Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. This is episode 118. We're the Nelsons. I'm Shaun.
And in today's episode, Lynette has an interview and great conversation with Linda R. Sexton.
Linda is an adoptive mother who's been involved with open adoption relationships
for nearly 30 years and has some great insights that she's learned in her lifetime of being a
mother to two adopted sons. And in this episode, you'll hear a lot about the things that she
learned navigating open adoptions through these many years now having adult children. And I think
this is a great episode for anyone who's considering open adoption for the future, or perhaps if you
have an open adoption, maybe some tips that might help you to have even a more effective
open adoption that's really focused on your children. We are so grateful for Linda and
we'll go ahead and jump to that conversation now.
We are here on the podcast with Linda R. Sexton. Linda, thank you so much for joining us.
Thank you so much for having me, Lanette. I'm excited to be here today.
We're so happy to have you here. So can you start off by telling us how you are connected
to adoption? Yes, certainly. Well, first of all, I consider myself, Lanette, an open adoption pioneer,
also an author, a blogger, and I'm a retired executive from a Fortune 100 company.
However, the reason I'm here today is because my greatest joy in life remains the adoption
and parenting of two children born in 1994 and 1998. And both of them were domestic infant
adoptions and both in open arrangements. Awesome. So you have been living open adoption
for quite some time. Yes, yes, I have. And I will say that for more than 30 years,
my husband and I have been living in open adoption. But I will say at this point,
both of my children are grown and they're out of the house. And I would like to just make a
comment about them because our oldest lives in Austin, Texas. My husband and I live in Florida.
And while they, my children did not grow up in Texas, they were both
born in Texas. And my oldest moved back to Texas, which was where they were born. And I think that
that's actually very, very significant. But our oldest does live in Austin now and is an entrepreneur
and makes and sells vegan cheese. And our youngest lives in Denver and is an engineer and works on
clean water for the planet. So I'm very proud of both of these kids. Oh, that's awesome. Making
amazing impacts. That's so cool. Yeah. And when I retired, though, what I decided was that I really
wanted to write a book about the experience we had with open adoption over 30 years. In fact,
I think I was so in awe of open adoption when we started it that I thought, you know, I need to
share this story. And I took some really good notes early on. So it was finally when I retired
that I sat down and I thought, you know, I've been doing this for 30 years, I have a lot of advice to
give people. And what happened was I wrote the book and then I went out to get feedback. And I was
I was stunned, frankly, I got so much feedback, some was very positive. But I found out that there
were a lot of complexities about adoption that I really didn't understand. And so these last several
years have been really humbling for me, as I've learned so much more about adoption and the
complexities. So what are some of those complexities that stand out to you? Well, there's so many and
so much has evolved over time. But I'm happy to give you some examples. In the beginning,
for instance, my husband and I thought that openness did make a lot of sense, even though we
really were pioneers, and it had just started back then. But we thought that it was primarily
going to be for the benefit of the birth parents. We knew that if they had an ability to see their
child grow, and thrive, and they could see that their child was loved and safe, we thought, hey,
that's great, they're going to be able to move on with their lives. Well, what we have learned is
that they never move on with their lives, they move forward, they can be happy, and they can have very
full lives, but they never ever move on from that child. And it's actually a really good thing.
The other thing that we thought was that visitation between the child and the birth parents
would be wonderful, happy occasions. And we had many of these visitations growing up. And in fact,
they were wonderful and happy occasions. But we thought this visitation was just what the birth
parents needed to move on and to heal. Well, what we have learned since then is that after visitation,
there was a lot of grief, and it was really difficult. And even though we had done it for
so many years, I didn't know the grief that my children's birth parents were feeling after these
visits until I went to write the book, and I talked to them, and I got some feedback from them. And I
learned how much grief they had. And it was something that they completely hid from us. So,
you know, these are some of the complexities. And I will say, Lanette, there's even a bigger one when
I look back and I think about it. And that is regarding our children. See, when we bought into
this idea and wanted to do open adoption, we did not think that we thought it was going to be good
for the children for us to be transparent. But we really thought that they were not going to have any
problems. And we bought into this idea that the baby is a clean slate. So we truly believe when
we brought both of our babies home from the hospital, that they were a clean slate and that
we were going to avoid all adoption related issues. I didn't know that when that baby is
separated from their birth mom, that they experienced trauma. And so I didn't look for
any of these things that my children would be vulnerable, you know, things like attachment,
potential attachment difficulties or fear of abandonment or even anger. So that was really
quite a lesson that I learned that, yes, even in this almost ideal world of open adoption,
that these children are still very vulnerable. So, yeah, so there was a lot I had to learn.
Do you mind me asking, what did openness look like for your family?
Yes, well, openness, I will say this, I'm very proud of this, my children today
know their birth moms and their birth dads. So openness to us meant that they, they knew
their birth families growing up and we had visitation. And of course, it, it was different
for all four parents, if you will. And that was something that, that was, that was good and also,
also challenging for us. But what openness meant really is this spirit of openness and
that our children knew from the very beginning that they were adopted, they knew who their
birth parents were. We had visitation and I will say within the first five years, particularly,
we saw my oldest birth mom a lot. And then on my youngest, certainly we saw the birth mom and the
birth dad a lot during that first year. But then what happened is we got transferred, we lived in
Texas and we got transferred to Virginia, which was unexpected. And we were, we were, we were
contacted. But when we left, that, that meant that they couldn't get in the car and see us,
because both of the kids were born in Texas. And what it meant is that we had to get on an airplane
or they had to get on an airplane. But I will say that throughout the growing up years, one or the
first five of us did get on a plane. One of the birth fathers came every single year. We saw him.
The birth mothers, we saw less frequently, but throughout the growing up years. And I made sure,
especially when the children were in their adolescent years, that they did see their birth
moms. My kids always knew who their birth moms were. And I would say today they're now 25 and 29
years old, the kids are, and they both have relationships with their mom and their dad
and their siblings. And the other surprise to me is that in many ways, the sibling relationships
become the deepest and the most satisfying. And that's something that is just really neat to see
that they've got these sibling relationships as well. That's beautiful. And it sounds like you had
an open dialogue in your home about adoption, where it was a safe topic as well. We did have,
I would say we did have an open dialogue, but we didn't have a lot of dialogue. And you know,
Lanette, I actually talk about this in the book a little bit. I said that adoption and open adoption
was just who we were. And it wasn't something that we talked a lot about. And in fact, it's one of
the things that I, when I look back, I wish I had more dialogue about it. I wish I asked the kids
a little bit more about how they were feeling. It was just kind of natural to say, oh, you know,
your birth mom or birth dad, they're going to be visiting us next week. We're going to go to the
airport and pick them up. And, you know, we always had did fun things when they were there, but we
didn't sit down and, you know, probe, okay, how are you feeling about this? How are you doing that
kind of thing? So it was always very open, but not a lot of dialogue. So what would you share with
prospective adoptive parents who might be feeling kind of hesitant about this idea of open adoption?
Yeah. Well, the first thing that I would say is openness is hard work. Make no mistake about it.
And the second thing is that it is absolutely worth it. And I would say it is natural to have
fears. I mean, I remember us thinking, what are we getting ourselves into? Will the birth families
be too involved? Right? Will the children get confused? Will that child love their birth mom
more than me? Right? Or if birth mom comes back to visit the child, is she going to say,
I made a mistake. I want the child back. Right? So these are very natural things when you think
about it. And of course, for us, those fears were unfounded. But I would say that the most important
thing in any adoption is that the child is the North star. So to always think about what is best
for that child guides you through this whole open adoption. So, you know, we're all part of nature
and nurture and the adoptive parents do all the nurturing and all the loving, but so much of
somebody's nature comes from their biology. So if you can give that child a view into their biology,
whether that's through their birth mom and or their birth dad, and if they're not available,
maybe a grandmother, a sibling, an aunt, an uncle, if there's anybody from their biological family,
it can help that child tremendously to see, you know, their biology and where some of their traits
come. And that helps them grow up whole. So think about that. I want my child to grow up whole,
of course. So openness is the best way to do that. The other thing that I would say is that realize
when you get into an adoption space, this is not a situation where you can parent as if you gave
birth to that child. Even if it's a baby, you can't parent as if you gave birth and that child
deserves to know everything that they can about their roots. So whatever gift you can give them
with openness and open adoption really helps them. I love that. So as you're talking about these
insecurities and worries that you had when you were first entering this adoption world,
it was so interesting to me because we adopted our children 15 or 20 years later, and we had those
same concerns. The people who went to our like orientation meetings where we talked about these
workers had the same concerns too. Like, there is clearly like these are continual worries that
people are still having, I think. And so I really appreciate how you're addressing this.
So do you feel like open adoption is something that's confusing to the child?
You know, I do not. I do not. It's actually not confusing at all. But what I would say is this,
it depends on how comfortable you are as the parent. So if you as the parent are comfortable,
that child is going to take their cue from you. And if you're very comfortable, if there's nothing
that is confusing to you, it's not going to be confusing to the child. So I would say that that's
the most important thing is get yourself comfortable first and the child will follow. And
the other thing that I will say is when you are with the birth family and the birth parents,
if you are demonstrating a genuine love for them, you're also demonstrating to your child,
it's kind of an underlying message that I love all of you, all of you that came from them and
all of you that is whatever you're going to become yourself. And that's a really important
underlying message. So if you are together with them and show that respect and that love,
that child is getting such a strong message from you.
100%. That's fantastic. So you were navigating open adoption before it was really a commonplace
thing. So even today, we hear from so many prospective and adoptive parents who feel
frustrated because there's a lack of education, a lack of resources as they try to navigate this
openness. So what helped you and your family as you did this?
Yeah, you know, that's a really good question. And by the way,
because there's such a lack, that's really kind of why I wanted to write my book. But honestly,
what helped us the most was the love that we developed with the birth moms, particularly
during the pregnancy. Now, I know that there are a lot of pros and cons with matching
before the birth. And I will say that for our family, actually for the first one, we had a
six month, or married, we were matched. We were matched six months before the birth. And then in
the second one, we were matched three months before the birth. And what happened during that
period of time was we got to know each other, and we genuinely got to trust and to love each other.
Now, of course, I really understand the downside is that an expecting mother is a mother who is
expecting mother, if they are in a relationship with the adoptive parents with the hopeful adoptive
parents before the birth, then it makes it so much more difficult for her if she does decide in the
end that she doesn't want to place which of course is her right. So you do have to weigh that. But I
will just say for us, that helped us tremendously because after the baby was born, we wanted to see
each other, I wanted to see them as much as they wanted to see us. And the other thing that I will
say, and this was the other big surprise to me, when they came to visit us, they wanted to see the
baby, but they wanted to see us as much as they wanted to see the baby, because we had a
relationship with each other that was really significant. So that's what helped us the most.
That's beautiful. And that makes sense, right? Like, before you have built that relationship,
it might seem scary and really daunting. But once you have that love, and you've matched the space
to this person, who's become a part of your family, it becomes something you want, instead of something
that you became scary, or maybe seems like you're not sure about it, it just shifts the mindset
completely shifts when there's that genuine connection. It does, it does. And they are your family.
Yeah, I love that. All right, so can you please share more about your book? I would love to hear more about that.
Yes, thank you, Lanette. I would love to talk a little bit more about my book. So the name of my book
is The Branches We Cherish, and it's called An Open Adoption Memoir. And of course, it is written
from the perspective of an adoptive mom, because that's who I am. But what I am most proud about
is that I worked very hard at getting all of the voices in this book. So all for the birth parents,
as well as my two children, I interviewed them for the book. So all of their voices are in there.
And in fact, there's a piece written by one of the birth fathers in here, there's a piece written by
one of the birth mothers, and there's a piece written by one of the birth grandmothers. So
I tried to include not only all the great stuff, because there's a lot of great stuff about open
adoption, but there are a lot of challenges too. And so I tried to give a balance in this book on
the challenges, as well as, you know, how where we came out. And I will say that I would have
devoured this book when I was a waiting parent. And I truly wrote it so that I could help the
people that come after me. And one of the things in my research, I just learned so much, but I've
decided that all author prophets from this book are going to go to provide support and therapy
to adopted persons and to birth parents. And the reason is that I learned that one third of all
adolescents referred to for psychotherapy are actually adopted. And it's not surprising. And
finding an adoption competent therapist is very difficult. We actually needed therapists for our
children once they got into their adolescent years. And I didn't seek an adoption competent
therapist, because A, I didn't even know whether or not they existed. But at that time, I still
was naive enough to think that my children's issues had nothing to do with adoption, because
we were in an open arrangement. But now I can more clearly see the connections. And I do talk about
those in the book, which is kind of interesting. But the other thing I had already mentioned that
I learned that the birth parents did not get the support and counseling that they needed to deal
with their grief. Just seeing us was not enough. And it actually broke my heart when I heard about
what a difficult time they were having and really worked at hiding from us. So I think that's so
important. And there is an organization called On Your Feet Foundation that I do support with
profits from the book. So those things are very, very important to me.
Wow, I love that you're supporting that organization through your book. That's an incredible
way to make a difference. Thank you, Lanette. So what are some of the biggest challenges that
you think the adoption community faces? I feel like we've touched on some of those as you've been
speaking the last few minutes. Yeah. What do you think some of those challenges are?
Yeah, we have talked about some of them. But honestly, I think some of the biggest challenges
remain ethical adoptions. I mean, 30 years ago, ethical adoptions were an issue. I would say that
anybody, any adoptive parent considering or hopeful adoptive parent, they really need to think long and
hard about the agency or the attorney or the consultant they're working with. And are they
an ethical agency? And I found this organization called Adopt Match that actually has a database
where you can put in the name of the agency or whoever you're working with. And if there's a
red flag, they will show you that there's a red flag with this agency. So that helps. But there's
four principles to ethical adoptions that they use as they look at different agencies. Number one is,
do they have written post adoption contract agreements? Second, is there separate legal
representation for the expectant moms that is separate from the adoptive parents? In our case,
by the way, there wasn't. I do talk about that in the book, but you want to make sure that that's
separate. And it's only because that was still the best practice 30 years ago. Our agency was ethical.
It's just we were following the best practices at the time. The third thing is reasonable and
justifiable fees for adoptive parents. You should ask, where are these fees going to? And finally,
high quality post placement counseling for the birth mothers. Are they taking care of the birth
mothers post placement? And if, if you can satisfy yourself on those four things, you're probably
dealing with a good ethical agency. I love that. That's a really great actionable list.
We've talked on the show before in the past about some of these issues with agencies, but I don't
think we've ever had such a great concise list of what to be looking for. Thank you. Good, good.
We have had some of our listeners ask us a few questions lately. I thought that you would be
really well equipped to help us as we try to digest some of these questions. Okay, sure.
So we have one listener write in and say that they were having a really hard time managing
different levels of openness and siblings adoptions, right? So we're dealing with siblings
who were adopted from different biological families and the open adoption looks different for both of
them. And how do you manage that? Or maybe some kids have a closed adoption and then their sibling
has an open adoption. What do you do in these situations where it's not really? Yeah, that is,
that is something that I would say to pay close attention to. And I kind of learned a lesson.
I guess I'll just tell you about my situation. I would say that, um, I mentioned that we did
get transferred out of town. So our visits had to be really well planned. And I would say that for
our children, they probably saw and knew about their birth mothers at about the same level,
if you will. But the real difference came with us with the birth fathers, one of the birth fathers
we knew, but never visited. Um, and the other birth father was actually the most engaged out
of the four birth parents. And he was the one that he saw us every year, no matter what. And not only
did he see us, his mom and dad came as well as his siblings. So this was a family that we ended up
getting very close to. And they were always very, very respectful though, of both of the children,
which is really important that when they come and they bring gifts that they bring gifts for
obviously the, the, their biological child connection, but they also bring gifts for the
other one. And this family was very good at doing that. But the thing that I found out is that my
oldest is the one that whose birth father, we knew him and we exchanged cards and letters. So it
wasn't like we were estranged or anything. It's just that I didn't pay attention. I was more
concerned about the birth moms. And when my child was 25 years old, they said to me, you know, mom,
that really hurt my self-esteem growing up because I'm thinking, well, what about my birth dad? Who
is this guy? Why doesn't he come and visit me? And so on and so forth. So having your child say,
Hey, that really hurt my self-esteem. I knew I should have paid a little bit closer attention
and I could have gotten on a plane and taken them to see their birth father, but it just,
you know, didn't seem that all that important to me because, you know, we exchanged pictures,
et cetera, but just a quick little story about this birth father. It turns out when our oldest
was 17 years old, their birth father and birth mother got back together and married each other.
And we went to the wedding and they have a child right now who is three years old.
And of course my, and, and, and my child is, has a full birth sibling now. And of course they've
gone to visit them multiple times. So it's just a very sweet story. And now they know their birth
father very well because they go visit their birth mom and the birth dad and their full birth sibling.
And it's, it's a wonderful outcome, but yeah, those things do happen and you do have to pay
attention to them. But if you had the spirit of openness all along, you can end up in a really
good place. Great to hear. And it's challenging, right? Because you can't force a relationship to,
right? Like if they're not really up for open adoption right now, you can't make it happen.
Yeah. Yeah. But talking about it is important. I just think if I would have talked about it,
I think it would have helped them. Yeah. I love that. That's great advice. And so we have a lot
of questions that come in that are on this next line where adoptive families are struggling with
knowing how to deal with challenging relationships. We hear about things like emotional immaturity
coming from family members where they're just not really sure how to handle that or no shows to
visits where the child gets really sad that they don't get to see their birth family or sometimes
power struggles where feelings are hurt and people are feeling like their toes are being stepped on
or they're stepping on someone else's toes and how to handle these different challenges that
might be part of these relationships. Yeah. That is, and I do hear those things, you know,
time and time again, where things can get really challenging. I would say this, particularly with
birth parents and particularly early on, you really have to meet birth mom and birth dad where they
are and kind of getting back to this thing about recognizing their grief. So they may very well be
going through a period of time where they just can't show up. And, you know, I think it's the
way you think about it. So rather than thinking about it as, you know, why didn't they show up or,
you know, disappointing my kid again, try to get yourself into their head and think, you know,
so I wonder what's going on with them right now that they were unable to show up this time and
reach out to them in a way that just says, hey, we're here for you when you're ready. And you just
have to be honest with your child about that, that, you know, your birth mom might be going
through a hard time and just can't see you this time. And it doesn't, all I can say is you got to
be honest and you need to not get upset, but just continue to be open because chances are if you
keep that spirit of openness, they will come back and you will, you'll be able to kind of heal that
relationship hopefully. And if you can't do it with the birth parent, like I said, reach out for
somebody else in that biological family, because that grandmother or that sibling or that aunt or
uncle can really do a great deal to help bridge that gap for that child.
I love that so much. Two words just kept coming back to my mind as you were speaking. I feel like
you were saying these words or other words like them, compassion and honesty. And I think that
both of those are so key to healthy relationships in general, but especially open adoption
relationships. I love that. Yeah. All right. Well, Linda, I have loved talking to you. What else
would you like to talk about today? Well, Lanette, I think we've covered quite a lot and I'm really
appreciate being here. And the only thing I would like to do is to encourage your listeners to visit
my website. It's lindarsexton.com and you can obviously learn about my book there, but also I
do blogs. I blog when I have a story. So I do have some pretty interesting stories up there.
And then I've also done a series of 10 short videos on the 10 things I wish I knew at the start of my
open adoption journey. And if you happen to sign up for my blogs, which means you'll just get an
email when I get one of them, I will send you a document with the 10 things I wish I had known.
So there's a little incentive to sign up there, but please visit my website and, you know, good
luck on your own journey. No matter where you are, just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
It's a journey well worth taking. Thank you so very much for being here. That's been so helpful.
Thank you, Lanette.
Well, again, we just want to give a huge thanks to Linda for spending some time with us and sharing
about her experiences. Go check out her website, go check out her book, links to both of those are
in the show notes for today. And as I am just kind of contemplating this conversation, as I've had
the opportunity to listen to it now a couple of times, I think it's just so vital that we as
members of the adoption community put the experience of the adoptee first. And I love
when Linda shared and I think I had a similar experience going into adoption the first time
that, you know, open adoption was maybe about healing for birth parents. And I think that maybe
that was my perception in the beginning as well. But as we've now been, you know, involved in
adoption for 14, about 14 years, I've really come to see that the open relationships, while definitely
beneficial for birth parents is vital for our children. So I'm really glad that she highlighted
that and so many other great points. Again, we're just so grateful for her and for her willingness
to be with us on the podcast today. We're so grateful for you as listeners, as always, if you
have any questions or would like to recommend someone that we interview, please reach out to
us at openadoptionproject.gmail.com or on Instagram at openadoptionproject. Thanks so much for
listening to this episode.