I didn't have anything on my own. I didn't have a job, I didn't have anything of my own. Everything was because of my parents. I lived in their home and I drove their car and I didn't have anything of my own. Everything was because of my parents. I lived in their home and I drove their car and, like I didn't have anything of my own. So. But I did not even meet them until September.
Speaker 1:But I had been going to counseling to prepare me to make this adoption plan for her and to understand what an open adoption was and that I was going to be able to have a relationship with her and what that was going to look like. There's just really there was no way of knowing, but I just knew that once I chose them, I knew that they were her parents and at that point it was like follow through with your word. I had to follow through with my word. I gave them my word. I had had a couple of stories that they had I know I had had a failed adoption that they were going to adopt a child, and then the plan I guess the parent changed their mind or something like that. So I really wanted them to see like I was different. I was definitely going to follow through with my word. I wasn't going to be like that, which to me, is so silly now that I think about that.
Speaker 2:Well, that sounds very stressful and difficult. And now let's bring us all the way back to. You've gone through the birth and you've had lots of visitors. It helped take your mind off of things, but it didn't take away from the day, so I know this part is going to be really hard for you. It's okay. I want to reassure you. It's okay, tell us your side.
Speaker 1:So I had a lot of people coming in and seeing me. I found out that she was supposed to go to a foster home while all the legal papers were being signed for her adoption. I was not aware of that. Apparently, while I was in counseling, they did tell me that. I did not remember that. So in the hospital I was completely shocked by that and they had brought a couple in that was going to foster her for however long it took for the paperwork to go through, foster her for however long it took for the paperwork to go through. And I remember at that point like that was a hard no for me and I put my foot down and I was like no, this is absolutely this cannot. She is going, not going home with these people that were strangers to me and you know I said you know we are her family. So she's either going home with her parents or she's going home with me. She's not going home to the paperwork was going through and how I could hold her and I could be with her until I, you know, would eventually take them to her, which would never have happened. I know now that that would never have happened. I think everyone in the process knew that if she went home with me that she would not have ever gone anywhere else. So they really worked to make that not happen and she did ultimately end up being able to go. I don't know what they did to make them quickly become foster parents in 20 hours, but something magical happened in the world and they were able to be her foster home until they could sign papers.
Speaker 1:That was really difficult for me. And then the night, the last night before we left the hospital, was the night that really was hard for me the most, because at nighttime it's quiet. You know, you can't have visitors. I couldn't deal very well, even though I had people staying with me, I think, to distract me, like my sister stayed with me one night. I cried and cried, and cried, and I didn't want anyone to know I was crying and so I was very quiet about it, which makes it even harder when you're trying to like not cry, when you're emotional. But I just remember just talking to her like all night long, just telling her everything that I could think of, that I wanted her to know about me, that I wanted her to know about life, hours or whatever.
Speaker 1:They have to come in and they always write things down, you know, like how much did the baby drink? Did the baby poop, you know? Was mom sleeping? Was baby sleeping? All the things they write down. They keep a little journal and I remember seeing that paperwork and I remember the paper saying baby sleeping in mother's arms and I just remember thinking that was like the most amazing gift to read that, because all of the nurses and the doctors knew that there was, you know, a adoption going on in this, behind these doors, you know, and that this mother was going to be leaving the hospital ultimately without her child, and yet these they still had the respect to call me her mom and it just meant the world to me to read that on that paper and I just I remember getting a copy of it and it meant so much to me and I have no idea I lost that paper. I don't know if I lost it, if it was on purpose, I don't remember if I gave it to her parents because I knew I didn't want to lose that paper. I'm not sure. But anyway, it's just a piece of paper and I will always remember it. But it meant a lot to me the day that she went home from the hospital.
Speaker 1:The people from the counselors, from Catholic Charities came to the hospital and we did. They did like this little ritual thing at the time where you kind of like the parents, the adoptive parents, like had a part where they said something and then I said something and basically it was when, you know, I was blessing them with my child and, and, I guess, kind telling them like I'm entrusting my child with you and I thank you for loving her, and I don't remember what the words were. I wish I had a copy of what it was that I said that day, but I don't and that was the moment that she became their little girl. After we did this ritual, it was literally the last thing we did before we left the hospital and I had to hand her to her parents, and when I handed her to her mom, she then handed her back to me and so that we could, you know, I was in the wheelchair and they wheeled us outside and we all walked together so I was able to be wheeled to the front door with her in my arms and her mom was just so respectful to me at that time because they didn't have to do that. We didn't have to hand her back to me, and they did, and her mom said that it was important to her that we did that because she wanted me to know that we were in this together. And so we left the hospital and Anna went in her car, in her little baby car seat, with her parents, and I got in the car with my mom and we drove away and we followed them back to their house.
Speaker 1:That was the first time I'd been outside in a couple of days, you know, since Anna was still part of me, and so I just remember, when we left the hospital that day, the entire world was different. Everything in the world was different. The world looked different. I didn't like nothing. Nothing looked right, nothing made sense. I remember questioning as I was driving there, just in my head, because I don't have a relationship with my mom and in the capacity where I can talk about my feelings, so I was quiet and just thinking like. I remember thinking, why is a tree called a tree? Because that's what I kept seeing out the window. You know, why is grass called grass? Like, who decided that that was the name of it? Why didn't they decide that a tree should be called a child or a child should be called a tree, like who decided that word was going to mean that thing? Just very weird thoughts that were kind of going through my head and I just remembered the world changed that that day and it just it never has been the same, you know, and I I have come to realize over the years I've tried to like make the world the same again and it just will never be the same again and that's just has to be okay and I have to learn to like live and deal with it.
Speaker 1:After we left the hospital, you know, she went with her family, I went with my mom, we went back to their house. I stayed there for a few hours and then I was at her house. That was on a Monday. I was at her house on Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday. I went to her house. That was on a Monday. I was at her house on Tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday. I went to her house every single day, for if I look at my notes, I think it was the first like eight days of her life. I was there every day. I even wrote down the day she lost her umbilical cord and saying you know that's what was, that's what attached us to each other. I wrote down the day she had her first bath.
Speaker 1:And crazy that on only nine days after this precious baby was born, I myself drove an hour and a half away to go pick up her birth father because we had to sign papers and I was not going to sign papers until he signed them first, and so I drove an hour and a half, picked him up, drove an hour and a half back and we went and we signed these papers and I showed him pictures of her. And we went to a birth parent group that same night together, he and I, and talked to other pregnant girls about the decisions that they were going to make to place their child. I literally had a baby eight days earlier. He sat with me, he listened, he was charming, everyone adored him and thought he was so funny. And then I drove an hour and a half back to drop him back off and an hour and a half back home. And I just think about that now and I think I was a rock star, like I can't believe I could do that when she was so young a rock star.
Speaker 2:I can't believe I could do that when she was so young. As you were telling the story around, that these three things kind of started percolating in my mind. Number one you were acting out of trauma. Shock and you didn't know any better. Shock and you didn't know any better, and you were propelling yourself forward. Listening to how hard it was for you, I think, is a precious part of today's conversation. Adoptees really cannot, from my experience, understand that pain in the same way Because, depending on your era of adoption and the narrative your mindset is, you know, plays tricks on you. I have heard a similar story.
Speaker 2:When I finally connected with some of my biological family and I started asking questions, I didn't have access right away to my birth mother. Her sisters were playing gatekeeper. It was during COVID. There were a boatload of reasons. Season one of the show is great in explaining some of that, but I asked you know, give me some of the details. I just I don't have anything to leverage, no different than the way you are positioning. Memories are different and it was so long ago. And you know you're asking really tough questions and in my heart I'm thinking I'm asking heartfelt questions that no one, no human should forget. A baby was born, you left, you left, and I just want a little bit of understanding around that. So I appreciate that you've shared your perspective and how hard it was for you.
Speaker 2:Of the few tidbits I was given, one of them was that my maternal grandmother held me and cried profusely. My birth mother cried also and then cried all the way home in the car period based off of their memories, where she was allowed to mourn the loss of her child because she had been told, as others, that I actually died in childbirth. They didn't want anybody to know. So if you didn't know she was pregnant, you didn't even know I had existed, and so I just I can't imagine what that would have been like for her for all those years. And then when it finally came out, and all the ways it came out, some people knew, some people didn't know until I found them. I can just have nothing but empathy for your pain during that time period. And here we are talking about an event 30 some years later and it still cuts you as if it was yesterday.
Speaker 1:Yes, it does and it always does, and that was one of the things that was, I think, really difficult for her mom over the years. Groups occasionally we did a couple of groups where we would go and talk to prospective adoptive parents and I would get very, very, very upset every time and I would cry. And the last time that we did one, she stopped me and pulled me out in the hallway and was just like you've got to pull it together, like this has been a long time, like what's going on, and I'm like it's never, it's never, ever going to go away. Every time I tell this story, I am back there again. She'll be 32 in October and I imagine it will be like this, no matter how many times I tell the story. You know, I mean maybe eventually some of the emotion will go out of it. I don't know, but it hasn't so far. So I don't see it happening.
Speaker 2:I don't see it happening't so far, so I don't. I don't see it happening. I don't see it happening for you either. However, I do hope for you that each time it's just a little bit more of a cleansing moment for you. You know, or let's move forward a little bit, and now let's talk about how did you guys engage after those nine days signing the paperwork, open adoption, what were some of the highlights that were to have happened, and did they yes or no?
Speaker 1:Yes, they did. I continued to visit with Anna and her family. They continuously invited me to their home. I went there the first year of her life. I saw her at least 50 to 60 times that I have written down, and so I was there. I don't know whatever. That 365 divided by that'll tell you how often I was there.
Speaker 1:Frequently, we can just go with frequently wonderful family. And you know why was I so upset? And that was hard for me. I just couldn't live there. I kept feeling her kicking. I kept feeling that. For a long time I kept feeling her in my stomach. I would feel, I mean, I would feel kicks. I don't know what it actually was, but I would just fall apart in tears when I would realize wait a minute, she's not there. It was hard to know when she was sick and that I wasn't there to comfort her. I just had to wait until I heard that she was no longer, her ear infection was gone or her cold was gone or whatever it might have been. But I stayed always stayed positive, always had a smile on my face. She was my absolute reason for doing everything I did.
Speaker 1:I remember making a very conscious decision quickly that I was going to live my life so that when she was older that she would see such an amazing person in who I was that she would question why I didn't just parent her, because I was so wonderful and so amazing that I would have been such a great mom to her. And that's how I lived my life. And I met my husband. Shortly after, actually, I moved in with my best friend when she wasn't even a month old and I met my husband, who I'm married to now my husband. I met him shortly after she was born. So I we've been together for 32 years and he and I've been married. There'll be 29 years this coming year.
Speaker 1:I would go to her house. Her mom was, and I don't know where she got the wherewithal to do this. I don't know if it was counseling, I don't know. I would love to find out or if it was just who she was. But she shared everything with Anna about her, with me, in such a beautiful way and was very respectful of my place and who I was. And she would, when Anna would get her first tooth or her first, or you know she would, she would stand up on her own or she would crawl, or all of those first things. You know that parents write. I wrote everything down so that I would write down that people write down about their children and their little and the little down, so that I would write down that people write down about their children in their little, in the little baby books that we always had.
Speaker 1:Her mom would wait until I was there and I saw it with my own eyes, to acknowledge that that was the first time. And so, even though she may have popped that tooth through a couple of days earlier when I saw it, she would even act surprised with me like she didn't know it was there. And she did that with all of those things. And then, even once I realized wait a minute, like I see what you're doing here, you want me to feel like I'm part of this with you and you know I realize what you're doing, she still continued to do it and so she just wanted me to have that as being the first. And I just always, looking back now, like I just think that's, you know, that was such a sweet thing that she did no-transcript and she would acknowledge things to me that were different, like I would hold Anna and she would sleep on my chest when I was with her and she would always lay with her head on right, like by my heart, and her mom would notice that and her mom would tell me that because, of course, I'm not there unless I'm there, so when I'm not there, I don't know what's happening. I'm not there unless I'm there, so when I'm not there, I don't know what's happening.
Speaker 1:She would share those things with me and I was around for everything that she did.
Speaker 1:I was there for all of her plays in high school.
Speaker 1:I was there for communion.
Speaker 1:I was there for her baptism.
Speaker 1:I walked her down the aisle to be baptized and they allowed me to be up there with them when she was being baptized and when I went on to get married she came to my wedding and when I had children my husband and I have four sons together they would either visit us in the hospital to welcome the new baby or they would come to my house within the first week or so to welcome the new baby. It started to change a little bit as I look back. It started to change a little bit when Anna was like 12-ish, 12 or 13. Her mom did call me one time to let me know that Anna was really having a rough time leaving me, that it was causing a lot of temper tantrums. She had talked to a counselor about it and the counselor suggested that, instead of her coming to pick Anna up for me, that I should be the one to drop Anna off at her house, because then I would be leaving Anna instead of Anna leaving me, and that that might make it easier for her.
Speaker 2:That's a mind bend in my book. Wow, 12 is hard, preteen is hard. I am just off of several years of preteen. I would say girl preteen was much harder than boy preteen, much, much harder.
Speaker 1:That's what I hear yeah. I definitely hear that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was brutal, and so I'm wondering you know we can only speculate, but what a mind bend for you to be in that situation and then be kind of asked to basically emulate walking away again on a regular Hard. That had to have been hard in on a regular Hard. That had to have been hard. That had to have been hard for the child too, at that precious mental age. I think about all of my abandonment issues as a 50-something-year-old adoptee and to have to think of that through an open adoption process, either one of two things I don't want to leave, or I've been left again. I have nothing I got to tell you. I've got nothing, maybe just shock and awe.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I mean, I don't know what it was like for her. I don't know if Anna will remember that time or won't. I don't know. It's not something that unfortunately, we don't have the space to be able to have those discussions. I look forward to it one day, when she's ready, if it's something that she you know that she needs.
Speaker 2:But yeah, in this time period though, jenny I mean it was there was never anything yet in your story where I feel you are putting yourself above the needs of your child. Every iteration of this that we've talked about consistently we indicated on the last episode. We've been going back and forth for several months. I believe that to be astounding from this perspective. One of the adoptee fantasies I had was that my mom would come back and get me my real mom would come back and get me, and in an open adoption, you are constantly there and coming back and just wonder if that's still seen as a gift or you know, more difficult, it's blowing me away.
Speaker 2:Today, as we're talking about it, I might be a little bit off track in my brain. I need to calibrate again because it's just listening to you and thinking about this from the adoptee perspective and it's kind of tearing me up a little bit, just like it's, you know, for different reasons. So, so interesting. We'll have to dig into that later in a different way. So, all right, you've been pretty heavily involved. All the major milestones like literally all the major milestones what were some of the legalities around the agreement? I don't think there was one.
Speaker 1:I think it was just as open. I told them that I wanted it to be as open as they would allow it to be. I knew that that was in their hands and I always, always thanked her. Her mother always thanked her for allowing me to be in her life. I always had her up on a pedestal. I always told her what a wonderful mother she was. I was constant. She was getting constant words of affirmation from me. Everything that we did when we were together, she would get a play by play. When I dropped her off, because I never wanted her to worry or be concerned that anything off-handed was ever happening when she wasn't around, because I wanted her to know that she could trust her with me and that I was a good person for her to be with.
Speaker 2:And yeah, In hindsight, I'm wondering if it was also a little bit out of fear that if you didn't do all those things, that you would be cut off. More specifically, because it was fairly ambiguous in the agreement, which is not unlike even closed adoptions Once the day is done, the day is done Legally, regardless of context of open or closed that child is. You know, gosh I don't want to say the word, but belongs to. I don't want to say that, but that's the truth. Belongs to another entity, because we can't just assume connected.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Heavy today. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is a lot and it was, you know, during those years for me having her, you know I wouldn't. If I would go back today, I wouldn't want it to be any other way. I always am so happy that I was strong enough to endure the pain, because I would never take any of those memories or moments back. I adored her sister too, and so I was at her sister's, all of her sister's events, and really wanted to celebrate her sister. But then at the same time, like I said, I got married when she was three and went on to have four sons, and that was all in the first 18 years of her life too. And so because of that, I was busy. You know, I was busy, my brain was busy, I didn't have time to be sad and to be depressed and to be crying.
Speaker 1:I had to keep moving forward and I had a daycare in my home for 10 years of that time. She even had her own folder in my daycare, signed by her parents, that she was allowed to be at my house in my daycare during daycare hours because I had to do everything legally. So that was weird to have, you know, my own child be in my home, not as my own child. That was kind of strange for me, but yeah, I mean, I really did want to make sure that I was always doing everything so that she would be proud of who I was.
Speaker 1:I think I did a pretty good job at that. Sometimes I do wonder how much I, and if I, took away from my sons because I was always so determined to be so great for Anna that I, you know, I wonder that with my boys. I've asked them before and they say no, like they didn't. They know life no other way. And they said they've always looked at Anna as their sister. They've never thought of it any different. So yeah, there's that whole side of it too, like that's a whole nother podcast.
Speaker 2:Well, it is good to hear, though, that during these first 18 years, as you continue to stay connected and moved your life forward. It is very encouraging to hear your story today and to know that through these first 18 years, there were so many positive aspects, even though listening to you has been, you know, hurtful in the context of. We can feel your pain. I'm empathetic and I can feel how you're going through this, but it's also encouraging to know how you kind of continue to progress yourself. You were able and willing to have children. I'm always a little tender around the word my raised children or kept children. I just think that that is a disservice to everybody. My maybe not so humble opinion and I know there's not good language to counter that with so I acknowledge that. I think it's encouraging, too, that it's the only thing that your sons have known, that that's their sister. How powerful is that? Because that's precious in itself.
Speaker 1:If I ever wrote a book, it would be called I'm her mother. Wait, what was it? She's my daughter, but I'm not her mother. That would be probably the name of my book. She was always my daughter.
Speaker 1:When we would go places, I would say this is my daughter, anna. This is my son, austin Blake Collum Donovan. You know, whatever I think, that's what I would say these are my kids. However, when I was with her, I was always birth mother. This is my birth mother, jenny. This is my birth mother, jenny. This is my birth mother, jenny. And so that sucked, but that's what it was. And so, but yeah, my boys always called her sissy and she would always call them, you know, her little brothers, my bro, my bro, my brothers, my little bro, whatever.
Speaker 1:And there was a point, there was a point at some point and again, I don't remember the age, but I do remember her mom telling me I need you to tell the boys to stop calling her sissy. Imagine how that feels for our other daughter. And I said, oh, I can't do that. I can't do that and I won't do that. I've not instructed them to call her that and that's what they want to call her. I'm not going to do that. But what I will do is stop bringing them to your house so that you don't have to see it. But I won't tell them not to call her that. But thank you for sharing that that bothers you.
Speaker 1:I guess it's a really big disservice that my children didn't grow up, get to grow up having really a big sister, because yes, she was, but no, she wasn't Same for her. She has little brothers, but she wasn't with her brothers same, same for her. She has little brothers, but you know she wasn't with her brothers. You know, I've heard so many people that have been adopted that will talk about I don't really belong in either place, even when she's with us, like we're talking about Christmas morning and all the presents being opened and she was in a different house opening presents. She wasn't there and so it's just so unfair. It's just so unfair to the adoptee and I think what's really important is that myself, all I can do in looking back over my experience is take responsibility for my part in it.
Speaker 1:I can't do anything about anyone else's part, but I will defend to the end my daughter having no part in it. But I will defend to the end my daughter having no part in it, having no choice and being in a place where she is constantly being torn back and forth and I want to do everything I can to not make her feel that way. I have to, we have to, as birth mothers, take accountability for our decision, and I say that carefully, because not all birth mothers were in the same place that I am. My situation is different than in the baby scoop era. Obviously, there was no choice there at all.
Speaker 1:When I made the choice that I made, I made it because I truly, 100% believed it was best for my child. I really, really believed that. And had I done more research into the primal wound, had I done more research into how this was going to affect Anna in the long run, I would have made a completely different decision. But I did not do that research and I did not know that.
Speaker 1:I have told her many times that if she's angry with me, if she's upset with me, if she has feelings that she needs to share with me, that I will listen. Even if I don't agree, I will still be there to listen and hear what it is that she has to say, and I do think that it is important for every person to be able to do that, and adoptive parents need to do that as well. It's supposed to be about what's in the best interest of the child. I oftentimes will say, like, are we trying to create families for people who cannot birth their own children, or are we trying to do what's best for the child? If the answer is that we're trying to do what's best for the child, then things need to. You know, things need to change and we need to do what we can to support that in the future. Like that's what needs to change in all of this.
Speaker 2:I would agree. Well, this is a good place for us to start winding down today's episode. Give a little teaser into what comes next. You spoke a few minutes ago about an instance where the adoptive parent wanted you to change the narrative with your sons, with their sister, and you kind of pushed back, I believe, with their sister and you kind of pushed back, I believe, having heard your story, that moments like that were precursors to what was to come. And so we're going to, in session three, talk about post-18 to present and the difficulty in navigating that and some of the journey post-18 to present and the difficulty in navigating that and some of the journey post-18 years that you've had with Anna and Anna's had with you and her adoptive parents. So I think we're going to end here today and thank you so much for this dialogue and being so vulnerable with our listeners. Again, I appreciate it and we will pick this conversation up in another episode.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you so much, Lisa. 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 adoptee journey together. Want to be a guest on our show? Check us out at WanderingTreeAdoptee journey together. Want to be a guest on our show? Check us out at.