Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. This is episode 100. We're The Nalsens. I'm Shaun.
And I'm Lanette. And we're so excited to be here with our 100th episode.
Honestly, when we started the podcast in April of 21, there's no way I thought that this is how it would be.
I never thought we'd get to 100 episodes. But it's really exciting and it's been such a great journey for us of learning.
We're sorry that this episode is coming a little bit later than we said it would.
Yeah, this was supposed to be the last day of November for National Adoption Month here in the United States.
But we had a couple people fall sick in the family and busyness of the holiday season starting to creep in with choir concerts and all these things happening.
It's been a little busy, but we're happy to be in your podcast feed for this 100th episode.
Yeah, we're really excited. So today we're just going to wrap up some thoughts from this last season of National Adoption Month
and also talk a bit about this concept called disenfranchised grief.
So we're going to start with just some takeaways that we've gained.
And man, I mean, I'm reflecting back over the last two and a half years.
And there have been there has been so much that I've learned from so many people.
And I feel like we can't really put all of that into one episode.
I mean, it could be really long.
I mean, I guess it would save you from listening to every podcast episode.
But they're also better to hear from the actual people we talk to.
So we're going to just recap, like Lanette said, just some of the key takeaways that we've learned over the last month.
And dive a little bit deeper in some of those thoughts.
Yeah. Yeah. So I know it was our last episode, but I keep thinking about all of these ramifications of embryo adoption and how much I still don't know.
I feel like there's always so much we don't know in the adoption world.
But we say that and it's like one of those things that we know we don't know everything, but like we know a bit.
But then embryo adoption, if we started talking about that, I was like, wow, there's so much I don't know.
It's a little overwhelming.
And so that's been a good reminder to me of how much there really is that we don't know in all of these different spheres, really.
Yeah, for sure.
So one thought that has just kept coming back in my mind from, you know, this November of twenty twenty three, this big series of episodes that we did is from our episode with Christelle.
And for those of you who may not have listened to that episode, she is an adoptee who was born in Madagascar and lived there for a few years.
She was like ten when she was adopted, right?
Yeah, it was it was later in her childhood and her mother passed away and she was put into an orphanage and then was adopted by a family, a white family in France.
And so she moved to France when she was around ten years old and such a culture shock, I'm sure.
Yeah, there was there was no common language.
The culture was so different.
Anyway, my thoughts have been around her experience and one particular thing that she shared during her episode.
She said that after some time after, you know, really gelling with her adoptive parents and adopting this new culture of living in southern France,
she felt like she didn't belong in the community that she was in, even though it had become part of her community.
And so she didn't feel like she fit in with white people.
She was she's black and then when she was with other black people, she felt like she didn't fit in either.
And so she was kind of put in this place where she never really fit in.
And no matter where she was at, even when she was around people who culturally acted the same as her, she didn't feel like she fit in or like racially when she was with people, she didn't fit in.
And so for me, I've just been thinking about that concept so much of how do we help adoptees feel acceptance for who they are and where they are?
How do we support them? How do we provide for them the best opportunity to to feel whole?
And that's a huge question to answer.
Such a big question.
I'm not sure like what the perfect answer to that is, of course, but I think a lot of that really does start with how we talk about how we treat, how we interact with their first family, too.
Yeah. Yeah.
So it was really interesting in November we heard from two birth moms who both have very open adoptions.
And we've talked to many different birth parents throughout the podcast.
And most of these stories are really hard hitting.
There's some really challenging things that happen.
And our episodes this month were a little different because both Sarah Jane and Leah have had overall really positive experiences.
They talked about how beneficial openness was for them, how they've had really open communication and like there's been grief, but there's also been support and there's been contact and respect.
And anyway, it was very interesting to contrast that.
And I feel like that is maybe a good place to start when we're thinking how can we better support adoptees?
Maybe that first step starts with how can we support their first family, too?
Yeah. And in fostering connections with them really early on.
Obviously, those are those are those can be challenging relationships, especially in the beginning to define norms and roles and how we approach different experiences or situations scenarios.
But in our experience, it has been so, so worth it to I don't I don't I can't think of a better term for this, but fight for those relationships.
Not that it's been a struggle for all of them, but to make sure that we have individuals connected to our children from their biological families.
Like that's been really important to us. And if you're just jumping into the podcast now and haven't listened to previous episodes, Lanette and I have four children, all of whom were adopted at birth.
And they range currently from 12 to three years old.
And we have open adoptions with all of their birth families and are connected to both birth parents in all four situations and grandparents from at least one side of each kid's experience.
And we've really tried to foster and cultivate this connection with biological family.
Obviously, because we, we love them, but really for the sake of our children, so that they know some of their origins, they know their story, they know their love, they have those connections.
And so that they feel as whole as possible that they have as many pieces to their genetic and historic puzzles as possible.
Absolutely. And that's really been a theme as we've talked to and listened to so many different people who were adopted over the years.
It has really stood out to me that when adoptive parents speak highly of speak well of a child's birth family, when they have these relationships or the openness.
And if the openness is impossible, they're still like that respect when that is present. It makes such a big difference in these children's perceptions of themselves.
And I think we've said this before, but it really resonates with me.
It's so important that we love our kids birth families because when we love their birth family, we're showing that we love all of our kid.
We love all the parts of them, the parts that we might not understand too. And we care and we want to understand.
We want to connect with all of them. And that includes their birth family.
Yeah. And we've had adoptees share that when they heard their adoptive parents speak poorly or ill of their biological parents, that they felt this sting or they felt this like shame or yeah, there were different responses.
Like a small piece of like a personal attack or part of their identity was tainted because of the negative feelings that are the adoptive parents had or shared or even just offended comments.
Maybe even when they thought that nobody was listening.
And for us, that's been such a really important aspect of making sure that we genuinely cultivate really good relationships with them and that we have nothing but positive things to say about them to our children, no matter who's around to the even if it's just us.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
I think that's been so important. And so as we've talked about this, it does make me think of the concept that we've talked just a little bit. I don't think we've talked about it on the show very much, but disenfranchised grief.
So if you haven't heard of what disenfranchised grief is, it's basically grief that's not really recognized by society as like legitimate or valid.
Yeah, yeah. So an example would be like you have an ex-spouse who passes away and there's grief because you were married to this person and they passed away.
But society would say they're your ex-spouse, like you're not married anymore. You shouldn't have to mourn that or be sad.
Yeah, or like if you have an absent parent who's not involved in your life and you grieve them or like their death or something like that.
In the adoption world, I think there's so many examples of disenfranchised grief, especially as we talk about birth parents where you're losing the opportunity to parent.
There's a loss for the adoptee because they've lost the opportunity to be raised by biological family members.
And you might have disenfranchised grief when a planned adoption might fall through and adoptive parents or prospective adoptive parents would experience that disenfranchised grief or with infertility and different struggles like that.
So I feel like it's very pertinent in all of these conversations as we've been talking about these episodes that have stood out to us this month.
Yeah. And I think maybe we could dive in a little bit to the specific aspects that that might play. And you just gave a lot of great examples.
But I think we should start with the adoptee because we on our podcast really try to put the adoptee's voice first.
And I think that and what we know from the conversations that we have that many adoptees can grapple with the negative questions of identity or belonging or understanding their roots.
And there's a lot of people who would say, well, you have a great family and you're in a great situation now.
Why would you mourn that? Society expects that adoption is just purely positive experience.
Well, yeah, it's the lucky adoptee narrative that is often pushed on adoptees where they feel like they need to feel grateful or like, yeah, except this kind of like I've been rescued sort of status, which isn't healthy anyway and not fair to them.
So for parents and friends, loved ones, support connections to those that are adoptees, people that were adopted, we need to recognize that and support and be OK.
I think Lanette and I have both shared where there's times where we have to check our ego at the door when we're having conversations with our kids because they're sharing with us some really vulnerable thoughts or feelings about their adoption experience.
And if if we don't check our ego, it's really easy to get frustrated or discourage them from sharing in the future.
It would. Yeah, it would make it so it's certainly not safe to share what they're truly thinking.
And so, yeah, we have to constantly remind them to and say, you are allowed to feel anything you want to feel you're allowed to share anything you want to share about what you're feeling like it's a safe space to share whatever like this is not about me and my feelings.
This is about you and your feelings because I'm sorry, but when you're a parent, it's not about how you feel about something.
It's you've got to focus on your child and what they need. Yeah, that's the job.
Yeah, and I feel like I mean society often holds like these preconceived notions of what the right way to grieve is in a given situation.
And, you know, we as you know, Lanette and I being adoptive parents, we don't know what it is like or feels like to be an adoptee.
And so we have to we have to be okay with and know that we're never going to truly understand or comprehend those feelings. Yeah, absolutely.
And so I feel like this disenfranchised grief.
When you feel like you can't discuss these feelings that might not be understood by society when you feel like there's not a safe space to share, then the results we see are things like shame and loneliness anxiety and depression.
And we've talked before about how harmful shame and stigma can be especially an adoption.
And so that's why we want to make sure that we are recognizing if someone's experienced a kind of grief that isn't maybe understood or accepted by their community or their society, then we need to be actively finding ways to engage and listen and learn so that we can destigmatize that so that we can make it a safe place to get rid of that shame.
And so there's more connection. Yeah, and I mean individuals involved in the adoption process all sides are going to experience unique or complex emotions that aren't going to be widely understood by people outside of the adoption sphere constellation.
And so it's important for us to think deeply about the experience that each member of this relationship, this constellation this triangle, whatever you want to call it, are experiencing so that we can be as empathetic and understanding caring as possible.
Yeah, absolutely.
I feel like this connects back we've talked a little bit recently about this book but it's one of our very favorite books. The book What Happened to You by Dr. Bruce D Perry and Oprah Winfrey is an excellent resource it's not specifically about adoption, but it connects to like all of it right it's a really excellent book so that we really recommend that.
But in this book, it talks about loss, and it talks about how so often trying to process the grief and the trauma that person has experienced that might not be understood.
So Dr. Perry says, If we truly want to understand ourselves, we need to understand our history, our true history, because the emotional residue of our past follows us. And then this book is like a conversation with him and Oprah.
And then Oprah then says that she agrees, and she says, but that can't happen until there's a tipping point of awareness. And so really to start addressing this disenfranchised grief to start addressing these complicated feelings, we need to start off by being more aware, right, we need to have these conversations
we need to be looking and thinking about what these people in our lives might be feeling and how we can help.
So I mean there's a lot of things that we can consider but you know this idea of identity or belonging, there's probably going to be some feelings around some grief around those things that society might not expect right some searching for biological families.
Some, you know, we've talked with lots of adoptees who connected or searched for wanted to reconnect with biological roots, and there's some grief around that a lot of grief around the unknowns and, and then sometimes those reunions don't go well too.
Yeah, and sometimes they go really badly, or there's a lot of pain around that reunion.
Yeah, so yeah I mean it's just so complicated.
Well, and another thought that I had to was that like adoptees often from the conversations that we've had lack or feel this lack of control over their own life's narrative, because of the missing pieces, and we have to understand that we have to support that
and we have to feel in as much as we can.
We have to connect with and process emotions and feelings, whether that's family, racial cultural mirrors, just so there's so many resources and opportunities that we can provide for an adoptee to help them feel as much whole, and as little shame or guilt or grief around their
feelings. Yeah, so I mean we just need to provide for them with support that we can. Yeah, that reminds me of this book, I think we've talked about on here before it's a great resource.
It's a little older now I think it's probably maybe 15 years old, but I think it's by Lori Holden, and it's called the open hearted way to open adoption and my favorite line in that book says something on the lines of
adoption creates a split between a child's identity, but openness is a way of healing that split. Oh, that is a split between their geography, basically like a split between like their biological roots and their map, and then what they're experiencing,
and then what they're experiencing is that openness can like heal that split.
And so, yeah really are, that's our ultimate goal right to help our kids to be as well as we possibly can, because these are really hard experiences and unless you as an adopted parent are also an adopted person, then you really don't understand like we don't understand
what our kids are experiencing and so that's why it's so important to be listening to be open to learning, and to be comfortable recognizing that alone, we really aren't enough and that we need to be listening to others opinions and voices we need to constantly be trying to do
learning more. Yeah, yeah, and I've loved talking to and connecting with so many adoptees and really, really listening to them has helped me learn so much and so I guess the call to our adoptee friends is share your story, share your truth share your feelings, so that we know how to support you and future and other
adoptees. Yeah, if you're comfortable, of course, obviously yeah it's not like you're obligated to do that, but it does benefit us and others I think probably, I mean many adoptees have shared that the more that they are open about things that they've felt more confident,
there is a freeing power of getting rid of those feelings where you have to keep things quiet. When you get rid of that shame, yeah, then there's power there. But yeah, so much to learn, but I feel like really recognizing and understanding when we're seeing
disenfranchised grief is a key stepping stone for us as adoptive parents and helping us to recognize how we can better help our kids how we can better help their birth families, and how we can address our own potential traumas or grief that we need to deal with, so that we can be there that we can be better equipped to help others.
Yeah, and I think maybe on a personal note we might talk for just a moment about adoptive parents, disenfranchised grief. Yeah.
You know, we, we have not been able to have biological children. And there is such a joy, having our children in our lives, like, obviously, they are everything.
Something I tell people often is that I forget that our kids are adopted. But at the same time, I think about their birth families like every single day I think about all of these people who have become part of our family as well.
And so it's it's complicated right, because they are 100% ours, but they're also not only ours. Right. Right. They're 100% their birth parents as well. Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's complex, but, but I wanted to highlight this one thought that like, if we assume that the joy of adoption is going to overshadow any feelings of loss, or
longing for biological children, or, you know, struggles with infertility. That's not healthy. Yeah, you need to grieve, you need to get counseling, if you're considering adoption and coming from a background with those experiences, it's so important to seek help and to be mentally and emotionally
well before you bring kids into your home and before you bring these complicated relationships with their birth families into your life too because these relationships are so important. They take work. And it's like lifelong relationships that you need to be well for.
And you need to be able to consistently be trying to do your best. So that means taking care of ourselves and doing the work to address our own struggles. Personally, I had this experience not long ago, where I had taken two of our older children to visit family in another state.
And during that visit, we got to spend some time with my sister and her husband and their three children. And there were these moments where I was like, wow, like I see, you know, parts of my sister and my brother-in-law in my niece's and nephew. And inside I'm like, there are parts of me or parts of Lanette that I definitely see in our children.
But then I wonder like, what would it have been like or what would it be like? Right. And so even after, you know, many, many years in this, in this wonderful situation of having these amazing children, there are these moments and I kind of felt like guilty for feeling that.
And then I guess I just have to sit with it and say, you know what, that's how I feel. And I just have to process how I'm feeling and that's okay.
Yeah. Yeah. And honestly, I feel like we just go through like cycles, right? Where sometimes there's not really that grief or sadness anymore. And sometimes it might come back when you're not expecting it to, there might be things that trigger that.
And so as you're sharing that, I'm like, oh, that's so hard for you. I feel bad, but I've felt very at peace with things for quite a while. But, but yeah, sometimes I do wonder as like, I'll look at pictures of me when I was a kid and say, oh wow, yeah, that looks like my niece.
It looks like she might have some features for me or something. And it is kind of bizarre to not see that with our kids, but at the same time we do see it with their birth family and their birth family is our family too.
Yeah. And so, and that's awesome. Yeah. And I've loved the experiences where our youngest, he's only three, but his birth mom was sharing us sharing with us some pictures of when she was a child. And we were showing those pictures to our older children.
And they were like, whoa, he looks just like her or so it was really fun to have those experiences with our older kids. Because I mean, they all know they all know each other's birth families and stuff and they're connected and, and it's just sweet that they get to have those feelings and experiences where otherwise in a different time and or even now if we're not, you know, actively supporting an open mind.
And they may miss out on some of those feelings. Yeah. Experiences. Well, and we talked throughout the podcast we've talked with many people who are adopted who talk about the life changing experience of having a child, like a biological, biological child.
Yeah, the first time they see someone who shares their DNA and who looks like them and it's the first time because they don't know their birth family.
And then others who also shared how having children really just ignited this desire that they might not have had before of.
I want to know more about my birth family now because it changes.
It changes the perspective there.
Yeah.
So, yeah, so yeah we've learned so much has been such a journey and we're ready to jump in and learn some more in the new year. Yeah, so we're going to take a break through the rest of the month, and we'll jump back in in 2024.
Yeah, we'll be back in just a bit.
So to wrap up we thought would share just a few of our very favorites throughout the podcast. So for one, this is not our favorite I guess it's a listener favorite but our most downloaded episode is the one with Alexa.
I was just afraid that our Amazon Alexa was going to say, yes.
It does happen.
But yeah so that was our most downloaded one. She's a mother who shared her story.
Pretty, pretty soon after placing. Yeah, and was pretty just raw emotion and I think you could feel her feelings and connect with her.
Yeah, yeah the title was, I'm strong but that doesn't mean I'm okay.
So, that's our most downloaded episode if you haven't heard it check it out. And then a couple others that have stood out to us over time. I'd say that one of the most emotional ones that we did the interview for together was a discussion with Heather Rodriguez.
And that one was really impactful she talked about reunion and the challenging experience there she also talked about her experience as an adoptee, and then becoming an adoptive parent through a foster care journey.
And yeah it was impactful that one stayed with me.
I just from hers and I would encourage you to go listen we won't spill the story there but adoptees can be put in really awkward situations, or really painful and hurtful situations, especially when there's not open.
Yeah, truth is not being told, and we're not coming as, as other members of the adoption community we're not coming at things with honesty and transparency, and like a focus on the adoptee, which adoption should be focused on the adoptee always can really
really hurt. So, yeah, that one.
That one still was really hard. Yeah, yeah. What about you.
Oh man, there are so many and I don't know why my thoughts went right here at first but I think she may have been our very first interview with someone on the podcast and the very in the in the first few episodes we share our own experience and some of
the lessons that we've learned about we met with a birth mother named Nicole.
And she was one of the first people that we met when we were doing interviews. And I don't know I think we just clicked with her and had this great connection and for me, I think that was like this aha moment of saying Shaun like you don't know everything you
know, and you have. Yeah, you have so much to learn from so many perspectives about all of this and I mean this being after we've already gone through this four times. And, I mean, I feel like with our, you know, immediate situations.
We've got to be honest really well, I feel like I know a lot of what they're going through and what they've experienced we're, we're pretty open in our communication but the adoption community is vast and the experiences are are so different.
If I want to be an advocate for my children who are adoptees. If I want to support them and other friends, and, you know, colleagues connections whoever it is that is part of this world, then I need to be.
I need to learn. I need to be an active participant in this learning process, probably for the rest of my life. Yeah, and I think it was in our conversations with her.
And that kind of ignited in me. Awesome.
Yeah, something that I also really loved was just happening to find these two women who are both adults their parents now, who were both adopted and had very open adoptions throughout their childhoods.
And that was Sarah Vanderheegin and Devonnie Roberts, and they both shared their different experiences with openness during times when openness was not common practice and they both grew up with very open adoptions right where they would spend time with birth family
without like adoptive family hovering and being part of that too every time. And so they both have unique but really impactful experiences with that I highly recommend listening to both of them and their thoughts.
Because these are experiences that have been like decades and making and they've had lots of time to really consider the ramifications of their experiences and how openness shaped them.
Yeah, I think I'd give a shout out to Dakota as well. He's a little bit younger than those two that you mentioned, but has grown up his whole life with an open adoption and, you know, really open connection with his, his birth mom at least and from the male
perspective, we don't have a lot of adopting male voices. We have more than a handful on the on the podcasts but I just felt like his ability to kind of articulate some of his feelings and he's pretty open about experiences.
Yeah, that that to just paint, paints for me.
Really, really, the true importance of having these open relationships and dialogues and contact. Yeah, yeah, I think that the other one that I really want to mention that was a life changing episode for me was one that we did pretty recently.
It was a discussion with two mothers, Amy and Stephanie. And so we had them both over here to our house, and just, I was able to chat with them in the living room where they shared how they are connected to each other, and what open adoption looks like in their family
and how it shaped them. It's a really fantastic and impactful episode so highly recommend that one too. And honestly, every person we've talked to on the show I have I have learned from every single person and I'm so grateful for all of these people who have shared with us.
I will say I feel like, as the podcast has gone on as time has gone on our perspective of what our goal is here has really changed where it feels now, more like we are building and maintaining a platform for adoptees to speak.
And so it's become really the main goal, we want to have a safe space for any feelings and experiences that adoptees might want to share and so if you're listening and you're an adoptee and you want to share on the show please reach out to us we would love to have you on the show
if you're connected to an adoptee who has been pretty open about their experience to who, yeah, who you think would like to share who others might benefit from listening to please reach out to us we would love to connect.
Absolutely. So yeah, you can email us at open adoption project at gmail.com, or you can find us on Instagram at open adoption project. Yeah, so thank you so much for being with us for National Adoption Month, and for 100 episodes, it's been an amazing ride.
I don't know if there's anyone that's listened to every episode. If you have messages we want to know who you are. Yeah we'll send you like a digital certificate of honor or something.
Or perseverance or something but yeah I mean we can see some stats we know that we've had nearly 50,000 downloads over the two and a half years that we have listeners all over the world I'm always surprised to see the Hot Pockets and other countries and continents where it wouldn't expect to have so many listeners.
Yeah, we're honored that you're here and that you're listening and learning with us. Yeah, so shoot us a message we love to connect. We love developing relationships with other people in the adoption community and we feel that as we do so, we are our experience our knowledge grows and that just
blesses us and our ability to connect with others too. Yeah and to hopefully help our kids and the other adoptees in our lives. Yep. All right, well thank you so much for being here with us. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Thank you.