Challenging the "Grateful" Adoptee Narrative with Dez, The Outspoken Adoptee

As summer winds down, I'm all about refreshing my wardrobe with staple pieces for the season ahead.

Quince nails it with luxe essentials that feel effortless and look polished.

Think chic cashmere and cotton sweaters starting just at $40.

Washable silk tops and classic denim pants.

Timeless styles you'll keep coming back to.

The best part?

Everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands.

By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middleman, Quince gives you luxury without the markup.

I'm a girl that doesn't like really big bags, but I wanted to have enough room to fit the essentials, you know, even mom things.

And I have this pebbled leather sling bag from Quince.

And let me tell you, it is high quality without breaking the bank.

Elevate your fall wardrobe essentials with Quince.

Go to quince.com/slash breakitown for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns.

That's q-u-i-n-ce-e.com/slash slash breakitown to get free shipping and 365 day returns.

Quince.com/slash breakitdown.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game?

Well, with a name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills.

Try it at progressive.com.

Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates.

Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states.

Hey, guys.

So welcome back again to K and Ty Break It Down.

Again, thank you for all of the love and the support that we've been receiving.

Today we are here with a very dear friend.

I want to know, do you prefer by going by Des or Desiree?

Desi is perfect.

Okay.

Yeah.

She's the outspoken adoptee on TikTok and Instagram.

Yes.

Yeah.

A couple times over on Instagram.

And we love your vibes.

We love your vibes.

Thank you.

Truth.

Truth needs to be told bluntly, not palatably.

And you do that unapologetically.

We love it.

I've gotten there.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Does it take time to get there?

It does.

So I think being adopted, you

society tells you how to feel.

Society tells you how to think, how to feel about your adoption.

You are grateful, lucky, blessed.

You have to be one of those three.

So when you walk in somewhere and somebody finds out you're adopted, their immediate reaction is, oh, you're so blessed.

I bet you're so lucky, grateful, all those.

So you're constantly being told by society, this is what you should be feeling.

And when it doesn't match what you feel inside, you just kind of shut down.

I also grew up in the era of children are seen, not heard.

And that really was damaging because because then when things are happening, I'm not telling anyone about them because why?

You know, children are seen, they're not heard.

So, and you kind of also just know

from experience and other things, nobody, nobody really cares.

They know that things are not okay, but nobody says anything.

You were raised in Utah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So can you tell us?

Can you tell us a little bit about what your adoption story, whatever you're comfortable with sharing?

Absolutely.

So I was adopted at seven days old.

The quick birth side of that is my birth parents were both together.

They were living together,

had a working relationship.

And then out of nowhere, she up and left while he was at work and he never saw her or me again.

And so he was actively excited to have a baby.

He thought, you know, this is my future.

and whatnot.

So to come home, I'm sure he was highly disappointed.

My non-identifying information tried to paint it as he was a one-night stand.

He wanted nothing to do with her or me,

and that she had some mental capacity that kept her from being a parent, which I later found out was semi-true and semi-not true.

She does have a,

she is a little challenged, but not to the point where she can't live, work, that type of stuff.

Okay.

She does have, I have a half sister that was kept and parented by her and the grandmother that kind of orchestrated the fact that they couldn't have a black child in their family.

Well,

yeah, the Mormon doctrine is, they believe that, you know, black children or black people are cursed with the skin of blackness.

Oh my gosh.

Mormonism is their right path to white and delightsomeness.

They believe that we will resurrect white in heaven if we believe.

I never heard the doctrine.

Oh, it's like I'm, it's wild what they believe.

Luckily, I was adopted adopted by, I say luckily, but um, two ex-LDS parents.

Okay.

So they were really the ones that kind of helped me against it, but then also brought me sadly closer to it.

Just to hold, so your birth mom.

Yes.

Was she white or black?

Yes.

Okay, so she was white.

White mommy, black daddy.

Okay, and the grandma was like, absolutely not.

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Okay.

Yes, yes, yes.

When

she ended up getting pregnant six months later, so my half-sister is what 15 months younger than me.

Wow, and she was kept and parented.

Is that painful?

When I found that out, absolutely.

Because when you look at it from my point of view, of seeing this non-identifying information and it's saying, oh, she was challenged, she had issues, she couldn't parent, blah, blah, blah.

The father was nowhere near around.

I'm looking at it and I actually felt for my birth mother.

I was like, oh, wow.

You know, my heart opened up for her.

And then I met her.

And

it was no questions.

You couldn't ask questions.

And if I asked questions, I was being abrasive.

I was, how dare I ask these questions?

How dare I ask if I hate you?

How old were you when you?

So this was four-ish years ago.

Oh, wow.

So we're kind of recent.

I mean, kind of recent.

Oh, absolutely.

I've gone through a lot in the last couple of years.

But finding, so I found her.

I found a half sister.

That was, that was shocking.

We found out we went to one year of junior high and one year of high school

together.

And I had no clue.

Yep.

She knew about me.

I didn't know about her.

To what degree, I don't know.

She's very closed to talking about it.

When we first met, she did tell me a lot about the grandmother, her behavior,

the racism and stuff.

But then in the end, wanted me to see this grandmother as this beautiful human.

Oh, yeah.

Is that how she saw her?

And I Like, well, that was a completely different experience.

You know, you weren't shunned out of the family.

So you were raised in the same town.

Yeah.

Like essentially, yes.

Yes.

And the fallout of our relationship was because I did notice some

racist tensions and behaviors with her.

And then the non-questioning, she also kept me from meeting my uncle,

which I thought was really weird.

And now he's, he's passed on.

I'll never get to meet him.

But he was so excited to meet me.

And that really, and I don't understand why she wanted to lie or keep it, you know, keep it all a secret.

So

we just kind of, we slowly just fell out.

Um, I tried to have her come to where we both grew up.

And I was like, let's, you come here.

I've already gone to you and your home.

You come here now back home and we'll show each other our stomping grounds.

Right.

I thought that this was a great bonding for us.

And she was, I don't leave anywhere without my husband.

I don't do this.

I don't do that.

I don't leave my kids.

I'm like, this is disturbing.

Yeah.

Is she involved in the LED?

Like, is that

no?

Okay.

So most of my bio family, other than on my maternal side, has kind of, at least the mother, the sister have kind of denounced it.

Okay.

But the grandmother was still full-fledged, the aunt, that type of stuff.

I did meet the aunt and a cousin.

They kind of only seemed like they wanted to meet me just to clear their conscience that I was alive.

Okay.

Well, whatever.

And then the story to my adoption was my adopted mother,

they had already had three biological sons.

So when she was pregnant and gave birth to the third one in the hospital room, allegedly, she told my adopted father, I want a girl, get me a girl.

Okay.

And so five years and nine months to the date of them putting in the paperwork and everything, or no, five years, but then nine months of the paperwork, they got the call um she did put in a request for a peanut butter skinned baby with black curly hair and if you can't tell okay she quite got what her money paid for wait what do you mean she so what she she could write

that she wanted a peanut butter skinned baby with black curly hair

that is yeah and are they white

they are white yeah my brothers are toe heads

i'm just like that that that sounds weird to anyone listening it's because it really does It does because it doesn't.

Because there are people that will listen to that and go, oh, she wanted you so much.

She handpicked you.

And it makes you want to get it.

Yeah, I don't.

Yeah, no.

You custom ordered a baby, like a purse.

You were on, you were on Gucci designing your bag.

Like, what were you doing?

And so I went into this home.

They moved to Layton, a very secluded area

where I grew up and the schools I grew up in have a lot of issues with racism, a lot of issues.

One of my friends,

10-year-old daughter, ended up committing suicide because she was being bullied so bad and the district wouldn't do anything.

So there is a lot that comes out of Utah that people just aren't realizing.

There is a lot of

covert.

type of racism really nice people to your face you turn around and they're behind your back they're not the people

And so it was, it was hard growing up there.

You know, having all Mormon kids, they wouldn't play with me.

I wasn't invited to a lot of things.

And I didn't realize why.

Right.

You're a kid.

Yeah.

You know, the first time I ever got asked what I was was in fifth, I was five, not fifth grade, five.

I was five.

What you were?

What does that mean?

Yeah, like so exactly.

Thank you.

So I had a kid come up to me and he says, what are you?

And I looked at him and I was like, I'm a person.

person.

A girl?

Yeah.

Like,

you can't see, you know, you can't see that.

I'm a girl.

And he, he said it again, what are you?

And that's when it clicked.

It had nothing to do with my gender.

It was, what are you?

Why are you brown?

And, you know,

not having a family to go home to and say XYZ kids are XYZ at school and everything and having parents that understand that and can relate to that was definitely challenging.

It was, well, what did you do to make them say that to you?

You must have done something.

I was always the problem, which also shut me down a lot as a child.

You know, I know that teachers saw things that they probably didn't agree with, behaviors and patterns.

And as mandated reporters, they stayed silent.

I had a teacher that lived up the street from me.

I remember one Mother's Day, she brought flowers for the entire class to give to their mothers.

I was the only kid that had to somehow come to her home and pick up my flower.

What?

And just weird things like that, but you don't realize it when you're little.

You just, oh, okay.

Well, I live down the street from you, so that's probably why.

But when you have a fresh flower, when did you like know though that you were different from like your biological brothers, or like, when did you like it?

It sounds like, I was going to say, it sounds like off-rip, like very early.

I mean, my youngest, the brother that is five years older than me, he is blonde hair, like blue or green eyes.

Um, Very, I mean, we are night and day.

You know, obviously, children are out in the sun all the time.

So I have my winter coat and my

summer coat.

But it, yeah, no, I knew, I knew adoption was always,

I always knew I was adopted.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I always knew I was adopted.

My name.

So

My first name was Rebecca.

She, I was only allowed to go by Rebecca or Becca.

If my friends called and said, hey, is Becky there?

Click.

She'd hang up on them.

Or she'd say, we have a Rebecca and a Becca here.

Click.

So she was very tied to that name somehow.

My middle name, Desiree.

I am named, if you look at the spelling, the D-E-Z-A capital R-A-Y, is because my adopted father's name is Ray.

So to the day that this woman died, he provided her, bought her anything and everything she ever wanted, including a human.

And even in her obituary, it said, if she wanted something, she got it.

Wow.

So, I mean, they all knew.

They all knew, you know, even my family

watching the abuse and how she treated me completely different than everyone.

I'm, I'm, I look at it now and I'm just like, y'all sat back and you said nothing.

Like my brothers are 13 and 14 years and five years older than me.

How did y'all, except for maybe the, the one five years older.

And at some point, he's still a baby too.

But the older ones, like you weren't really my brothers.

You were more of sitters by the time I was old enough to really go and hang out with them.

They were more like babysitters to me than brothers.

Buying a car in Carvana was so easy.

I was able to finance it through them.

I just, oh, wait, you mean finance?

Yeah, finance.

Got pre-qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms, and shot from thousands of great car options all within my budget.

That's cool.

But financing through Carvana was so easy.

Financed.

Done.

And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow.

Financed.

Right.

That's what they said.

You can spend time trying to pronounce financing, or you can actually finance and buy your car today on Carvana.

Financing subject to credit approval.

Additional terms and conditions may apply.

And when you talk about abuse,

was it emotional, physical, or like all the above?

So in my home, my home contained the four men, and out of those four men, only one of them is not a pedophile.

Whoa.

So my adopted father was my abuser from age five to 17.

Wow, Dad.

My

next brother,

my oldest brother, I have never accused him of anything, only because those, I have blocked out a ton.

Of course.

A ton.

But I still don't have a comfort level with him.

There is something.

He was accused.

He was convicted of rape of his three-year-old daughter.

So I had to deal with that as a

probably in junior high.

I was dealing with watching my brother get taken away and dealing with my niece, my nephew, like losing all my nieces and nephews and not fully understanding why, but I knew why.

Like I didn't fully get it, but I also knew because I had witnessed

some of the harm he was committing on her and knew just you don't tell.

You know,

I kept it a secret.

Um, and then shortly after that, he was caught.

But then my middle brother is the only one that I even semi-had a relationship with until I started to divulge a lot of the trauma and brought him into therapy and everything.

And he walked away picking his father and his brothers.

Wow.

So when they say blood ain't thicker than water, that

so then the younger brother was my abuser from age eight

till he left to go to the military at 18-ish.

And then he broke his leg in three places and got to come home.

He did try to pick up where he left off.

And I was like, no, no.

And what age was this?

I want to say probably about 15, 16, 14.

When he came back after the 19th century.

When he came back, yeah, somewhere around there.

And it just, you know, he would try to pick up.

He would stalk me in my window.

I could see him in my window or the bathroom window.

Or

if I die, video games scared me at a point because he would use them as a tactic against me.

If you die on this game, this level, if you die, then you have to do XYZ.

And, you know, just putting fear, fear in me in any, any way, shape, or form.

He was also very physically abusive as a kid.

He would keep me.

We used to have this

frog toy box and he would put me in it and then sit on it just hours and watch tv so he was very physically emotionally i would say you know that's an emotional abuse as well um my mom was very verbally physically emotionally abusive my dad i trauma bonded to my dad i 100

trauma bonded to that man who's also your abuser too exactly exactly but he did it in a malicious way of being nice nice to me.

He was nicer when she was mean.

So when she was mean, he would come swoop in and be like, well, I'm daddy save a lot, you know?

And I didn't realize that at all.

So when I turned 17, I started going by my middle name to try and distance myself.

I'm sure you've heard from a lot of adoptees.

We do things to distance ourselves.

We move.

We're going to draw our way.

Yeah, yeah.

Deconstruct from the religion you were raising.

Yeah, I've heard a lot of people.

And with all this abuse that was going on, like even just some men, let alone in your life, your mother, your adoptive mother never noticed.

She did.

She absolutely

knew her husband.

That's a good question.

She knew her husband was.

And her sons.

Totally knew.

And she has been nothing but their ride or die support.

Wow.

It was me.

So

back in the 80s, nightgowns.

We all wore nightgowns.

I would be blamed for not wearing pants or shorts under my nightgown.

And I'm like, woman, you're the one buying them.

Stop buying nightgowns then.

I mean, it's not going to stop, but stop buying nightgowns.

When I was five, she put me in the basement with all three of my brothers and just left me.

We had a three-story home, and she would, she put me at five in the basement with all three of my brothers.

The basement, what?

Was it a bedroom?

That was my bedroom.

She put all the kids in the basement when I turned five.

And yet they had a bedroom right adjacent to the bed.

And she knew that they were abusing you.

Oh, yeah.

Everything just became my fault.

um i remember living there i was probably got my mid 20s and my son and me and both my parents were on the stairwell and she started screaming about me having sex with her husband right in front of my son and i was just like are you not okay like this

your husband raped me and molested me right this is not the place in front of my child to be having these these conversations

um yeah she was very much complicit in it.

Even my oldest brother, when he got convicted and everything,

I'm a snoop.

You'll hear this from adopted people too.

We know something's a rogue and so we go searching for answers.

I always dug through this stuff when they would go on vacation.

And so I found in a drawer a Mother's Day card that my brother had given to her.

shortly after he got out of jail.

It was his report.

It was all his reports, why he did in his own words, what he did to his car, why he did what.

Why would you give that to your mommy for mom's day?

Why would your mom keep it?

I mean, yeah, so weird, but guess who owns it now?

Who?

Me.

Oh, wow.

I kept it.

I don't know why.

I don't know why.

I have no clue why I kept it, but I kept it.

Well, how old are you when you found that?

I'm 30.

Oh, wow.

And I just, I kept it.

I was like, this is.

I just, something in me knew that the type of people that they are, they will try to find a way that this wasn't true.

This wasn't true.

I'm the liar.

So, like your subconscious probably just kept it, like, I'm making sure that I have a lot.

Even if it isn't against me,

it still shows that I should have never rented this home.

You know what I mean?

Do you think, I wonder too, like, I wonder if your adoptive dad was abusing the boys?

That I have no clue.

I read in the file for my brother trying to get hints to that.

He only hinted to an uncle, and both the uncles, I look at, and I'm just like, Well, the one uncle is a few years older than you, so I can't.

I mean, it still could happen, but yeah, yeah, because that's that.

The only reason why I thought that is because, like, you have the dad abusing you, and the siblings abusing you, and I'm like, well, who's abusing these young boys?

Where are they learning this from?

Right.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So it just, even that part of your story, let alone shows you the statistics are true when they say about adoptees getting abused.

Oh, absolutely.

And people really just want to to deny that.

They really do.

And that's why we want to have this conversation because I think it's important that, like, we talked about, we said it like, I don't know how many times today, but like, it just guarantees a way different life and sometimes a worse

life than they would have maybe had if they stayed with their biological parents.

Absolutely.

And I think you're touted as the grass is greener.

Yeah.

I mean, that's, I just, I'm so, I'm so sorry that you went through that.

I mean, that's like, I mean, it's just intense.

It's heavy.

I'm emotional because I was, I, you know, experienced a a lot of sexual abuse.

And it's just like, you being adopted.

I just like,

and I wonder if that's kind of what makes some of this okay to these people to abuse children because they're not biologically related to them.

So that layer is gone.

And so I think this is why, I truly believe this is why our statistics are so high is we are with two complete and utter strangers.

These are non-biological strangers to us.

And people tout that these people must be safer than our

biofamilies.

And the statistics show complete opposites of that.

I mean, we are overrepresented in every industry, teen, the teen trouble teen industry, which is huge in Utah, huge in Utah that kids are being sent there.

You know, mental health, substance abuse, sexual abuse,

physical abuse, murder, murder.

Yeah, that's crazy.

I'm learning a whole different thing about Utah.

I had no idea.

Yeah, I'm like, whoa, Utah is like...

It's always been kind of culty.

Like, you know, you get that vibe from some of the people and stuff.

And I feel like nobody was there to help you.

You were just like left to it.

Oh, absolutely.

And, you know, and I think a lot of people want to believe that because these are good Christian people, that they don't have these racist ideologies and beliefs and stuff.

But when I'm the kid and I can see that it's not just that my parents drink coffee and smoke cigarettes, that kids are not playing with me because, you know, if the cigarette smoke is a problem,

we were 80s outdoor kids, right?

You know, what 80s kids stayed in the room?

None.

So it just, it didn't make sense, you know, growing up and not being invited and seeing the difference and then getting into,

what was it, 10th?

No,

had to have been junior high.

It was somewhere between seventh and ninth grade that that movie Jungle Fever came out.

And it's got that stark black hand, the white hand on the cover.

Oh my God, my days at school were hearing people tell me that that's how I was conceived.

My parents had jungle fever

and singing the song and just all of this stuff.

And I'm just like, why, why is this happening?

And not having anyone to go home.

to say, you know, the kids are singing the jungle fever.

Well, I wish I was your friend back then because I'd be beating people's asses left and right.

Like, that is disgusting.

It was, it, but to me, I feel like

one, I obviously didn't understand microaggressions.

That's the other thing, not having language to know that this is a microaggression, this was blatant racism, this was this, and being able to come home and be like, this was this, this was a microaggression, this was something.

Well, because you can't even tell them because they're not going to believe you, and they probably wouldn't have cared even if you would have tried.

And I look at even aunts, uncles, all these people that watched with their own eyes the abuse from this woman and still said

nothing.

They failed to say nothing, nothing at all.

And they wonder why I am no contact with anyone.

Right.

Y'all, exactly.

You know, and I

had another

mother, you could say.

I grew up knowing this person as my sister.

Since she was born, we're about eight years apart.

And her mother was my mother's best friend.

And

I cherish this woman.

I still have a lot of love for her.

But now that I've actually been able to analyze and think about it and stuff, even she

didn't protect me.

And you are so close to my adopted mother and you're seeing all this so much so that you removed yourself.

That was the end of their friendship, was constantly getting phone calls from my adopted mother telling them or telling her what a horrible person I am.

You know, oh, she did this, this, this, and this.

I can't stand her, blah, blah, blah.

And she would defend me to a degree.

But then at the end of the day, she just removed herself as a friend.

They were no longer friends anymore.

Right.

She didn't call anybody on your behalf or help or anything.

Yep.

And you, you could have completely removed me.

So many people could have removed me from that home.

And then you know what it makes me think of is your birth father.

You speaking about all of that and all of the things and him just showing up to an empty house one day.

Right.

And then I don't know if you've met him or anything, but if you have, I'm just saying, like, I couldn't imagine him having to hear everything that you went through.

And he was excited for you.

And he wanted, like, how fucking heartbreaking.

Right.

And that's the other thing about Utah.

Fathers do not have rights in Utah.

They'll, what, do a newspaper ad, hey, did you lose a baby somewhere?

They don't really do a lot.

Utah is very notorious for adoption coercion.

There's websites dedicated to telling women, make sure that you fly this birth mother to Utah.

I've had countless birth mothers tell me that they were left in apartments or hotels with just a plane ticket back.

Wow.

You know, and not even some of them even had children with them.

And how are they supposed to get back with these with their own, you know, with other kids that they had?

And once the ink is dry in Utah, there is no revocation period.

Oh, there's an okay.

There's none.

I saw someone

someone sent me an ad saying

that they had packages that they'll pay for these women to go to Utah, stay in a house and provide everything for them if they were willing to do adoption.

And then basically when they get there, they just coerce and manipulate and brainwash them.

You will owe us XYZ all this money and everything.

If you do not complete the adoption plan, you're going to owe all this money.

They're going to sue you.

And none of that is true.

None of that.

What are they going to sue you for?

Right, right.

That's what I'm thinking.

It should all be legal by the book, what you can and cannot pay for.

And if you're going off, off kilter, then that's that's kind of on you, you know, and I can see being this young person and not understanding your rights.

And

being scared, like, oh, they're now they're going to come after me.

I have to do this.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Flesh, your own flesh.

You know, it kind of puts a whole new spin on that.

I owe my firstborn child.

That saying.

Yes.

It kind of puts a whole new spin on, I owe you my firstborn child

because they really do.

In the end of the day, they really feel like they owe, you know, their firstborn child.

Ever notice that everyone always wants more of a good thing?

More rewards, more savings, more special offers?

Well, when you become a new member of the Fuel Rewards program at Shell, that's exactly what you get.

More.

Join today to save 10 cents per gallon on your first bill, 20 cents on the second, and 30 cents on the third.

Then enjoy everyday savings afterwards.

Want more?

Then head to Shell where members get more.

Offer ballot from 421.25 through 103125 at participating shell locations.

Offer must be redeemed within 60 days of registration.

Limit 20 gallons.

Restrictions apply.

Visit fuelrewards.com/slash join 25 for more information.

My dad, I did

talk to him a few times.

I don't know if me and him, it triggered something in him.

Okay.

I am his only child

out there.

He has no other kids that I know of.

Nobody popped up on my DNA.

But it, I think it really hurt him.

But also, he is in this realm of, I can tell it did a mental toll on him, his life, everything.

Which, how couldn't it?

Yeah.

What kind of ruined it for us was kind of this, the same thing, some of the same things with my maternal side.

Nobody wanted to hear about my negative experience.

Even

he didn't want to.

None of them did.

None of them.

Well, we don't want to talk about that.

We don't want to know about that.

And it's like, how do you not want to know that this stuff happens and what I went through?

Yeah, it and it goes back to society really only wanting to hear these positive, happy stories that make them feel all warm and fuzzy inside, and not the truth that I know doesn't sit comfortable with people.

And obviously, they were touted that they were giving me a better, beautiful life, and to hear that that wasn't the case, I'm sure, is

something for them too.

But my dad was still in love with my mom, my birth mom.

And weird.

I had to, I straight up hung up on him.

Yeah, I bet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We're on the phone talking.

And all of a sudden, he's like, well, you can't talk about your mother.

I called her a bitch or something.

And he's like, you can't talk about your mother that way.

And I'm like, excuse me, sir.

And he's like, I am still in love.

That is your mother.

And I click.

I'm like, where's the old-fashioned phones right now?

Right.

Right, right.

Or the slap, like the razor.

You needed that effect, but it was in my head.

And I just, ooh, that made me instantly back away.

You are still in love with the woman who left you.

Right.

And took

a child.

Yeah.

Yeah, right.

And took me and gave me to somebody else.

Yeah, I even lost money in that one.

I had booked a whole hotel, the fly, all of it, a package.

And everything fell through.

To go see him?

Yeah.

He's in California.

My birth mother is in sister or in Colorado.

Okay, so everybody was relatively close to go see and connect with.

And it just and so, how old are you when you uh this was all in the last like four-ish

years?

So, this is this is recent, yeah.

This is fresh.

What, what was it like when you uh met your birth mom?

You know, all those feelings hit you at once.

You know, you're seeing this person, you have been in a fairytale, imaginative world.

Um, your dreams are coming true in this moment and

it

quickly came crashing

our first visit was us in a trailer we went camping we met at a mutual area and we went camping and they own a fifth will and everything and so I just stayed with them and it was the most awkward uncomfortable really you say them so I'm assuming she was her husband her two kids and

my mom were all in this fifth will.

And it was just for the first time meeting her.

Yeah,

oh, it was, don't ever, do not ever meet your parents on your birthday.

Don't do it.

I will look in the camera and say, don't do it.

Because it.

Birthdays are already hard for us.

That's your day that you were abandoned.

And so to then go back and meet this person who abandons you and celebrate your birthday.

Don't do it.

Don't do it

so the you're with your so you said them so your your your birth mom obviously got married and had more children no she no my my sister tried to do this whole oh look we we have the don't know our daddies we're in the don't know our daddies club oh gosh all a lie she knows her dad she has pictures with pictures pictures she knew when he died she knew everything um a lot of lies there was a lot of lies i came down there i spent time with him in colorado at Thanksgiving time,

flew my son in, everything.

You know, I was thinking, we're going to do this.

We're going to do this right.

And Thanksgiving was really hard.

She cooked a recipe from the grandmother and wanted me to just head over heels, love it.

And I'm biting it like,

yeah.

And my son's,

love my son.

He's over there like, this is the best.

I'm so excited.

I'm like, mommy ain't ever making that.

So don't get that idea.

But yeah, it just, it was really hard.

She was very showboaty about

money and her lifestyle.

And,

you know, our lifestyles are completely, oh, absolutely.

You know, we can swipe our card for anything

type of mentality.

And what do you think that for like birth parents, what do you think that they can do differently to help an adoptee

feel comfortable when it comes to reunion.

You know, I get that we shouldn't expect anything from these people.

I think you should, though.

You do, but you don't.

Like, I don't expect certain things, but I do expect like my medical history and a few questions, like have respect to answer my question.

Absolutely.

We are the ones kept in the dark.

We were the ones in a closed adoption, not you.

You still got to grow up with your biological family in every way.

and we're over here with strangers wondering where did we come from who do we look like do you draw like i do do you do this like i do and so to meet these people and you finally get to answer some of those questions and they are abrupt and not wanting to listen that right there it shuts us down for me anyway it shut me down even more because I felt like, oh,

you don't want to hear about my life.

You don't want to hear the good, bad, and the ugly.

You only want to hear what you want to hear.

And it was so surface level.

Everything was just surface.

Keep it on the surface.

We're not going down deep.

We're not delving into anything.

And so I do believe that birth parents need to allow us that grieving time.

Allow us to tell you our experience.

Allow us to ask questions.

You know, if there's a question that maybe you completely are uncomfortable, put a pin in it.

I would rather my birth mother or birth father say, can we put a pin in that?

Maybe I'm not ready to talk about that and address it later.

I almost feel like though as a birth parent myself, like I'm not putting a pin in anything.

If I feeling something, I'm just going to, like,

I just feel like as the adoptee, you deserve that unrestricted, just like let it all out.

And I think as birth parents, I think, no, I think we have to sit there.

I think we should listen, even if it's like super hard.

Even if inside we want to say put a pin in it, it's like, no

you really just

I want well I I guess what I'm saying when I say put a pin in it is maybe something

it's really hard for me or just be transparent about talking because I get that going through a relinquishment is not going to be I can never understand it from a first parent's standpoint.

I will never understand that experience, just as they will never understand mine.

Right.

So if there was something I didn't want to talk about that they asked me, I would say, maybe could we put a pin in it?

But you're the other one.

And come back to it.

it's true so in absolute

birth parent I'm like yeah but you're still the child

like prepped ourselves that no matter how hard of a question it is no matter how emotional it makes us no matter if we don't agree maybe with what she feels our duty we're gonna sit and own it and we will say anything and we will take accountability and we will apologize we will cry we will whatever we have to do yeah you know but we've been like prepping ourselves for that like yeah because whatever it is yeah

because like you even with you saying like it just it's just you're the adopt you you need this and i feel like as birth parents we're the ones that you know put the adoptee in this situation we have to just right but i don't think all birth parents think like that obviously well but i mean like when i oh no they don't yeah yeah you know what i mean absolutely because i i think one thing that me and kate always talked about was like you know um

reunions aren't always beautiful and reunions aren't always this like you said i had this la-la fantasy about what it's going to be like.

And so, and I don't know how that's going to look like to the child who's adopted.

So, as a birth parent, we even have our own la-la fantasy

that

they're running into your arms.

And so, I think me and Kate spent a lot of time preparing that, like, you know, the day

might become, I hate you, you totally ruined my life, and whatever.

And then we have to bow our heads.

And you've just got to say, I'm so sorry.

I love you.

And that's it.

And that's the only two words I believe that we have should be able to say.

Yeah, because we definitely have fantasized.

Of course.

I mean, I think it's natural.

We're human.

That is so natural.

I feel like that is going to be natural from all sides of this.

I'm going to say constellation.

I hate the word triad.

I actually love constellation.

I do.

I do too.

I like constellation because we're just kind of all there.

Whereas the triad makes it three equal sides.

We are not equal at all in this.

That's a good point.

We are not equal.

And it allows adoptive parents to feel as though they have this voice.

Yeah, they're on the same level.

Their voice should be heard.

And it's like.

Tyler and I always say like the adoptee and the birth parents lose everything

and the and the adoptive parents gain everything they don't lose anything.

They gain everything.

Yeah.

So they should be the ones.

Other than maybe a biological child.

Right.

But also a biological child that never was.

So it's like

even when you talk about the adoptive parent losing something, it's just, I just don't like to compare it because it's.

But they gain everything.

They don't lose it.

Yeah, you still grew up in your biological family.

Yeah, you still

experience that.

And you were still able to be a parent.

It might not end biologically, but you were still able to be a parent.

So like, you really like.

I'm kind of like, so you sit down and talk.

Please, let everybody else talk.

Absolutely.

And have you noticed?

You know, obviously you have.

Society really puts these people on pedestals.

Why?

Above everybody else.

I don't understand this.

I'm drawn.

And why is that?

Above everybody else.

Yep.

I can't tell you how many times I've been told that, you know, go back to your crack mom.

All of our mothers are druggies.

They all don't want us.

They all, you know, we're poverty, slums.

I mean, every derogatory thing you can think of for a human being, they will throw that out as representation for first families.

And

it's so far from that, you know.

Um, our parents, you know, it's so diverse.

It really is, you know, and I really think that that's where we need to have that conversation that, you know, my negative experience will never negate someone else's experience.

All these adoptees you've interviewed already, my experience will never negate theirs and vice versa.

We truly are not a monolith.

We've all been adopted in different ways.

We all went into completely different families, dynamics, everything, income brackets, everything has been different for us.

And so how could we have one similar outcome?

The only thing that makes us all the same is that primal wound that, you know, especially for infant adoptees,

obviously there's still going to be a wound for foster youth.

And that wound, I think, is what

is the catalyst for a lot of our other

issues, you know, the mental health.

You know, you're going to see these patterns in us the behavior issues the depression the suicidal ideation i mean i was seven

when i started looking you know off of our balcony and going you know seven yeah oh yeah seven wow and i made myself i had to make myself afraid of dying wow

as soon as i learned that clouds couldn't hold your weight And everybody says you go to heaven when you die.

And I was like, well, they don't hold your weight.

And if I got on a cloud, I'm just going to fall through and then i'm gonna die again and then i'm gonna go back and die again it just i had to find any way possible to make myself afraid of what i craved

you crave it yeah you know yeah you crave not being in any of this because nobody's giving you the answers that you need and so you just why why am i here um and so yeah very very very young and not having anyone to

you know men no mental health yeah nobody in your life at all yeah my adopted mother had a massive stroke when i was seven oh wow

um which did not help my mental at all um i was left to the devices of my brothers my neighbor and some family we lived probably about 40-ish minutes away from family pretty much all of our family.

And so the weekends, maybe I would go and stay with them.

But that was hard.

That was hard to have a mother that just completely checked out.

After that stroke, she checked out.

She just sat on the couch, watched TV, smoked her cigarettes, and drank her coffee.

And that was her existence.

From a young age, that's that's young.

Oh, yeah.

I literally had no mother.

And that's another thing that people really don't want to realize in adoption.

We have the chance of losing

another set of family.

You know?

Which is doubled, double the trauma, double the impact.

I mean, absolutely.

And it just, it really was hard to lose.

And even my aunt, her sister, threw it in my face.

My adoptive mother, she says, wow, you know, you lost two mothers.

And I'm thinking to myself, who says that?

Who would say that?

Where were you, Auntie?

Yeah.

Where did you, Aunt Alice?

Where were, you know, where were you to pitch in and say, wow, you know, let me, let me help my niece.

Right.

no, none of it.

I were to look at it, it's still the problem, yeah.

And we're looking at it as this is wrong.

Hello, yep, and I just, you know, things like that will never not be seared into my brain that you're, oh, you left, you lost two mothers.

Right.

So, obviously, I mean, just from your, I'm guessing that you don't have a relationship, obviously, with your adoptive family whatsoever.

Absolutely not.

Um, going no contact

was

the last

nail in the coffin.

I, needed that nail to be put in.

When did you start that?

The no contact?

The no contact, it had started slowly.

It started in my 20s.

Well, 17 when I started going by my middle name.

So I started going by my middle name

because I wanted to distance myself.

That was my first step at distance.

And then I moved to Maryland in my 20s, and that didn't work out.

And I had to tuck tail and come back.

I moved to Vegas, and that didn't work out, and I had to to tuck tail and come back.

And it kind of just told me that you can't do anything without these people.

I was so trauma bonded that I just told myself, you can't do anything without these people.

Can you explain trauma bonded for people who don't understand?

Trauma bonding meant that I went with the safest option.

So the safest option in my home was still always my dad.

Even though he was highly my abuser,

he also was the one that swooped in and was nice and kind and

was nice.

And I even cared about everything else.

Like he was, yeah, I confronted him before he died.

I confronted him.

Wow.

You can hear on the on the recording, my voice is shaking.

I was completely higher than a kite because this was the only way that I can confront this man.

Right.

You can hear the voice change.

I almost sound really young, like a child.

Infantile, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, approaching this man that I had feared all my life, but also was very stuck, like glue to.

I confronted him and I said, you know, why did you apologize to me randomly when I was 20 for the stuff that you did to me as a kid?

And just hearing him on tape talk about how it was just silly stuff.

And I'm just, what, sir?

And he even says in this tape that he, he says, I did nice things for you because she wouldn't.

So he knew.

He knew.

It's like they both knew what disgusting role they were backing each other

up with.

You know, she defended him against me, you know, the stuff he was doing, blamed me for it.

But then he defended me against her.

So of course, I chose him.

He was the nicer of the two abusers.

The lesser of two evils, right?

They're both two, they're both evil.

So I think, because I think people get that terminology get infused where it's like trauma means you are bonding with someone with an abuser, someone who is not safe.

Yeah, I mean, Stockholm syndrome, yeah, people know the term Stockholm syndrome, even though it goes way deeper than that.

But it is, it really is kind of a Stockholm-y type of thing.

I've grown up with these people, I've known nothing other than these people since seven days old.

And so, for me,

you just, yeah, it's so easy to stockholm

your way through

a survival

strategy that you have to kind of just adopt unfortunately to get through this to even make close to a little bit of sense of what's happening.

Yep, and then

crazy, you know, I think confronting him and I even played that for my middle brother who I was close to and he just yep, and he still chose no emotion at all from that guy.

None of it, none of it, they all just chose each other.

I don't know how you ended up so great.

I really because you can sense,

hold up.

I can sense the empathy of that.

I've been a shitty human.

We've all been a shitty human.

But I'm glad cameras and social media were not around in my 20s.

Sure, you wouldn't have been on MTV yet.

But you know, I, I, I want to always strive to be a better person than I was the day before.

And if that comes from me having to

realize that I have done shitty things to people, I've been a horrible human to people, then that's what it's going to take.

But at the end of the day, I want better, you know, it's just like with advocating and doing this, you know, I,

it is an emotional toll on me.

It is emotionally laborsome, but at the end of the day, it is not for me.

This is not fully for me.

This is for the little adoptee that feels like their voice is not being heard, that they don't have people to side with them, to listen to them.

I will listen to you, you know.

I get a lot of adoptees that will send me messages and say, I feel seen.

As blunt as you are, I finally feel seen because I'm saying the things that they want to say, but know that they're going to hurt someone to say it.

And I do, at this point, y'all have hurt me enough.

I do not care that I hurt you.

I do not care that you're getting hurt in the process of me healing, but also making and paving, hopefully paving a way for other little adoptees to say, you know what?

I can stand in my truth.

No matter who isn't listening, who doesn't respect me, I'm going to stand in my truth.

And speak it.

Yep.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Because our narrative has been taken from us.

Stolen, right?

Forever, forever.

Telling a child that you are grateful, lucky, that they must be grateful, lucky, blessed, you are 100% telling that child's story for them.

You know, and we've got adoptive parents.

It really irritates me to see how many adoptive parents will adopt and then monetize off this adoption.

Oh, look, we're adopting.

Money, money, money.

Look, we're doing this.

And it's funny because it's the same things that y'all are getting blamed for, that you won't stop monetizing off of this child.

But it's, do y'all have that same energy for all these adoptive parents out here?

They don't.

Pushing this narrative that they adopted this child and everything's great.

They happy.

Because all their comments are like, I'm so happy for you.

Oh, see, Jesus, we've heard your prayers.

All that stuff.

I'm like, I have gone through three TikTok accounts because y'all can't handle my truth.

But how many of these adoptive parents with hundreds and thousands and millions of followers are you listening to their every spoken word?

You're watching this adoption.

You're seeing the beautiful side, but whose eyes are you seeing it through?

Through the adoptive parents, why does the world know your child's adoption story before they

understand their story?

Right, yeah, they probably don't even know it too that they're adopted.

Yeah, and here you are, hey, everyone, we adopted.

Look, that's how great we are.

We're saving yeah, that it's a horrible savior complex.

I've realized is so rampant.

Yep, I didn't, and I didn't realize that that was even like part of it until hearing all the actually, the most backlash that I've seen is from other adoptees which I was shocked by I was like whoa like I didn't realize our glitter bar big yeah yeah I didn't realize the biggest opposition was gonna be other adoptees who are so I was gonna ask you like how did you when did you first read the primal moon when did the fog kind of when did you even realize what that was yeah so

Siobhan first birth mother I can't remember his name Siobhan was the first birth mother on Instagram that I started to follow.

I wanted to, I didn't follow adoptees first.

I followed a birth mother.

Interesting.

Because I kind of wanted to understand the mindset of relinquishment.

I wanted to see where, where the hell, you know, is this coming from?

And so I

just kind of silently followed Siobhan for a long time and just watched her cry for a morsel of her child.

And I was like,

you know, and did it feed into my own fantasy?

Absolutely.

You know, this has to be what my birth mother is going through, you know, agony.

No.

But I needed that.

I needed that first.

And then I started following other transracial adoptees on TikTok and listening to them talk.

freely about how they felt in these homes where they didn't fit really was another added layer that I needed.

Well, I think it makes you, it makes you not feel alone.

Oh, absolutely.

And as humans, we need that.

We have this trauma too.

Right.

And as humans, we need that.

Like to not feel alone is huge.

Yeah.

And so to hear them talk and explain, you know, how they felt and I felt seen.

I felt so seen for the first time ever.

And just from there, it just kind of, it snowballed.

I have no regrets on losing any of my accounts

because I think it's made me grow as a person and understand

more of how to do this.

And, you know, when I, three years ago, when I first started doing this, was I angry?

Did I come across any?

Absolutely.

But I feel like you had the right to feel angry.

Anger is a valid option.

It is.

It is available.

Yes.

It's so valid.

It does cover up.

You know, therapy obviously teaches you it covers up for X, Y,

usually

sadness and hurt is underneath anger.

That emotion will, and you're like,

gets the bottom.

Go up the branch and tell me how you really feel.

Right.

And you're like, yep.

Therapy has been amazing.

I feel like I've healed in different chapters.

You know, we healed the sexual abuse and then I healed

some of the stuff with my mom, or at least I thought I did with my adoptive mom.

But it's been nice.

And now I'm healing the racial trauma.

I, until I took a psychological evaluation, I didn't realize the lady sat me down and she says, Do you realize how racially traumatized you are?

And I was like,

No.

Yeah, yeah.

We're supposed to be quiet about that.

That's a whole nother layer, right?

Right.

You know, that's a whole nother layer of trauma.

You just added.

Thank you.

And so now the therapist I have has really been so healing in that racial racial traumatized area.

She just freely lets me talk and explore that side that I didn't get to explore and talk about it.

And I'm getting to talk about it with another black woman that really just like she gets it.

I don't have to explain, you know, well, this is a microaggression.

And

she's, you know, there's even things that we, you know, she's telling me, and I'm like, oh,

yeah.

Oh,

yeah, I can see that.

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

You know, so it's really come full circle.

And

I'm happy

with where it's progressing.

I'm seeing change.

I'm seeing people wake up.

Granted,

I have to go through a load of hate.

Us too.

Yeah, we mean society rides hard.

It's so gross.

Hard for adoption.

And it's like, y'all don't even know what it's like.

No, they don't.

Yeah, a lot of the times they're not involved in adoption at all.

The ones that ride the heart and they're like, you know what?

I mean, I have a second cousin.

Yeah, yeah, my neighbor.

And how old are you?

Are you 12?

Like, what's going on?

You know, and again, going back to, you know, the monolith, you know, all of our experiences are different.

We all came from different backgrounds.

You know, an infant adoptee is definitely going to have a different view and opinion on their adoption than, say, a foster child who maybe was abused in their previous home and now got a healthy home for them to be in, which is the goal, you know, a healthy home, a safe external care.

Yeah.

And so for them to go into healthy from unhealthy, their experience is going to be

different.

And that, you know, honor them all.

I love that our community is getting better at

my realm is private infant adoption, transracial adoption.

I'm not here to hit on foster care.

I'm not here to hit on kinship.

You know, there's adoptees.

I'm going to hit on what you

personally went through.

You know, there's going to be the kinship adoptees that are, they still struggle.

Yep.

You know,

there's still a struggle in being even with your own family still.

So, yeah, we're all coming at this just from so many different angles.

The one that everyone has in common is that they are, you know, in this adoption constellation.

So in your opinion, what, what, what needs to change?

What needs to change in this whole

system?

Adoption industry is an industry, which I realize is also people get very upset about.

So like, what do you, what needs to, what do we do?

In my opinion, I think the foster and adoption systems need to be federalized.

I feel like every state needs to have the same playbook, you know, that none of this, let's

fly your mother up to Utah.

So we know that the ink is dry and you're guaranteed a baby.

We need to take the consumerism out of it.

These children should not come with a cost.

Adoption is a $25 billion a year industry.

They price these children based upon their age, ethnicity, gender, abilities.

Why are these children priced differently?

Right, right.

That right there is just like, why is there a price at all?

It should be

a good idea.

exactly.

I can understand, you know, and everybody likes to say it's just legal fees.

Oh, no,

legal fees.

They would all be, you know,

come on.

So we're all the same.

You know, the fact that parents,

foster and adoptive parents, are getting stipends for children.

They're getting tax breaks for children.

These are things that could have really helped a first family to stay together.

I do feel as though we need more family planning type of programs for families in crisis, for these women in crisis, so they can be educated on fully what adoption is.

None of it is informed consent.

None of it is.

None of it.

And it's hard to accept, honestly, years down the line as a birth parent.

It's hard to look back and think, wow.

And I get angry sometimes.

Yeah.

And I find myself getting mad sometimes because I'm like, what the fuck?

I was never told the statistics of adoptees.

I was never told of pre-verbal trauma.

I was never told of, you know, how they struggle more with mental health or addiction or suicidal ideation or none.

You're literally told nothing.

No, nothing.

And I could go on and on about things that I've learned that I was not aware of.

Exactly.

And they, and I feel like the industry keeps it that way.

Right.

They wouldn't have babies.

Yeah, they don't want us

if you knew the trauma that that baby could potentially have.

But legally, I think it should have to be shifted.

Absolutely.

And I think if we federalized a lot of these systems, it really would take them back.

They're not industries anymore.

It would be a system.

Yeah, the commodity.

Yeah, the job.

There's so much commodification.

You shouldn't be buying a child like you're buying a car.

You shouldn't be able to say peanut butter skin bait.

You know what I mean?

That shouldn't even be a thing.

Like, what?

Right.

You know, ethics is just so

disturbing.

I remember

hopping on TikTok, you know, newly coming out of my own birth parent fog, and I would see adoptees on there, and their background would be like, adoption is no different than human trafficking, or it is human trafficking.

And I would sit on there because I'd be like, What?

What?

Like, how?

You know, and then I would hear these people explain human trafficking to the people that are coming on there trying to argue it.

And I'm like, holy shit, there's no difference.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

People don't want to realize it's human trafficking that it's like illegal human trafficking.

It's selling children.

You know, adoption in the United States breaks about 15 out of 30 rights of a child that are set forth by the UN.

However, we don't recognize the UN's Convention of Children here.

We don't recognize it here in the United States.

I can't imagine why.

Yeah, right.

You know, to hear that the ACPCA, the animal rights,

they were the first ones to recognize that children needed protection.

They helped set up what we know is CPS today.

Wow.

But animals had rights before

children.

And

they were getting horribly abused before they were like.

And also, people don't realize realize that this is

a American problem.

This is like not mostly an American country.

Yeah, mostly

other countries have already learned.

They have

this is why you're seeing so many crackdowns from what was China's the last

recently.

They're like, no, we're good.

No.

And there's a congressman, I think, somebody in the political realm that is trying to get China to release these children that were already promised to families.

Oh, no, good for China.

Sorry.

Yeah.

I'm like, good for them.

Listen, we all have a problem when China's like, hey, we're not.

We have a problem when any country is

saying, oh, we're not saying America.

We've seen what's happening.

Yeah, like it's insane.

Like, there's no protection here.

And I think there's not.

The whole point about it is, is that,

you know, the fact that adoption exists is we've already failed these women.

And I, you know, and the fact that we're commodifying children, already wrong.

Before we even get to the point of talking about adoptive parents deserving children or deserving to be a a parent.

Like we already nobody deserves somebody else's baby.

Absolutely.

It's not a deserving baby.

And being a parent isn't a right.

You know,

I would love to see anywhere where it says parenting is a right of passage in this life.

You know, there, there is no

guarantee to any of it.

And do I feel for these people?

Absolutely.

Oh, 100%.

I am somebody who had had a child.

So I can't imagine not having a child, but I can't, I also, in that same breath, can't imagine going and taking someone else's.

And, you know, I read a story just today of a couple, they adopted two infants four months apart from each other.

You, whoa,

two birth, wait, I'm like doing the math and I'm thinking to myself, like,

all that money

couldn't have, you know, did they need somebody

in their corner to help them?

Right.

And it drives me nuts that we as a society see these GoFundMes

for adoptive parents and or hopeful adoptive parents.

And there's hundreds of thousands of dollars in there so they can buy a human.

And yet a woman over here in crisis only needs a couple thousand dollars, car seat, whatever.

And

she's got like denying that kept your legs closed.

Yeah, if she were, if she made a go fund me, she'd be vilified.

If you can't afford a baby, the baby stuff, you can't afford the baby.

Well, they can't afford to buy the baby.

Yeah, right.

And you're fine donating to them saying, God bless, good luck.

It's like, what?

Which was a whole nothing of that we're centering the wrong people.

Absolutely.

Well, as a culture, we just have it completely twisted.

Yeah.

I mean,

yeah, learning about the tax credit for adoptive parents really bothered me bad because

it's a tax credit.

$16,000.

And me and Kate, like, you know, when we were 16, do you know what that would have done?

Yep.

A 16, if we would have known.

That would have been more than enough.

A tax credit for struggling parents, teen parents, like that would have been huge.

Yep.

Like, I mean, that would would have it or break it i probably would have needed five grand if that right if that right get my own apartment and a car and i would have been set yep

it's usually those initial upfront costs yeah that a lot of these mothers need i mean because if you think about it when these hopeful adoptive parents are adopting these babies these womb wet babies i like to say yeah

they are

In the hospital.

They're doing, you know, it is a cost-playing role.

You are cosplaying this role of parenthood this you are trying to get as close as you can we've seen them put on gowns and get in beds and you know rent out private hospital rooms are you serious i did not i did not know like so they can do skin to skin and and all of this stuff put on a gown oh that's some hands made tale shit right there

is hands made tail is an accurate portrayal of

adoption in the america in america yeah because it's these women that don't want to do but they're being forced or coerced to do it and yep and people always well nobody wants a baby conceived out of rape these women did yeah you showed every single one of these women absolutely wanting their babies they did are there cases where women do not want absolutely and we can address those cases as they come but society really has this narrative and belief that we are so unwanted we you know our parents drugs all of this their abuse so much all of this stuff in fact say otherwise absolutely

you just talk to gretchen she just talked about 95% of birth moms wanted to parent.

Yeah.

They just lack the support and the resources.

And that's why, whenever we get hate, or I'm on a live and I get hate, really, what I tell people is take even just five minutes out of your day and educate yourself about adoptees and the statistics.

And if that doesn't bring to light certain things or change your mind of certain things, then something is wrong with you, I think.

Like just five minutes, even three minutes just to read the stuff.

It takes me 60 seconds, 60 second TikTok.

There you go.

To understand how disabled people are viewed in TV show and media.

See, I watched a 60-second TikTok and I was like, oh, my God, we really do do this shit to people.

Right.

Totally with people with disabilities.

Highlight them in such atrocious ways in movies and television and film, just all of it.

60 seconds.

That's all it took.

But in 60 seconds, when it comes to an adoptee saying, you know, trauma, adoption is trauma, they've already tuned me out.

They've already tuned me out at the word trauma.

They're like, it's not trauma.

These kids are happy and healthy and well taken care of and they're better off.

It's almost like they act like they're like immune to like they just are like it's like some kind of infection that they accept this fact and sort of like totally warp their whole moral code.

It's like just chill out and just like I see it as we're tearing down that belief, that narrative.

They've had this belief and narrative, you know, we've seen it in Annie.

What did Annie do?

She got daddy Warbucks.

She's living the high life.

Right.

Pollyanna, high life.

American Girl, Samantha, high life.

Anna Green Gables.

All of these, all of these older shows, I feel like kind of set the stage.

And then we get into the 80s and we have Cabbage Patch dolls.

You're adopting a Cabbage Patch doll.

You're naming it.

You're getting a birth certificate.

You're sending that in.

And you're getting another amended birth certificate with your information on it.

But adoptees sealed records.

That's weird.

That's so.

How old are you, by the way, when

did you even know about 16 and pregnant?

Did that ever?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

No.

So I followed 16 and pregnant because once I heard the adoption narrative of it, I was like, oh.

you know, I feel like us adoptees kind of gravitate, at least I did, we gravitate to some of these family, anything with family to placement, displacement, I feel like we kind of gravitate to because we're we're yeah

we're curious yeah how's it gonna go out for them yeah yeah right right

play out and the fact that it was

yeah you were young

it was the same thing with me following shiobhan i wanted that birth parent what's going to happen how's this going to play out are they going to relinquish everything yeah

um so i did follow y'all's story pretty pretty closely and then but i'm also not a

i don't do a lot of reality tv I don't follow celebrities.

And so after that was kind of said and done, I kind of just, you know, checked out and then I would see things pop up and stuff like that.

But, you know, the hate that y'all get, I,

it's, it's next level.

I mean, the hate that my community gets is disturbingly next level.

I can't imagine.

And that's what I need society to realize.

Would you say the things that you are saying to a grown-up adult adoptee?

Would you say that to a child?

If you have a child in your home under the age of, we'll say 11, even, you know,

would you say the things that you're saying to us?

Would you say, oh, they should have left you in a dumpster?

You should have been aborted.

You should have been

ever been adopted.

You're not deserving of it.

You're so ungrateful.

Most of them.

I was smaller for every time I was told I was ungrateful.

Most of them would never.

You always have a handful of stickos, but most of them would be.

Most of them never would.

Yeah.

And, you know, and people need to realize adoptees, we make up 2%

of the American population.

We are so small and marginalized.

Yeah, oh, my, listen, I'm hella marginalized.

I got yelled.

I mean, I got freaked out on.

I am not a minority.

I am so, I'm not.

I didn't even mean, I didn't even mean to like, like, you can't label me.

And I'm like, I.

Then don't.

I mean, and that's the fact that you're not.

I'm just, it's a fact.

You're 2%.

That is a marginalized group.

That is the marginalization group.

And people need to realize we are a group that lacks certain rights that everyone takes for granted.

You would be able to walk in and go grab your original birth certificate.

No issues.

I can't do that.

Right.

Except for today.

Today it was, or was it today?

I got notice of it the other day.

I think today he officially signed it that it is law.

So in Utah, I can finally have access to my original birth certificate and file.

There is still a caveat that a birth parent can, you know, safety issue, but I've already met the Beezy.

So what safety issue now?

Right.

That's great.

I'm, I'm so excited, you know, and if you can't understand

why me having my original birth certificate is so important and so crucial for me to have, for us to have as adopted people, that is such a privilege.

for you to have.

Yeah.

That we take for granted.

Kept people, we take a lot of those stuff, a lot of that stuff for granted.

Absolutely.

That you can just walk in and get your medical history.

Even Seeka's sister had the same laugh, genetic mirroring that we, I mean,

so many things that kept people in the middle of the day.

So many things

kept people like really like, whoa.

Yeah, genetic mirroring is wild.

Yeah, it's huge.

Wild to see, you know, and had my birth mother relinquished me to my father in his care, I would have gotten to grow up.

I looked more like my paternal side.

Oh, wow.

I had an aunt and him and somebody else on that where they could not believe how much I looked like their mother,

my grandmother.

They're like, you look like you reincarnated.

Wow.

And that to me, I could have grown up with this woman's face and been able to see her face.

One of my little things that I deal with is morphing.

I have a lot of

body dysmorphia when it comes to not having genetic mirroring.

I will do things, put on makeup or do my hair, do something.

And I'll look in the mirror.

And if I'm having an off day, I morph, it's because I have morphed my adopted mother's face into my face.

And so I'm looking for a reflection that doesn't exist.

And it's not done on purpose.

It's done because that was the face I grew up seeing.

And so I'm trying to morph it into mine.

And when I had my child, he is cut, paste, put a penis on it.

He is me.

He is me.

I could not believe it.

I'm like, I birthed my twin.

Did that impact you at all as an adoptee?

Having your first, like your first, yeah.

Yeah.

Your first genetic mirroring.

I can't tell you how impactful that was to look at his toes, his fingers, his nose, his lips, his eyes, his ears, everything about him when he started his hair.

And I'm like, oh, it's curly like mom's, you know,

to see him has been so healing.

And I know that our children

are not here to heal us.

they're not here to do anything for us other than exist but that

that healed that healed a huge part of me to finally see genetic mirroring somebody that shared my features and and all that and for people that you know i have tons of people genetic mirroring that's that's you know pseudoscience the fuck it ain't yeah the fuck it ain't to know that you you got this trait from somebody you look like this person.

You do these things like them, you know, even though I don't have a relationship with my mom, my birth mom.

She's an artist.

She likes to draw.

And so to learn that I got stuff like that from these people is so healing to know that, oh, I, I,

you, you know, and when I got pictures of my, my grandmother on my paternal side and could see the genetic mirroring.

And I just, oh, thank you.

I, I, I could not, I couldn't.

I just,

it's so healing.

And there's so many things that people just don't want to realize.

I also, another thing going back, sorry, to what things need to change, open adoptions.

Yeah.

You know, if at the end of the day, after every other resource has been exhausted and a child is still in a detrimental crisis, that needs to be detrimental crisis.

Yeah.

Not just needing, you know, a detrimental crisis, that

it is that we are still in community with our families when they are safe.

If our families are safe, why are we not knowing who they are?

What is this push to wait till we're 18?

Right.

Yeah.

Why?

Why do you know?

The push of the 18 thing is really weird because I've gotten so many stories of they go to search at 18 and they're dead.

Yeah.

The bio parents are dead.

And I'm like, yes.

They've either passed away.

And all because they were protecting their adopted parents' feelings.

And I'm like, wow.

So that now that adoptee has to deal with that.

Yes.

That they self-betrayed for their comfort and now also double the trauma because now the bio parents dead.

So the whole wait till 18 thing is just and go back to when you were 18.

Yeah.

Go back to when you were 18.

You're still trying to figure out who the fuck you are, where you fit in this world, how you're going to fit in this world.

You have all of these feelings of coming into adulthood and 18 is too young.

Yeah.

And

you are going to now put on this child.

Oh, yeah.

Now go find your family.

Yeah, on top of everything.

Yeah, on top of everything else.

Prontilobes not even developed yet.

And you're putting that, you're compounding more trauma on.

I feel like it compounds more trauma onto us.

And,

you know, obviously I don't have a statistic for this one, but I would love to know how many reunions past 18 fill and how many are successful.

Right.

And are they more successful at an earlier age going forward compared to what was 18?

Yeah, that cut off

to be.

It would be.

Yep.

And I can't remember the name of it right now.

It's some adoption council.

And he came out with a statistic and a report.

They did a survey of infant adoption.

And he came out with all these beautiful statistics.

But when you actually click on the link and you look at where he got these statistics from,

the NA Council, or I think you know what you're talking about, the National Adoption Council, yes.

Their highest donor is Catholic.

It's all biased.

It's all biased.

All of it was.

He specifically said on there not to share this survey on social media.

Oh, you wonder why.

Oh, wow.

And then when you look at who took the survey, there were all these people that didn't qualify in infant adoption.

If you're touting these as statistics for infant adoptees, then you needed people.

They would have had to have been privately adopted, most likely privately adopted.

You know, very rarely do you get an international child that is a womb-what baby.

Right.

Or a child from the foster system that has been TPR'd finally, that is a newborn baby.

They're not TPRing newborn babies.

Right.

For people who don't know, what's TPR?

TPR is termination of parental rights.

They don't, you know, I mean, we're not doing that.

Right.

You know, you had to go through all these documents.

Oh my gosh, yes, and wait 30 days.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's not this cut and dry thing.

And if, but if you're going to tout it as these statistics are cut and dry, I need to do it.

Which is crazy because I actually, I can't remember what what it's called.

National Association of Adoption.

I can't remember what it's called.

I've got to have the council or something.

Yeah.

And I went to all their studies and then I went to all the donors that donated to have this study done.

And now

the top donors, religion, religion, Catholic, Catholic, social, all these, like, and I'm like, this is, guys.

It makes sense, though, because they

if you look at religion and how religion views societal bastards,

they feel as though getting these children into into a two-parent christian home catholic home whatever is saving the child you're saving the child from the parental sins no that is it is disturbing it's dystopian it is so disturbing and in your case it was religion i mean it really was religion and racism it's played hand in hand and a lot of biracial black children that ended up being adopted is exactly for that reason.

We had a white mother that had a family that was not conducive of having this black child.

They were racist.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yep.

I'm trying to be all nice about it.

They were racist.

Yeah.

They were racist.

So it's just, it's,

it's been,

I love meeting.

You see how we get, when we get together,

it, it is,

it, we bond.

We

for the most part, you know, a lot of us, when we get together, it's, we have that wound.

We have that primal wound

that just kind of makes it.

We don't need to talk about it.

You know, we talked about this, you know, last night that for you, you being around other first mothers is healing for you because you feel heard.

Yeah, you feel validated.

Yeah, so for us to be around other adoptees, we feel heard and we feel validated.

And the glitter bombers that, you know, the happy adoptees, I'm glad that they, if they are truly happy and got out of what adoption promised, I am literally, yeah, thank you.

I am so glad that that was your experience and I truly am happy for them, you know, but for them to come in, oh, I'm sorry for your negative experience.

How many, and that's what I would love to ask society.

How many children are you, what percentage of children are you willing to allow to have a negative outcome just so you can hear and have good, warm, fuzzy feelings inside that you heard a good, a good story at some point?

Well, my whole thing is that these adoptees who are coming in here and kind of minimizing the ones who had negative experiences, it's like, listen, so let's find a positive one.

Do you want to help me elevate?

Do you are you willing to help me?

I know you had a positive one.

I'm happy for you.

I did not.

Will you help me?

Yeah, like help us in the best.

How many faults is that?

We're in the same community.

I'm an adoptee.

You're an adoptee.

I had a bad one.

You had a good one.

Will you help me?

Yes.

What made your adoption better?

What were the steps that made your adoption better?

And if you don't want to help me,

I feel like there's maybe some unwhy are you here?

And it almost feels like they need that goodness validated.

And if it was so good, why are you coming into somebody else's comment section that didn't have it good and trying to get validation from them for your good experience?

I would never go into a DV victim class

and go, oh, your husband did all that.

Well, my husband, he's never.

You're right.

Yeah.

Never.

You would be that person.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Right.

Asked to swiftly exit stage left.

Right.

You're here invalidating all these people.

And that's why I'm like more or less like the ones who had bad experiences.

Like, will you help me help?

Like, help me.

You mean the ones that have good, had good experiences?

Yeah, good.

It's like, what are you advocating for?

What are you doing to change the system so you had, so other kids have a positive

position?

And I think this is a start.

We're all talking about it.

People are starting to talk about it more.

Yep.

We're starting starting to push for change.

And that's all we can do, you know?

And I just really appreciate you coming on here.

I'm so glad that you guys are doing this.

Thank you.

I love watching it kind of come full circle that you guys are coming out of your own fog and language and you're learning the language.

You're learning the trauma.

You're accepting the trauma.

Well, just thank you for coming and being vulnerable and talking to us.

And, you know, this is all one step of change.

And

Absolutely.

And I hope that we can all continue to have these conversations, learn about adoptees, do your own education.

And just thank you so much.

Yeah, thanks.

Seriously.

I really do appreciate you because not many people want to give us a voice.

Oh, we're going to give us a voice.

We're going to have a voice.

Let's all get used to it.

Not many people want to give us a voice because we say the things that hurt.

Hey.

But it's valid and it needs to be said.

It does need to be said.

People need to hear it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

First of all, appreciative.

it.

Thank you.

Are you looking for your next case?

Pluto TV has all your favorite crime dramas streaming for free.

You're going to need some backup.

Which means suspense is free.

Very cool.

Watch CSI New York, Criminal Minds, Blue Bloods, Tracker, FBI, and SWAT all for free.

You can't outrun this.

Someone is going to pay for all this crime.

But it's not going to be you.

Take care of business, fellas.

Watch all the cases, all for free, from all your favorite devices.

We got you.

Feel the free.

Pluto TV.

Stream now.

Pay never.

California Summer Adventures are calling.

Get out there and explore behind the wheel of a brand new Toyota hybrid with 17 fuel-efficient vehicles to choose from, like the all-hybrid Camry, Adventure-Ready RAV4 hybrid, or the Roomie Grand Highlander hybrid.

Toyota has the hybrid for you.

Every new Toyota comes with Toyota Care, a two-year complimentary scheduled maintenance plan, an exclusive hybrid battery warranty, and of course, Toyota's legendary quality and reliability.

Visit your local Toyota dealer and test drive one one today.

Toyota, let's go places.

See your local Toyota dealer for hybrid battery warranty details.