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!
Open Your Mouth and Tell Your Story
What happens when a four-year-old's brave disclosure at a doctor's appointment changes the trajectory of her entire life? Sana Latrice Cotton joins us to share her extraordinary journey through foster care, adoption, and eventual reconnection with her biological family that will leave you breathless with its divine orchestration.
From being separated from her twin brother when he was incarcerated at age 15 to discovering her future husband's grandmother had mysteriously kept her childhood photo for years, Sana's story reveals how our deepest wounds often become our greatest purpose. Her raw account of navigating multiple family systems—biological, foster, and adoptive—illuminates the complex emotions adoptees experience while seeking identity and belonging.
Now the founder of Unashamed Inc., Sana has transformed her trauma into purpose by creating community for teenagers in foster care—the "forgotten" age group she believes needs the most support. Her organization provides branded merchandise that removes stigma and celebrates foster youth identity, while her "Roots and Wings" program helps adult adoptees locate their biological families. Her recent discovery of her biological father's family after decades of searching offers hope to anyone still looking for answers.
The most powerful moment comes when Sana reveals how opening her mouth as a child not only saved her life but continues to save others through her advocacy work. "Tell your story," she urges, "because it's attached to the freedom of so many other people." Whether you're an adoptee, foster parent, or someone who loves someone touched by adoption, this conversation will remind you that no part of your story is wasted when you have the courage to share it.
Follow Sana on social media @SanaLatrice or visit her nonprofit at unashamedinc.org to learn how you can support foster youth in finding their voice and purpose.
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 andle 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. How are you doing?
Speaker 1:I am doing fantastic. It's great to be back, great back. It's been a minute.
Speaker 2:It has been a minute. You know, life gets to life, as they say, and you get caught up in your routines and one thing takes precedence and now this becomes a priority. But I will say it is good to be back in our space.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I'm excited about the events of this evening, our guests and so let's do what we do.
Speaker 2:So I'm excited as well. And when you give the narrative of our guest, I want to ask her a little bit about, because she's a reason why we jumped back in this double dutch as quickly as we did. So I am excited. But before we do that again, we want to encourage you to hit the like share button. Look at us on all platforms. Make sure that we are getting the word out about non-traditional relationships and families and just trying to really empower and educate. One of the things that we started doing was bringing light to famous adoptees. So, lisa, who do you have this week?
Speaker 1:I have Hold, please for a second. I was trying to print it out, but it didn't work.
Speaker 2:That's your electronic drumroll.
Speaker 1:I have Tiffany Haddish, oh, the actress and comedian.
Speaker 2:Okay, she ready.
Speaker 1:She ready, but she was in foster care. She entered foster care at the age of nine and she experienced many multiple placements during her time in foster care, but then she ended up being adopted by her grandmother, who ended up, you know, legally adopting her after so many years that she was in foster care. So that's, and to this day she's now an advocate of foster care. She speaks out about it quite often and and she is, you know, she has some programs out there as well. So I knew she was in foster care. I just never realized that she was eventually adopted by her family.
Speaker 2:It was interesting and maybe she has. I just haven't seen it. I haven't heard her really use that in her comedic stand.
Speaker 1:I haven't actually listened to any of her comedy shows or anything, so I can't say but that's interesting. If she hasn't, I would think that would be a wealth of material.
Speaker 2:Well, because you know, most comedians use pain for their comedy, but she's been in the game for quite a while. I will say but I'll go back and look. So that's interesting, that's a good one, that's a real good one. So my person. They found out when they were 35 years old that they were adopted, and they were adopted when they were three months old. You said what?
Speaker 1:Like 35. I said oh, I was like 37.
Speaker 2:So they were adopted, and I'm going to save the name for last because I didn't know this one. It blew my mind. They were adopted, and I'm gonna save the name for last because I didn't know this one. It blew my mind. Okay, they were adopted by banna and byford mcdaniels. You know who this is addy mcdan no, they.
Speaker 2:This is the statement that they made. They did an interview with Essence and he said I realized I was given love, direction and education, something that was pivotal in me becoming the person I was destined to be. Every child, regardless of their unfortunate situation, deserves the opportunity to become positive, productive, achieving people with access to the assistance to achieve their dreams and desires. In 2006, he co-founded the Felix Organization, which is a summer camp, and they offer financial support for children in foster care.
Speaker 1:I'm anxious to hear who this person is.
Speaker 2:Be anxious for nothing, because I'm going to tell you it is is drum roll. Daryl mcdaniels. Dmc from run dmc oh really yeah, I had no clue I did not know that and he's like I said, he's very open about it. He found out when he was 35. So that again paints a totally different picture. When you find out, it can cause you to be angry or it can cause you to be at a place where you're mature enough to really digest the information. So it just depends.
Speaker 1:It depends. I was angry at first, so yeah, I get it.
Speaker 2:And I guess I didn't. I'm not going to say I didn't have an opportunity to be angry because I was so young. It just was organic and just part of the cards I was dealt. So, um, but yeah, that's so. That is our entertainment or celebrity adoptee story, right?
Speaker 1:Yes, yes.
Speaker 2:So let's jump into this double dutch. I'm excited. Yes, again, like you stated earlier, when we first started we had taken a little hiatus just because of life and different situations taking place Positive things, nothing negative. I do want to say that, and we got an email. Do want to say that, and we got an email. You want to talk about the email?
Speaker 1:you can talk about the email, okay yes, you do that.
Speaker 2:So in the email it was talking about the podcast and just what it had meant, and I'm gonna ask them to share when we bring them into the room. But I want to talk about the impact of the email. Sometimes I think that we can get caught into our routines and we don't understand the impact that we're having on others. And when you are doing what you're called to do, there's always a purpose for it, there's always a reason behind it, and sometimes we can not understand that or not see it. We don't see the larger picture. And when I read the email, it really pierced me as to say what are you doing? Why are you not following through? You need to continue. People need to hear, people need to know. So it was an excitement that was drawn back up and I'm again I can't use another word, but excited to have her on here tonight. So let's, let's jump in. Give the bio, lisa, let's go.
Speaker 1:Let's go, ok. Ok, let's see here. Miss Sanaa Latrice Cotton is a passionate advocate for the disadvantaged families and youth in the foster care system. As a founder and CEO of Unashamed Inc. A nonprofit organization, she is dedicated to the journey and the current, I'm sorry, to the journey with current and transitioning foster youth and young adults between the ages of 14 and 26 to overcome shame and know they have value and purpose, so they believe they belong in this world. That's powerful right there. Aside from her impactful work with Unashamed, sana is highly regarded as a transformational speaker and author. Is highly regarded as a transformational speaker and author. Her memoir Everyone Will Know it Was God chronicles her personal journey of overcoming early childhood sexual abuse, growing up in foster care, navigating teen pregnancy and finding strength after adoption. Sana also collaborates closely with the Child Welfare Department in her home state of Connecticut.
Speaker 1:Sona's unwavering commitment has garnered recognition from various media outlets, including appearance on CBN, the 700 Club and the Jennifer Hutchins Show in 2019. She was honored as one of the 100 Women of color by June Archer and 1128 Entertainment, highlighting her remarkable achievements. Outside of her professional endeavors, sana finds joy in her 17-year marriage to her husband, joshua, and takes pride in being a loving mother to their two children. Hopefully I'm pronouncing it right, jameer and Janae. If not, correct me when we get back, when you get on. Additionally, she cherishes her role as the doting grandmother of her grandson Sayir, so let's welcome her into the show. One moment. Let me get her in. I don't know why. It's One moment, please. Oh, let me open up my whole entire.
Speaker 2:This will stop. So why are you doing that? Let's talk about one of the differences because prior to, we have not really jumped into the foster care avenue, so this is an opportunity again to shine a light in a different pocket. Our situations as the host of this podcast were the traditional adoptions, you know. So we don't necessarily have the ability to speak from an educated place. You know, we can do research and things of that nature, but being able to speak from a personal experience, we don't have that. So being able to get individuals on that can share their lived experiences or their professional experiences, we definitely invite them to come on and help us out. So when we had this opportunity and we began to do our pre-conversations and just the things that she's already done has really been beneficial, and we finally got her in and welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I'm so excited to be here with you all.
Speaker 2:As I was stating earlier, you were a catalyst in us jumping back in this double dutch. So, before you get into your story and sharing, just thank you first and foremost and, if you wouldn't mind, just sharing a little bit about what motivated you to send the email.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. So I happened on the so I'm Adopted podcast, just in walking. So every day I walk for three miles and I normally try to listen to a podcast or a sermon that you know really interests me, and so I was like I want to listen to something on adoption, and so I kind of searched adoption in the Apple podcast and this one came up. There was a couple that came up before and I was like you know, they weren't African-American and I was really looking for something or from African-Americans, and then I came across yours and so I said, okay, I'm going to start from the very first episode. So I went to the very first episode and I started listening and then, before I knew it, I had went through, you know, on that three mile walk, I think I finished two of the episodes and then the next day I started right back up and kept going and I was just so interested and I was like, oh my gosh, I just love it.
Speaker 3:So I went to your Instagram and I'm like I need to know everything about you, because I'm a person that loves stories. I love to hear other people's stories, especially as it relates to foster care and adoption, and so I started trying to find you guys on your social media. I want to know everything, I want to see everything. And then I was like, wait a minute, I don't see any more episodes. What's going on here? And I just sent the email. I'm like, well, let me let them know. Like they have a fan out here, that is, you know, looking now I'm bored. I'm like three because I don't have any more episodes. And so that's what prompted me to to um, to send the email well again.
Speaker 2:Thank you so very much just for being obedient to it, and I'm glad that we can help you on your healthy journey of three miles.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:So we always start with the question so when did you?
Speaker 3:find out you were adopted. I have never not known that I was adopted. I came into the world of child welfare at a very young age. I was four years old and I also had a twin brother, so we came into foster care together at the same time, pretty much just because my mother and my grandmother were both very heavily into addiction and in and out of prison and had been sexually abusing me. And so at a doctor's appointment one day the doctor went to do the physical and I started to cry and it was a red flag for them, and so they immediately called in the nurse. And they called in, they asked you know what's going on? And in my four-year-old's mind I began to share like what was happening to me.
Speaker 1:Hold on, I'm sorry, son, I don't want to interrupt you, but do you have a window open or something? No, no, do you hear that? Do you hear that?
Speaker 3:I heard it, but now I don't. Do you guys still hear it?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I hear it.
Speaker 3:Yes, I hear it. Let me see what. I don't know what it. I hear it hold on. Let me just see one second.
Speaker 1:Hold on I'm gonna put myself on mute and see if you hear it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I did. There it is.
Speaker 3:Do you still hear it?
Speaker 2:No, when Lisa went on mute, it stopped.
Speaker 1:It stopped. Now I don't hear it Right, okay, so we're good now.
Speaker 3:Okay, we're good. So, as I was stating, I went to the doctors and I basically told them in my four year old version of what had happened to me and immediately, you know, they called child welfare and we were put into foster care. Probably a week after me actually sharing what was happening, we ended up going into the hospital first, and so we were in the hospital for a few days and they ran tests and all that stuff.
Speaker 3:And then we ended up going to our first foster, our only foster home. So, and you both, went to the same.
Speaker 2:We went to the same home, yep.
Speaker 3:Wow, is that common? Let me ask that nature.
Speaker 2:Okay, and again I'm asking questions because this is new territory for us, with the whole foster journey, and we want to, like I said earlier, shine a light into these different pockets, because everybody's story is different.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You never know who will be able to draw from certain aspects of it, so I always just ask certain questions that just may be beneficial as we go through. So you all are now in foster care, and what happens next? Talk us through the next part of the journey.
Speaker 3:So we're in foster care. We were placed in a foster home with, actually, it was a pastor and a first lady, so they had been doing foster care for many years. They had actually adopted a couple of children. It was a pretty big house. So at the time there was probably about they had three kids that they had already adopted. And then it was my brother and I that were there and so this pastor and first lady actually had just started like having church in their basement. So they were like just starting out on their ministry journey and so that was kind of like my first introduction to like God and church and faith and all the things.
Speaker 3:And so we were there in that home till we were eight years old and the plan was always for us, for them to adopt us. That was the plan, which is why we were there for so long, because normally in foster care if they know that there's a youth where the parents' parental rights are going to be terminated, they try to get them in a home that is going to be more long-term, stable, leading to adoption, as opposed to having them move from house to house. So it was very clear early on that my biological mother's rights were going to be terminated, the whole time I was still in foster care we would go to the prison and visit her, because in foster care they have the right to have visits. It's their legal right, and so they have to make sure that the parents are able as long as it's safe, the parents are able to see their children.
Speaker 2:So OK, let me let me 30 second timeout. So many questions. So the first one if you can remember, talk to me about your mindset as a four to eight year old, as much as you can remember, being removed from the house, put in foster care and now having to go to the prison to see your biological mom and then, like the discussions between you and your brother, like just unpack it, if possible, as much as you are able to.
Speaker 3:So my brother and I had two very different trauma responses. His response when we came into care, although he wasn't the one experiencing the abuse in fact, our biological uncle, which is our mother's brother, actually took. He knew that the abuse was happening and he convinced my mother to allow him to took. He knew that the abuse was happening and he convinced my mother to allow him to take. He wanted to take both of us, but they wouldn't allow him to take both of us, so they only allowed him to take my brother. So the a lot of the abuse that I endured he did not endure. He wasn't even in the home but because my uncle was the one that was. He still was an addict as well, but he was more functioning. So it was more his responsibility to take us to doctor's appointments, those things that would cause, you know, professionals or police to get involved. It was his responsibility because my mother had been dealing with DCF since she found out she was pregnant, so they were already involved. They were already, you know, very much aware of what was going on and watching. And so he.
Speaker 3:My brother's response when he came, when we came into care, is he literally just went mute. He stopped talking. So the only person he would talk to was me. He would whisper in my ear and I became his voice and I would say, like he's hungry or whatever. We were very, very, very close. For me, my trauma response was to take care of my brother, like that was my main thing. So what they call it in the child welfare world is parentified. I very much became parentified, where I essentially became the parent to my brother at a very young age, and so I've always been very mature. I've always been, even at a young age, very inquisitive, asking a lot of questions, like just always. It's always naturally been who I am, and so my response was to take care of my brother.
Speaker 3:And so when we would go on these visits to go see our mom, my brother never spoke. He just sat there through the visits, never spoke. He just sat there through the visits, just kind of looked at my mom. He didn't really have any words to say. And for me I, you know, I just she was still my mom. You know, despite the fact of the abuse that I was very much aware of, she was still my mom.
Speaker 3:And so we, we, the way they would set the visits up in the prison is they would have special days where any prisoner that had children they would kind of put them. They had this community room so the inmates would be able to come there without their inmate clothing on. They would kind of give them regular clothes. They tried to make it as normal as you could in a prison. We didn't have to go through the metal detectors, we would go into the special room, they would give us lunch, we would have arts and crafts.
Speaker 3:It was just a fun day, and so they did this twice a month, and twice a month we made the drive which was almost two hours away from our foster home up to this prison, which was almost two hours away from our foster home up to this prison. And it was very interesting because when it's time to leave the prison, all the kids are crying because now you're leaving your mom, you know, and so for me it was very traumatic over. It was like it was just trauma that happened on a regular basis, because by the time you get back from the visit, you kind of get back into a regular routine. You know, after your emotions have kind of subsided and you've gotten back into a regular routine, the next two weeks is coming. It's time for you to go back, and so you start the process all over again.
Speaker 1:How long did that last?
Speaker 3:It lasted until her rights were terminated, so literally up until we were about seven and a half we did these visits. Wow.
Speaker 2:Every two weeks.
Speaker 3:Every two weeks.
Speaker 2:Mm yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:And then our grandmother who wasn't in prison, my mother's mother, who wasn't in prison at the time. We also had to do like monthly visits with her. So we would do those visits at the, at the child welfare office. We would go, you know, once a month for an hour. So yeah, we did that.
Speaker 2:So, and again, just because I don't know. So why did you have to do the business with the grandmother?
Speaker 3:just because she was our like next of kin, she was what they consider immediate family so they always try to keep a connection with something in the actual family yeah, the I mean, the goal is always reunification.
Speaker 3:So so you know, they worked with my mom and my grandmother in hopes that, like someone would step up from our family or you know, to be able to care for us. But this was the 80s, Like a lot of people were dealing with the crack epidemic and it just you know, unfortunately we were in the mix of all that so I want to ask a question now, since we're talking about this part that normally I would wait, but I think this is the perfect segue for it.
Speaker 2:You having that experience of having, like you said, the abuse having to go see mother, how does that impact your lens as a mother?
Speaker 3:So I think for me, my lens for as a mother was very difficult, because I had the lens of my biological mother, then I had the lens from my foster mother, who wasn't a really nice person she wasn't the nicest person and then the lens of my adopted mother, who wasn't very nurturing. And so, with these three women, I had to form my own version of what I wanted motherhood to look like, and so it was it was. It was very tough, I think I I took from each of them, except for my biological mother, but very much overprotective, very overprotective, very helicopter parenting. My kids were like my possession, because they were, they were mine, and so it it struggled. I think I struggled with it, probably up until the last couple of years, if I'd be totally honest, I'm still learning to be the parent that I want, like that I want to be for my kids.
Speaker 2:Thank you for the transparency of saying you just recently, because a lot of times, you know, people paint the picture that we have it all together and you know, when I talk to people, let them know look, I'm still wrestling, I'm still trying to figure it out. I have good days and I have days that aren't as good, but I continue to press forward. So again, thank you for that forward. So again, thank you for that. So, going back now, so parental rights have been terminated.
Speaker 3:You're in foster care. What's going on now? So I'm in foster care, Parental rights have been terminated. The plan is for my foster parents to adopt us. Foster father ends up having an affair, a marriage. They get a divorce, so he leaves the house. Her plan is still to adopt us. Then she begins to have health issues. She has a stroke and multiple other health issues and it just becomes like not an option. Adoption is no longer an option. So at that point our social worker which was always amazing she was always very, even at a young age, very honest and upfront with me. She always said, like Sana, this is what's going on, this is what's happening. You know what do you want, what do you? All the time she talked to me like I was an adult, so I was always very aware.
Speaker 1:How old were you at as this was all going on? Seven, oh, you were still at seven when the affair happened and she started having health problems.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we were there till we were like just before eight is when we transitioned into our adoptive home.
Speaker 2:Okay, so Question so, with her getting the divorce, did that impact her, aside from the health concerns? How was that viewed, with her still wanting to adopt you all? Was it a strike against her because now she didn't have a husband?
Speaker 3:No, Okay, it wasn't a strike against her at all. They were still looking to move forward with the adoption. She still, you know everything. They had a nice house, she had income, you know all the things that you would need to be able to care for kids. It was there. I mean she, she took good care of us. You know, as far as our care, she took good care of us. You know, as far as our care.
Speaker 3:She just was a mean woman and and I mean, looking back at it now as an adult, I think I can understand where some of her meanness stemmed from. You know, you're in the marriage. You're probably not happy. You know all the things. We didn't see all of that.
Speaker 3:He, he wasn't in the art, my foster father wasn't in the home, a lot like. I don't remember him. But again, he they were just starting a church, so he's the pastor, you know. So it was like him being out of the house didn't feel any different for us because he wasn't there, he wasn't hands-on, like that anyway. So it didn't really feel any different and so, but when she got sick, you know, it was like this is not going to happen, and so we were put into back then it was a. It was like a binder, like literally there was like a binder with all the kids throughout the state that were up for adoption and so whenever child welfare would have like open houses for adoption, they would bring these binders and in the binder it was a picture of the kids and like a little description or story of the kid and it's almost like pick a kid from the book, like who do you want to adopt? And now that binder is digital. So in most states you can go online to their child welfare department.
Speaker 3:You can see it's called like the the heart gallery is what they call it and now it's basically the same thing as that binder, but it's digital wow and so we yeah, we ended up getting placed for adoption and at this point it was like my social worker was kind of like she put this life book together for us of like pictures from our time in foster care and she would. She became very intentional about taking pictures, like whenever we had visits, whenever we had meetings, she would take pictures and she would write these little captions under every picture of what was happening or who was in the picture, and she just became very intentional about making sure we had like that part of our life wasn't omitted from our memory as we grew up. And so, yeah, it's not done as much anymore now, but it's the best thing that I have from my time in care.
Speaker 2:Did you see the book the Binder when you were young? Did the social worker share that with you?
Speaker 3:The Binder with all the kids in it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So she didn't share it. She didn't share it with me when I was young, but when I got older and I got all of my records, our page was in the records.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I still have the actual page.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, that's powerful. All right, so we're in the adoption stage. Now You've got the information. How has your brother adjusted? Or is he still just not talking? Because now you have another layer of trauma with the separation of the foster and then another transition. So what does that?
Speaker 3:separation of the foster and then another transition. So what does that look like? He's talking a little more, but we're now recognizing that he has some learning challenges. So he was a little more he. Because the whole time we were with my mom, like leading up to, like you know, four and five, we weren't getting any type of like. There was no. She wasn't teaching us our letters and our colors. You know those, those very formative years as a toddler, we weren't getting any of that. So by the time we got to our foster families, when we first started getting introduced to school and like you know, what does that look like?
Speaker 3:And so my brother struggled a lot like with school, like he was, he was always kind of behind me. So I think for him again, this is just me looking back now as as a grown woman and haven't been through therapy and processing so much, realizing how trauma shows up differently for everybody it looks different. And so he struggled a lot in school. He struggled a lot like at home, like lying he would lie a lot. He would like not want to eat food and like just stuff like that. Or we'd sit at dinner and he would. They would make him sit at the table, like all night you're going to eat those peas, and he would just sit at the table until like all night you're gonna eat those peas, and he would just sit at the table until whatever time because he's not eating the peas. So he like didn't want to eat the food. It was stuff like that. He stuttered. He had a stuttering problem, really bad, so that was one of the reasons he also didn't want to talk, because he was embarrassed. That.
Speaker 3:And then for me trauma was I was the people pleaser. I wanted to make sure I got the best grades. I did all my chores. You, you know I was really smart in school, you know, and my thing was for me it was I have to make up for my brother, and my mindset was and if I do this, then we won't get placed in another home. We can stay here.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow. So did you ever have a conversation with you know, with your brother? You two have a you know a one-on-one, deep conversation like, look, I like it here. You know, like you're a people pleaser and he you know he was more had his own issues going on. Did you guys ever have a conversation like we need to stay here, so we need to do everything we need to do to stay here? Did you have that type of a conversation with him?
Speaker 3:We didn't have that type of a conversation. My brother very much was like whatever my sister says, go. He was very much like I know she's going to take care of me, whatever. Whatever she says it's going to happen is what's going to happen. So that played in a lot to even us getting adopted, because and I felt the burden of like making sure I always cared for my brother, like that's just, you know how it's how it was.
Speaker 3:And so when adoption came into play, simultaneously while all this is happening over here with the divorce and health issues, across our state there is a church and they're hosting open houses for new adoptive parents, and so the book is there and the church you know they're picking through, you know the kids in the book and a couple there decides they want to adopt us, their goal going into it because they already had my adoptive parents together had one son, and then my adoptive father had kids from a previous marriage who were older, and so my adoptive mother had decided she didn't want to have any more biological kids and so they were going to adopt. Also, my adopted father was adopted.
Speaker 3:So, for him he's always been a thing to adopt. So they go looking through the book with the intention of adopting just one kid. They didn't care if it was female or male, they just wanted to adopt a kid. They came across our profile and my adoptive mother said they just fell in love with us and they child welfare made it very clear that they did not want to split us up. So if you took one, you had to take both, and so they were open with taking both of us. And so, leading up to the act, so for a few months we did visits with them. First it would start out where we would go and have just like lunch at McDonald's or Burger King and play. This is when they had like the playscape inside the restaurant.
Speaker 3:So we would go for a couple months. And then it went to weekend visits where we would go and stay with them for the weekend, and then after that for a couple of months it went to okay, this is gonna be permanent. And so we didn't exactly know when the permanent was gonna happen, but we knew it was coming. And so one day we left to go to school regular day, just go off to school, and in the middle of the day we get called to the, to the cafeteria, and we go down to the cafeteria and the whole cafeteria is decorated like it's a birthday party. And so we walk in like it's not our birthday.
Speaker 3:The crazy thing is like I know it sounds so good, but for us it was so embarrassing because no one knew. Like we didn't tell our friends we were in foster care, like that's embarrassing, no one knew. So now we're walking into this gym and our classmates are all there, there's all these balloons and this is your going away party. And it's like what? Like going away? And our social worker was there and literally they had like a cake. It was like this is your going away party. And then we get in the car and so we're thinking we're going to our foster home to say bye to our, our foster siblings, who we've spent the last four years with our foster mom and no, they had put all of our stuff in the trunk, never got to say goodbye, headed right off to our adopted family.
Speaker 2:So that's where I think. And again, when you know better, you do better. Just over time, learning how, although good intent, it created a stain.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Even when you said they threw our stuff in the trunk. That's a. You know your personal items and you just tossing them back there. Yeah, and even my question was going to be how was the transition? But you answered it, it was just door closed. Keep it moving.
Speaker 3:On to the next.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow. So you never had any other interaction, communication with them ever after. Wow, that was it.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we're in the car. We've just had the traumatic send-off yep, and it's our new home. How is the car ride like? What are we after? Again, at eight years old and you're processing this traumatic experience that you don't know is traumatic is just like what was that? Then you have to switch it to now being thankful that we have this home, home, permanent home. But I want to say goodbye. I haven't had an opportunity for closure.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm packed at ride. The car ride there was. It was a mix of, like, sadness and excitement because, you know, we had been doing weekend visits, so we knew what the hell it wasn't like we were gonna pull up to a house we never been to like we had stayed there before I knew I had my own room for the first time ever. I was, I was going to my own room, like. So it was that excitement and at that point I didn't know that we weren't going to have any connection anymore with our foster family. I'm just, you know, it's just, we're gone for now, but when I get there we can call or we can you know we're going to. I couldn't, I didn't process that.
Speaker 1:Wrap your head around that.
Speaker 3:This was it. Almost wrap your head around that. This was it. Like we literally closed the door on that family. So you know, you get there and excitement. You know the beginning is excitement. It's, it's all new. It's like this is my home. My adoptive parents were amazing. I mean, I had every toy that I could want. Like you know, it was very. They were a family good old, just black family. You know it was very. They were a family Good old, just Black family, you know, just regular. I don't, you know, and so it was. It wasn't like it was so shocking to us. It was structured. We were used to structure you go to church. We were used to going to church. Like there wasn't a lot of like changes outside of. Now it's me and my brother in our one sibling in the house.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:Who's older than us, about two years older than us. Okay, so you know, we went on vacations, we had a regular childhood, we went to private school, you know, it was just, it was a regular childhood. But so then we get to the point. So after a year there we end up actually finalizing the adoption. So now we actually go to court and the judge asks now I'm eight. So now the judge is asking eight-year-old Sana and her brother do you for sure want to be adopted by this family? And I remember in that moment like it felt like 10 minutes but it could have, it was probably just a minute or so where I paused to really think about this thing, like do we want to stay here? Now I'm realizing we ain't seen our foster family this whole year. We talked to them the whole year. I have no access to my biological family. That's now gone right, because we weren't just closing the door on one family, we were closing the door on two.
Speaker 3:Right right, all of that is gone. Yeah, these are good people, but they there's some like I don't. I don't, there's a, I still don't feel the real connection like there's, like a I know that I'm not yours, you know what I mean. I was really like, if I say yes to this, that means like these are really my parents.
Speaker 2:Did you think, did you think that you saying yes would give you that connection where they would treat you like?
Speaker 3:No, I didn't think. I just really thought that if I said, if I said yes, I'll never see my biological family again, gotcha, and if I say no, I don't know what's going to happen, that's a tough decision for an eight-year-old to have to make, right.
Speaker 1:And it's not just for you, it's for your brother too, for two people.
Speaker 3:And I remember in that moment like my brother just looked at me like would you say go? And I said yes, we want to be adopted. Because I don't know what's on the other side of my no, so I know what's on the side of my yes. I know my social worker was very. She educated us on what adoption meant, so I knew I was not going to have access to my biological family. Like I knew that. That's the stuff I knew.
Speaker 2:Right. I didn't know what was on the other side of no so so question does it normally take a year for that process of being in the home before they finalize it? Is that normal?
Speaker 3:Honestly, it could take two years, it could take six months. Every case is really different. It's really different with the legalities of it. I think, although they knew my mother's rights were getting terminated and all that stuff, which is why they started the adoption process of getting us there, I don't think that her, I don't think that the adoption, I don't think her rights were actually yet terminated. So I think that's what kind of took that year is that we were not, her rights weren't legally terminated. So once it was done, then it was like okay, boom, move forward.
Speaker 2:Okay, got it.
Speaker 3:And so, like my parents, my adoptive parents were what they call a pre-adoptive home. So you know you're getting adopted, so you can put a kid in this home because you know this is where they're going to stay. We're not going to put them in another foster home, knowing that we're going to, they're going to be adopted. So they they put us there. It lasted the year. They at the judge asked do I want? We want to be adopted? I say yes. Then they say do you want to change your name?
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 3:Oh. So I'm like, oh, I don't know if I really like the name Sana, because now I'm eight, right and what. I don't want to change their name. Like what, a whole new name out of this. So I'm like I don't know if I like the name Sana. Nobody can pronounce it, like it's weird, maybe I just want to be Tisha, right? So I was like thinking about that and then we ended up deciding that we would both give our first names and we would change our middle and obviously our last name. And so we did. We changed our middle and our last name, and then the adoption was done. They sworn it in and it was we were adopted.
Speaker 2:So I like the fact that they did give you some. They empowered you to say do you want to change your name? That's interesting. But even at eight years old, because I can think of at eight years old what I may have said and it would not have been positive, just because of you know, at eight years old you're influenced by so much but remember she had to grow up fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, that makes sense in her her childhood.
Speaker 3:But so do you remember your original name yes, so my original name was actually Sana's, my first name Amenta, Doris, Choice, and what I and right that name is. I was like this name is ugly. I definitely want to change it. And my brother's middle name was just David. I'm like how they get Amenta, Doris and all he got is David over there, so he. So what I ended up finding out is that my two middle names, Amenta and Doris, were my great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother's names. So there's the downside of that, where you lose a piece of your identity and your history when you don't know. They didn't know. Nobody knew what those names were, so I did miss. I missed out on that, Gotcha.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right, so you have been empowered, sworn in, you turn around like you turn around.
Speaker 3:And then what Big hugs to the family, fam, the newfound family big hugs and cake and ice cream after, and adopted, and guess what? The next day it was regular old life because we already been here for a year. So nothing really is different from, you know, being adopted. So we're adopted. So we hadn't. You know, we go through life, we get into our teen years and I think when I got to my teen years that's when stuff started to shift for me, because this whole time I know I'm adopted, I know I have a biological family out there, and so I get to my teen years, probably around 14.
Speaker 3:And me and my mom, like I said, we just weren't. There was a disconnect, like and I'm not saying she didn't try, she wasn't a big nurturer, that's just not who she is. Even now she's not a big nurturer, she's not gonna, you know, give you a hug, she's just not. She's not gonna say I love you, love you, like that's just not who she is. But I mean she, I always was very well taken care of, always. But I am the type, I'm a feeler by nature, so I need, like nurturing and like that stuff. I'm a talker, I want to talk, and she wasn't that. So there was always this disconnect and me questioning like I wonder what it would be like with my mom, my biological mom. I wonder what's happening with her. You know I always have these questions, so this is where things start to get a little crazy. Ok, so Fifteen rolls around like 14, I'm already thinking right, right now.
Speaker 3:Remember that life book. I told you about that. We had social workers sent it was not adoption, that we had this like. Well, my adopted mom just took the life book, put it in the closet and wouldn't give us access to it. Oh, did you? Did you know that she had it? Yes, I knew that she had it. So, yes, I knew that she had it.
Speaker 3:So we each had our own. I had one, my brother had one. She took it, and it was almost like she wanted us to forget that we were adopted. Like, forget that we had a whole nother life. So we never have access to this book, right, which I am very well aware that it exists. So there was little things where I think I started having like animosity towards my mom, like I just didn't like certain stuff, right, and so one day, my adoptive mother's sister or my aunt she happens to be in prison, sister, my aunt, she happens to be in prison. She calls my mom and she says hey, I'm in here, and one of the ladies that's also in here keeps talking about these twins that she gave up for adoption. She says our names and she says now I haven't told her that they've been placed with my sister, but she has AIDS and she's dying and I really think you should allow them to come up here.
Speaker 1:Oh, man here oh.
Speaker 3:And I'm grateful to my mom because she didn't have to. She didn't, she had no obligation to tell my mom anything, but she decided that she was going to take us up to the prison and so she called us in the room, she told us what was happening and she asked if we wanted to go to the prison and I was like, absolutely Like, yes, let's go. My brother was more like I don't really care.
Speaker 2:Whatever my sister says.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like whatever. So we go up to the prison, probably a couple weeks later, because we had to get on the visiting visiting list and all that. And a couple weeks later we go up to the prison. Now this time we're going up to the prison as teenagers. It's not kids anymore. It's the same prison, but there's no community. Now we're going through the glass sectors. There's the glass creating us like this is prison.
Speaker 2:So it's a different experience for you totally different experience.
Speaker 3:And so we get there and you know, my mom come, my birth mom comes out and I'm just, I'm looking at a face that looks exactly like my face, like exactly I look like literally spitting in it and so, of course, you know, I'm just talking to her, just telling her about, you know, school like it's as if we haven't missed out on all these years like I'm just talking to her, she's talking to me, my brother is dead right there the whole visit.
Speaker 3:He just sits there and he's just looking and so after like I think it was like a 45 minute visit visits over and we leave, and I was in tears. But my mother, my birth mom and I started basically becoming pen pals. So we would write letters back and forth, back and forth, I would fill her in about stuff, and then eventually she got released from prison and she asked if we would. She asked my adoptive mom if she would allow us to go start like staying the weekend with her, and my mom agreed oh wow, we did that for a couple months. We would go every other weekend and spend the weekend with her and it was fine.
Speaker 1:How old were you at this time.
Speaker 3:At this time we're like 15.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:So we're fine, we're doing these visits and we're fine, and then she takes us to a crack house and leaves us there. Takes us to a crack house and leaves us there, and so I had to, like find a phone, a pay phone, back then call my mom, tell her, like this is the street we're on. I don't really know how to tell her to get here because, again, we live two hours away from our hometown and so obviously the visit stopped. After that, my mom ended up going back to prison and I stopped being a pen pal with her. But during those times, those visits, she introduced us to our other family, my grandfather, aunts, cousins, so now we have this whole family that we've gotten to know, and so while she's not around, I want to still be around my family.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:I think my behaviors back at my adoptive home started to shift, because now I've gotten a taste of like who I am. I don't want to be here. I want to be over there.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 3:So I started like basically creating a plan to run away, like I'm, I'm getting out of here, and I created this plan one day, like I used to have this babysitting job, so I would go to the babysitting job after school and that's where I would make my phone calls. All the stuff was from the house, the people that I used to babysit for, and so I literally made an entire plan. Had my grandfather one day, I had packed all my stuff, threw it out the back of the window, back of the house, because I knew he was coming to get me, and my plan was when they pulled up, I was just going to run out the house, get in the car and take off.
Speaker 1:That was the plan, so your biological family was down with this plan.
Speaker 3:Because this is the thing. Okay, my biological family. They are from the streets. Okay, so they don't care nothing about no adoption, none of that. They don't care. They are from the streets. That's the best way I can explain it.
Speaker 2:They live by a different creed.
Speaker 3:They live by a different creed. They don't care. You know my adoptive family. They in the church. They are a little different, right, and so, listen, I eat to it all. My grandfather pulled up, I had threw my bag out that back window and I didn't even tell my brother that I was leaving.
Speaker 2:That was my question. Oh, you didn't bring the brother with you. You didn't hear because the brother wasn't in the planning.
Speaker 3:He wasn't in the plan my brother because I didn't know if he wanted to go. He hadn't really taken a liking to our family the way I had. He wasn't doing too well in our adoptive family either, but he just didn't have the courage to be like come on, let's go. So I ended up. It was summertime, I remember it clearly Summertime. I'm out, grandfather pulled up with one of my aunts. I throw my stuff in that car. By the time I'm getting in the car, my adoptive mom is coming down the stairs and she's like what is happening? And I was like I'm leaving, got in that car and I just took off. She had no phone number, no idea of nothing, and I took off and I went, spent my entire summer with my biological family Wow, entire summer.
Speaker 3:And it was a summer because I went from structure, rules, all the things, to now all my cousins over here. They rip and run the street all hours of the night. There's no structure, you do what you want. They cussing, they going to house parties, they all the things. It was like it was a culture shock. And then the summer starts to end and I called home To my mom and she was like you need to, I get. I allowed you to be there for the summer. You need to come home, school is about to start, blah, blah, blah. And so I was like, okay, so I, I did. I ended up going back home. Now, when I got home after being gone for the whole summer, I go in the house, you, you know, expecting to see everybody, and I know it's probably, I'm probably going to get in trouble. I'm prepared for all of that. Right, I don't care. But when I got home, I found out that my twin brother had gotten incarcerated that summer. I was gone. Oh, wow, yep. So that totally shifted the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this Do you feel it's your fault? Do you blame yourself for him being?
Speaker 3:a long time. I did up until last year, really. Yeah, I always kept the guilt. So he gets incarcerated for robbing homes. In our neighborhood we lived in like a cul-de-sac. He was sneaking out in the middle of the night I mean this was happening before summer, nobody knew. But he ended up getting caught and he went to jail and they tried him as an adult, even though he was 15. And so he went to jail for the first time was almost 10 years. So for me At 15?.
Speaker 3:At 15. Wow was almost 10 years, so for me. At 15. At 15, wow. So for me it was a very hard adjustment. I never did.
Speaker 3:I was angry with them because they went, he went to prison and I think they were embarrassed and they just like, yeah, and so nobody visited him. And so now, now we turned 16 in october of that, you know, same year, and so now I'm able to get a real job, so I I started working at 16 so I could send him money in jail, so it you know it, I absolutely felt the burning of like I left. I left him here. This is my fault, like you know. All of that they wrote him off. So I have to do what I've always done I have to step in and take care of him, and the whole time he was in prison I took care of him. Time he was in prison, I took care of him and he got out of prison literally the week before I got married. So he was in my wedding. He got out of prison the week before I got married. I got married at 24?, 24? And that's when he got out, like a week before. I think he might've got out a little early and yeah, so that's yeah. What was he doing?
Speaker 3:Today he's back in prison. He's been in and out of prison his whole life and so when I say last up until last year, it was last year he went to prison again and I had to make the difficult decision to say I'm tired of being your mom. We are grown, I have my own organization. I can extend opportunities to you. You don't want to accept these resources and these opportunities. I wanted him to get a mental health evaluation because I know he has mental health. You know issues. He wouldn't take any of the help and I started getting anxiety just worrying about him in prison, especially when COVID happened and you know we were hearing such horror stories about people incarcerated and I finally had to say enough is enough. I, I this is not my fault like we were kids and you made a decision and you continue to make those decisions and I can't keep once they got out after the 10 year did.
Speaker 2:Was that conversation ever had where he blamed you?
Speaker 3:he's never to this heat. Well, he's never blamed me, for he's never blamed me. He's always been very clear. My sister's always taking care of me when he came. Every time he's come home from prison he lives with us, with me and my husband. Like you know, I always make sure he's got clothes and all the things. So he's never blamed me. But this last time, when he got out before he went back in um a couple months ago, he felt like you think you're better than me felt like.
Speaker 3:You think you're better than me, so I'm not going to knock you off your high horse one day. It became that like, it was very like, so that made it very easy for me to say you know what I'm done with this yeah, yeah, sometimes you gotta cut, you gotta cut your losses.
Speaker 1:Yeah so still love them.
Speaker 3:Still love them, but I have to let you go. I have my own kids and you know my kids love him. When you know he's their uncle, he acts like a kid, like he's he's my age, but he acts like he's 18. Age, but he acts like he's 18. So my kids love that, you know. And so to see my kids going through this emotional rollercoaster of you coming out, you're going back, you're coming out, you're going back, it was too much and I had to make a decision to say enough is enough, like we're not going to keep doing this.
Speaker 3:Even before that, the way I know God has always been so a part of my story is, you know, I ended up finding my biological family. I came back home. All that ended up leaving again because I just came home, my brother's gone. I felt like you, y'all put him in jail. You left him there to just rot, like I'm all set with y'all too. And so at 16, I figured out how to sign myself out of high school, my sophomore year, and I signed myself in Job Corps and I went off to Job Corps and I did Job Corps and after that I just kind of I became a teen mom. I had my son. Now I have to figure life out and I, you know, get my own place. And I had a lot, of, a lot of stuff happened during that time. But eventually I got into a really bad dispute with my son's father and that was the turning point for me to say, all right, girl, like enough is enough, you need to get your life together. And so I, my cousin, my adopted cousin had started going to church and so she's like you should come.
Speaker 3:Just after this, this, this, this whole altercation happened with my son's father and it was really, really bad and I almost went to prison. It was really bad and she was like girl, you need. I almost went to prison. It was really bad and she was like girl, you need to go to church because your life is out of control. And so I agreed to visit this church and so we go to the church. So the dispute happened on a Saturday. Next day is Sunday. So I go to the church with her, walk up the walkway of the church and I see this guy standing outside the church and he's on crutches and I'd never seen him before and I literally I kid you not I heard the voice of the Lord say that is your husband. And I turned to my cousin and I said the Lord said that's my husband. Girl, you almost went to jail last night. You got bandages on your hand. You don't need to be thinking about no man. The only man you need to focus on is the Lord.
Speaker 3:We get in the church. I cannot take my eyes off of this man. Now he done wobbled in the church on a crutch. He sat at the drums, he's playing the drums, and then service is going on. I'm just staring at him. And then, finally, we get to the end of the service and they call him up to the pulpit. So I'm like, oh well, now I can hear his voice. So he gets up to the pulpit, he's funny and all this stuff. I I don't. Now they, I find out he's the pastor's son and I'm like, oh Lord, okay, this is not my husband, but I'm still looking at him. So after the service I walk up to him. They were asking for volunteers to like make desserts for some event they were having at the church. So I'm like you know, I can make cheesecake, I don't know how to do it, you know for the event. And I'm talking to him and he's talking to me and then I just shoot my shot and I'm like no, that's right.
Speaker 3:Whatever. So we end up exchanging numbers. We go on a, we talk for a week, we go on a date the following Saturday or Friday, and we ended up literally, I kid you not, we moved in like right away.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:The pastor's son, right. So now we shack. That's normally how it is. We shack in and for about six months and then finally he brings me home to meet his family and I go. We go to his grandmother's house, knock on the door, grandma opens the door and he's like you know, nana, I want to introduce you to my girlfriend. This is Sana, and she looked like she's seen a ghost, like she just looked like, and she's like I know you. And I'm like no, ma'am, I don't, I don't know you. And my husband's like Nana, you don't know her, I've never brought her here. You, you know like, don't be confusing her with somebody.
Speaker 2:Don't mess up my game.
Speaker 3:Like hold on, and she literally like we step in the door, she runs off to her bedroom. She comes back a couple minutes later and she hands me a photo and I look at the photo and it is me. What it is me. What it is me. When I was in that first foster home. She was friends. Her and her husband are a pastor and first lady. They were friends with my foster parents, who were pastors and first ladies. Oh, my goodness, A little picture of me from when I was five years old. Look at God.
Speaker 1:Now he orchestrates all things well.
Speaker 3:This is the kicker. This picture wasn't in a photo album, in a box in the basement. She had the picture on the mirror of her dresser. What she said. She just had it there all these years. She doesn't know why. She just always had it there.
Speaker 2:Whoa, said she just had it there all these years.
Speaker 1:She doesn't know why she just always had it there.
Speaker 3:Whoa yep, oh my goodness, full circle moment my husband said in that moment he knew, he knew like this is it was one day, yep. So he proposed to me on j 4th. We got married one month later and it's been almost 18, almost 18 years.
Speaker 2:Okay, wow, so question I mean, these are some common questions that we ask, common questions that we ask how do you think or how do you feel, reflecting back, that your journey impacted you as a wife?
Speaker 3:yeah, so it has been tough. My husband and I had to have some difficult conversations, like probably a couple years ago, probably about two years ago, like probably a couple of years ago, probably about two years ago because I had a lot of. I had a lot of trauma that I didn't realize I had. I had just gone through life, surviving, like just surviving. There was no therapist, there was nobody asking me how did you feel about being in foster care, or this or that and and, and. I will also say which I didn't add, or this or that, and I will also say which I didn't add my biological mother. When I got pregnant with my son, she was still in prison. This was 2002. I'm pregnant with my son and I had this urge to find my mom. I'm pregnant, I need my mom, Disconnected from my adopted mom, but I needed my biological mom. I called the prison, find out she's still there. They're like you know, we just don't have nowhere to release her to. So I say I'll take her.
Speaker 3:You can't release her to me. I had a doctor's appointment the day she was getting released, so her father, my grandfather, went to go get her got out of prison. I get back to my grandfather's house, like okay, where's my mom? Like I'm so excited she's going to see my baby bump, all this stuff. She left the house and never came back. So I spent a week chasing her down. She, we finally get on the phone. We get into this whole blown out argument Cause I'm like you have another opportunity with your kids. Like what's wrong with you, All the things. She's like you're not my mother, you're, you're a child. You know, it's just this whole thing. She slams the phone up. She died two days later. Two days later I so the first time I saw her again in her casket.
Speaker 3:I say all that to say I have all these traumatic things that have happened Right, had to keep going. There was never a point where there was respite for me, where I just was able to catch a breath and process. So by the time I got married now I'm entering into this first family, right, my father-in-law's a pastor. They got this big old church. I felt like I had to be the picture of perfection that I didn't share with my husband.
Speaker 3:He didn't know about any of this trauma and he learned about it as the years went on. And really he learned about it when the Lord started to deal with me about being ashamed of who I was and where I had been through, what I had been through, and so he started learning about it. That way, I started a blog, I started sharing stuff. He was reading the blog like everybody else, finding out like what, and then you know all those things. So a couple of years ago it just got really tough. Like we were at a point in our marriage where it was just like I don't know if I want to do this no more. And he was like I don't know if I want to do this either. And we said to each other, if we knew now what we, if we knew then what we knew now, we would not have gotten married.
Speaker 3:If we knew then what we knew now we would not have gotten married Interesting. And for him he said I just don't think that I have what it takes to love you the way you need to be loved and for me it was.
Speaker 3:I don't know if you can love me the way I need to be loved. So we got, we ended up in marriage counseling and we, you know, really worked through a lot of stuff and it's turned everything around a lot Like he had. He really began to like, do the work to understand, like, who I am and some of the tendencies, why I'm so protective or you know why I'm so like. I have to have order, I need to know what's going on, I need to have structure, like because I'm so used to like this, not knowing this. So it's very.
Speaker 3:There was one point where I said to him you're so entitled and he was like, what are you talking about? I'm like, every time I have like a soda in the refrigerator, you just drink it. You don't even ask like, can I have that soda Like you know it's mine, or you know if it's something I'm very particular about, the snack Like. And he was like, why is that such a big deal to you? And our therapist has to explain to him because there's a lot that she didn't have of her own. Yes, something of her own right she.
Speaker 3:It means something for you to ask instead of taking from her and so it was a lot of, and once he got that, he was like okay understand, and so it's been a lot of just learning and learning me and me learning him, and because Lord has to really show me, like no girl, you the gift, you're the gift. He just hasn't discovered the gift that you are, but he has now. So, yeah, so that's that. And then 2021 came around. Well, 2020 came around like the pandemic. Right, the story's over the. The pandemic hits and I had been spending my whole life never thinking that I had a biological father.
Speaker 2:I was gonna ask about that always focused on my mom.
Speaker 3:Right and like probably around 2015, I started saying, well, where's the man in all of this? And I got my records from DCF and started going on the search. There was no information about him no name, no, anything. He wasn't on the original birth certificate. There was nothing. I was asking my biological aunts. Nobody knew who he was. It was like this mystery. I'm like well, what in the world?
Speaker 3:So I ended up 2020 came around, where everybody's in the pandemic, everyone's home. I started going down this deep dive of ancestry. I took the test. I'm doing all this stuff on ancestrycom. I'm getting nowhere. Finally, this TV show reaches out to me because I'm blogging about this. So it's like viral on social media. Tv show reaches out and is like hey, we're interested in your story, let's do it. And I'm like okay, fine, I had to turn over my ancestry account. They changed the password because we can't know and all this stuff, and they're serving because we can't know, and all this stuff and they're certain. And finally hit the pandemic towards the end of the year of 2020. And the Lord said call the people the show and have them release you from the contract. And I'm like why? Like, this is my only chance. And the Lord said have them release you. So I reached out and I asked to be released and they agreed. And then they turned over everything that they had found so far. So of course, I'm blogging about this on social media.
Speaker 3:This genealogist reaches out to me and he's like I would like to help you. He's in Texas. He's like I would like to help you, and so I'm like what do I have to lose at this point? So I turn over all the information that I have and and he's like you know this could take a couple of years. You know, I don't know how long it's going to take. And I said well, I don't have nothing to lose.
Speaker 3:I've been looking this long, and so a couple of months goes by and one day I'm doing this Zoom class, I'm doing this Zoom class, I'm doing this Zoom class, I'm teaching the Zoom class, and my genealogist is blowing up my phone. I'm like what is happening? So he finally texts me. He's like 911. You need to call me. I tell the people look, we got to hang this up Right? So I get off and I call him and he's like I found your family. I'm like what? It had only been four months. I said what? He starts sending me pictures. He's like I've made contact with a gentleman. I told him you know who you are, who I am. He seems a little skeptical. He basically said I'll call you back tomorrow, skeptical. He basically said I'll call you back tomorrow.
Speaker 3:So you know, it's literally the day before New Year's Eve. And so I'm like okay, so all night I'm just praying, like God touched their hearts, like let them know, I'm not crazy, like I'm just like let them know, I'm not crazy, like I'm just like just praying, like, if this is my family, like please, god. So the next morning I I I kind of woke up, looked at my phone. There was no message. So I go back to sleep and then my genealogist calls and he's like the guy called me back and he said he won't tell me anything, he'll only tell you.
Speaker 3:The guy called me back and he said he won't tell me anything, he'll only tell you. And so I'm like give me the number. I called immediately and he was like I answered the phone and he's like hello. And he's like is this son? I said yes, and he said I want you to know that you belong to us. I just lost it in that moment. And so it turns out that my father had passed away in 1991. This gentleman was my uncle that was on the phone. They have a bunch of siblings and they've, they've, just, they knew nothing about me or my brother at all, like they had no clue. One of my aunts had an inkling, because she said my father mentioned that he had twins on the way at some point, and then he said my mom had an abortion and that was it. And so when she got the call, she said I immediately knew, she immediately knew that we were.
Speaker 1:And so, yeah, I've been on this journey of just Well, you have given me hope because, again, we only focus on the mother and we don't really focus on the father. So I've done pretty much all of the steps that you've done so far as far as doing deep dives on Ancestrycom 23andMe, and to no avail. Avail. I've run into dead ends. I've gotten up to second cousins, but never anything past that, and I feel I've gotten it on his mother's side and his father's side up to the same point. And I've always said that you know, if I do, great, if I don't, I'm not going to sweat it, I'm not going to. You know, it was as long as I was able to find my mother, you know. But the father, I could take it or leave it, but you have just renewed my, my thirst. Yes To you know, continue pursuing it. I don't know what, you know how that's going to happen or whatever, but I'm, I'm stuck and I haven't gotten any further than where I have been so far.
Speaker 3:And I will absolutely put you in touch with my genealogist. He's amazing and just see what happens. I mean, he's really amazing. He's done some. I've seen him do some some cases that were like crazy because I have nothing.
Speaker 3:At some point I was like Lord, did you? Like, am I just made up? Like where did I come from? Right, that's to the point where I, the Lord, said to me one day I was driving and he said, if I never allow you to find him, will you still serve me? And I sat there like and then, and then I said, yes, lord, I will still serve you, I'll still serve you. But in my mind at that point I said this means I'm never going to find him. Like this is the Lord saying it's not going to happen. But then he, literally he just opened the window out of nowhere and it all came together. And after it was done and I found out that my father was deceased, the Lord said to me now will you let me be your father? The Lord said to me now will you let me be your father.
Speaker 3:Oh wow. All this time I had been looking at God as a friend, because I didn't want to replace my father. I wanted to know who my father was. And when that happened, the Lord said now will you let me be your father, cause he's always been your father, I've been trying to be your father the whole time.
Speaker 1:He's been taking care of you the whole time. Wow. And my biological father allegedly is deceased as well. So I don't know if it's true or not, because I don't see no documentation, but allegedly he's deceased. So that doesn't help any. But you have renewed my quest.
Speaker 3:And it's been amazing. They're amazing people. They all live in Durham, north Carolina. I have two older brothers who are 10 years older than me. I'm the only sister, the only girl. I've always, you know, I wanted older brothers because I was tired of being the older. Right, right, right, very much. Little sister me. Even though I'm 42, they still like little sister me. So, yeah, it's been amazing.
Speaker 2:So for me just in listening it's been amazing. So for me, just in listening, it gives me a sense of hope. My biological father passed before I could, you know, open the file to get the information, but the family is not as receiving, I guess.
Speaker 2:So I some dead ends on some things where I just don't have the information and, like Lisa said, you know, I kind of was like I'm got mom's information, I'm good, I'll get to it when I can. So even when you shared the story about the uncle, because there was a uncle who was contacted who just shut Wow. So one thank you. When we, like I said, when we did the pre-conversation, I knew that this was going to be an impactful journey. I just did not know to the depths.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And was not aware of how much you would continue. And I say continue because your initial email was a blessing, but the discussion has been rich and just many nuggets from it. Because of the journey, I'm able now to see that much more of why you do what you do.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 2:I can tell.
Speaker 2:After we we spoke and we went back and we started looking at the various things you've done in the organizations, we were like, wow, but now, knowing the why, just like with your husband, once you get the why, you're able now to understand and carry out and we're just able to see why your passion is so strong with what you do, why your passion is so strong with what you do.
Speaker 2:So give us some information just about the organization and what you have accomplished with it. And I heard you say earlier that you know that you wanted opportunities for your brother that he never took advantage of, and just to be that resource. You know those of us who walked this journey, which you know. This is why Lisa and I got into it to be able to just share from our experience so that we can help somebody else and find a community, because there's a community of us out here that have unpacked trauma, that are seeking, don't even know what we need, don't even know how the trauma impacts us. That's why I asked earlier you know how it impacted your lens with regards to being a mother, how it impacted your marriage?
Speaker 2:Because one thing that we've identified is that these lived experiences, they have roots and they manifest themselves in different ways and if we're not sober in our thinking, it can cause destruction and repeated trauma.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely Unashamed was really birthed out of. I won't say that I was like, oh, one day I'm going to give back to foster kids. That was never my that. That was never my goal. My adoptive father, before he passed, he used to growing up. He used to always tell me when I was younger you're going to be a boss, like one day you're going to be a boss, and I used to read the dictionary for fun, like I would use all these big words and it's just always.
Speaker 3:I've always been a reader and just all the things, and but I never went to college and I never got a degree, and so I always felt there was limited opportunities for me based on that Right. And so you know I have this GED that I got at Job Corps, but I don't have no college education, and so I started like just the whole thing of serving others was just always a part, just a part of who I am. And so it just started with me just realizing there were different needs for people in the community. And how can we meet those needs? Come together as a community and meet those needs? There's a single mom over here that needs some clothes for her kids who got got clothes, that type of stuff, and so it started there and then it just went into a nonprofit organization, still just serving people in the community families.
Speaker 3:And then one day I got called to this meeting at a church and I didn't know why I was going. They just asked me to go to the meeting. I go to the meeting't know why I was going, they just asked me to go to the meeting. I go to the meeting, I pick up an agenda. They got an agenda at the door and I'm I'm the keynote speaker and I'm like right. So I get in there and I'm, I go to the person who asked me to come. I'm like what am I supposed to be talking about here? And they're like just share your story of, like, foster care and adoption. And so I'm like oh, I can do that. Like I don't need notes for that, I can share that. So I get up there in front of this group of people that I don't know and I tell the story. And when I was done, I found out that the commissioner of children, of child welfare, was in the room immediately came over and was like oh my gosh, like do you have a non-profit?
Speaker 3:and I'm like yeah, and she's like how can we give you money to do like to do something? And so he was like we have two hundred thousand. What can you do?
Speaker 2:Oh what.
Speaker 3:And so I just started like what do we? Okay, god, what are we doing? Right? And this is all happening like right after COVID. So I'm still fresh into meeting my bio family. My son gets into a car accident. It's so much going on to distract me from this thing, right?
Speaker 1:So the Lord kept saying on to distract me from this thing.
Speaker 3:And so the Lord kept saying you have to do this thing. And so I started building out a curriculum. While my son was in the hospital in a coma, I'm building out a curriculum for foster kids and we ended up putting on these workshops. And then the Lord was like you need to focus on foster kids. So we went and we did file the paperwork Okay, now we're just focusing on these workshops. And then the Lord was like you need to focus on foster kids. So we went and we did file the paperwork Okay, now we're just focusing on foster kids. And then the Lord, you know, after a year or so, he said no, no, no, only teenage foster kids. I said, got it.
Speaker 3:And so from that came our focus. We specifically work with foster youth 14 to 26. And we've chosen that particular age group because it's the forgotten age group. They're not as cute anymore. They have attitudes, they got trauma, they got some of them are teen parents in foster care.
Speaker 3:So much stuff going on and everybody wants to buy the cute little kids toys and do the cute little events.
Speaker 3:But who's focusing on these teenagers?
Speaker 3:And so that is the area that I've just focused on, and God has given us grace in that, in that space, to work with these kids and they just it's like they're drawn to us, like they're drawn to us and I said, okay, if we're going to do this, then I'm going to make being a foster kid not shameful anymore.
Speaker 3:So we created a line of merchandise that is specifically for foster kids and it's like colorful and it's bright and it's dope and you want to wear it and it says unashamed foster kid and it just says out loud this is who I am, but it's cool, like I'm cool, and I'm a part of this movement of foster kids in Connecticut and we're, and so that's what we've created. And so now you see, you can walk through Connecticut, you'll see kids, that people have grown adults wearing our merchandise and it's very branded and you know people know that's unashamed, and so that was our goal to take the stigma away from kids in care and to be proud and to say, yeah, I might be forced to care, but this is not the end of my story yes, yes, yes, yes, wow, that is fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that is how you take your lived experience and you turn around. I mean, and I'm sure you know you are an inspiration to those who come in contact with God continues to send you various people just because of who, just who you are an inspiration to those you come in contact with. God continues to send you various people just because of who, just who you are, who he has placed, what he's placed inside of you. And then I'm not, I'm just reinforcing what's already been shared with you and again, all because of your obedience to an email connected us. But it has inspired me on a different level, just to to press that much forward, to see, okay, where, how can I further impact the pocket? What is, what's my pinpointed area? Um, just as you're talking, I'm listening, like I suspended the podcast, then we're on and now I feel like it's a therapeutic opportunity for me to be able to just grow in this space of walking in your purpose.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because it's so important. And if you don't do it, who will? Who's going to do it? Somebody has to do it, and it's not easy. There's a lot of moments where I want to say get somebody else to do it. Right, this is too much. But then God always reminds me that no, you're here for this. Like you think, the purpose is them kids you got. You think the purpose is that husband. No, no, no, the purpose is for you to do this. There are hundreds of kids that I need to walk in freedom and know who I am. That is your purpose, and so I do it. And then, for the adoption side because I didn't forget that I am also an adoptee, even though I don't talk about it as much as I would like to we started a program it's actually in honor of my biological father, so my biological family helps out, and we it's called Roots and Wings, where we help adult adoptees locate their biological family. So we supply the ancestry DNA kits and then my genealogist does the footwork.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:This year, 2025, we had a goal of reuniting 10 families, 10 adult adoptees. I think we're up to like eight so far that we've been able to reunite just in 2025.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you've completely just obliterated the blueprint of what I thought was going to happen in a great way, though in a great way, ways that will have takeoffs, trust me. What if you could share one thing to those who are listening, whatever it may be? What would you share, whether that's someone who is listening from the foster care lens, from the adopted lens, from the adopted family, maybe their spouse is adopted? Whatever is on your heart to share, what do you want to put on the table?
Speaker 3:I would say open up your mouth and tell the story. And the reason I say that is because all of this started because a four-year-old sat in the doctor's office and told that she was being sexually abused. I opened my mouth and I told my story, and me doing that didn't just save my life, it didn't just save my brother's life, but it has since saved many, many lives, and I think a lot of us are still living in shame of where we've come from, what we've experienced. You know all of the things. We're trying to be Instagram perfect and have the right aesthetic, and God is just asking us to tell the story, to tell the story, and so that is always what I tell. People Tell the story because it's attached to the freedom of so many other people.
Speaker 2:You've just given us the title for this episode. I'm serious Open your mouth and tell the story, yeah, yeah, so many of our, so much of our culture is missed because people don't tell the story. Yeah, so much trauma goes unchecked because we don't tell the story. Yeah, so, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Yes. How can people find you on social media? How can they contact you? How can people find?
Speaker 3:you on social media? How can they contact you On social media? You can find me at Sana Latrice S-A-N-A-L-A-T-R-E-A-S-E. That's my social media. My website is sanalatricecom. I have a blog there, so I share weekly just what's going on in life and just whatever.
Speaker 1:And then if you want to find my non-profit Unashamed, it's unashamedincorg okay, we want to just thank you for your time, thank you for your obedience. I mean, you have just I don't know what else to say. This has been a very powerful, powerful hour and 40 minutes of just eye opening and anointing experience, and we appreciate you being obedient and reaching out to us eye-opening and anointing experience, and we appreciate you being obedient and reaching out to us because we were just doing life at the moment and you have just rejuvenated us. Thank, you.
Speaker 1:We appreciate your transparency in everything that you're doing and we just pray that you will continue to do what God has called you to do.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you guys for this platform, and I know in listening to the previous episodes, john shared how he was a little hesitant when you came to him with the idea of the podcast. But you know, I just pray that it just keeps you guys going, because there's so many other stories that need to be told and they need a platform to do it. And so this is it. Y'all can't stop. I'll be waiting to hear more, more episodes uploaded.
Speaker 2:Absolutely I look forward to just other opportunities to partner and connect and just whatever organically God has in store. I'm excited for that. Yes, Truly truly so. Let me see if you've really been watching. Let me see if you know how we end the podcast. All right, you ready? Lisa?
Speaker 1:I'm ready.
Speaker 2:All right, so I'm John.
Speaker 1:And I'm Lisa.
Speaker 3:And I'm Sana. All right, so I'm John and I'm Lisa and I'm Sana and we are Adopted.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh. Thank you so much. This has been a blessing and hit the like, hit the share. Please reach out to us. We are excited about this platform and this opportunity to strengthen and build a community of individuals who have similar journeys, so that we can learn from each other. Like it was said today open your mouth, share the story. 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.
