Promises vs Reality: Sydney's Open Agreement Journey

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And today we are with Sydney. And Sydney, you are a birth mom, right?

I am a birth mom.

Okay.

And I have two children that I raise in my home as well.

Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about like your journey of becoming a birth mom, what you were going through and kind of how it all went? Yeah, that's a packed question.
Yeah, it always is. Yeah.
Yeah. Let me scrap that up real quick in a package.
I found out I was pregnant in college. I was finishing a degree in psychology.
I had a long childhood of trauma and hurt, broken home, found out that I didn't really know the person that I was having a kid with. It was not, not no effort to get pregnant.
It was accidental and whatnot. And then my dad sort of said that if I didn't place the child for adoption, that he just wouldn't have anything to do with me.
And lots of stuff went into all of those moving factors, of course. Were you living with your dad? No, actually.
I rented a condo from him that he owned. But my mom passed away when I was young.
And so I have always found myself really looking for my dad's approval. Summarizing what led to adoption is loaded for sure.
It was all of the factors of not wanting to repeat trauma and everything that had happened to my mom. I think really what it was at the end of the day was fear that I wasn't enough.
And I was believing the things that people were saying about me without knowing who I was. And when I was taking other people's word for what my capacity was as a mom or my success personally, whatever have you, it just led to adoption at the end of the day, which was not ideal, not what I wanted even.
Very heavily coerced in a lot of ways to make that decision. And who do you feel like was coercing you?

My dad and my family primarily.

And then the agency was the next one.

Okay, so you did place through an agency.

I did go through an agency, unfortunately.

Live and learn.

Yeah, we've heard a lot of different stories of people who use lawyers

and sometimes, and a lot of people, some people don't use agencies,

but that's why my next question was like,

so it's through an agency.

Was it an agency that you found yourself or did your dad like help you? I found it. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
I Googled. I think at that point I was probably five or six months pregnant when I, I mean, I knew before, but I had not even entertained the idea.
I actually was looking for ways to keep my daughter. Yeah.
I had gone to, I live in Weld County. I had gone to the Weld County courthouse and I was trying to figure out how I could get full custody before she was born so that I could fight for those rights.
When I found out her biological dad's past, I just didn't feel comfortable co-parenting with him. I really strongly believed that it would compromise her safety and well-being.
So I wanted to be certain that I could have full custody prior to her being born. Weld County doesn't, and I bet this is true for a lot of counties, but I really haven't done a lot of homework on it.
You cannot get full custody or custody agreements in general for a child until the child is here. And it's so silly because you can do an in vitro paternity test, but the percentage is just ever so slightly different on the accuracy of the in vitro test versus a blood test or a mouth swab.
And so for that reason, they won't even entertain a custody battle until child is here. Wow.
Even if he's not like safe. Correct.
Wow. I thought it was terrible.
Yeah. Terrible mom.
Right. When I found that out, though, that's why I decided to, OK, I should at least have a family matched.
I don't want to agree. I don't want to consent to anything.
I don't want to do paperwork, but I should just know these are the people that I want to raise my child if I do. You're saying find and adopt a family match like that.
Yes. Okay, so you did that.
That was like your first, once you found that out in the courts, you're like, all right, I need to find. So that means you already kind of made the decision a little bit in your head that you lean more towards adoption once you found that out the courts you're like all right i need to find because so that means you already kind of made the decision a little bit in your head that i'm gonna leave you lean more towards adoption once you found that out from the court as soon as weld county told me that that really was where my mindset shifted from i want to do this but at that point your options are like what move states and change your name and raise this kid on your own live on the run or adoption or and they just don't tell you what your options are you know weld county there or counties courthouse systems you know their job is to just tell you what they can or can't do it's not to educate you about your options right and then the adoption industry has a narrative that they want to promote because there's profit in it right so they're not going to tell you about your other options either so's just a kid figuring it out.
So you went to the adoption agency and you just were at first just trying to find a family that you felt fit for you, right? Yes. Yeah, they do.
I don't know. Did you guys place through an agency? Yes, we did.
So for the agency that I was working with, they gave us books and it was like family portfolios. Yeah.
So they came with like 12 of them. Mm-hmm.
And I'm flipping through them and all of the verbiage says we can't wait to welcome a baby into our family. We can't wait to raise our child, bond with all of this verbiage.
And all I'm seeing is my baby, our baby, baby, baby. There was one book out of all 12 and it said we cannot wait to welcome you and your child into our home boom yeah if they're not interested i don't want it like that's where i was at at that point and i sat down with them i really liked him but i didn't have a clue what to ask right right you don't know you don't know and so it was a lot of like what do you do for work work? Where are you from? Well, I don't.
What's your favorite color? I'm not sure. They give you that.
Or we got a sheet of questions that was kind of like really pathetic first date questions. Get to know you stuff.
And you ask what comes to mind and then you leave and you may be thinking more and you have dialogue back and forth. But it's not sufficient.
No, it's not sufficient. Did you notice that all the profile the profile books are very similar yeah that's one thing that we talk about now that we were adults like looking back it's like you look back and say they were all like the vacations their house their family them spending time with children and the picture yeah with it and it's interesting how it's like wow they're all like they're so similar and it's it's like it was just ironic that like wow like the one that you saw was like but the one verbiage is what got you to be all right that's them and i almost wish we would have because i didn't really pay attention i mean we were obviously 16 you're a little older than we were but like you said you don't really know what you're looking for you're just reading all these things and like you said even when you meet them you don't know what to ask or it's just kind of awkward and like...
Plus, but they're saying that like, we can't wait to welcome you and your child. That sounds like they're leaning towards openness.
You know what I mean? So that means that's probably... Did you even know about openness versus clothes or semi or anything like that before you met them? Yeah, at that point, they had kind of asked me what my hopes for adoption were.
And every time that I would say something, they would tell me it was too much. And like, what do you mean? So I wanted to be very active in her life.
I want to see her every month. I want to do phone calls.
I want to get together on the weekends when it's available and not in an obsessive way. Like I'm not saying we have to do this, but this is the type of relationship that I want.
In my mind, it was comparable to co-parenting in some ways,

just with the removed legal authority of one half of the family here. And so I wanted our relationship to mirror what I understood adoption to be in concept.
And I've always been somebody that's very in tuned in general with words that people choose, body language. I just, I'm very intentional about what I put out and what I received.

Yeah.

And for that reason,

I. that people choose body language I just I'm very intentional about what I put out and what I receive yeah and for that reason I was looking for little wording cues like that but every time that I said I want to see her at least once a month like that's the floor yeah send me pictures they were like well that's a lot I don't think that we're gonna get a whole ton of families that agree to that type of relationship so the agency told you like oh that's it wasn it wasn't the family no it was the agency did you ever ask the family that i did okay yeah so they had the agency had talked to me backwards from right visit once and it was i mean it goes back to that coercion thing that it's really just i mean and i'm sure to a degree it's them trying to set realistic expectations based on what they've seen but it doesn't make make it okay.
Right. And they talked to me from a visit once a month and pictures and phone calls all the way down to four visits a year.
Okay. When I got the profile books, I said I wanted to meet with that family that I had chosen for the wording reasons in their profile and sat down with them.
I liked them a lot, found out that the adoptive mom, she is my daughter's adoptive mom now. Her and I have the same birthday.
It seemed like there were just these little coincidences lining up that were kind of cool at the time. And I was, I think, looking for anything to be helpful for at that point.
Right. Well, when I left that initial meeting and weeks kind of keep going by and you're maybe texting back and forth, talking to the agency, but nothing's really happening now at this point.
Right. And I decided I cannot do less than six.
Like that really is my floor. I need to see her every other month at a minimum.
Good for you. Because what do they tell us also? That it's your, you are in the driver's seat of this decision.
It can feel and look any way you want it to look. So good for you for saying that.
And what did they say? They said, let us think about it. The age, I didn't tell the agency because they were the ones that had talked to me backwards.
So now that I'm talking with them, I'm like, I'm going to talk to you about. Oh, so you actually got the numbers of the doctor.
I did. Oh, wow.
Yeah. We had theirs.
They got a specific. It was like a specific phone.
But to talk to us through. Yeah, actually.
Well, it was. And it also, it was like they didn't.
Their their responses were few and far. We would wait days.
Then their responses were very, not just fluid. It was very rehearsed.
It seemed rehearsed. But you were actually able to tell them, hey, this is what I need.
They did agree to the six visits a year and great when we would sit sit down and talk because we had other meetings after that i would just tell them hey guys i would love to get coffee with you or dinner i've thought of some other questions i'd just love to chat through and it looked like they had promised me the sun and moon and stars and that this was going to be a flourishing relationship we had shared faith to my knowledge um what do you mean to share like to your knowledge what do you mean so the agency that i placed through was an alleged christian agency okay and i'm a believer i don't necessarily think that that denomination though was the principle for me it was the core values that are rooted in my faith. Right.
That was what it really was for me. Well, Nightlight Adoption Agency is just a Christian adoption agency.
Okay. And so I didn't think about all of the denominations of Christianity that there are.
Some of these are really brutally legalistic. Very.
I found out that that is exactly what I had signed up for with this adoptive family.

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I think they're Baptist. Don't quote me on that.
I think they're Baptist. Again, nothing against Baptist in general, right? But they had gone to a Catholic college and they had done mission trips in the past, all of these really great things in theory.
But it's really common that when there is a religious superiority, there is a gap between just loving people and what religious law says, quote unquote. I put that lightly.
But it ended in them not even wanting a relationship with me, which I'll get into how that kind of spiraled, too, because of the fact that I had my child.

I wasn't married.

I had my child. I wasn't married.
I had my other daughter not long after. And so it was like, well, this is added trauma.
We want nothing to do with you. All of these bizarre 180.
Yeah. Okay.
So leading up to her birth, you were meeting them for coffee and just having conversations and that sort of thing. Yes.
So did they live in your state? They did at the time. Oh, at the time they did.
Our open disagreement was outlined pretty simply because we wanted to make it broad enough that we were going to be realistic, right? Yeah. So we ended on six in-person visits per year, videos or pictures and or uploaded to a shared Shutterfly account once a month.
Nothing crazy. Doesn't matter when you do it.
Just photos. Any pictures.
Keep me posted. Yeah, just in the moment, out of the moment, whenever you think of it, that they would let me know if something major medically happened or something along those lines.
If she breaks an arm or is in the hospital, just keep me posted so that I can send a teddy bear and flowers and make sure everything's good. Right.
And then at the bottom, it was a more vague description of like the hopes that we had for our

relationship where it said my daughter's adoptive parents had agreed to

include me in family activities and sporting events and barbecues and let's

do fun things together and take family photos.

That's great.

That's always right.

It looks and sounds beautiful.

It does.

And so I was sold on this vision that I had been pitched for lack of a better word same yeah it stinks but yeah but your openness was way i mean we would have loved to have that on paper at least but wow y'all start did you guys even have an openness agreement on paper or yes we did with ours, when we first, you know, we were probably three months pregnant when

we were deciding like adoption is our thing.

And, you know, in that moment, it was, I don't know if I could see her.

It might be too hard.

I still want to see pictures of her, but face-to-face visit.

More semi-open, I would say.

Yeah, so like semi-open, like I think it might be too hard.

I don't want her to live in the same state because what if I'm wondering, is that her in the grocery store or whatever? And, you know, we are always told like, you know, your openness can change at any moment. This can look and feel however you want it to feel.
I was told like if you change your mind, it's all written in pencil so we can grab the big eraser. we can erase it and we can start over.
And so, you know, I was very much on like semi open until the day she was born and the day she was born and I held her in my arms. I said, oh, no, no, no, no, no.
I said, I want to know where she's at. I want to see her.
I want to get pictures and letters. I want to send her presents.
I want to write her letters. I want to be able to FaceTime and call.
And after holding her, I was like, there's no way in hell. I want to send her presents i want to write her letters i want to be able to facetime and call and after holding her i was like there's no way in hell i want to know all about this child like i love her i want to see her grow up and be a part of her life and so we changed our openness agreement to face-to-face visits once a year for 18 years um ongoing like pictures Pictures, letters, communication and that's kind of where ours was and for a few years we were having face-to-face visits for every year and then they adopted a son and the birth mom is also in michigan and like once that happened it kind of moved like face-to-face visits every other year.
After the five-year mark, we noticed a big shift. What is it with the five-year mark? I don't, I have no idea.
I'm not sure. Some voodoo associated with it? I don't know.
I don't know what is happening. Because I think it goes back to our, you know, our first draft of the openness before she was born.
It did say, you know, for the first five specific pictures and stuff. And then obviously years down the line we found out that 95% of open adoptions closed within five years.
And so we didn't know that. By the adoptive parents doing it.
And we didn't know that. Me neither.
They don't tell you those things. You should have to sign a disclosure that says that.
Like you have been told this information. Yeah, because I think they say, well, you knew.
It's like, well, you can't really tell me I knew because you clouded the language in such a way that, especially at 16 years old, I'm trusting all the adults. Right.
That what's on this paper is what's on the paper. Well, because I'm looking at 45-year-old adults looking at me, and I'm like, why would they lie to me? Yeah.
And who to question their credibility where I'm at in this situation? Especially because they're the agency. They're the professionals.
I never did adoption before. And the adoptive parents themselves telling me these things.
Of course I'm going to believe you. I'm literally giving you my child.
Yeah. Like, of course I'm going to believe you.
I think that goes into the whole, I think our version of like open adoption is like, if it's not legally enforce enforceable then what else is the paperwork besides a coercive tactic to get this to to get the baby to make the birth parents feel secure in a moment and why do they not tell birth parents that you can have outside legal representation and that the state supersedes the agency because most states have legally enforceable contracts between individuals yeah So even if open disagreements are not legally binding, that doesn't matter. I'm getting the state involved.
Correct. But they don't tell you that.
No, because God, that would hurt their profit. Right.
And I think that's what it comes down to is that that's why, you know, it's important to talk about because even the word industry really offends people. Like they're like, it's not like, like you can't even say adoption industry.
People get really like freaked out about it. And it's like, well, I think that's the first step.
You have to acknowledge that it's an industry. You have to acknowledge that people are making money in this industry and that it's very unique to America and that no other country operates adoption like this.
And so I think that's the first step to maybe like opening minds a little bit to like you know i think i think it comes down to like you we need to ask questions and and you shouldn't be offended that i'm asking you to ask the question like it's you know what i mean like you should be wanting to learn more about this and i feel like i think it comes down to the like you know like you said if we had legal representation if they were to allow that to happen i think open adoptions would look a lot different you know because i mean i know certain states are legally enforceable but a lot of them they're not no so the ones that are yeah a lot of the times it fails but so after after your your child was born and you obviously went through with the adoption how did your guys's relationship look in the right the beginning? In the beginning, it was tough.

For the same reason that you articulated that you wanted semi-open prior to having your daughter. That is an empty pit of grief that I don't think you can even articulate with words unless you've experienced it.
so when I see you like I know that we have that shared trauma that shared loss and that feeling

of leaving the hospital or leaving your baby that day that no one else can understand except someone who has truly been through it. And it took a while for me to want those communications.
So they were very generous at first, and they sent me a a picture sometimes multiple pictures every day right out of the gate because it was so hard i woke up the next morning my first night back home and i remember turning to my daughter's dad now and saying i have to get her back like how do we undo this this is i cannot do it the day afterwards Because it's so painful and so you're just full of sorrow it's uncontrolled it's the craziest feeling i've ever felt me too yeah the postpartum hormones everything going on top of it it's like it's insane do you did you what'd you do yeah did you so you look at him you say that yeah he this was a huge pivotal moment i have not i'm not with him but i have nothing but phenomenal things to say about this man he said there are four other little hearts on the line now like we can't we're not going to do that and what he meant was my daughter's adoptive parents have four biological girls of their own biological biological i did that intentionally interesting okay yeah yeah i'll tell you about that when we get to the book piece of it. But, um, but offer up, I don't agree with what he said.
I don't now. Okay.
You don't now. Yeah.
Like I was like, I don't agree with that because I think in your heart and soul, you were like, I can't do this. This is very hard.
And I feel like he should have just me, you know, devil's advocate. Like, I feel like he should have said, okay, we will do whatever we need to do.
Right, right. And now that I've been through what I've been through and the promises have unraveled, that's where I fall to.
With the promises that they had said they were going to maintain at that time, because of the love that I had for her children, the love that she had for mine, at that point, it was for what to get her back? Because I still would have to go through the custody battle. And so he knew, even though his words were there are four other hearts on the line, he knew that even if we get her back, now we're facing a whole other set of complications and compromising our daughter's emotional stability.
My daughter, we call, I apologize, we call him. He was there through the whole pregnancy.
He's not her biological dad. Now we're risking this custody thing, compromising her emotional stability and the environment that she's in and compromising those other little ones that just got their sister home from what they've been told and what they're experiencing.
I don't feel the same way about it now, but at the time it would have been selfish for me in a lot of ways, maybe not in a bad way, but I don't think it would be selfish. And when I say that, I say it in the same way that you can be, you can have a good sense of pride, like take pride in the things that you do.

You can be selfish and caring for yourself.

And that's not inherently a bad thing.

Right.

I just think the nature of that decision would have been selfish,

selfish,

regardless of if we deem that a good or bad.

Regardless if you had the right to do it,

because you did have the right to do it.

Was there a revocation period?

Yes,

but they don't give you the real straightforward answer on that.

They don't.

They're like,

you have 72 hours,

but you actually have until the adoption is final. Yes.
So, yeah, just another thing that's weird there. But it was great for that.
I mean, the pictures and whatnot, it was really hard to see her. I would ball for hours after visitation.
I mean, just hours. Sick to my stomach, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep.
You want your baby back. Well, I think what I'm hearing from you is it's a little – I think it's a little different from our experience because i don't think we didn't wake up the next day kind of like having that immediate like oh my gosh i want her back i think we were trying to kind of like almost brainwash ourselves that we did the right thing and it's okay and i think our souls knew our souls kind of felt that we knew that of course we're always going to want her.
But, like, you know, do you look back at it now and just – I mean it has to be hard not to have regrets. Because looking back at now, you know, all these years down the line, it's like you could have honored yourself in that moment.
You could have said, you know, yeah, I want her back. And then you did have 72 hours.
So it's like that's got to be – I think it's got to be i think it's harder for um birth moms in your position to actually moms we have lots of what ifs all the time yeah you try not to live in them because they'll drive you crazy but i think we all do like what if i would have done this differently or that differently like i feel like that a lot and i try not to sit in that right but do you equate your saying, oh, I want her back? Do you equate that to, at that moment, you're like, I don't want to do this anymore. This decision is not something I want anymore.
That's how you felt. So when did that feeling go away is my question.
It didn't. And I don't know if it ever does.
But it definitely got worse when all of the promises started to unravel. I don't regret adoption.
I regret not knowing what questions to ask that would have matched me with the family that met the needs of what my hopes for a relationship with my daughter would be. And that's what people miss when you and I have said publicly, I would have chosen a different family.
And they family and they get mad mad very mad I have had people blow up my dms with videos of you my own things and it's like well you need to talk to like we need to hear your thoughts on this like all right let's lay it out let's talk about it it's it but it is it's really hard because I don't with all of the circumstances of the relationship with my daughter's biological dad, I still think that I would have chosen adoption. I've always been somebody that puts others' needs above my own.
I don't think that that would have changed, but I would have known that what I was asking for was not too much. It wasn't unreasonable.
It was fair. Very fair.
And if anything, it was a reflection of how much I loved her and how much i wanted to raise her yeah and i just didn't know what to ask and they're great people like i and they love my daughter and i can say all of that and have almost no respect for the way that they've handled this relationship but you think you'd be true at the same time yeah yeah summer isn't just a season it's a feeling the warm sand nestled between your toes waiting in a crystal blue caribbean sea and of course driving off in a new lexus during the golden opportunity sales event get offers on select luxury models now through september 2nd because the greatest measure of an automobile is how it makes you feel. Experience amazing at your Lexus dealer.
Click the banner to discover more. Because how long did it go on? Like was everything really good for a really long time? Like you were seeing her multiple times, all that? Like when did it start dwindling or them not keeping their promises? At three years old, they told me in the month of her birthday that they were moving out of the country.
So we went from six in-person visits a year to we're leaving the country and we're going to have to continue this relationship via FaceTime. What? And from that day forward, every visit that I had with them thereafter was them chipping away at one more piece of what we had agreed to.
I started to have to beg for the pictures. And can you upload this? How are you guys doing? When can we schedule a call? When's our next visit? Yada, yada, yada.
And you're probably doing it very cautiously because you don't want to. I think as a birth parent, people don't get we have to be very like.
We have nothing. We walk on eggshells after being the punching bag for our whole child's life.
And what was the reasoning that they wanted to move out of the country? The whole Baptist thing that I mentioned about comes full circle. I think that they, my understanding is that they went on a missions trip to start a new church in another country.
And so I think that they think that they're doing it for the right reasons. What I do not and I probably will never understand is how you can preach the gospel to people while not living it in your own life for your own kids.

Yeah.

It will never make sense to me.

Is there any contact now between you and them? So in February of 2024, last year, my birthday, her birthday as well, I guess, she pulled me aside after I FaceTimed with my daughter and her and her husband said, we have to go from six video calls a year to four video calls a year, just because we have so much demand and so many things going on. We're not going to have the time to just allocate this to you anymore.
I'm really sorry. Like we'll reevaluate.
That is where I drew a hard line. I was like, respectfully, sorry, like, sorry, not sorry.
You guys have taken away everything that we've agreed to. I'm now doing video calls instead of in person.
And now you're telling me that you don't have 30 minutes twice a year to do a video call so that I can know that my child that I loved enough to entrust you with is okay. And I'm not even going to have this conversation with you.
We can't talk about this. And so I just said, guys, respectfully, I know that time isn't the issue.
I want to hear you out. I believe that there's something else going on.
I'm not an expert. You're not an expert.
Can we get the agency to mediate a call? And the agency has always, at least on paper and over the phone, said, you know, we'll always mediate these conversations and help with communication, conflict resolution, yada, yada. So we did.
We scheduled a call. And I, this is what I don't, going back to the birth parents, have to tread lightly.
I really hate that. I hate it.
Oh, yeah. Same.
I do not like it. I don't understand why we make all of the sacrifices that we make, lose all legal authority, and still have to be the ones that are cautious with our words at the end of it.
That hurts me. There's no reason.
Why do you have to have an ego as adoptive parents when I've given you everything? I'm proving you that it's not ego-driven for me. It's such a love.
So please drop your own. Drop your weapon.
Like I come unarmed. And like Tyler and I, we always say like, you know, the adoptee and the birth parents lose everything.
The adoptive parents, they don't lose shit. They gain everything.
So why is it so hard to let me be involved in this child's life that I love so much and also hold up to your end of the agreement so at this point they already went out of the country yeah so they're having so they're still out of the country and everything yeah they're in france right now and you know it bothers me too because when they were moving to france that's not just like an overnight thing you don't just like hey pack your sell everything. So they were actually in the States for another like year and a half almost.
And they still didn't accommodate in person during that time. And it was like, guys, we could take advantage of this 18 months that we have until you're gone.
So you weren't seeing her face to face? No. What about before they left? Before they left, we did.
Yes. We were doing in-person visitation as agreed upon per the open disagreement for three years.
It was at that three year mark when it started to go away. And I want to say it would have been like three and a half years is when it switched to the video calls officially.
And then it was four years or four and a half years when it switched to now we need to do the four video call thing instead of the six video call thing um but you got to see her in person before they left for france before they left for no no no not while they were in no yeah they took that away when they moved out so there was no like face-to-face goodbye it's no see you later wow it was and they knew they're going on horrible they knew yeah they knew they told me in person that day so that kind of was my in a lot of ways. And the only other time that I saw her before she left the country was when they had a wedding back home that they were attending.
And so they did. They were gracious enough to allow me to see her.
And we went to the aquarium or something like that. That's heartbreaking.
Like heartbreaking. It is.
And so – and they left the country for one reason which was to start a new church which is to proselytize to whoever is living there whatever their goal is for the mission right and so religion played a huge part in your openness agreement being destroyed which is very ironic isn't it through a christian eight you know what i'm saying it's like how is this happening it doesn't translate one doesn't equal the other yeah no it doesn't make sense it doesn't make any sense and i almost did the agency ever say anything like when you told them hey they're moving out of the country did the agency ever try to like mediate more and say hey guy like you made an agreement with these people they said my hands are tied wow so now your hands are tied yeah right now they are right now you can't help so yeah that's so that's that's that is like yeah because i that i mean i can't imagine like a whole nother country because even if you even if they're saying that they're gonna let you see her it's like well it's never gonna be six times you know it's never gonna be the same it's through a device even it's not like i can't even touch her hug her hold her like and when did you have your um when did you have your next child after her my daughter and her are a year and four months apart okay so you already had by the time she left to the country you already had another i did and so my daughter had a relationship with her sister and now i'm eating the consequences of that too that nobody talks about yeah i was gonna say like one of the things because like for me when i was going through the adoption process and placed her and all that like never once did i logically even think to myself like how will this affect my future children i never thought about it not on your radar no right but it does and it does so deeply and it affects my children all the time all the time um Nova more so because she's older but and I remember just talking to Ty a lot like wow I why didn't I ever think? Like, why didn't I think the effect it would have on my future children? I know. And I think people don't understand.
They're like, oh, well, that's not their sister. And you need to just let it go.
And I'm like, as what they know, that is their sister. You can call me anything you want.
If you tell it to my kid, I will. I will.
Like, I will. We're going to the parking lot.
Literally. Pack a lunch.
I i'm not messing around when it comes to that my daughter is in occupational therapy because of the loss of her sister and because she's four she doesn't really understand what adoption is so you have to explain it in these age-appropriate terms right and so for that reason she doesn't understand that this was my her sister my daughter was not taken from her but in my moments of weakness and i i deeply regret this but i have broken down in tears in my home not to her obviously but and it's they they stole my baby like and so now my daughter has heard me say that her sister has been taken and she has this notion in the back of her little baby brain that the same thing can happen to her. And I have to walk her through,

come hell or high water kid nobody's taking you like you are stuck with me like it or not and also just work through the emotional effects that it's had on on her in regards to like why don't we see my sister anymore i don't understand she talks to other people about it i have a sister i just don't get to see her she lives with a different mom and dad and then people are looking at me yeah right what's going on right the same thing our kid will like you know when they're younger they kind of spew the whole story to people random people and you're like the life story that look of like what is going on and you'd be like complete strangers i'm like hi right yeah right like i'm sydney it's nice to meet you yeah well i think it's's one that we I think that we that we have in common that, like you said, people don't talk about is that adoption affects everybody, even the siblings. And I think it's interesting because we had a guest yesterday talk about how she's an adoptee.
And so she had children. So we consider our children second generation adoptees and i'm like what about second generation like relinquished children because that is what it's it's like my child's affected by it regardless if you think we're bad parents because we talked about it in front of them and they know about it but it's like that's the reality that they're living with and it's like how do you even explain to a kid such a complex thing that makes them feel okay about it and it's like almost impossible to do it's it's incredibly hard like i always always just try to explain it as at their age level like right you know in the beginning and no one knew when she started asking questions it was like i didn't have a car i was still in school i couldn't buy diapers and then you know with her little four-year-old brain she was like oh okay that makes sense you

didn't have stuff and i was like yeah and then you know as she's gotten older her questions have

evolved and so my answers have evolved but yeah it's still it's hard very much so it's a really

tricky thing to navigate i'm also adopted but i'm not from not in the context that we're talking

Thank you. it's hard very much so it's a really tricky thing to navigate I'm also adopted but I'm not from not in the context that we're talking about my mom took her life to a drug addiction when I was 13 and so I was adopted later on by my stepmom and my dad was adopted by his stepdad his dad left when he was little my mom's dad passed away when she was little she by her stepdad, so on and so forth.
And so there's a lot of intricacies that go into it in general. And it is really, really difficult to explain in a way that they can.
But when we make that sacrifice, I think that we believe that it's just us that is affected. Because that's where the focus is.
And you don't think about the long-term implications of having to not only be strong for yourself when you're already the punching bag in this relationship, but then carry that burden for other people that you love. Yeah, it's hard.
For their whole life. Yeah.
The whole life, yeah. When the agency mediated that call regarding the open disagreement, I came in very, very vulnerable.
And I told them I was calling their bluff on the lack of time thing and that I wanted to grow as a person, that I was willing to lay on the sword. And if I was doing something that they didn't approve of or that they didn't like, I wanted that feedback.
I wanted the opportunity to be able to ask for forgiveness and to learn and grow from that for the sake of my relationship with them ergo the well-being of my daughter and so we go through this whole conversation and and i am quiet like so what is it right and they're like not nothing like we're just we're really busy we've got xyz we've got other kids i love that's always their excuse. We're super busy.
And they were like, we'll add you to our newsletter with this missions thing. So on and so forth.
Fuck the newsletter. I literally was like, I'm sorry.
What? I think a newsletter, but you can't talk to me for 20 minutes. I didn't say anything when they said that, but my face had to have just like, I'm sorry, what? What are you talking about? No, it was bizarre for sure.
But they ended that call with like, you know, let us think about it. We also did an educational thing.
So in co-parenting, right? There is almost no scenario unless the parents fighting for custody or in discussion of custody, I suppose is is a drug addict, danger to themselves, homeless, whatever it is. In situations that are not that, almost all states at this point will encourage 50-50 for the sense of identity that this child needs from both of their parents.
And the crucial roles that both parents play in the child's life. So we explained this to them, right? I have a background in psychology, but I didn't want them to hear it from me because they won't, right? So I get the social workers involved and the psychiatrist that works for their agency.
Please explain to these people how it could be detrimental to my daughter, especially at this age, because she doesn't understand even the gap in between frequency. What if we did more calls, but much shorter? You can just call me when you're on the road.
Just let me tell her that I love her and ask what you're doing for the day. Click.
Hang up. That's it.
It can be random. I'll answer the phone.
I don't care what time it is. But even that is in support of a more healthy sense of self for my child at this point.
So I will do whatever it takes.

This isn't about me.

This is about coming back to what we agreed to and figuring out what is best for her right now.

Right.

Cause it's nothing to do with them either.

No,

it isn't.

So yeah.

So let's talk about it.

Tell me what you think.

So they,

you know,

hear all of this conversation and all of these,

take all these notes,

whatever they go ghost for two months.

They say,

we'll get back to you.

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So her, yeah, two months, still didn't have a call with them. So her birthday rolls around and I guess it was a month and a half, but anyways, her birthday rolls around and they text me like me like a couple days before hey can we call you between x and y time so you can talk to her yes um get on the call have my little powwow with her wish her happy birthday send her gifts overseas whatnot and then they send me an email I think it was a couple days later saying hey we want to revisit the conversation that we had I'm like yes like finally yeah right we haven't missed any visits yet like let's get it back on the calendar let's talk it out and um they they got the call scheduled with the agency get on a video call and i so the agency's mediating this whole thing call okay yes yeah same way that they did with you know my approach to them um mother's intuition maybe just a pit of nausea in my stomach like I don't know how I knew or even what I thought I knew at that point but something was wrong and I knew it and when we got on that call they were cold um her adoptive dad was crying and her adoptive mom was pissed.
And for what? Yeah, why? For what reason? Okay. And they have a letter that they've written and they start by saying, we're going to read you this letter.
We're unlikely to entertain questions after we read this. Oh, really? Wow.
Okay. We're unwilling to entertain questions after this.
We likely will not facilitate or participate in any other mediated calls with or through the agency after this. This is sort of like our final decision.
And really, this is just a formality. We told you that we would get back to you.
And so here is our explanation of where we're at. And, you know, that that will be it.
And so I'm recording the call, but my camera's off and I'm just listening. And she starts by saying that I have proven to be a danger and manipulative using their words against them in the context of the openness agreement in order to propagate my own agenda to have a relationship with my daughter.
She said, you have weaponized our words against us as a result of this and a variety of other factors that demonstrate dangerous and toxic behavior. we are null and voiding our openness agreement and reinstating full control.
You will be allowed to talk to her around her birthday and around Christmas. If you contact us any time outside of these designated periods or make initial contact, meaning not in response to contact that we have initiated we will deem that as a further threat and we will pursue legal action pursue legal action that is so like wow i and so there was no other reasonings beyond any of that?

That was it.

when I was at the hospital, the day that we were leaving the hospital, I had a social worker on my right and my daughter's adoptive mom on my left. And at this point, I hadn't decided for adoption

yet. And so I knew that that was the more responsible of the choices for her wellbeing, but it wasn't what I wanted.
That was not my desire. And I had, it was last night they were there, but they were not in the room when I delivered and they were not staying in my room.
They had their own space and they came into me before, my room before they went to bed and they said we're gonna let you have the night to be with her and make this decision you're gonna let me which is very like you said verbiage the language crucial yeah it is because people don't pick up on those little things until after you've been through it either no yeah you definitely well honestly, my feeling is, though, is that I don't think adoptive parents should even be at the hospital, in my opinion, right? Yeah, me looking back on it, I'm like, I had three days, you have her whole life. Like, get out of here.
I think all birth mothers deserve to take that time to be just with them and the baby. And adoptive parents, you have the rest of the life so if the adoption goes through then you know let this birth mother have her time yeah i don't think your presence really doesn't do anything for the child and that's what i think if we remain child centered the adoptive parents being at the hospital does not do anything for the baby so at that moment so you need to just like i i don't agree with them being at the hospital i think it creates a different pressure on birth parents also just that letter like that had to throw you for a loop like what do you mean i'm dangerous and toxic yeah so any further what well so the words that they were referring to i remember very distinctly they'll always i mean i have nightmares about this now but i at the hospital we did a couple things leading up to creating the foundation for what we thought was going to be a really great relationship.
One of those things was we took maternity photos together. I also got my own maternity photos.
This was me and my daughter's journey. And I was making these decisions and having these promises made to us, not me.
And so I did all of these little things so that she could see the effort that I put in from the day that I found out I was pregnant. One of the other things that we did was when she was born, we did placement photos.
Also my idea. We had the adoptive parents come into the hospital and I gave birth alone because I went through the journey alone.
But we took, we've got pictures of us like with all of our hands on her, for example, and pictures of me and her adoptive mom together, holding her, looking at her in the nursery bassinet and all of these things that were supposed to be really, really special. Yeah.
On the last day, I had a social worker on my left. It's I'm sorry, my right.
It's time to sign paperwork. And I had my daughter's adoptive mom on my left, but it was just the three of us in the room.
And she was there with you. She was there when I signed papers and I'm bawling.
I mean, like, you can't, I really just can't explain it. You can't explain it.
So I'm not even going to try. I was a wreck.
And the social worker goes through, this is the one that's terminating your parental rights, gives me a brief nutshell of how that works in logistics. And I'm holding the pen, can't even see the words that I'm signing because I'm crying so hard.
And I look over to my daughter's adoptive mom and I said, do you promise you'll never take her from me? And she was crying and she said, it would be ungodly to do so and to this day i have quoted her words to her because that has not been the execution of her actions i'm sorry rightfully fucking so you should that's that's what i'm saying i'm not saying it to weaponize these against right this is what you told me and promises that you told me. And she knows what she told you in those moments.
And it pisses her off because she met her match. I will not quit.
Yeah. I will never quit.
There's not, what do I have to lose at this point? Yeah, that's what we say. At this point, like we literally have nothing to lose.
You've done it. You've taken it all.
You've taken it all. Take it.
Like you have you have my heart yeah there is nothing else that you can do to me so i will fight until my dying breath yeah and i think that's one thing that they underestimate birth parents that's specifically even birth mothers alone are like we once that's done it's you've exhausted all and any of the eggshell any of the power you believed you have it's done now because you went back on your promises and now we're what are we supposed to do as birth parents i think a lot of the stuff just expect us to just like roll over it get over it move on wait till she's 18 and i've had thousands and i didn't even realize this until this year i've had thousands of adoptees write me and say don't wait until she's 18 because i 18. Look for my bio parents and they're dead.
And some of the bio parents died months before they turned 18. Like they missed by months.
Just like a few days. By a few days.
And I'm like, I couldn't imagine being an adoptee. Oh my gosh.
And going to search. And so people are like, wait, no, time isn't guaranteed to us.
No. And that child is more important than than your insecurities adoptive parent or whatever your reasons for not having this contact and and those are for adoptees who didn't have an openness agreement at all right or we've had adoptees tell us too don't stop fighting keep reaching out because what obviously when our children are getting older i don't want her to look and say like my parents told parents told you to stop.
So you just bent over and listen. Like, I want my child to see, like, I continued fighting.
I continued trying. I continued all of the things.
And it was them putting the wall. Yes.
And at the end of the day, they do have to answer for that. Exactly.
Because this adoptee is going to grow up. Yes.
And they're going to ask the hard questions. So I started the day that my first day back home from the hospital, that day I created an email address for her where I could send her letters and poems.
I also document everything that I send to her. So if I send her a birthday gift or whatever it is, I take a picture of it, I attach it to the email, and I send it to her for this reason.
We should have did that. I know.
Yeah, it's smart. I do it for my kids now too.
Then they've got an email address when they're older and I'm not going to risk losing all of these things that I put together for you. So it's just kind of multifunctional, I suppose.
But yeah, it's it just became something that as soon as I was a threat to her position in my daughter's life, I became the enemy. And that is a place that I am comfortable being.
Me too. I don't care.
You know what I mean? And it's not, again, it's not an ego thing. It's not.
I think people get confused because they think that, oh, you're- Oh, for sure. But it's literally out of a desperation through love that I am in this position.
And if you want me to put the hat on as being the enemy, that's, I mean, that's, you're doing it, not me. Well, that's our job as parents, too, though.
Thank you. And that's the thing that people miss is they make it like heal your trauma.
This is you. I'm sorry.
What? I just, it doesn't, that doesn't compute. And I can't make it make sense.
I cannot make the dots connect. Right.
And also, just because I place this child in my eyes, she will always be my child. Always.
And I will do anything for my children. And I haven't met a single adoptee unless their natural parents have been a real toxic figure that have said otherwise.
In some cases, it's even adoptees that did have a toxic natural. Like that's still my mom.
That's still my dad at the end of the day. I mean, they they gave me the opportunity for life so I've run into maybe one adoptee maybe that has said I don't classify them as having anything to do with me or where I'm at which honestly I think is also unhealed trauma because I just think that's just not true right right right yeah so it's it all boiled down to the whole concept of being willing to ask the right questions and that's what kicked off the journey of the book because when they told me that i could no longer contact them or use their words against them so they said like after this meeting you cannot contact us ever again yes that they i can only respond they big.
Yeah. I mean, legal action against what? Herat? I'm sure that it would be something of that nature.
Which, in my opinion, if there's any adoptive parents listening, like, if you're willing to legally go after a birth mom, that is not going to look very good for you when that adoptee gets older. Because what would that look? Could being an adopted child and like wow you actually legally attacked my like for because for wanting a relationship that is really not it's not it's not child-centered at all it's it's that if anything that's ego-driven from the adoptive parent like to legally actually and put anyone through a legal process like that it's just it's it's cruel it's just cruel it's cruel even when it's in a co-parenting situation i mean legal battles are not fun regardless of if you're in this triangle of adoption or if it's just happening between individuals it's hard it's draining it's not easy for the kid it's not easy on the individual so why would you add to that fire why would fuel it? It just doesn't make sense to me.
You made a comment about how my daughter's adoptive dad was crying. Yeah, like I feel like what I've noticed a lot in just talking to adoptees and just everything, like adoptive parents, the mom is very the ringleader and the dad is usually very passive.
And soft hearted. I'm like it's interesting that then you saying what you said it's like it's kind of this dynamic is interesting because they're all very similar i feel like and i i really think that's related to the maternal component i like would be curious to hear your thoughts about this too because men don't carry the children that we raise so it's easier for men to be and this isn a negative thing, just on a biological level, it's easier to bond with the child because you never carried them to begin with.
So there's nothing to be defensive over. Like regardless of this child is my flesh and blood or I'm raising it as my flesh and blood, it doesn't affect the love that I have for this child.
But for mothers, especially ones that have carried and bonded with the children before, it does become this territorial claim and need to stake ownership on. You cannot own a person.
And I hate that about adoption because that's what it becomes is this level of ownership thing. And if you can put your ego aside and do what's truly best for your child, then there is no need to tighten the reins on how much love this child can have in their life right love doesn't run out no it's it's it's it's infinite so i mean yeah it's one of those things where it's like i just feel like it's interesting to because a lot like a lot of adoptive dads i noticed that they're just very passive and i wonder if that's because like you said the maternal part of it's like is that like um you know like territorial is it like primal it's it's interesting even the biology aspect of it because you're saying that she had biological children so this was her only adopted child correct and did they ever tell you why they were adopting they said that they felt By? I believe their faith.
Their faith. And I want to bring that up because I think I have also talking to thousands of adoptees and all this situation.
A lot of it's very heavily faith-based. Like there's a lot of – even the highest donors on these nonprofits are Catholic socials.
Yeah, that's a lot. You know what I mean? And it's interesting how that kind of part, no one talks about that part.
But I think it's important because that religious influence will affect policy. Yes.
Inevitably, right? I mean, so, and you're talking about there's policy changes that are, you've passed how many out of? Four. Okay.
Out of nine. What do you think birth parents can do to help change adoption or adoptive parents or yeah or to change things to make it more maybe even legally binding for the adoptive parents more ethical yeah in general right that really is what it boils down to is just the ethics of it yeah i think that there's a lot of things that we can do and that need to be done.
And choosing the order that you go in, in terms of which mountain are we going to tackle first, is crucial for multiple reasons. One of those reasons is if I can get you to agree with me on a fundamental level about some of the basic stuff, then I have a foundation of established trust and rapport with you to get you to understand these bigger things more.
So one of the first things that needs to happen and has been passed is that adoption will be taught in all public education systems in the state of Idaho. Right now, it's just parenting, protection, abortion.
You mean sex ed or kind of like family? Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. If we can just agree that people should be educated about what adoption is versus the foster care system, for example.
Yeah. Then we have a foundation for people that can at least have more knowledge than they had before, regardless of what they end up doing.
The next thing that needs to happen is mediators need to be removed. This is a commission paid position.
You've heard of this. Well, I've heard of the commission based on that.
I don't. And that we believe there needs to be mediators, yeah.
No, no, no. Mediators, take them out.
Because you're commodifying children already and there shouldn't be any money involved. My mind was going to as far as having the birth parents should have outside legal representation.
Right, right. I was, both.
Yes. Yes and.
Two different types of mediators. Mediators are that commission paid role that really does just match expectant parents that are considering adoption with families.
For every child that is adopted, there are 40 hopeful families waiting. We have a supply and demand issue.
Huge problem. And that's why it's so expensive to adopt and it's also why we run into people that are just uneducated about the process is because there's no margin in explaining this to you you might change your mind yeah yeah so that has been a huge thing and then giving birth mothers the knowledge that they can have outside legal representation would be a game changer huge they huge that should be legally like required it's a conflict of interest to begin with it's already illegal if somebody decided to crack down on it somebody would get their ass sued yes it's just that they were paying for it our legal team will make sure that you have representation so now i've changed that talk track to say our legal representation is going to do the paperwork for you too our legal representation is going to represent you wrong wrong that's not true yes exactly it's unethical or the adoptive parents attorney like will legally also a conflict of interest scrap it yeah so one thing that i regret is that i wish an adult in my life would have said hell no you, you're not reading it.
We're getting you somebody to read these things to you and explain it to you. That way you understand it.
That is not affiliated with the adoption agency whatsoever. Every birth mother needs to understand that I am pretty certain in all 50 states, written agreements between individuals are legally binding.
State supersedes agency. Right.
So if you have outside legal representation that is not affiliated with the agency that you place through at any regard and you have a contract with individuals, I don't care what the agency says. That's a legally binding document.
Right. Right.
And I would have paid whatever it cost to make this an enforceable agreement. I would not have placed her with these people if I knew that the relationship with my daughter

would be compromised

because it's detrimental to her sense of identity.

It doesn't, I don't care about me.

If I cared about me, she'd be with me.

Right, right, right.

We say that all the time.

We say it all the time.

I'm like, fuck us, fuck them.

Fuck them as a kid.

What does she want?

What does she need?

We say that all the time.

All the time, all the time. It's, yeah, I think that's a good place to start um there's i mean there's nine that we post but the outside legal representation got come down on like hard why crushed it because of the money well and but what was it what was their defense to that they were just saying that if we give that you're gonna hate this i want to hear it.
I think it's important for everyone to hear it. I'm like, what is the opposition to have a legal representation? You have to know the opposing side so that you can fight it, right? Yes, correct.
So they're saying that by giving birth parents access to outside legal representation, it becomes a threat, whether it's a predominant threat or a passive threat, to the adoptive family. In other words, you cannot control what birth parents do with their life.

If they become a threat, are they home?

All the stereotypes that we already know that we have being in the corner of the triangle that we're in,

you can't control those things about us.

We are unpredictable.

We're dangerous.

We are toxic.

And for that reason, how dare you allow legal representation for these people that also love their child so much?

That doesn't make any sense because they're going off of the premise that you're potentially could be a threat.

Well, guess what?

Adopted parents could also become drug addicts.

They could abuse our children.

They could abuse our children.

So it's like that argument's horrible.

No one void.

Horrible argument.

Just flip the coin.

Yeah, exactly. That is a horrible argument.
It is. I almost feel like that says everything, that you're literally going to – because even with foster care, for instance, I know it's very different.
But I'm saying that's why we have CPS and DHS is because when they deem a parent who has – because whatever, they're not dangerous, so we'll have supervised visits. That's when the, it's a whole different ballgame that you're worried about birth parents potentially becoming a threat.
Right. Well, and also I feel like if they're, you know, if they're contracts, I feel like there can be certain things in the contracts.
Yeah. Let's say if you become like.
Yeah, it's easy. That is a clause.
Right. That's what I mean.
you could put different clauses in there as as you know if they become addicted to drugs or they are

showing up unannounced all the time or whatever like it could change yeah you know so that's that's horrible argument so it made me go back to the drawing board right because it this it just goes back to if you haven't been through it you don't know right and this applies people that work for these agencies. Absolutely.
These people haven't, I mean, lots of them haven't been adopted or placed or any of those things. And so you're just talking out of your ass, literally.
Right. And I wrote a book called Courageous Considerations.
And it is the, technically it's a pre-placement journaling workbook that breaks down into three segments category by category every question that you don't have to ask but you should think about and consider if it's relevant to what you're looking for in adoption so that you can have these open dialogues prior to actually signing papers and if we had that precedence beforehand all of these legal things that we were just talking about it wouldn't even matter because I have a relationship with the person that's raising my child now. We have set up what we want.
Now both of us feel comfortable entering into a legal agreement that's binding by the state separate from the agency. Right.
But you have to know what to ask. And if you don't, then of course you're going to say no to outside legal representation because you are afraid of what you don't know.
Right. And also I feel like if I would would have, say, I met a family that I really loved and I said, I want to go about it this way.
And if they were like, no, no, no, no, no. I said, I would have been like, well, it's not a good fit.
Yeah. Next one.
Next. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Until I found. Two million couples.
Right. Right.
Thank you. Next.
It's not a good fit then. No.
No. But don't compromise what you want for your relationship with your child because you're trying to fit into the outline of something that somebody else has made.
Yeah. The book is written in a way that I really encourage people to ask the questions objectively because I think that there is a viable threat there of using this tool and saying when you're interviewing adoptive families, you know, I'm really looking for an openness, openness agreement.
I definitely want open adoption. I'm thinking that I want to be

involved every other month. Like, what does this look like to you? I just laid out my cards for

you. And if I am in line or being interviewed against 40 other families, what do you do in a

job interview? You sell yourself. It doesn't matter if it's true or not.
I don't care who you

are. Most people have lied on a resume and we're not talking about a job.
Right. We're talking about the life and well-being of my child.
And I need to know who you are and what you're about. Yeah, absolutely.
What's one of the questions that you wish you would have known that you should, like if you could rewind the tape and this is the question that I wish I would have asked. The question I wish I would have asked.
I think it comes down to if they could close this without me even, without having any say. And I think us being 16, I mean, that's like you, I think we deserve a little extra explanation because we were kids.
Right. And so that would be the one thing is that can they take this away from me? Which is exactly what you asked before you signed.
And so, I mean, that would be mine. And they still boldface lied to me.
And that's where it gets tricky is that, you know, people say things and it doesn't mean that they're untrue necessarily. It just means that they were true in that moment.
And that's why that character evaluation and that value and alignments is so crucial. And it's why I ask some of the questions that I do that have nothing to do with adoption.
Tell me about a time in your life that you've had to remove somebody from your life. What did that look like? And how did you go about it? I had to remove my mother from my life and remove her for like a year.
And I went about it by, I basically just told her like, I can't be around you when you're drinking. I had to create boundaries and say like, because she was also very degrading towards me and would say really mean things.
And it was taking away from my peace. And I was like, absolutely.
I don't know, just one day I was like, I am not tolerating this anymore and I will not tolerate it. Well, good for you.
Yeah. And I took a break from her for like a year.
And the only reason why our relationship and honestly, my life was peaceful and it was fine without my mom. Like I had to grieve that or whatever.
But and honestly, the only reason why it ever opened up again was because of my children and Nova crying to me saying she misses her grandma. And so now it's opened up slowly, but I've done things in the way where I keep my boundaries.
My mom knows my boundaries. She is so far respecting those boundaries.
And I keep it very much like whatever makes me feel safe and comfortable. And so she'll come to my house every once in a while to see the kids or my kids will go over there for a few hours and then I'll pick them up, but they don't spend the night there.
Right. So it's all about like just healthy boundaries to protect myself.
And you've been opening up protecting yourself while also being child centered because it's about the kids. Nova wants to see your – you know.

And you just told me everything that I need to know about your conflict resolution strategies in that question that I asked you. If I had asked that to an adoptive couple, I would have an accurate depiction of how they will elect to evolve inevitable conflict at any point in our relationship.

You withdraw when you need space to heal and to figure things out.

You also put others' needs above your own because at the end of the day, it came back to the child for you. When you came back, you had more clarity and you knew how to draw boundaries and establish effective communication in order to make sure that this doesn't happen again.
Now I know what I need to know about you. And who are, I mean, just things that, again, you wouldn't think of because I'm just like, where are you raising my kid? How much do you make? Do you have the financial means to raise my kid? What are your qualifications? Do you know CPR? Like, I don't know.
I don't have anything for you. But it's those types of questions that are in this book that if you ask them in that objective way, I didn't tell you why I want to know.
I just am listening for key words that can indicate to me who you are as a person. And now I know if we align enough on a value system, faith system, family system, that this is going to be good long term for both of us.
And if it's not, I can quickly check it off the list. And move on.
Yeah. I think we don't get I don't think birth parents don't get that kind of thorough process, though.
You know what I mean? It's very it seems very fast and rushed. And once you find a family, that's it.
It's like, no. And then it's up to us to ask these.
Right. Add one more thing to the plate.
Yeah. But I also feel like it's important because we're talking about open adoption.
And open adoption was only created for one reason. It was because no one was adopting babies.
No, they weren't getting any babies. So how do we get these women back and do this adoption? We'll craft this nice little bow around it and say, oh, now we have openness.
Now you can still be involved. And it's like we use the word open adoption, and it's so nuanced.
And it's's so broad and it's not narrowed down enough to even try to like no hone in on it litigate or whatever you want to you know it's it's like it's so in in a way it's like from my opinion now as an adult i'm like open adoption is literally in my opinion a manipulating tactic and i don't know how to get it i. It is a sales.
I own an exterior home remodeling business.

I do sales for a living.

When I look 2020 on what was said to me during this process, I'm like, I teach my top closers. Wow.
It's disgusting. I mean, it is disgusting.
The tactics that I see, these people that are supposed to be creating families, making decisions in love for the child, the verbiage that surrounds these decisions, and the coercion tactics, and the legalities. It just feels very inhumane and wrong.
It's unethical. And when you have manipulation involved, it's unethical.
When you have coercion tactics, it's unethical. I mean, there's nothing, we can't get around it.
So how do we, the whole system needs to go down and rebuild, turn the ground up, ruin, get rid of all the foundations you thought you had. They should have birth moms and adoptees running the system, you know what I mean? Literally.
Yeah. You know what's ironic about, I actually, thank you for saying that.
So the gal that founded the nonprofit that I work with that's changing these laws is an adoptive mom. Wow.
Isn't that incredible? We need more of that. We need literally clone her, put her in a cage, study her.
She's a unicorn of a woman. She raised her daughter.
She adopted her daughter. She raised her, I believe, as a single mom.
Don't quote me on that. But I believe she raised her as a single mom.
Her adopted daughter's name is also Sydney, ironically. And she just has a heart for reformation in this area she just sees that this is not it's not ethical yes i've actually had adoptive uh mom write me recently and she said that um she was looking to adoption she went to the agency and then they were talking about openness and stuff like that and then the agent the agency actually pulled the doctor parents aside and said you don't have to you can this is all just nothing.
You don't have to agree to any of this. And the adoptive mom left, and she wrote a review pretty much.
And then now she fights because she's like, this is – and she wanted a baby so bad. And she's like, but once that agent told me that I don't have to agree to – I don't have to do any of this stuff.
You can say you want to do this, but you don't really have to. You don't really have to.
She's she's like i knew in my my conscience my soul so her desire to be a parent was like pushed to the and then she was like ethics come morality like whoa and i'm like where are you like we need seriously where are those adoptive parents because i think it's an important thing to realize that they also get kind of like i mean i think adoptive parents also get kind of like bamboozled a little bit because they're like, oh, it's going to be fine. And then they don't talk about, did you get trauma therapy? Have you dealt with the fact you can't have kids? Have you, you know, just, are we interviewing? Are we like, you know what I mean? Yeah.
Really interviewing these people. To make sure it's right.
I also think too, to just like, I mean, devil's advocate, but in a healthy way, I suppose. I could understand being an adoptive family and feeling a lot of pressure in these conversations.
Especially as people like us start to speak up about the actual secrets that go into this and like pull back the curtain and expose these things. Now there's a lot of pressure on me because I've seen and witnessed real people with real lives that really love their kids go through hell.
So I, this book that it needs to be structured in a conversation. And I say that in there, but it's not an interview in the sense that I'm just going to sergeant drill you with these questions.
I just want to get to know you. Adoption is the marriage of two families and we are united in love of this child.
And that's how it should be. That's how it should be.

And so if we just like lower the guard, set the precedence, like we sit down, we've just met,

it's already awkward, right? Like we know that that whole engagement, that whole interaction

is just so bizarre. But if it can just really be, you know, I've got this book and I've highlighted some of the questions that are relevant to me, but I want you to reciprocate these questions.
I want you to ask anything that you want to know about me because the same way that I need to know if it's a good fit for me, you need to know if it's a good fit for you. And it kind of takes away from that just feeling of pressure and trying to please when you are openly creating the space for them to dialogue with you about the same things.
Yes, I also think with that pressure that they have, they also have a responsibility with that pressure. And honestly, they are the only ones, in my opinion, in the whole triad that has the most responsibility.
You have a moral obligation to make sure that that adoptee is well-rounded, educated, connected to whatever they – and fulfilled all their needs. And so I feel like, yeah, you have pressure, and it's a responsibility.
Are you ready for this? Are you even meant to be an adoptive parent? Because if you are questioning any of these things, you should reconsider adoption. Or you need to go work on yourself.
Yeah, go back to your stuff out. Figure it out, Then come back.
Yeah, because I feel like – I almost feel like it should be required that these adoptive parents go through – almost separate from agency-wise. Let's get a total separate psyche-evaluation.
Where are you at with your trauma? How do you – you know what I mean? Just certain things. And I think we'd have a lot less adoptive parents going back on their word if they are properly vetted.
Oh, for sure. We would have less open disagreements crumble in general if we had the ability to set the precedence effectively.
Yeah. Absolutely.
Yeah. So I feel like, you know, it's a whole, the whole system needs to just like him.
So when is the last time that you've like spoken to or saw your daughter? Christmas of last year. They called me weeks before christmas and i got to talk to her for a brief moment in time and then before that it was july and is there any more for the future you just are left in the dark really so do you reach out or do they reach out to you i can't right so they they have they say you can call us for christmas yeah they'll text me and like does this day this day work here are the time time frames sort of thing.
And they're telling you that you cannot reach out to ask. Can't ask anything.
Just gotta take their word for it that she's alive and out there. Because they're gonna legally go after you if you do.
Yeah, that's what they've said. I don't think that they will.
Here's the thing. There's a reason that I do this now.
If you don't want me to talk to you directly, the whole world is gonna hear it. Well, people will as you know, they'll come after you because we we've experienced it.
And I don't fuck and we're sitting here that means people are talking about it yeah i mean like i said me and carol like we'll wear the hats if we have to be the brunt of this shit should we just all get like bad guys yeah just like yeah we'll just start a club yeah we love our kids so much that we're shitty okay that's a long acronym but we're gonna figure we'll to figure it out. We'll work on that.
But it's just going to be that, and we're just going to wear them everywhere that we go. I feel like we are the ones that just get – I mean, we've never experienced what we've experienced after talking about it.
So, I mean, I think it's important for us to do it, but I want to honor the bravery that it takes for birth parents to do what we're doing. Even having these discussions is difficult, and it's hard And so what is the name of your book again and where can people find it? Courageous Considerations.
It's available on seven different online stores. So Amazon's probably the easiest for most people, I would guess, to get that.
And then the name of the nonprofit is called Unplanned Good. Okay.
I would love to get connected any way possible, especially with the policy stuff. Yeah.
Because that's the only way any of this is going to work, right? It's true. It's the only way that we make change.
And then also, where can people find you? I have a... I'm available on social media.
I created a software application for smartphones. and it is a productivity goal training app that uses AI to help people accomplish their goals, heal from trauma, work through things that they're working through.
It's very intricate, but there's a link to the website and social media is still probably where I respond the most because of all of the things things that I do own two businesses, book author, raise kids. I will always stop what I'm doing for a mom that needs help.
And I had somebody reach out to me. I think she's in New Jersey.
Don't quote me on that though. And she found me through one of the Facebook pages.
Like she had just like seen one of my videos and it was like anti-adoption was the name of the page or something like that. I don't know.
But she's pregnant and she's trying to get all of the information and she's a middle-aged woman. It wasn't a planned pregnancy.
And long story short, she's like, I don't even know where to begin, like what to ask. And I literally sent her the unedited manuscript.
I was, it's not even, I was like, it's not even out yet, but like, this is what it's for. And I'm not going to hold back on you just because it's not ready.
Like, because I haven't dotted the I's and crossed the T's, you know? So Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, coach underscore Sydney curtain, C-U-R-T-I-N. And then I've got, yeah, my email on the website and stuff like that.
So great. Wow.
Yeah. Thank you so much for just coming on here and sharing everything.

I love hearing about what you're doing to try to make a difference. And I just really, really hope that somewhere in the future they can wake up and just see that you being involved in her life isn't a negative thing.
Amen. And I'm sorry.
Yeah. I'm sorry, too.
but for what it's worth, I am really grateful that of all of the people that have been through this, that somebody like you and somebody like me were dealt that hand.

Because I don't know if there are many people strong enough to handle it.

I agree.

Yeah.

I just like not only feel your heart and that, but if not us, then who? Yeah. Who's going to fix it? Right.
For our babies. You know what I mean? There's not many people cut from this cloth that can bear that burden.
And if it takes the rest of my life, but I can save one person from what they didn't know, it's going to be worth it.

I totally agree we agree it's such a god thing to run into you guys for real like well i saw your video i saw one of your videos on tiktok and that's when i was like i mean i literally hashtag adoption on there and then you were mentioning how i think it was a video of you holding your daughter and saying that's the one that got me i didn't even know that's how the first time i ever saw you was that video of you and i it hit me so hard because i'm like yeah dude yeah you look at my fucking kids and tell you look at nova and tell her yeah right all your the one that we originally connected on he probably told you about it too that one was very shortly after was the one where i said and it was either right before or right after your video got posted saying that I would have chosen different parents. And it was your friend from Texas that knows you guys somehow, some way.
She reached out to me and she was like, do you know Tyler and Kate? And I was like, no. She was like, you, you have to talk to these guys.
and she tagged you in the video and that's when

we got in communication but like everything happens for a reason and i rather than being upset about the things that i can't control i'm just ready to do something about it yep moving forward it's all we can do yeah well thanks for coming today and just sharing everything thank you guys

yeah

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