So.... I'm Adopted Podcast!
This podcast creates a space for genuine conversations about adoption, where emotions are acknowledged, journeys are reconciled, and a healthy acceptance of truths is fostered. Delve into the impact of adoption on all parties involved, gaining insights from adoptees, adoptive parents, biological parents, as well as professional psychologists and social workers. Explore the realities, reconciliation processes, and ongoing dynamics of adoption.
So.... I'm Adopted Podcast!
The Search for Self in the World of Adoption
Embarking on a heartwarming journey, we honor the intricate stories of adoption that have influenced lives from the humblest beginnings to the heights of influence. We pay tribute to the riveting adoption tales of figures like Nelson Mandela, whose story resonates with the biblical Moses, and actress Lynn Moody, biological daughter who uncovered her as her mother in the most surprising way. These narratives not only shed light on their personal identities but also weave into the broader human experience, capturing our imaginations and anchoring our latest discussion.
Navigating the complex web of family dynamics, we sit down with an adoptee turned mother, who gives us a raw look into the emotional kaleidoscope found in families with both adopted and biological children. Her candid sharing unravels the layers of love, anger, and reconciliation that accompany the lifelong adoption journey. The conversation goes beyond personal anecdotes, illuminating the significance of the first family, the nuances within the adoption lexicon, and the solidarity found in support groups and podcasts—a testament to the resilience and community within the adoption narrative.
In our final chapter, we find courage in vulnerability as our guest recount her own adoption story and its profound impact on her approach to parenting and professional life. The past and present collide, revealing how pre-verbal memories and trauma can resurface in unexpected ways, particularly when forging connections in our roles as a parent. We also delve into the emotional complexities of reuniting with biological relatives, exploring the multifaceted nature of gratitude and familial love. It's an intimate look at how the quest for identity and connection shapes us, binds us, and inspires us to evolve in our understanding of family and self. Join us as we traverse this deeply human experience, seeking understanding in the shared and unique paths of adoption.
Music by Curtis Rodgers IG @itsjustcurtis
Produce and Edited by Lisa Sapp
Executive Producer Lisa Sapp
Executive Producer Johnnie Underwood
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Welcome to the so I'm Adopted podcast, where we talk everything adoption. This journey is not one we take alone. Together we grapple with raw emotions that surface from adoption stories. We want you to be comfortable enough to heal, so sit back and go with us on this journey as we dive deep into adoption.
Speaker 3:We wanted to create a space for adoption truth. We have a common bond of being adopted. Our stories are very, very different, absolutely. So we wanted to have our conversations and allow other people to hear our conversations and also be able to share theirs as well.
Speaker 2:You know, this podcast is where we will hear our adoption stories from other adoptees, adoptive parents and biological families. We will also have input from licensed professionals such as psychologists, social workers, to get a deeper understanding of this adoption journey. Hopefully, these stories and perspectives will give hope and understanding and courage to those who are adopted or who are thinking about you know, being adopted, along with the journey of acceptance, reconciliation and maintenance of being adopted, you know those are going to be some of the anchors that we will highlight each time we come on this podcast. We want to welcome you to the sixth episode of so I'm Adopted. I'm John.
Speaker 3:And I'm Lisa.
Speaker 2:And we're adopted. So we are at our sixth episode. It is mind blowing, I promise you. Last episode we had a conversation where we talked about foster care and we got so much information from our guests. She reached out to Lisa and wanted to come on the show and can you talk about just how in that conversation, how she reached out and what she shared?
Speaker 3:Yes, so she was just telling us her background, her own journey, growing up in I believe it's Ohio, and she's also in the same profession that you're in. So she wants to, you know. No, last week the fifth episode. Oh, the fifth, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:We're already jumping ahead. That's how exciting this episode is going to be. She's already jumping ahead.
Speaker 3:I'm so sorry, yes.
Speaker 2:The foster care, foster care.
Speaker 3:Yes, I am so sorry, it's okay, forgive me A little. This real, this is real. Allison Davidson. Yes, she's a friend of mine, a very good friend of mine, and she was a wealth of knowledge for us. So once I found out what her profession was, I was like, oh, she's perfect.
Speaker 2:She's got to jump on.
Speaker 3:Yes, perfect, and she was more than happy to come on and share her expertise in regards to the foster care system and all the intricacies that it entails. Got it, got it.
Speaker 2:So definitely check that one out. Remember to catch us on social media. We have Instagram, we have on Facebook, we have email, so please reach out. We have a new segment that we want to start off with and we're going to just talk about famous individuals that were adopted. But when I began to do some research, one of the first names that came up it wasn't necessarily the big shock that he was adopted, but the intricate pieces of it surprised me, and it was Nelson Mandela.
Speaker 3:Really.
Speaker 2:So Nelson Mandela, his father passed away when he was now this is where the data is a little sketchy. It said some said nine, some said twelve, uh, but once his father passed away, he was then adopted by the leaders of the and I'm going to make sure I say it correctly of the um and I'm going to mess it up, but it was a big tribe in his, in his land, and then he was adopted and he lived with that family and as I read it, I thought about moses, think about moses's story, where he was brought in by the king and then he carried out. So it's very parallel to look at these stories and I think it's good for us to bring light to all of the different variations of these non-traditional relationships. Ultimately, that's what this has evolved to.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, and I also have a famous person as well. Okay, so you remember that show. That's my mama Back in the day, yeah, so let's imagine you being a little kid and you watching that show, growing up, mm-hmm, and fast forward 50 years later. Right, you find out that all that time, that woman that was your mama, that was a character on that show. So, let me, that was, that was your mom, not my mom, oh, okay well another, lisa's mama okay, all right, all right, her name is Lisa as well, and so she was adopted when she was young.
Speaker 3:Okay, her parents had passed away, and that's when she decided that she wanted to go ahead and, you know, start searching for her adoptive mother. The story that she told her about her biological mother was that she loved her and she knew she couldn't take care of her. So, you know, just think about that you have two mothers. So she gave her a piece, in a sense, that some kids were like, well, why was you know, why did they, you know, get rid of me, or whatever. She never had that sense because of how her adoptive mother presented the bio mom to her.
Speaker 2:Got it, that make sense. Yeah, it makes lots of sense.
Speaker 3:So once her adoptive parents passed away, she started you know, she's like her son encouraged her, so we'll know, you know, know who we are, who our people are or whatever. So she got some information, got the name and she googled it Lynn Moody and she was like, oh okay, and she said wait a minute watch that show.
Speaker 3:Wait a minute you know because she saw her face. But you know, lynn Moody has been in Roots, she's been in a few other things, roots and something else but she knew the face. And one of her girlfriends said you know what, remember we were growing up, I kept telling you you look like her. She said, but you know, she never really paid any attention, never thought about it, never thought about it. And so the reason why she was she never really paid any attention, never thought about it. And so the reason why she was she gave up for adoption.
Speaker 3:Lynn gave up for adoption. She was 18. She was just going to school in California. She met a guy one night stand got pregnant. You know, family was, I think, from Chicago prestige, pregnant. You know, family was, I think, from Chicago prestige. And you know, back then, when you go to this away from home, you go to the home, the high, to pregnant. So she had the baby. And what stood out to me and the video that I saw this was when she had an interview on the Tamara Hall show. I think it was 2021. Then again in 2022, 2023. What stood out to me that once she met her for the first time, she had that healing. She said I was healed, and I resonate with that, because my mother said that she was broken too, and when I came back, she was healed. You know she was broken too, and when, when I came back, she was healed.
Speaker 3:That's awesome you know, and she said, even though a lot of good things happened in my life with her, her fame and all this stuff, her knowing that there was a child out there that was her, her daughter. But you know, she pursued her career and everything, but she still had that hole. That hole was always there. And she said she tried to find her at one point, but she still had that hole. That hole was always there. And she said she tried to find her at one point, but because she gave all of her rights away in order for her to be deaf, she couldn't. She couldn't find anything.
Speaker 3:So she was just amazed that now, after all this year, she never got married, she never had any other kids. Then she has a daughter and then she has a grandson. All of this and she couldn't believe that all of a sudden I have a daughter and a grandson. So for over a year she kept calling them, not calling them by his name, she was calling them grandson and calling her daughter because she never experienced it before, it was all new to her. Yeah, so that was a nice, warm and fuzzy one.
Speaker 3:They live maybe 10 miles away from each other in California.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Everything happens for a reason. This week on our episode, we have another individual that I'm excited about. I'm excited because she's have another individual that I'm excited about and I'm excited because she's in the field that I'm in. She reached out on email, she went through LinkedIn and was looking, and because I'm a BCBA and she's a BCBA and I'll have her talk about the field because it talks about behavior and the environment, so it's really embedded in everything we do. So we have Sarah McFadden and we want to let her in the room and then, once she gets in, I will read her bio. Hey, sarah.
Speaker 3:Hey, sarah, hi.
Speaker 2:This is Sarah and again I want to read her bio. I talked a little bit about it, but I want everybody to see who I was talking about. We are excited that you are here today. So Sarah is a dedicated professional with over a decade of experience in the field of behavior analysis. As a board certified behavior analyst, she specializes in providing positive behavior management, support and coaching in public school settings. Sarah is deeply committed to promoting and advocating for trauma-informed practices and has a passion for sharing her knowledge in this area with educators. In addition to her work in the public school setting, sarah has recently begun exploring avenues to extend her impact through adoption-specific, trauma-informed caregiving, training and behavior support.
Speaker 2:I love that Sarah's personal journey as an American domestic adoptee has deeply influenced her professional path. In reunion with her biological family, who she refers to as her first family, sarah has navigated the complexities of loss and connection, drawing strength from her experiences to better understand and support others in similar situations. In addition to identifying as a behavior analyst and adult adoptee, sarah is a wife and a mother of two. She finds great joy and fulfillment in her role as a parent. Her children have brought a new depth of meaning to her life, allowing her to experience the closeness she has always yearned for as an adoptee. We're going to get into that. That's awesome.
Speaker 2:So, Sarah welcome.
Speaker 3:Welcome, Sarah.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 3:Yes, and before we start, I just want to make sure that you know you're in this frame with me, so we're just going to do a little.
Speaker 2:Can you see both of us? I think it's just short because of.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's good. So there you go, all right. So, sarah, always, we always like to start off with this main question when did you?
Speaker 1:So I don't really remember a time that I didn't know. I've just always grown up being told that. You know, that's a part of my story. When I was two and a half three, my parents were considering adoption of a child in foster care who's in foster care with their friends and although that didn't work out as we were, they were going through that process. They were.
Speaker 1:They explained it to me and I remember from a young age reading a book called how you Were Born and it had pictures of a developing fetus or baby and and then it also described childbirth and how babies came to be. And when we would read it they would include my story and say you know, you have a mother that gave birth to you in this way. But you came to us, her arrive and I knew that she was coming and I remember just laying in the floor waiting for her to get there and she arrived in a limousine, which was exciting because I don't think I had ever seen anything like that at you know, four um, wow. So yeah, it was so. It was so normalized um that by the time it started becoming a question in school you know the icebreaker of tell us something that's unique about you.
Speaker 1:I would use that that I'm adopted as my unique thing and I get all these questions and I didn't understand why it wasn't normal for everyone else because it had been so normalized for me. So I just I had always known, and it was just always a part of the story that my parents told me Awesome.
Speaker 1:So outside of you and your sister, so it was just the two of you no, so my um younger sister was adopted into our family when I was four and then my parent, my adoptive parents, uh, had my they by they um, had a natural born son, my younger brother, when I was seven. So I have a younger brother and a younger sister in my adoptive family. So that was also a unique dynamic of our family, just having both adoption and biological children.
Speaker 3:So speak to that a little bit. Can you do a little more of the dynamics of that? So having a birth child and then two adoptive children, how was that? Was it different, or did they treat everybody was pretty much the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think there's a lot of different dynamics that are at play, but it there was a very clear difference and I think a lot of it had to do. I didn't understand it at the time but now, as a mother, I understand it. I just I think that there's a bonding that happens to a mother when she grows a baby, and there's a lot of oxytocin and and things that happen that just create this natural bonding, especially if you're breastfeeding. Um, I don't, I don't know what the research says about that, but I don't think that it is as strong with an adopted child. Um, at least it did not seem to be. I just there was like a natural rhythm to when my, my brother, was born and their relationship and and there was there was a difference absolutely and in in a lot of regards.
Speaker 2:And how old were you when he was born?
Speaker 1:I was seven.
Speaker 2:So, seven, you were able to recognize a shift and you were aware of the environment changing.
Speaker 1:I don't know that. I would say that I recognized it at seven for what it was. I recognized it at seven for what it was. I think that at seven there was a lot going on. Also, my sister, my, you know, we all came of age, um, and as my brother, uh, you know, as a toddler, he was my mother's shadow, just always there, um, very similar in personality to to her and my father, and that he was a bit more calm and subdued and would entertain himself for hours and just very compliant, just very different but also very alike to them as I got older and became more self-reflective, and then also reflective of everything around me.
Speaker 3:I noticed that there were definitely differences.
Speaker 1:How do you feel about that? I don't know that. I had a specific feeling that I always attached throughout my life with mental health and, you know, coming of age and going through adolescence. I think there were times that I was angry. I think there were times that I was sad. There were times where it made sense that, you know, that's the way that it was, especially as I became a mother. So I think it's so complex to really put a single feeling on it. There was definitely times of resentment and there's probably some still lingering resentment there, um for sure, and I think my sister also, um shares that same feeling.
Speaker 2:Okay, did your sister go into the mental health field as well?
Speaker 1:no, she didn't. I try not to tell her story for her, but yeah, that's fine, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I was just curious because a lot of times, those of us that have gone through the adoption journey, we find ourselves indirectly being in that support place. So that's why I was asking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely For me, and I think we both had different stories too. Um, whereas my parents, uh, our adoptive parents, told me the story that my mother wanted to keep me, but she couldn't, they didn't have that same story, they didn't have a lot of background knowledge about her or her um first family, so they, they didn't have that same story to tell her and they didn't. I don't think that they. I mean, I now know that they didn't tell me, that they didn't just make up that story and so they didn't just make up one for her. They just didn't have any information for her. And so I think that we both process our adoptions differently, in part because of that.
Speaker 2:Understood. I love the fact that you use first family. It was in your bio and then you just said it again. Where did that come from?
Speaker 1:So it's pretty common in the adoption community, but it, you know, biological places so much distance and just makes it feel mechanical and it's it doesn't really honor the fact that they are your family and they were your first family. They were the family that brought you into this world and that's an important fact for me, for my story, of my story. I know that not every adoptee uses that language, but it's important for me to just honor them as my first family.
Speaker 2:I love that I know and, again, from our standpoint, we don't know the language and the common terms, so I feel like an outsider with regards to just the knowledge. That's why this podcast is so important, because you have those of us who again think that our journey is so unique that it's only us. But there's so much information that is out there Like I didn't know about an adoptee conference that takes place. There are lots of supports, so it's just a wealth of information and hopefully we can begin to just be that resource to help people get the information.
Speaker 3:Yes, yeah, a whole community that we, as adoptees, were not aware of not aware and I didn't know that there is a conference.
Speaker 1:I know that there's a lot of different podcasts and meetings and groups online and in person. Yeah there, there's a lot out there.
Speaker 2:So I definitely will have to share that conference information. We'll send it to you in email. So any other questions about the younger years and stuff before we jump, because I'm excited about the ABA part of it and how it impacts it.
Speaker 3:Oh, you go right ahead because. I saw my phone and I don't know my questions.
Speaker 2:That's fine, no problem. So how do you think you being adopted impacts your approach to working with clients and parents?
Speaker 1:So that's a pretty complex question and I feel like I'm still starting or still processing and sorting things out. I think I'm. I've always had a very special place in my heart for kids who struggle and at a young age my sister had behavioral issues and through the dynamics of our family, I would often feel like I had to fix the situation and figure out how to remedy it, and I think a lot of it was probably escape from the aversiveness that was her behavior and the fighting and the screaming that surrounded our home and I think I was always trying to understand myself, understand her, and so that's kind of, I think, how I got into it.
Speaker 1:But I think it affects my practice in that I am very sensitive towards making sure that I'm trauma informed and that I use trauma informed practices and I don't think that trauma, I assume trauma. I don't ever wait to hear that they've been traumatized or that they have trauma or PTSD or a diagnosis. I just assume it with everyone because really we've all experienced traumatic events in our lives and it's just the human experience and we all process those events differently and some of those events really impact us and our ability to move on normally. That's an air quotes for anybody who can't see the video, but it just it impacts all of us and so you know our field doesn't have the greatest reputation for being sensitive to our clients.
Speaker 1:Our field has a pretty bad reputation and there's a lot of trauma that has been caused. If you listen to autistic voices, there's a lot of trauma that has been caused by our field and using forced compliance and punitive things, because we know how to manipulate behavior. You know we use the science to manipulate behavior and whether or not it's with good intent or bad intent or neutral intent, it still impacts the people that we and our clients and our students and the people that we we serve. So for me, I think adoption just impacts my sensitivity towards that. To always try to ensure that I'm not just using good intent but I'm also paying attention to the client, to recognize if what I'm doing is a positive experience or a punishing experience.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I love the fact that you said we all go through trauma and I think we have to use that language because a lot of times we go through traumatic experiences and we just brush it under the rug. And I think for our generation, in this season, now we have the language to really understand and the research to call things what they were. Prior to, they really didn't understand what trauma was. It was, oh, that's just life or that's just this. Well, there are so many lasting impacts of that. So I want to ask now because in your body we also learned that you were a parent how do you think your adoption journey and you went into it a little bit, where you talked about you had to be the protector and fixer how do you think being adopted impacts your parenting lens?
Speaker 1:So I think, in pretty unexpected ways, I think that I didn't realize that I had lasting trauma until I had kids. I don't think I was effect. I was, um, experiencing the extent of my past, the trauma that I've, you know, experienced from adoption until I had kids, because as a baby, when you're an infant, I was adopted as an infant. So I don't remember being relinquished, I don't remember, um my first mother being a mother to me as a child or baby. So I think that and there's research that shows that we have different types of memory. So there's implicit memory, which are our feelings and our emotions, and there's explicit memory, which are stored in a verbal way where we can retell those memories. And because I was adopted at a pre-verbal age, I didn't have those verbal memories.
Speaker 1:But I think that I had a lot of implicit memories. I had a lot of emotional flooding that happened and I couldn't explain it and and a lot of anxiety and and it even still surfaces in different times. Like I'm great at being non-reactive at work professionally, and so I thought I was well-equipped to be a parent and I know that some of that is just every parent's experience but, um, it's been really, really tough in a way that I never, ever imagined that it would be Like not just what I would say normal frustration, but it's been emotionally tough. Tough, I think, to be to become a parent, um, but I also think that I appreciate being a parent because it's a connection that I always longed for, that I didn't have, um, and I I always wanted you know, like even just simply simply seeing someone that looks like me in my everyday life.
Speaker 3:Right, yes.
Speaker 1:Uh, you know, I don't other than, uh, you know, our height, stature, my adoptive mom and I don't really resemble each other. Mom and I don't really resemble each other, and so I mean that alone just I'll catch my kids making facial expressions and it, you know, kind of catches you off guard here and there.
Speaker 1:Did you always want kids. When you were growing up, did you say I want to have kids, I want to have a house full of kids, or what. So I played with dolls from a very, very young age and I remember I think it was second or third grade we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I drew a house with myself and kids. And what I wanted to be when I grew up was a mom.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. I've just always, I've always wanted to be a mom. So I've just always, I've always wanted to be a mom. I've always wanted to to experience that.
Speaker 3:So you had mentioned always wanting to be a mom, a relationship that you really didn't have. Can you speak to that? As far as your relationship with your adoptive mom, how did that look?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, again, it's complex and I get a little anxious talking about it because I know that people who are adopted will say I've talked to enough adoptees that they get it, but it's something that very rarely I've talked to a non-adoptee and they've gotten it. You just kind of know that that connection isn't isn't what it. You know what it could be, that there's something lacking there. I I think that that, for me, was grounded in in the relationship that my parents had with my brother, um, and that they didn't have with my sister. I, um, there's just a closeness that is hard for me and, um, I I've done some um professional development, more on a personal level, about different attachment styles, and I'd say that I'm I have a an avoidant attachment style.
Speaker 1:Relationships are really hard for me and that being close and being vulnerable is really hard for me. It's it's hard for me to connect and let other people in, and and I never really felt like I had an authentic, close, genuine relationship with my parents in a way that I saw all of my friends having relationships with their parents. So I think it was a lot of that environmental. I was very, I was always very self-aware, um, and I was always very aware of relationships. It was, it was something that interests me so much, and I think that that is also why I was so interested in my sister and and went into the field that I did go in. Um, I was just always so fascinated by relationships and I think it was because I always knew that mine seemed different and I didn't know why, and I wanted to explain it.
Speaker 3:Interesting Wow. Yeah that's wow.
Speaker 2:Even being adoptees, we listening to your story and I think this is why it's power in our stories, because it's so many like check the boxes that I can relate to, but then there are some things that I'm like, hmm, never thought about it that way. So I just think that this, this pool of adoptees, has the potential to really just help and heal and encourage one another. So I want to ask this question Do you think and I think I know the answer, because in listening to what you have said previously do you think that there's a level of trauma in all adoptee stories and journeys?
Speaker 1:So this, what this? I have, I think, a couple of different answers for that, or maybe a couple parts of an answer for that. I have a lot of trauma-informed care, training and professional development. So when I think of trauma, there's a couple different things that I think about, which are events that we experience that are, by their nature, traumatic. A car accident is traumatic. Seeing somebody get assaulted is traumatic. There are different events that can be perceived as traumatic, but we also all experience and perceive and process those events differently. And so there may be one person that sees a car accident and maybe it's a really bad car accident. There's two witnesses One sees it from and they go home and they just can't get over it home and they just can't get over it and they have to seek out counseling because they can't keep like. They keep reliving that visual in their head over and over and over again. There might be another witness who goes home, tells their partner hey, you wouldn't believe this accident that I saw. And then you know, when they recall it later, there's no emotional reaction that comes up, it was just something that happened to them. So we all process these events differently. And then there's repeated trauma, so you might call it small T trauma. There are these events that are traumatic events and they happen over and over and over again and so that over and over and over again can pile up. And then you have your big T trauma, which are like very extreme traumatic events, you know assault, rape, abuse, those things that. But we all still process and experience them different. So that's the trauma piece.
Speaker 1:And when you talk about adoption, even with infant adoption, you take an infant that's been, that has grown, literally come to life for nine months in a body, and they hear the voices and they have the smells of that mother. They learn the rhythm of the gait of that mother, they hear the heartbeat of that mother. They hear the rhythm of the gait of that mother. They hear the heartbeat of that mother. They hear the voices of the people that that mother surrounds themselves with, and that's what that infant knows. Whether they have language to form, to process around it, that's what that infant knows. And we all have a survival instinct and when you are born your brain is only developed such that your survival instinct is really what drives you. So babies cry and they make different sounds and they root for their mother's breast and it's all just survival based and it's all just survival based. And so the baby comes out knowing the mother's voice and knowing that safety and security, and that's how they're going to survive, and that's how they're going to get their food, and that's how you know, that's what they've known.
Speaker 1:And to suddenly not have that anymore, and that's a traumatic event. That is a child no longer hearing the safety and the familiarity that it's only ever known and then as that child you know a lot of children are with their first family for some amount of time before relinquishment. You know you talked about foster care last week. Some of those kids might have been quite old before they entered the foster care system and that builds that history of where they can access safety and security and to just abruptly remove that, that's a trauma.
Speaker 1:And so I think that all adoptees experience a traumatic event. But I also think that adoptees experience and process that traumatic event differently. So in the community of adoptees there are some adoptees who say that they've had a wonderful experience, they're very grateful for being adopted and they had really wonderful adoptive parents, and they don't understand the other people that are saying you know, I have all this trauma because there is another side that is saying I've incurred all this trauma and so I think it's a spectrum and I think, just like most things we all, there is a spectrum to it and we process things differently. That also can influence how that trauma and how that traumatic event impacts whether or not that person is then traumatized or perceives it as a traumatization.
Speaker 2:Awesome, I love your answer. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:That was good. Yes, so just switching gears just a little bit. What's your current relationship? Whoa, before I ask that question, did you ever try to seek out your first family?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when I turned 18, so I had always known that I was adopted and my parents actually had adopted adoption records from my adoption out photocopied files, probably around the time that I needed my birth certificate, because I had my original birth certificate within those files, just with like white out over my first mom's name and any identifiable information was was crossed out so that I could not see. It. Was crossed out so that I could not see it, but we did.
Speaker 1:There was, I think, john. You had a similar scenario where there was a little bit of a name. It was only her first name, but we we thought that her name was Margaret and it was her name's Margaret, or her name was Margaret, but she went by Margo. Okay, so when I turned 18, I was adopted through a private agency and my parents had kept in contact with the lawyer and he had always said, you know, on the on her 18th birthday, if you're comfortable and she wants to, like, I will help you guys find the, find her first family, or every. They all refer to it biologically.
Speaker 1:So he did some searching and actually found my family through my older brother. My first mom had a son who she had raised the older half brother, so she had had him, was raising him, and when she gave me up for adoption and I I had actually known this I found out they knew that I had an older brother and I was made aware of it. Oh, okay, yes, lee, so it wasn't a surprise to me, but that's how they, my lawyer, was able to find my first family was through him, because he, he's a computer nerd, so he was online and she wasn't, and he was. My lawyer was able to find him and I talked to her on my 18th birthday.
Speaker 2:Wow, how was that? How was that?
Speaker 1:It was not what I expected, I think. You know, I think as adoptees, especially if you know that you're adopted. Growing up, because some yeah, some don't, and and I know, lisa, you share that story but growing up knowing that you're adopted, there's a lot of fantastical ideas that flow through. And you know Alanis Morissette I was convinced that she was my mother because I loved her music and I cannot give a rhyme or reason other than we both had dark hair.
Speaker 1:I cannot give a rhyme or reason other than we both had dark hair. It's pretty common, I think, for adoptees to see famous people and think that you know what if? And I knew that they didn't live around. You know, live near. I knew that I was born in Louisiana, so I didn't have the same experience of looking around everywhere I went and thinking maybe I was related to them, but I would all the time think that somebody on TV, long story short.
Speaker 1:I was expecting all of these fantasies and then, when I talked to my, my biological mom, it was a reality. And there was also this part where she remembered being pregnant with me and having me and had always thought about me. She named me, Hope, and had written my name on my birthday in every calendar that she had ever owned. So we had this, you know, emotional connection that she felt for me, but I didn't. I didn't share that because she was a stranger to me and I had grown up with parents and a family and so I didn't understand she. I think it was like our second or third time that we talked and she told me that she loved me and I just was not not ready for that. So yeah, it was complex.
Speaker 3:Wow. So when she said that she loved you, I know how I felt when I heard that for the first time. It was because I was like, well, I don't know you, I don't know you, so how can you love me? But I got it. But I was, I mean, my. My adoptive mother loved me. She showered me in all these things. Do you think I know how I felt? But do you think the relationship that you had with your adoptive mother made you feel that way?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but in a different way. So it was more of like a guilt trip, but a covert one, so it was. I just remember my adoptive mom saying don't forget who your real mother is, who raised you, don't go replacing me. And to me there was a lot of complexity in that, because I never felt especially close to her or especially seen by her or loved in the way that I felt like I needed to be loved by her.
Speaker 1:But she did provide for me and she did care for me and I had, um, you know, I I was raised with privilege, whereas I wouldn't have been had I grown up with my biological mother and and so there's all this complex, weird pressure to feel grateful and thankful, um, and complex feelings around that. And then the person that was supposed to be there or and I don't think I processed like, I don't think I had the words for it, but I think I felt it. You know, the connection that I had always longed for, that person that I had always longed for, was telling me that they love me, but they weren't there when I needed those connections. They weren't there to offer that, and they were now telling me they were now offering it. But so you know.
Speaker 3:And you didn't know what that looked like because you didn't have that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there was some and I think at the time I thought of it as well. I have my, I had a family that was good to me, and I don't know you, but I think there was a lot of under the surface things that I'm now starting to understand and putting a language to that. I didn't understand why I had emotions that I had when I first met her.
Speaker 3:I can understand that.
Speaker 2:So what's your?
Speaker 3:relationship with, with your adoptive family and your first family today.
Speaker 1:So my Margo, my first mother, uh, and I I did like later in life meet my first father and they both um. So Margo passed away about 10 years after we met, um, and then my first father passed away about six years ago, and it was about two years after we had met, and so I think it was. But so obviously you know that happened. But I had a half brother, a maternal half brother and a paternal half brother, and then I'm I've also gotten to know my, my mother's brother and sister quite well and I have cousins, and so I met all of them when I was 18. And I quickly developed a really close relationship with my older brother, her son and my aunt. My first aunt has come to visit me with my cousin and her husband and my uncle my uncle and my aunt.
Speaker 1:I should say my uncle's gonna be like, well, I came too, but they both came and visited me, and so it's. But they live in Florida and I'm in Ohio, so there's a long distance relationship piece to it that has made it really hard to build that connection in a way that is as close as maybe I would have hoped and they might've hoped for, um, and then I I'm not, as I I met my first father later in life and as well as that brother, so it I don't know much about that side of the family. I did meet them in person, but we aren't as close. And as for my adoptive family, it's it's, it's complex.
Speaker 1:I think again, as a parent, I'm realizing all of these things that I didn't know were there. And in addition to that, we've moved back in with them for the time being, as my husband and I sort through some finances to be able to purchase a house. So we're and I think that there's a lot in childhood that we paint with a rainbow picture that maybe we don't remember, you know, and it's probably a good thing, it's probably our, our minds, protecting us from things that are unnecessary, unnecessary to really ruminate over, or um, but moving back in has reminded me, or or reawaken those memories that weren't so pleasant and, um, like, the parenting style is very different. So then there's also this like little bit of a power struggle of like wanting the autonomy to parent the way that I parent, and also feeling really triggered by the way that they parent, and so it's complex. I would say I don't really know Like I feel, like that's a whole other conversation.
Speaker 3:Part two for you.
Speaker 2:So I want to give space to you because if anyone is in the area that you know has questions or from a professional standpoint, do you mind sharing your information so that they can reach out to you in that?
Speaker 1:area. The best contact is probably my email, and it's Sarah McFadden, so S-A-R-A-H-M-C-F-A-D-D-E-N dot B-C-B-A at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:So I want to ask this question being able to share your story, finding this podcast, finding this, what is your thought or how does it make you feel with this opportunity of being able to share your story here with us this evening?
Speaker 1:I was really excited yesterday and then today I was like, oh shit, like sorry it was.
Speaker 1:You know it's, it's a lot to, and I've I've shared it with other adoptees in a very uh, you know small group or online in a safe space. Um, this is different and I'm also trying to kind of find a way to connect my professional world with my personal world. But there are a lot of negative feelings wrapped up in my personal world, but also that's why I'm so passionate about, you know, being a support to others professionally. So it's, it's scary, but it's it also does feel, you know, good to be able to share and, especially with the goal in mind that you know, if I can find a way to professionally support other adoptees and make safe spaces for other adoptees to share stories that that might be uncomfortable or there might be healing that's needed, needed, or even adoptees that are still children or teenagers that you know they need support from their parents or from others that understand their experiences in a way that most of their you know community don't of their, you know, community don't, absolutely, absolutely yes.
Speaker 2:So again, we want to thank you for a trusting us to come on our podcast and and share your story and share your truths. And, I'll be honest, I want to make sure that we stay connected because I have a passion as well to be in that professional space, to be able to help individuals. I always share when I do professional developments in the school system. I know I have a bias for students that are adopted or they have gone through foster care because of my experience and my journey and I try and encourage people to understand and know what your bias is. We all have them, but we always don't want to address why we have them. So, just like you, I want to find that pocket to be able to really make an impact or make another impact and difference in this field, because I feel like it's a taboo field, like nobody wants to talk about it in public. But we're here. You know, you remember the Lorax movie. We're here. We're here.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just amazing. Thank you again. I can't thank you enough.
Speaker 1:And I I mean when I, when I was researching I was looking for BCBA and adoption like how can I bring these two together? And your name popped up and I saw that you guys had just started this podcast. I was so excited. I think I sent two pages of a first email. I was so excited.
Speaker 2:Lisa was so excited. She said, john, but she didn't tell me that you were at BCBA. She said someone reached out and here's a story and when I read it I said wait, wait, wait a minute. She's a, she's a mafia. I had a whole different excitement because, again, we're limited, so it's not a lot of us. But now you take the adoption and the ABA and you know how do we view that, what's our commonalities?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. This has been awesome. We really appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day just to spend some time with us and share your story.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I appreciate you both as well. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:No problem.
Speaker 1:Thank you, yep.
Speaker 2:So everybody, and I'm gonna ask you, because this is how we end it I'm John, I'm Lisa, I'm Sarah and we are adopted Adoptees. Thank you, I'm going to be using the whole first family thing I've never. I hadn't heard of that, but I will be using it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yes, I love it.
Speaker 2:It really helped us tonight.
Speaker 3:Yes, thank you, sarah. Thank you, sarah have a great one.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to the so I'm Adopted podcast. We hope that this was informative and educational. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at so I'm Adopted. Also, subscribe to our YouTube channel, so I'm Adopted. And again, thank you for listening and until next time, make the choice to begin your healing journey.
