Adoption Unfiltered: A Birth Mom's Story & the Realities of Open Adoption

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So we have here Kelsey.

Thank you for coming on Kate and Ty, Break It Down.

You are the author of Adoption Unfiltered.

Well, one of the authors, I should say.

And we are just so happy that you made this work.

And the timing I know wasn't the best, but I'm so glad that you're here and doing this it's great yeah i'm so excited to be here so yeah well i wanted to first say that when our adoption got closed adoption unfiltered was the first book that i do audiobooks so it was the first book that i ever listened to um after that happened and It literally helped me so much.

I loved listening to all sides of it.

You know, and I remember I was driving home in the car one day and I was texting Tyler, like talk texting to him.

And I was like, I feel so bad for what we not knowingly put Carly through as like a child and an infant.

When you, you know, when the book talks about just like the pre-verbal traumas and the how the cortisol levels rise in the babies and all of those things, like I was just blown away.

And I think it's just very eye-opening.

I love how it talks about all sides of adoption.

And

yeah, I just, I really, really loved listening to this book because it just educated me on so many different levels.

Well, I think the reason why it's so important too is because, you know, there's three authors.

We have a birth mom.

We have an adoptee.

We have an adoptive parent.

So I feel like it's.

The book does a good job of just making sure all those bases are covered and not one side is kind of like left out.

But I will say, I feel like some of the stuff in the book was hard as birth parents parents to hear, especially when we didn't know about any of this stuff.

And we almost had to kind of break through our own like birth parent fog of our own.

I feel like in a way, if that makes sense to you.

I did that while I was writing it.

Yeah, I bet.

It was such a group project, and I was learning so much about the adoptee side.

And I thought I was pretty well educated on that side.

And then we spent three years writing this and doing this project together.

And I, you know, we would collaborate to an extent and then we would go away and we'd write our own parts.

But then when we would review each other's parts and read, I remember reading what Sarah, the adoptee author, wrote, and she was putting so much research.

I mean, we all did, but Sarah, Sarah is the type of person that's like, she's just going to go above and beyond every single time.

And so she was putting so much care and research in, and it was so relevant

of what I was experiencing in my own open adoption and I was like having my mind blown all the time and then my dad is also an adoptee oh I didn't know so then I'm putting together pieces of like his life too and so um in in that way it's I was so grateful for for each of the other authors work because you're just like it's a window in to this other experience that I have no idea what it's like to be them you know yeah so let me so how did you how, how are you affiliated with adoption?

For people who don't know, like, how did you enter this whole little crazy constellation we have here?

Tell us about, you know, whatever you're comfortable with, obviously, about your story and your journey.

And yeah.

Yeah.

So I am a birth mom.

I relinquished my child for adoption in 2016.

So I am still pretty fresh.

And like, I remember watching Teen Mom in,

I think, high school.

And

I think we're all like relatively the same age maybe 33 and but I 32 okay so I was watching this you know happen to you guys and you always always and you guys were just a few hours north of me because I'm from northern Indiana and so I'm always like you just like think things won't happen to you so you're watching this reality TV show and you're like that's crazy Okay, moving on because that's not going to happen to me.

And then it does.

I was 22.

I wasn't a teenager, but I had just graduated college.

I moved back home and I was just sort of, I don't know, like a 22-year-old who's sort of lost in life and not sure what's going to happen next.

And I got pregnant by someone who was like a friend with benefits and he was gone as soon as I told him I was pregnant.

And so I didn't have a bunch of support.

I didn't have support to parent.

The support was to choose adoption.

I grew up in a very conservative Christian home, and that's, you know, you don't get pregnant before you're married.

Yeah.

That's a no-no.

So

I chose the family early on.

I never really had options counseling.

I just kind of dove right into adoption because that was the only accepted option for me at that time.

I built a great relationship with the family.

I had a lot of time to get to know them.

Not never enough time to actually like fully give your baby to them, but I did like make every effort to build a relationship.

I still have an open adoption.

I do have a great relationship with them.

And it's grown in past years.

I think both parties have to be committed to open and honest communication.

And when one is not, then that's a breakdown like you're headed for.

I think you guys know that.

And

I'm super grateful for what I have.

I've gone through the full range of emotions in the aftermath.

And I started working in adoption a year after, very much in like a honeymoon phase of like, this is great, but I'm also coming home and I'm extremely depressed.

And so I had a lot of cognitive dissonance.

I was working for an agency in Indiana.

Not a bad agency, but like, I probably shouldn't have been working in it at all.

Right.

Immediately, I saw there were things wrong with this system, the way that birth mothers and just birth parents in general were treated,

the mixed messages that we were given, and the false narratives that were placed on this.

And I left after a year and a half and decided I wanted to do something on more of a macro level with policy.

And it took me a minute to get there, but for the past four years, I've been working at a nonprofit in LA, Ethical Family Building, Building, and we work on domestic adoption, private adoption policy issues.

I'm also the daughter of an adoptee,

and he, I'm the fourth consecutive generation in my family to relinquish a child for adoption in one bloodline in my paternal bloodline.

Wow.

So there's a lot of separation in our family that we deal with, and sometimes we don't deal with.

And that has, you know, lasting effects on not just, you know, me, as I found out in past years, is like my daughter now that I'm parenting.

And,

you know, the separation is absolutely, without a doubt, the hardest part of this whole journey is, yeah, with the space in between.

Now, did you like, I know you mentioned you grew up very conservative and in a Christian.

Did you feel any

like like

religious pressure when you were pregnant?

Because you said it was the only option.

You just dove right into into it.

And that's kind of surprising that there was no, like, there was no other thought, like, even parenting, like that.

Would that, what, nothing ever crossed your mind?

Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Like, your parents crossed my mind.

Okay.

But it was like more of like what you were, what was going to be acceptable.

I wouldn't say there was like outright religious pressure, but there was

the culture that religion had set up for me and my family in our life that kind of guided those expectations.

I wouldn't say that anybody, like, it wasn't like a pastor, and it wasn't, I didn't like have a Christian agency like Bethany or anything like that.

That's like breathing down my neck with Bible verses.

That was not my experience.

But yeah, it was, it was more of the environment that I was in and that I had been brought up in that just set the expectations.

So, you believe that, like, with the environment you were raised in, that there was only one kind of acceptable answer to it, and that was adoption.

I mean,

did your parents ever

ever tell you that they would support you if you decided to parent no okay never and you never

like you know when you like look at your kid i'm parenting now and i'm like oh my god like i would help you you know

but like yeah i can't imagine um i did one at one point say i think i want to parent and i was pretty early in my pregnancy like it doesn't matter either way like you have a right to parent but i was early enough that that wasn't really an issue.

And they were like, no, no, no.

No.

So they said, no, no, no.

Like they like, okay.

Wow.

Interesting.

And it wasn't for lack of resources.

It wasn't like,

I see parents with a lot, lot less

help their kids time and time again sometimes.

And I didn't get that.

Yeah, I almost feel like a long, long time that affected like self-worth issues too.

Or you're like,

am I an unfit mother?

That's what I was going to say.

Like, that has to be very hard on you.

Like, nobody just stepping up wouldn't.

Obviously, they could have supported you if they, you know, would have said, hey, we can do this.

Like, that's got to be so hard and hurtful.

Cause like for Tyler and I,

they said that they would support us, but we didn't have any money.

They were addicted to drugs.

We had, like, there was no way in hell I was bringing a child back to that.

And sure, you know, if only I would have had

sober parents and some like even just mental stability at home, it would have been completely different.

Yeah, because they honestly, we had the opposite experience.

So they were like not, they were not for adoption at all.

I thought we were crazy.

And we were like, we think you're crazy.

We think you're crazy.

So the, it's interesting how,

you know, you and her are both birth moms and have the same result and just totally different paths of how you guys got there.

And it's interesting because what it comes down to, the similarity is, is that you just felt like it was your only option.

And I think that's what it comes down to when people say, oh, you guys are so strong and selfless.

Yeah, we're strong and selfless because we had to be because the desperation part.

You felt,

you know, other options were really shielded from us, you know,

which is interesting because it's like you think that if all birth parents had the right options counseling and just more

time to explore other things that I don't think they would relinquish as much.

And like you said, there was a point in your journey where you're like, I'm not a parent.

And you clearly had two, you know, people look at you and say, definitely not.

And so it makes you question your, like, your own, because me and Kate talk about it all the time, how it's like, we knew inside what we wanted to do, but every logical reasoning outside was telling us that was not the right thing to do.

And I think that that internal conflict is what makes being a birth parent

so difficult.

And I have my own internal struggles too.

Of like, of course, I had just graduated college.

I had dreams too.

And so

there was a conflict of that that was very ongoing as well.

It's like, well, if you do parent, then you can't achieve anything in life, which isn't true.

Right.

That's what people definitely make me think.

And it just, it will be harder, but it's not impossible.

And it did make me sad to think about my child not.

having a dad.

It wouldn't have been the end of the world, of course, but it made me sad, like that

his dad was just didn't care.

And I was like, I can't imagine what that would feel like as a kid.

And I, well, I could, but my best friend had a dad just like that.

And I thought that really put a perspective on me, too, that I was like, I want him to have a dad.

But unfortunately, adoption also means that you don't get to be the mom

in this situation either.

And so

there were, yeah, there were a lot of really difficult things and just internal conflicts that you face as you're pregnant and you're trying to make this decision.

And now on the other side of it, I, you know, you still have the fear.

I have a great relationship, but you always have this like natural fear that they're going to pull away, right?

Right.

I don't think that ever goes away.

You don't have control over the situation.

Right.

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Yeah.

Well, I think it comes to the point of like, you know, no matter what, no matter how great a relationship you can have with the adopted parents and how open it is, you're always, no matter what, going to be in an inferior position.

And you're going to act on that feeling of inferiority.

You're going to be, you know,

you know, kind of just at their mercy, which is the hardest part because how do I honor myself while also being at the mercy of someone else that goes against what it's just a the yeah, the internal conflict, I feel like is the hardest part.

And also, you know, determining where is my rights?

Where do I step in?

Where do I be honest with myself and be open?

And so it sounds like your situation is really as good as it can get as far as they're open with you and you're open with them.

And there's, you know, that's that's really all you can ever ask for.

I feel like that's.

And like you said in the beginning, that's like a huge key to having an open adoption.

There has to be open, honest communication on both sides and people not getting scared or hurt about what the other person's going to say.

And man, it's a tough thing to maneuver for sure.

there's a total mismatch between of messages that we get with like when they are marketing open adoption to you and then when you're actually in open adoption and so

um

like for example they always pitch at open adoption like you're in control you can choose the family you can choose how much contact you get and it's just like that's not true no just not true or i was told like you're you're in the driver's seat of this adoption journey and it'll look and feel how you want it to feel I can't tell you how many times I've read those exact words on websites before.

Like, it's verbatim.

And then also, they tell you you don't have to worry about your child anymore.

Like, you're giving up your responsibility.

Like, you, you don't have to worry.

Everything's fine.

They're well loved.

They're taken care of.

And to an extent, that may be true.

Right.

But

because I physically gave birth to this child who is my flesh and blood, there's not a day in my life that I've ever not worried about.

Absolutely.

Same.

Doesn't exist.

I will worry about all of my children till the day I die.

And if it's possible to worry about them during death, I will probably do that too.

Right.

And so I

that's not true.

And

also it kind of signals that we don't have any responsibility.

And we do.

And one of the things that's hard to get some birth parents to understand is that you signed your legal rights away, but like your emotional and mental

relational responsibilities to your child transcends any legal document that you signed.

Yes.

So that is still there and you can't sign that away.

Nope.

You can't.

It's still a signal.

It's kind of like you're kind of.

signing the dotted line emotional contract that's for life and you can't ever really get out of it.

And I feel like that's one of the kind of selling points about this open adoption:

there, you know, you're, you have emotional freedom and it's like you have the freedom to go be a child again, and you can just not worry.

But it's like the reality is, I don't know, I have not met one birth parent that doesn't worry after placement.

Or, you know, they, they, it's, it's so, they don't tell you the emotional toll that it takes on you after you relinquish.

And it's like one of those things where it's like, you know, these open adoption agreements that the agencies sell to to you are not legally binding.

And so my question is, then what is the point of the paperwork other than convincing me that this is going to be how I want it to be?

And I feel like that's, you can't get around the fact that that paperwork,

it's nothing but a coercion tactic, in my opinion.

My personal opinion is that why would you sell me something that you know is not enforceable?

What is the point of spending weeks writing out these details of an open option agreement?

And I just feel like, you know,

yeah, like, like, you know, there's talking about one, but being in one is just totally different.

Did you guys, I can't remember.

Did you guys have a legally binding agreement?

No.

Yeah, like your open adoption.

Okay.

No.

There are some states that do the legally binding, but there's, I mean, there's all sorts of

barriers to getting it enforced because you have a birth parent who probably doesn't have the money to go hire an attorney.

Exactly.

My

colleague actually does enforcements.

She has a firm that just represents birth parents.

Oh, wow.

And she's an attorney and she does enforcements out in California.

She's actually really good at it and really successful with it.

But it's.

Can you pass her number?

You might want to talk to her.

That's interesting.

She's amazing.

And you know, I think she's

not because she's an attorney, but because she's so good with relationships and conflict.

She used to be a divorce attorney before she did adoption.

Okay.

And she's so good at just like preserving what's left of relationships and helping people understand how to grow it and put pride aside or whatever.

But anyways, she's awesome.

And I've seen her like work total miracles with open adoption agreements and enforcements of those.

But that

is a skill that is

not everybody has it.

Yeah.

No.

And not every attorney has it.

And

so I've heard her talk on the phone to birth parents calling for enforcement.

And she has hard conversations with them.

She's like, you have to know that we have to salvage what's left of this relationship because at the end of the day, the relationship is the most important part.

It's more important than the words on the page.

And so,

but, but we're not even giving this information to birth parents before placement, right?

Directly after placement.

Like, they are not getting any education on open adoption.

No, not at all, not at all.

Yeah, and also, it's like, why?

I guess my thing is, as far as we talk about policy change, like it should be a legal requirement to have this attorney for these birth parents.

I don't care where you live, what state you're in, it should be but it should be a separate, away from like separate from the you know agencies or anything like that, not affiliated with them.

Um, yeah, yeah, we've we advocate for separate legal representation in every case.

Um, I didn't have my own attorney.

I was like relying on the advice of the parents' attorney.

And the adoption parents' attorney literally told me, You don't need an attorney.

You don't need an attorney.

So now every time I talk to someone, I'm like, You need an attorney.

And you don't have to pay for the attorney.

You need an attorney.

So, let me ask you a question.

This attorney is a friend of yours.

Does she

like, are we able to donate to her?

Like, does she do pro bono for birthday?

Like, how does that work if they can't afford it?

She, um, she will

work out something okay i don't know i she's my boss actually okay i don't work for the firm i work for the non-profit so i'm on the other side it is a non-profit firm but it's separate from the entity i work for okay but she so yeah like you you can donate but um

and you could probably like earmark it for uh adoption um

like the PACA enforcements and stuff.

But she works it out.

Okay.

I was going to say, because me and Kate have been trying to find like if there's any way that we can have an impact on this whole industry as a whole, is to like, we need to get these birth parents representation before birth.

Like, right as soon as

they think about adoption, we need, they need to have legal representation.

And a lot of the times, birth parents place because they're poverty, they don't have a lot of money.

So it's like, me and Kate are always trying to, like, I'm like, where is this firm?

There's got to be, if there's legal firms that only represent adoptive parents' interests, there's got to be an opposing firm that only you know what i mean that's her firm i am sure i need her number right that's awesome yeah she's great and separate legal representation should be happening in every case regardless yes and and um not just like if you're an adoption attorney at all you should be prepared to represent either side whatever the case requires um

But and a lot of times people think, okay, birth parents can't afford it.

The adopted parents will pay for the other side to have an attorney.

And the agreement, the retainer agreement, will state that even though one party is paying the bill, my duty is to my client.

And that happens in a lot of circumstances.

Like that happens in cases like

criminal defense.

Like if your child gets arrested, they're 17 years old and I'm the parent and I'm paying.

It's a little different because it's a little less adversarial.

But but at the end of the day, that child is the one being represented and not the parents.

Or even if the child is an adult and it's, you know, he's 18 and he's being represented and the parents are paying.

The parents can't just orchestrate the whole thing because the attorney has a duty to their client.

And if they don't, if they breach that, they can be reported to the state bar.

So there's kind of a mechanism there.

Not foolproof, but.

But it's a star.

It's something that costs should be covered by the adoptive parents.

Yeah.

Yes, regardless of the outcome of the adoption, if it happens or not.

Well, I wanted to, I had one of my questions too, like to get back to the book.

So when you and the two other authors met, what kind of inspired you guys to even start writing the book in the first place?

What were you seeing with adoption?

And what made you guys feel like this is super important to put out into the world for people to read?

Yeah.

They started the idea on their own.

Lori and Sarah did.

They brought me on,

like after talking about it for a few months, they they were looking for a birth parent to write that section.

And um, I spoke at a conference, and they uh that's how I met them.

And then they emailed me and they asked me to write it, and I said, Yeah, I also have a hard time saying no to things, so I kind of wasn't sure if it was gonna happen or not.

I was like, Yeah, sure, I'll read a book to you.

Um, but then it ended up being great.

So

they we kind of saw this need for

it.

Was a period of time, it was 2021.

So

pandemic still, um, it was early 2021,

and we're still like dealing with the fallout of 2020, like this reckoning of 2020, right?

With the George Floyd, and everybody is dealing with this trauma that they're watching out front, and they're bleeding out on social media.

Like, everybody's publicly dealing with things, which was very new when you think about recent years beyond 2020.

And so we were watching in the adoption community, especially people having this own personal reckoning with their own adoptions or with the concept of adoption.

And it was kind of spreading like wildfire.

And we were like, this is great, but also some of this is not helpful.

And we wanted to find a way to bring all sides together and

sort of contain some of the infighting that started to happen

and promote understanding and reaching across the aisle just to like understand each other's side because we all come from different sides and if we're all yelling at each other into the center we're not hearing yes each other's experience and so that's where it really started was wanting to understand and then also having an understanding that

yes, this is my adoption experience, but also there's more people in my adoption experience than just me.

And there's more important people, like there's the adoptee.

And so we wanted to kind of encourage other people to do that internal work as well with their own little constellation.

So.

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The power is ours.

Yeah, so it sounds like, so honestly, so you, you were seeing a lot of like

animosity between everyone fighting, which honestly, we can, we have, we're seeing it now play out on our social media.

Like it is, we've never Yeah, when we speak about how hard it is for whatever, you know, how hard it is, or we're struggling today, it's like we're like the craziest people that ever existed because we have emotions about our adoption.

Yeah.

And we didn't realize that people fought.

with each other.

Like seeing adoptees argue with each other.

And I was like, well, this is so, what is, I'm like, this is so crazy.

And I think it's a good thing that you guys kind of put this book together because you're not leaving anyone out of the discussion.

Like everyone's involved in the world.

And everybody, and as I listened to it too, it was nice because everybody shared like their good experiences, but also shared like their fears on all sides.

You know, like the adoptive parents spoke about their fears, the birth parents did.

Like it was just very much an honest but factual book.

And it was, it was very informative for me.

Yeah.

The only thing that we have all in common is like that this happened.

Right.

Beyond that,

everybody has very different experiences.

There's like 25,000 private adoptions happening every year that doesn't count adoptions happening out of foster care.

And

that number has kind of leveled out in recent years.

And so that's 25,000 kids that are being adopted, but that's also 50,000 birth parents

and 50,000 adoptive parents.

And then you expand that view more and more to include siblings, extended family, grandparents.

That's a big number of people experiencing this every year.

And none of them have much in common except for that an adoption took place at some point for whatever reason.

And so you have people that it worked out for them really well.

And it was the right decision.

And they are,

you know, they didn't have another option.

And then there are people that they don't think that that was the right decision and there are people that live in the middle Yep, yep, and so when everybody talks over each other as this is this is the truth for everybody even though it's just the truth for them It's like

there's not much

Productive conversation and learning happening well I actually feel like the productivity gets drowned out by everyone saying that their truth is everyone's truth and there's just so much nuance that you can't categorize it or label it.

Well, and it's

so much pain.

And yes, so much pain.

And especially with adoption, like you will never find two stories that are alike at all.

Like, you know, they are all completely different and unique to the person.

So, yeah,

for people to argue about it, that this is the right way, and I had a great one.

So, I don't understand why you did.

And it's like, just if everybody could come to the conclusion that your story is different than mine, my story is different from yours.

But at the end of the day, we are all feeling these feelings and those are valid.

Yeah, yeah, and I also think the advocacy work gets like people get really very passionate about defending if you advocate or not and what you're advocating for, if that's adoption reform, when that's adoption, you know, abolishment.

And I want to I want people to understand that this book is not anti-adoption.

No, it's not, you know, I don't think any of us are trying to sit here and spew anti-adoption rhetoric at all.

We're just trying to give people who possibly might be in an adoption situation all the information that we kind of feel like we didn't have or we wish we would have had.

That's what people feel on all different sides of an adoption view.

And I think that even like, because I would say that like I have had a good experience, like I have a great open adoption, I have a great relationship, but I can still look at other people's stories that are not good and be like, there's injustice in this story.

You deserved better than that.

Your child deserved better than that.

And

we want to make sure that this doesn't happen to other people.

Like, that's very much the angle I take.

And you're right.

Adoption filter is not anti-adoption.

We knew that to reach the masses, we were going to have to

lower our voice.

And not everybody has to do that.

You can decide what your goal is when

you're speaking, who your audience really is.

And sometimes your audience isn't the people that are like, well, I'm grateful for adoption and that's, and it's been perfect for me.

And it's like, I'm happy for you.

Yeah.

Get out of my comments because we're not talking about that right now.

Right.

And

me talking about something that's hurt other people has no effect on you and your story.

Well, that's kind of why I feel like it's interesting because I've never seen this much pushback of people saying, you, you know, you're only talking about bad stuff and you're not advocating for us because you're not an adoptee.

And I'm like, well, I didn't think I had to be an adoptee to advocate advocate for this information.

And I feel like the fact that people are arguing with each other about what's right and what's wrong, it just drowns out the message that really what matters is that, I mean, me personally,

the adoptee should be the number one child-centered.

It should be all about them.

And so we all come second.

And I think even adoptive parents can agree that we should all come second.

Yeah, most of them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Agree.

And more people.

More just rapidly with their thumbs, typing out whatever they think is the rule that I guess all follow.

I think if people could just respect everyone's different situations that they experience and not try to like just minimize them, and I feel like a lot of it has to do with like my response is very similar to yours, where I'm glad that you had a positive adoption experience.

That's what I want for you.

I want that.

I want that for everybody.

Um, that's just not the case, and so your positive experience does not negate all the person who had a negative one.

And so my thing is, why would you not want to elevate the voices of people who had a negative one?

You should be happy and proud and not defensive if you had a positive experience.

You should just,

you should want that for everybody.

Exactly.

Right.

And exactly.

And that's where it should go to.

And it's like, okay, awesome.

You had a great experience.

Well, some adoptees or even birth parents might not have.

And obviously, there's a problem in our society until every single adoptee comes out and says, I had such a great experience.

Because there are some that don't share the same thoughts and feelings.

And until every adoptee has a good experience, the system is broken.

And we need to focus on that.

I mean, that's the whole point.

I feel like.

Oh, 100%.

I agree.

100%.

And yeah, it's like this never-ending battle.

It's kind of an unnecessary battle.

It could be the slightest thing, too.

It doesn't even have to be this whole,

we don't even have to be really talking about abuse or coercion.

You could just express

your grief.

Right.

And people don't like that either.

So it, you know, people are going to say what they're going to say.

And

the point is, is that us having a voice at all makes people very uncomfortable.

Very.

So

that's not a problem.

Right.

Right.

And to me, that just shows that it needs to be talked about more.

Because it shouldn't be making people uncomfortable.

It should be, people should be saying, wow, well, what can we change to make it better?

Or what can we do to make this work better?

Well, that's kind of my shocking.

I'm like, your response to someone saying it was bad experience for them is, well, I had a good one, so I don't know what you're talking about.

Instead of being like, wow, I'm so sorry you had a bad experience.

I wish, what can I do to make this better?

Or what can I do to help this broken system that failed you so much?

And don't I feel like it's interesting because I don't know if a lot of adoptees really know about the fog.

And I don't know if that's a general thing that they know about because I happen to feel like what I'm reading a lot of those comments that are, you know,

attacking other adoptees who had a bad experience.

It's like

you're operating from a place of, I don't know if you really know

about the fog at all.

And I always have had a weird

just relationship with the with the term like coming out of the fog too.

Yeah.

It's such a process and everybody does it in their own time.

Yeah.

And so sometimes I see it get really weaponized towards people who are still in it.

So people will be like, you're in the fog.

And it's like,

just

yes, here, buddy.

Like, let them figure their own life out.

I think education is good, but like, it has to be.

It has to be gentle for some people.

Not everybody's going to receive the same, the messaging the same way.

And on their time.

Yeah.

Yeah, because if the message will get drowned out if you're wasting your time, if you're trying to educate and you do it in this aggressive, attacking way, then

your message doesn't even get across.

So you just failed your mission to educate.

So I try to be very like open-minded when adoptees are yelling at me, saying, you're all this stuff.

And I'm like, I'm not trying to be.

I think you guys do a great job moderating comments, by the way.

Okay, I didn't know.

I was just like looking at it the other day

preparing for this, but like

I saw some just like nasty comments and Tyler, you're like, hey, I respect you.

Yeah, like that takes a lot of patience to do that because

I just block people.

Yeah, I mean, and they get mad at me when I block them, and that's fine.

I only block people if they're unnecessarily rude or they mention and speculate about my daughter who I place and how she feels.

Then I'm like, you're not allowed in this conversation.

You're not getting it.

Yeah.

But I wanted to go back to, you said you worked at the agency.

Did you feel that after placement, you felt a calling almost to kind of like

I didn't work at the same place I placed through so it was a totally different entity I did not get any like post-placement support shocker because a lot of people don't and

but through a mutual friend I met another birth mom who lived in South Bend Indiana which was not that far from me and

come to find out she ran a support group and so I got to meet other birth parents I went to that every month and then then I found out that there was an agency that actually hosted that support group.

And I went to lunch with the agency director.

They asked me to go to lunch with them one day.

And I did.

And they called me that night and offered me a job.

I didn't apply.

I was not looking to get into it.

I was passionate about making sure birth parents had support, but I didn't really know how to use that.

Know what I was doing with that message at that point.

It was still really early.

But yeah, I worked for them.

It was a great experience.

It was hard.

It was really emotionally tough to do.

I wasn't a caseworker.

I would not have been able to handle that.

And I don't want to do that work.

But I...

I did education with them and they actually let me come in and change a ton of their policies and a ton of the way they did things, which was awesome.

And so that's awesome.

It was a great experience.

And I'm still really close friends with the people I worked with there.

And

it gave me a space to process some of those really early feelings of grief with therapists that worked there, you know,

that had already

knew what I was going through because they had worked in this for so long.

And so,

yeah, and allowed me to see things that I were like, this is wrong, this should be happening.

So, yeah.

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Yeah, see, I feel like for birth parents,

after you go through placing your child, I feel like we tend to navigate towards, you know, something involved with adoption to help heal.

Because same thing, like after Tyler and I placed, I mean, we spoke around the country for years about our adoption journey.

And we were just constantly speaking on a stage, like, we did the best thing, and this is why we chose it.

And la la la.

It was almost like we were kind of like, we always say we were kind of like brainwashing ourselves to a way

into healing.

Into healing.

And then you go home and you kind of fall apart.

I hope that was you guys, too.

Yeah, that was me.

You almost feel like imposter syndrome a little bit because you're out there and you're, but then you go home and you're like, I'm not talking about how I'm sitting here miserable at home.

And

it's a weird, weird feeling to have, I feel.

But then I feel like after you were speaking at like pro-life events, and I'm

not pro-life now.

Hey, we were the same.

We did the same thing.

And that's why.

And I'm like, what was I doing?

But they get you then.

And then they're like, oh, come talk to us.

And I, in the book, I remember I wrote something like,

there's two stories that society really wants to hear from birth parents.

They want it, or not from birth parents, but about birth parents.

They want to hear about your time in the hospital, your time being pregnant, and how that selfless choice that you made.

And then they want to hear 25 years later when you're having that beautiful TLC channel reunion.

Right.

And they don't give a shit about anything in between.

No.

They don't care.

And they're like,

in fact, not only do they not care, they don't want to hear it.

They don't want to hear it.

That's what I've noticed.

They don't want to hear it at all.

And I feel like from not in line with societal narratives that they've been fed their whole lives, they don't want to hear it at all.

No.

And I feel like from us speaking for so many years, and then also, you know, being on a reality television show and talking about our adoption constantly and how it was so good and beautiful.

I feel like for me as a birth mom, it took me so many years.

That's why I think, I truly think birth parents can go through through a fog themselves because it took, it took up until

you know our couple closing our adoption when all of a sudden I was like broken and feeling like PTSD horribly.

And that's when I, when I woke up and I started listening to like, you know, adoption unfiltered and relinquished.

And I looked at myself and I was like, I don't think I'm healed from this.

Like, no.

You were allowed to not be.

And I, and I'm like, I don't think I will ever be healed from this.

I think this is, the way that I explain it is like, I feel as a birth mom, like this is a sorrow and a pain that I will carry with me for life.

And if there's an

if there's an afterlife, I think I'm still going to feel it then too.

Like I don't think it's ever going to wait.

You can work on it as much as you want to.

But for me, I was just like, I'm not healed.

At all.

And you know what I'm saying?

It's always going to hurt.

Society honestly gets mad at us, I feel like, for that.

They're like, move on.

Get over it.

Let it go.

You did it.

And like you said in the beginning, like you said in the beginning, like, how, my child is my child, regardless of if I place them or I parent them, like, I'm always going to love them and it's always going to be painful.

I love when people tell me to get over it.

I love it so much because my response is always like, okay, which one of your kids are you going to give up?

Yeah.

Thank you.

Which one of your kids would you give up and then get over it?

And then get over it years later.

Like, how would that work for you?

And that always gets them to shut up because they wouldn't.

They couldn't imagine.

And then you ask them why.

Why wouldn't you?

And then, yeah.

Uh-huh.

And I'm almost nine years post-placement, and I just started therapy.

Just started therapy.

Oh, you did?

Because I let it fester for so long.

And it doesn't.

I think you think that you're different and that it's going to go away.

And you're not that messed up from it.

And then you're like, it just seeps through you in different ways.

It comes out in your parenting with your children at home.

And it comes out with your spouse.

And it comes like it comes out with how you interact with your family and the anger that you hold on to.

And I don't want to be angry for the rest of my life.

I want to have peace.

I have a great open adoption and I don't have peace about it.

And I want that so desperately.

Some kind of peace, some level of peace.

I don't think I'm going to get fully Zen forever in my life.

But yeah.

Do you feel like, do you feel like now with parenting, the child that you're parenting now, do you feel like that was...

Oh, well, first of all, do you feel like you experienced any postpartum depression?

Oh, my God.

Did you?

It was years of it, I felt like.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think,

yeah, I felt very

anxious with my daughter.

I had postpartum depression with the son that I place.

And then I had a ton of anxiety and just like postpartum rage.

More against my husband.

That could be a million things.

You could take him.

But I had just a ton of anger and a ton of

anxiety with her.

And then that lasted a long time.

Like they say, like, oh, it could last three months.

and then like we're going on a year like it's not going away

but then I found out that it can last for a very very long time it can be ongoing

yeah postmortem depression and I had this naive belief that when I had my daughter that not that I knew that it wasn't like a replacement right and I knew that it wasn't like gonna all be resolved, but I did feel like there was gonna be that part of me that yearned for someone to nurture that that was going to kind of go away and it didn't fully resolve obviously so right um but with my my daughter was also a pregnancy that was not planned i we we were married but yeah we just had gotten married like just

had gotten married three months prior and the pandemic started oh wow uh two weeks before i found out i was pregnant oh dang yeah i was curious i was curious about the postpartum depression because like looking back on my

adoption journey, like I do feel like I went through postpartum depression after placing her because I mean, who wouldn't?

I feel like almost in a sense.

Oh, yeah.

But then also just more recently, I struggled with postpartum depression after Nova was born.

And then, you know, just most recently finding out that a lot of birth moms experience.

postpartum depression after placing a child.

And it was all just like clicking me with me.

I was like, well, of course, like your body is remembering all this trauma from the first time you had a child.

Like, of course, it's going to trigger things within your, you know, your mind and your nervous system.

Um, and so, do you also, so like the whole postpartum stuff, but also as you've been raising your daughter, um, has any of the milestones or anything that she has gone through, has it any of that ever felt triggering for you as a birth mom?

Oh, yeah, I think maybe triggering isn't the right word, but I think it's like a reminder of the sadness.

Yeah.

I don't think I've really been triggered.

I meant like a like a set me off.

No, I mean like emotionally triggered.

Yeah, like emotionally.

And now that my daughter's able to have a relationship, she asks questions, and

you know,

they always ask questions before you're ready for them to start.

No, yeah, they do.

Of course, they do.

Like, what?

What is this?

I didn't prepare for this.

So, yes.

And

there's always, I say this all the time, that there's always someone in my home that's missing.

There's someone that's not sitting at our dining table.

There's someone, there's a bed that's not there, you know.

And so,

and

I very much feel that sadness.

And so,

yeah, it's hard to move.

beyond that.

And there's a part of me that doesn't want to because

I don't want to,

you know, that's my child.

I don't want to like mentally leave them behind.

Let go.

It's one of those things where it's like, you want to let go, but you don't want to let go.

But I also think it brings up a good point that nobody talks about post-relinquishing parenting.

Like, I, you know, you post-relinquishing, and then I'm going to be a parent eventually some years down the line and how that literally will bring up so many things.

Well, it affects your children.

And right, like you said, your daughter's four, right?

Okay, and so at the, I want people to understand at the young age of four, she's already asking questions about her sibling.

I think people get it confused where it's like, oh, well, you implanted all these ideas in your kid's head to know that there's a sibling out there.

And why did you tell them that they have a, you know, a sister?

And it's like, we didn't really do anything.

It was, we have pictures in our house.

We talk about

her birthday.

And so, you know, yeah, the post-relinquishing parenting does not get talked about enough or how you don't really realize how it's going to affect your future children.

I never thought about that.

I never thought about it.

I had a sister that was placed for, or she was adopted by a step parent, but we never knew each other until I was like 16.

She was nine years older than me.

We're as close as you can be with your sister that you didn't grow up with.

But I found out about her when I was 12, but I had already found her pictures buried in the back of a closet.

And it was too many pictures for it to not be a sibling, but I, it was sort of like a fantasy in my head that like this was my sister.

but i was obsessed with going when my parents were not like paying attention to go and find pictures of her this little blonde girl um her school pictures through growing up and everything and i was like obsessed with like who is this person is this my long-lost sister and it was

i know that pain yeah too as the child that was parented and i'm like

Like I know what's happening with my daughter.

The only difference is that we've told her from the the very beginning.

She doesn't have all the details, but she knows that she has a sibling and she has a relationship now as well.

We have a picture of them together in her room.

And just this weekend, she's like, I need you to change my bookshelves around because I need that picture right by my bed.

So I had to move everything around.

And they're like, okay.

But yeah, it is painful for them.

And a lot of times when they're four years old, they're asking questions, but they're not really really expressing exactly how they feel about things

um

well i think people kind of get they i think people get it confused where it's like you know post relinquishing our our child and then parenting later on they're like you're not doing a good enough job by shielding your children from this expression why would i shield that and i'm like i'm so confused you're acting like me talking about the daughter replaced and also this child's full-blooded sibling that like we're wrong for it and i just feel like where did this idea come from?

That it was, it's our fault for trauma.

Like, we're not,

they act like we're traumatizing them.

Gonna parent in secrecy.

And I, like, that's what my parents did.

And I, I don't, like, fault them for, they didn't really know what they were doing, right?

Like, nobody knows, but they definitely didn't have any idea.

Like, they probably shouldn't hide that from us.

Right.

And I, I've experienced the secrecy part of it.

I don't like it.

And I'm not going to do that with my kid.

And kids are, kids are not.

Kids are resilient enough.

Like you can tell them the truth.

It's actually much more preferred to tell them the truth than just hide things from them.

That's betrayal to them, to anybody.

Because that's what I was going to say.

Like, you know, for Nova, because obviously first with Nova, but with all of our kids, like, we've always had.

pictures of Carly all over our house.

You know, she's all over our house.

We celebrate her birthday.

She's talked about all the time.

And so Nova just kind of always, you know, her being the oldest, she's always been raised knowing her.

And so is Veda.

Like Vada will go around the house and be like, That's my sister, Carly, and like, you know, point at pictures of her and stuff like that.

And, um, and it would just when you raise them for it to be normal, it just becomes normal.

Like, Nova would ask certain questions, and I would answer them very truthfully to an age-appropriate, you know, way, and she would understand them because kids are smart.

Sorry, what are you guys supposed to do?

You're on national television, right?

What do these people think you're gonna do?

Like, you're gonna be like, No, that's all that's AI, actually.

Right, it's not real,

and like, and there's cameras around, like, what are they?

I don't know, and so it is.

No, and it's funny because for people to think that it's like traumatizing your kids, it's the total opposite.

If we would hide her and not talk about it, it would be traumatizing.

But it got to the point where, like, you know, I would take Nova to her piano lessons, and some random lady would walk in the door.

And Nova, all of a sudden, would be talking to her.

And she'd be like, Hey, you know what?

My mom had a baby when she was 16, and she didn't have anything, and she lived in a really really bad house.

Like, she and she would start telling this lady, like random people that we would meet, my whole adoption story.

And she would say it completely accurate to her age level.

And then, you know, she would go into her piano lesson, and the lady would look at me and be like, I'm sorry, she's not very, you know, obviously she's not shocked.

Yeah, but for me,

right, right.

But for me, for me, it was like empowering.

I was like, wow, like, look at her.

She understands it.

She grasps it.

She knows the reasons.

And it's important.

And some people can say that.

Some people are smarter than people give them credit for.

Yeah, they are.

And I think people discredit the child's ability to understand things.

And it's like, you think that we're purposely traumatizing our child

children by talking about the child be placed.

That's like really just not, I don't know.

I just don't know.

Total opposite.

We have a total resistance.

I can't speak for like other parts of the world, but I definitely know in this country, there's a, you know, a lot of people are really resistant to the idea of just talking to their children and explaining things.

Right.

Like, what?

Because that's always this, like, there, it's always brought up in policy arguments.

Like, we can't do that.

Cause how am I going to explain it to my kids?

And I'm like, I don't know.

Maybe start by talking to them.

Have a problem.

Maybe start by children.

Because that's what you should be doing, anyways.

And that it's the same thing.

Like, people think, oh, they can't handle it.

They can't handle it.

And I'm like, well, they're not going to handle it at all if you don't tell them.

Or the other thing.

Or the other thing that I love is, you know, if you place a baby for adoption, God forbid you ever have children ever again in the future.

Like, you're not allowed to have any other babies.

How dare you?

Yes.

That's another one that blows my mind.

Well, and that's the other thing that we do in this country all the time, too, is we like to punish everybody and we like to point out who deserves what punishment.

And so for us, it's like, oh, you did this.

And also someone coerced you in some way or forced you or cut away all your other options.

But you still do that.

Now you can't do anything for the rest of your life.

Yeah, they ignore all the other unethical things that happen, but they're going to focus on the, yeah, it just doesn't.

Some of the stuff doesn't make any sense and the more that me and kate talk about it publicly like we're doing right now it's like it's just i i'm still shocked that we have so much more work to do like there is so much more work to do it's it's like mind-blowing actually because i honestly thought we as a society after 16 and pregnant and showing our even our adoption story publicly like we thought okay we're we're moving we're moving we're moving because it was positive at first that's why and then it's the moment we speak our truth that goes against society's norms or whatever they've had in their head built around it.

It's like now we're just the evilest people that ever walked the planet.

And it's mind-blowing to me that, like, wow, we actually still have a lot of work to do.

And we might not even see a change in our lifetime, you know, like who knows?

But I think just talking about it and putting it out in the world is the first right step.

And that's kind of why we wanted to start this podcast and have people like you on here who just, let's get this conversation going and bigger.

Because honestly, when I tell people that adoptees are a minority, I've gotten a lot of negative, like people are very upset with that fact.

And I'm like, well, listen, if you're, instead of yelling at me, because I'm delivering a fact to you, question why this fact is making you so upset because it's important that you understand that, yeah, less than, you know, it's 2% of adoptees out in the whole world, but they're 33 times more likely to commit suicide than any of their peers.

And that's a, that's a really strong statistic that we should be talking about.

Like

it's a thing.

And so it's like, you're getting mad at me for delivering the facts, but let's focus on the facts.

Like, that's a problem.

And honestly, some of those facts in the beginning of the book really just threw me for a loop.

I felt like,

I felt like complete, like a complete shitty mom

and birth mom

for not knowing these things.

I was like, oh my gosh, I placed her for adoption.

How would you have known?

That's what I mean.

It was like, I placed her for adoption, and she's already going to have trauma for for that, but now even more likely to become a drug addict, more likely to struggle with mental health issues, more likely to commit to the city.

Even in the most positive of research,

even in the most positively slanted, biased research that comes out about adoption, about how happy adoptees are and how satisfied they are with their adoption, there's still information in there that's useful.

Like there was one that came out that was like, a lot more adoptees struggle in school than kids who are not adopted.

And that's a concern.

like that's something that needs to be addressed how do we address that um and so you know there there's yeah there's a disparity yes and to go off of that i think that i think what made me upset and angry the most was that birth parents aren't told these things none of this we aren't told about the struggling in school or the struggling with you know uh mirror mirroring or anything like that like genetic mirroring or you know just mental health problems like they don't tell us any of that they don't talk about pre-verbal trauma.

Right.

And it goes back to the fact of like, well, if we knew all of these things and all of the struggles that adoptees go through, that...

it probably wouldn't exist.

And so that's where, you know, just me coming out of my own stuff.

I was like, oh my gosh, I feel like I was kind of manipulated in certain areas and that I was lied to in certain areas.

And it was just something very hard to get slapped in the face with, like, with learning everything.

It's almost like you got to withdraw from the fantasy that you built in your head around it as a birth parent.

You've justified your decision so much that when you get hit with certain facts, you're just like, whoa.

Well, and you want it to be the right decision, right?

Because for all the pain that you've gone through, and then also for what your child may or may not experience as a result, you want that to be the right thing because you can't take it back.

You can't go back on it.

You want it to be the best possible outcome for them.

You don't want them to struggle.

But whether or not that happens is a lot of times out of our hands.

And that's what's really hard to grapple with.

But what we're in control of is educating and spreading this information.

I guarantee if a doctor is an unfiltered book and we read it before we placed, things would look a lot different.

So I think it's important.

Yeah.

So I think it's important that we get this topic out there because the negative feedback that we're getting, it's just clear that it's still very taboo.

People don't want to hear about it.

They don't want us to talk about it.

And I just feel like personally for me, the more that they're telling me not to talk about it, the louder I just want to get.

Yeah, that's you.

That's you.

I mean,

yeah.

And also, too, like how you said, like how we want, obviously we want it to be the best for, you know, the child that we place because, you know, at the time we were thinking it was the best option.

It does go back to about, you know, about openness.

And for adoptees that are adopted to be the most whole and emotionally secure and healthy

adoptee, there has to be openness and there has to be communication on both sides.

As long as it's safe enough to do so.

Yes.

And because, you know, statistics have shown and, you know, research has shown is that that is the most beneficial for them to be whole people.

And that's all that I wanted when I made this.

That's what I want.

Yeah.

Right.

Like, I just wanted her to be whole and happy and healthy.

And it has to, you have to communicate.

Yes, absolutely.

Man.

It's a journey for sure.

It really is.

But do you, so do you get to have like face-to-face visits with your son that you placed?

I I do.

Oh, that's so cool.

Yeah.

We we live far away from each other because I'm in California now.

But

yes, like once or twice a year.

Oh, nice.

Okay.

That's great.

And you're so that's cool.

Your daughter gets to come and

special.

Like we've kind of, we've become,

you know, they become good friends.

And my husband,

they love him and so they love my daughter.

And so it's, it's been a pretty positive experience in that regard.

And so

can I ask you like what?

Yeah, what what what in your opinion has made it a positive experience for you?

Um I think the relationship, the relationship and watching

like being able to be part of that and and watching him grow and and watching

you know, getting to know them better because you know, how much do you really know Lady

during a crisis pregnancy?

Yeah, right.

Um

but and I don't, I don't know.

I have my own personal, like, private feelings about whether or not certain things should have happened

during pregnancy and all of that.

But I also

can't take any of that back.

And so I'm here now and very committed to seeing things through,

doing my part, and playing my role as whatever that may be from year to year.

And so, yeah, there's a lot of positives to it for me personally, but also there's, it's not without

the fact that it's not a very important

thing the grief is,

yeah, the grief is inevitable.

I think the trauma is inevitable, but I also want people to understand that, you know, we're trying to share everything.

So if we have a positive adoption experience, an adoptive parent might be listening to this, like what, what would they what has made it positive?

So obviously it sounds like the access, the open communication.

is really the biggest answer and but i also want to make clear that like i don't share my positive story to convince you that this is the right option for anybody and that right um i i very much honor everybody's like experience and yes good or bad or in between and i never want mine to make people weaponize it and say see what

you can have it's not it's not set in stone right well and just like you said like the happiness and the being gratefulness also comes with there is pain and there's grief and there always will be it's always going to be bittersweet and i think also even for adoptees you know being raised it's like you could have the best adopted parents the most trauma informed parents the you know all the things they honored openness and the adoptee can still have trauma that they have to deal with there's loss there's

loss and yeah that you deal with and um it's a loss of much more than just the two people like the birth parents but their identity and everything.

Um, the mirroring, and the extended family, and the cultural participation, and you know, there's so much there.

Like, it's stuff that if you were raised by your biological parents, that you probably take for granted because you've never thought about it.

Um, you never thought about

never ever being told that, oh my gosh, you look just like your mom did at that age, like, or school projects.

I never hear that, you know, school projects where you have to do the family training.

That's a very, very common thing that I hear adoptes say, that was when it hit me that I was way different.

And it was, that's intense, you know, for them to deal with it.

And it was hard for them.

A lot of them say it was hard for them because it brings up emotions for them, too.

Just because they're kids, like, they still have emotions about it.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah.

I never questioned my belonging in my family.

You know what I mean?

We were lucky.

But people do, people do, and they deal with that.

So,

yeah, I wish it was something that people would just get it through their head because it's actually not that hard to understand.

That's what we're trying to do here with this whole podcast and having you on.

And that's why we're just so thankful that you were able to make this happen.

I know your schedule is busy.

Yeah, so

tell people where could they, where can they find you?

Where can they find the book?

So Adoption Unfiltered is on Amazon.

It's on bookshop.

You can also find out more at adoptionunfiltered.com to see like whatever we're up to.

There may be some events coming up on the West west coast in the late fall.

So

that's coming up.

Um, I can maybe come

mostly.

What'd you say?

Maybe we can go to some of those events, maybe.

Maybe you're invited.

If we're welcome, all right, there you go.

You're invited.

All right.

I will keep guys updated.

Um, and then

I'm on Instagram at From Another Mother, and it's like just how it sounds.

I love it.

Um, and then I also have a project we've been working on for a year now called Utah Adoption Rights, where we are making an effort to let moms know in Utah specifically, we'd like to take it national someday, but in Utah specifically, how to advocate for yourself while you're in pregnancy, considering adoption,

what your rights are, what the state allows you to do.

And we get that information directly to them through their front door.

So that's

our work.

That's what we do.

Make sure to send us all the links so that we can share with all of our listeners.

Yeah, okay, great.

Yes, please do for sure.

And keep doing the work you guys are doing.

I think it's awesome.

Yeah, we support you.

A lot of us.

Yeah, for sure.

And what you guys are doing is awesome.

And thank you so much for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Yes, thank you guys so much.

Thanks, Kelsey.

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