May 7, 2025 • 48 mins
Betsy Armstrong, whose memoir, The Mother of All Decisions: A Memoir of Mother Loss, Legacy and Adopting Kids in Midlife, is a story of resilience, hope, and defying the odds. Betsy’s journey began with losing her mother, home, and family at a young age. After years of avoiding the question of legacy, her mother’s death at 46 made her confront what truly mattered. Overcoming grief, Betsy transformed her life, running marathons and quitting a corporate job to live with purpose. Then, at nearly 47, she decided to become a mother through adoption, facing a failed adoption, a Russian courtroom drama, and a medical crisis along the way. Betsy’s story is one of triumph, perseverance, and making the impossible possible!
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Follow me on Instagram:
Kathryn @kathryn_benko
Heart + Sole @heartandsolepodcast
Sole Fitness @sole_fitness
Follow Betsy on Instagram: @wordsbybetsy
Purchase her new memoir HERE!
Check out her website HERE!
Subscribe to our new YouTube Channel and WATCH all episodes!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to the Heart and Soul Podcast with Catherine Banko.
I'm on a mission to celebrate breakthrough, empowerment and shameless
living in the lives of women everywhere. Join me and
let's live unashamed together.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Heart and Soul today.
I am joined by Betty Armstrong all the way from
Las Vegas, Nevada, so across the country, who just wrote
a memoir memoir called The Mother of All Decisions, which
is a memoir of mother lass, legacy and adopting kids
(00:34):
in midlife. Is a story of resilience and hope and
leaving a legacy. And so I'm excited to talk to
you today, Betsy and get to know you a little
bit better.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hi, Catherine, thank you so much for having me on
your podcast. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, okay, so why don't you start off by just
telling my listeners a little bit more about who you
are and what you do?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Okay, Well, I'm Betsy arms I'm a mom, a writer,
an athlete, and a philanthropist. And right now the writer
persona is highest on that list just because well my
kids are in their twenties, so that helps.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
But yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Once I adopted my kids, I kind of went a
little nuts because I'd worked since I was fifteen years old,
and we adopted them when I was forty eight. So
I quit my dream job to raise my kids, who
were ten and twelve from Russia.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
At the time.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
They didn't speak any English, so they needed a lot
of support, and so I quit my job and I
kind of went nuts. Once I got them in school,
I decided I need to do something, and I've been
journaling since I was fifteen, and so I just decided
to take something that I was already doing and turn
it into you know, a hobby at first, and then
(01:59):
it became a book. Surprise, surprise, twelve years later. It
only took that long.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Yeah, exactly, that's awesome. I want to hear more about adopting.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Your children, especially at that age, and especially from a
foreign country coming in and not knowing our language. Will
you walk me through the process of what led you
to adopt, and then we'll get into.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Just the process of adoption itself. Sure.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
So, I was.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Very much a person who has achievement oriented, and I
never thought i'd have kids. The home I grew up
in was pretty dysfunctional, and I did not want to
repeat the patterns that happened in my growing up years.
So I just kind of thought, I'm not going to
have kids. That's just one way of avoiding any of
the drama. And my mother got sick when I was
(02:56):
twenty three and she was forty six, and she died
from diagnosis to death. It was five months, so she
passed away quite quickly. I talked with her a lot.
I was one of her primary caregivers, and I talked
with her a lot about what she would have wanted
in her life. She was so just stunned and saddened
(03:19):
by the fact that she her life was suddenly going
to be so short, and there were things she had
wanted to do, and she talked to me about that,
and those are really painful conversations to have with a
dying person knowing that they're not going to get to
do what they had wanted. So it really stuck with me.
And immediately after she died, I like went on this
(03:42):
whirlwind of Oh, I'm going to run marathons, I'm going
to do triathons, I'm going to you know, get an
awesome job, a corporate job, and make lots of money,
and I did all those things, and the running gave
me a lot of joy, but it just wasn't enough.
And at a certain point in my life. Well, actually,
(04:05):
when I was looking at my forty seventh birthday, when
I was going to be a year older than my mom,
I suddenly the idea of kids just came into my
head and I thought, if I don't at least try this,
I'm going to regret it. And for me, regret is
like the thing that makes me go from no dy yes.
You know, if it's if I think I'm going to
(04:26):
regret something or not doing something, I'm going to do it.
Doesn't matter how big it is, how long it's going
to take, I'm going to do it. So I looked
at adoption that way, and we had done a lot
of research over the years. My husband definitely wanted kids.
He was more of a yes and I was the no.
And we decided, hey, there's got to be two yes's
(04:47):
for this situation.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
I'm sorry, my throat is so dry. I don't know why.
That's okay, I need a sip, Thanks girl.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Thanks so yeah. I kind of was looking at my
forty seventh birthday and a friend of ours, a couple
friend of ours had adopted two girls from a Russian
orphanage four years before, and she had sent me emails
about the program that they went through every single year,
and it just so happened. I got this email and
(05:16):
I forwarded to my husband and just kind of with
very flippantly saying I want to adopt some kids in
the subject line, and he wrote back by not saying
yes or no, but inviting me to the information session
about the kids that we ultimately adopted.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
So that's what.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, I woke up. I went, I'm going to be
I'm going to be older than my mom.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I kind of thought I was going to die like
she did, unfortunately, but it didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So here I am.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I would imagine after losing your mom when she was
at young age and you were such young aged. But
that's like a perspective shift that unfortunately comes in tragedies
like those, and it sucks that sometimes it takes something
as awful as that to happen for us to kind
of wake up and be like what do I want?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Like what is well?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
How am I gonna spend the rest of my life
on this earth? And then to have those hard conversations
with your mom, Like I get a little emotional thing
about it, because, like, I mean, my mom's like my
best friend. So I'm thinking about how much I have
needed my mom even into I'm almost forty, you know,
even into my thirties, and to lose that so young,
(06:33):
and then to.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Have her be like, I don't know what the word
I would use.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I guess wise enough to share with you like this
is what I wish I would have done, And for
you to be bold enough to ask those questions, I'm
sure it did prevent or provide a wake up call
of like what what do I love to do? How
am I spending this precious life right?
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
And it was a really strange feeling. And you realize
that you've been living your life thinking it's going to
end at a certain point, and then you get past
that point. For me anyway, I just I had never
in a million years that I'd end up with children,
Like it was really pretty strong in my in my
(07:18):
heart that that just wasn't a path. And so yeah,
I surprised everyone my friends were doing and my husband,
but he was like, Okay, she's yes, let's go.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, you mentioned earlier that you had some like you
had a tough growing up and that's why you didn't
want to have children. Would you mind sharing a little
bit of where you came from and why why that
kind of put a block on children for you in
the first place. Sure.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
So when I was ten, my parents got divorced, and
my mom immediately kind of turned around and married a
man who wanted her very badly, but did not want
her children. So, you know, I was suddenly thrust into
this family where I was the youngest. I have one
older brother with my real parents, if you want to
(08:13):
call him that, and then I had two stepbrothers suddenly.
From ten to twenty three, I grew up in this
family where there were four kids, two parents, and the
dynamic was very much skewed toward my stepbrothers get everything,
they're not in trouble. My brother and I got a
(08:34):
lot of emotional abuse, and my brother was physically abused.
My mom tried to leave him many times, and there's
stuff in my book about it. Just how she would
take me, We're going to Grandma's, and then we'd never
actually get to grandma's. She would turn around and we'd
always go back home. And then when my mom passed,
(08:54):
my stepdad he completely disinherited me.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And my brother.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
So not only did I see this dynamic when my
mom was alive, after she died, the family just totally disintegrated.
And at twenty three, I didn't have a mom, I
didn't have a stepdad, I didn't have my stepbrothers. I
only had my brother, and he was already married, you know,
with his high school sweetheart. So it was just so lonely.
(09:23):
I mean, I can't it hurt my heart to think that, like, Wow,
my childhood home. I can't even get in there and
get pictures, you know, of my mom and me. I
can't get any heirlooms or things that meant things to me,
but not to my stepdad. So not only did that
turn me off from children, it really made me. It
(09:43):
made it difficult to have relationships. And yeah, yeah, and
so it's kind of funny. I right before I met
my husband, I had this pattern of dating guys. I
date them for like three months, and as soon as
there was like some I don't know, I think this
(10:05):
could go somewhere, I might love you kind of feeling,
I would freak out and I'd run away, and my
running was not just an actual physical thing. It was
so metaphor for my personality. When things get rough, I
like to run away from them. And so I had
a therapist at the time, and I was talking about
this guy who you know. A couple of months before,
(10:27):
I'd been all, he's so great. I love him, He's wonderful,
and all of a sudden, I'm like, I want to
break up with them, and she goes, I get it.
Everything has an expiration date for you, and she goes,
so you can't break up with him.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
You have to stay for two weeks. And I'm like, no,
I don't want to.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
She saw it, she saw the pattern, and she's like,
we got to break this pattern. So I lasted a
week and then I broke up with him, and then
I met my husband. And at the three month mark,
I had this conversation with the therapist Jennifer was her name,
Thank you Jennifer, wherever you are now, and she was like,
(11:04):
what if he's the one? And I thought, wow, what
if he is the one? And she came to our wedding, so.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Wow, So do you what made you at a three
month mark? I mean, obviously her advice but what about
him set him apart from other relationships. Yeah, maybe I
don't want to run it.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It's just that I could not find a reason to
break up with him. And the reasons I found to
break up with guys were so dumb, like, oh you're
too short, like I didn't know that going in. Oh
you'd drink too much. Oh you don't drink enough. I
mean it was you could just pull something out of
a hat, and that's what I would use. And I
have this very vivid memory of laying in bed and
tears rolling down my.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Face and just going like, I'm so scared.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
I was so scared that if I put my if
I trusted him with my heart, that he would break it.
But I also knew that my husband's name is Doug.
We can call him that as a Doug. But he
wasn't like he was a good guy. He is a
good guy. And I you know, it was one of
(12:11):
those moments in your life where you again, you go,
if I if I walk away from this, is it
gonna Am I gonna.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Regret not trying?
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And I would imagine just like given your pass of
rejection and especially with your stepdad, like I cannot imagine
I would imagine that you were just trying to avoid
It's like a defense mechanism, like just trying to avoid
getting hurt, so you would just run first. And yeah,
(12:41):
and it takes a lot to break those that generational
trauma of like like, that's just the pattern you.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Were raised in.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It's like people leave people five people and then to
be like now just people like commit to someone is
that's a big thing.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yeah, I mean commit I'm probably I think being a
commitment phobe was maybe a little bit of.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
What drew my husband to me, because.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You know, a lot of women, especially in their late
twenties early thirties, which is when we met, are kind
of needy and they're like, oh, my person has to
be everything to me, and I was like, I wanted
to be a part of my life, but not all
of my life. And for me and for us, we've
been married now twenty seven years, and it's been really
(13:34):
awesome because we both respect each other's kind of independence
and support each other's dreams and it's just it's really
been nice. He's definitely my soft place to land. I'm
going to quote doctor Phil. I can't believe I'm quoting him.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
But he's got some good he's got some good.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Does he has a few?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Few things?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Okay, So when you get married to death, did he
want children from the start?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Not from the start?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Now, I think, you know, we were very much like, oh,
we're in our I was what was I when we
got married thirty four and he was thirty six, and
so you know, fertility, you're like, oh, I'm already in
my thirties. But I was not worried about it. I
thought I very much took it. If it's going to happen,
(14:25):
it's going to happen. And a lot of people when
they end up adopting kids, they feel that it's sort
of like, oh, I tried to have my own baby.
I went through a lot of infertility stuff. I didn't
do any of that. And so I feel sometimes like
people look at me and just assume a lot of
(14:46):
things and assume things about my children like that, oh,
their second best, just because you know they didn't come
out of my body, And that's not at all the case.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
These are the perfect These were the perfect children for me.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah, so we get married, he you know, we're having
a good life. He's working at a business consulting firm
I had as part of my no regrets lifestyle. Had
quit my corporate job before I met him to go
back to grad school to become a therapist. Because my
therapist changed my life. I was like, I want to
(15:20):
do this, I want to change people's lives. And so yeah,
I went back to grad school and graduated just as
we got married. So I was working in the mental
health space, and we just we had really great life,
lots of friends. His family is big and loving and
we're like just a hug for me.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I mean, his mother's everything you needed that you didn't have.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
They healed me. Yeah, in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I'm like, it still astounds me that, like, there's four
children in this family choose to vacation together, they hang
out together all the time, and that's just not the
family I grew up with.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
It's really been awesome.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I think watching his siblings, you know, have their kids
and getting to know them, I could see why Doug
wanted kids and would appreciate that, and our family would
embrace them. It wouldn't be anything like what I experienced,
but I still just couldn't kind of let it happen.
(16:24):
And along the way, I watched so many of my
friends go through just I mean, miscarriage after miscarriage and
IVF after IVF, and you know, are how many embryos
and can we you know, just so many stories. And
I think at that point in my life I had
(16:46):
lost so much, frankly because my dad had also died
seven years after my mom, so I was an orphan.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
I felt very orphaned in the world.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And so yeah, I just I couldn't bring myself to
like do it. But then yeah, when I realized, oh
my gosh, I'm going to survive. I'm going to live
past forty six. Okay, this is what I'm going to
do now. And I mean, it was very serendipitous. My
(17:18):
birthdays in December. This email came in December from our
friends who had adopted, saying, Hey, the kids are coming
next summer. You know, do you want to host some
kids because we did a really interesting program called Bridge
of Hope that brings older groups of older orphans to
the US from well back then it was Russia and
(17:40):
Ukraine and they stay with host families for four weeks.
So the kids, who are all older, they get a
chance to see where they might be going, and the
parents get a chance to really know the child. International
adoptions are so I mean, you get a picture and
a paragraph about a kid, and you're supposed to say,
(18:02):
oh this, yes, I feel it, you know. And the
whole time of our adoption process, which was from January
twenty eleven to October of twenty twelve, is how long
it took. The whole time, I was weighing my heart
and going is this right? Do I feel this? I
(18:22):
don't know, I'm not sure. I need a sign. I
need a sign. And along the way we had a
failed adoption first from a sibling set in Ukraine, which
was really hard. And when that fell through after we'd
hosted this little girl named Mia, her little brother was
(18:43):
too young to come and yeah, the Ukrainians unfortunately found
two more siblings and they told us that if we
wanted to adopt her and her little brother, we had
to take a three year old and a baby too.
And I was like going from zero to four when
I'm so and are hosting with Mia. She clearly thought
(19:08):
she had a family back in Ukraine that she was
going to go back to, and she it was the
whole thing was.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Just a big no.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Like in my heart, I was just the whole time going,
if this is how it's going to be, I can't
do it. I was like this anxious ball of crazy.
To be honest, time was just like I can't sleep,
I don't know, I can't eat, I don't know what
to do with this little girl who's really not She
was so resistant to me and Doug. So when that
(19:40):
fell through, we found out about Andrea and Spatlana spoiler
alert to your listeners, there's an adoption. And I was
again just a ball of nerves, going, if this goes
the same way, I can't do it. And the day
we met them at O'Hare Airport and Caago, where we
(20:00):
lived at the time, I just remember there's there's a
whole process where you have a translator and they ask you,
the kids ask you questions, and you ask them questions.
And one of the questions was what do you want
to call me? You know, what do you want to
call me? And him Doug and Andre looked right in
(20:24):
my eyes and he said mom and dad, And I
was emotional totally, and I mean I was just like,
maybe that's the sign. Because one of the things about
Mia was that she in apparently in the orphanage, the
kids call their caregivers like Mama, Betsy, Mama, Catherine, So
(20:46):
I you know, she would not call me mama.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
That was a big thing with her. She's like, I
don't need a mama. I have a mama.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
And so when andre knew mom and dad were actual
like what we call parents in our country, I was like, whoa,
he wants to be adopted, Like he really wants.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
This, and so his sister it was him and his sister, yeah,
biological sister.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yes, yeah, you at least at that point, they wouldn't
let you adopt two kids at the same time unless
they had a relationship already. Okay, because especially with older kids,
it's it's really a challenge to you know, bond and
bring them in your family and have them become your family.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And like, how cool for them at that age. I
mean I would imagine being an orphan at ten and
twelve you said ten and twelve, Yes, for them to
have each other and like a new and a new environment,
like a completely new environment. That's hard for them too,
to have someone that's been with them from the beginning
kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yeah, and they're very close. They were and they.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Are and that That's part of why we wanted to
adopt too, because we felt like, you know, it's just
it's really important to have a bond with a sibling,
and I didn't want an only child.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I feel like that's that's just kind of a repeat
of my childhood.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Even though I had all those brothers, they weren't really
my brothers. And yeah, so yeah, it's beautiful. And it
was kind of funny at first our house we had,
you know, we had two bedrooms, one for Andre one
for Saltlanta, and they did not want to sleep separately.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
It was like, no, I have to be by my brother,
my brother, my brother. Okay, you can't.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I mean, I don't care, you'll well, we'll figure it out,
you know.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
So yeah, how long were they with you? Not where
you were not able to like speak the same language as.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Them, Well, the whole time that we hosted them, so
for three weeks. And it is amazing what you can
do with the thumbs up the thumbs down.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Or like a teeter totter yn Yeah, yeah, is this good?
Is this bad? What do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
And like Andrea was so clever there was he would
he would do things like my Doug gave the kids
like a twenty dollar bill each because they were obsessed
with American money, Like you could have given him a dollar,
not twenty, but whatever.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
And so he had put.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
The money in his jeans pocket and I had washed
his jeans, and he woke up in the morning and
he was just like he was looking for something, and
he's looking in like our dirty clothes hamper, and I'm like, Andre,
what do you need? And so he goes and he
gets a piece of paper and he drew a little
pair of jeans. He drew a pocket on one side
(23:32):
and a money sign and an arrow, and I was like, whoh,
you want your jeans with the money in the pocket,
Let's go to the washer. And I pull them out
and there's this twenty dollar bill. So very clever, very smart,
And it just endeared me to him even more, you know,
that he was so upset about something, but that we
(23:55):
were able to figure out a way to communicate. It
was really you know, it was really fun in a
way and frustrating in others.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Oh, I'm sure I have never adopted children from a
different country, but I have done like short term like
mission trips in other countries where we'll be there for
like two weeks a week or two at a time,
and you typically would work with children. And I remember
before my first one was it was in Africa. I
(24:23):
was in college and I was thinking, how are we
going to talk to these kids, like, how are.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
We going to connect?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yet within like an hour, it's like you just find
this kind of like unspoken, obviously emotional connection to these children,
and you kind of find that language isn't so much
of a tough barrier to get through.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
When it comes to love. You know, love can like
trade through the barriers totally.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And so when they were there for that four week,
I guess, uh, trial, I don't know what that was.
Host How long after that did the adoption take for
it to be final?
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Excuse me?
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, So they were with us December through January twenty
eleven to twenty twelve, and then they went back to
the orphanage because that's how it goes. And then we
fill out all this paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, so much paperwork,
and then in August we got our invitation to court
(25:28):
in Russia and went to Russia. Had a difficult time
in court. This is in the book too, But to
answer your question, we got through the court and then
there's a thirty day waiting period and then we went.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Back to Russia and brought them home.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
So October third is our gotcha day. That's a thing
in adoption circles. Yeah, day that you you get them
get each other.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
So then when they got here and it was finalized,
did you have to like hire a translator or an
English teacher?
Speaker 5 (26:00):
How did that? Like?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
How does that work? I mean I would imagine that
it takes a while too.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Yeah, it was. It's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I quit my job because just figuring out how to
care for them and get them all the things they
needed was a full time job. I at one point,
after the first ninety days, I counted I took them
to thirty appointments in three months, and it was with
educational psychologists to determine their grade level, the eye doctor.
(26:32):
They were both legally blind without correction, so we were
able to get like free books on tape. There's a
program for that. If you're blind, you can do that,
so they could read, like look at a book and
then also listen to it to learn the words. So
they needed glasses. My husband got them contacts, which like.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Honey, what are you doing to my mornings? You're going
to kill me.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I have to put these in, I know. And anyway,
so yeah, I mean it was just a dentist. That
was another thing. They had no dental care, and so
we did. We had translators. One funny story. Once I
got them into school, I got a call from the
school going, hey, Spatlana has lice. I'm like, what do
(27:22):
I do? Thank God, there's Google. I did not know
what to do about this. So go to the drug store,
get the kit, you know, bring her home.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
And she does.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I mean she's been with us less than a week
at this point. So I call a tran, I call
her translator, and I have him on the phone while
I put her in the bathtub and he's talking to
her and I'm like, this is going in your hair,
do not touch it, do not rub your eyes. Then
I have to and she's just sitting there kind of
shivering in the bathtub, and I felt like just the
(27:53):
worst mom. But you know, we got through it. And
she she wouldn't let me put her hair in a ponytail. Dude,
you're gonna get LCE again. Okay, it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Wow, I mean, parent had parent had is hard enough
speaking the same language as my child, and I cannot
imagine starting at that level of like, oh, we have
to like not only learn each other as a certain age,
but also like learn how to communicate with each other
at the same time.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Yeah, a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, And I was terrified because at first, you know,
they barely knew their last name or our last name.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, I didn't know my phone number.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
You know, It's like if they walked out of our
house and somebody took them, they wouldn't know how to
They wouldn't even know how to who to call, what
to do, you know, So I was Yeah, I mean
I was on high alert for a long time.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
My nervous system needed to.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
It was going to say.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Your anxiety was probably like through the roof, through the slam.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
In the deep end of the pool of anxiety.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You're like, I think I'm going to become a mom
and I'm going to do it this and it's going
to be a lot more anxiety ritten. But you know
what I love about your story is, you know, I
would imagine most of your childhood you didn't feel chosen,
and so I almost feel like an adoption for you
was like a redemption story for your childhood of like,
these are my children, and I chose these specific kids
(29:19):
to be my children at this age. And what a
beautiful like rewrite of your childhood to like flip that
narrative of you know, maybe I didn't feel chosen as
a kid, but I'm going to choose these children every
day and choose to like embrace this new world together exactly.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
And it really was for me.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I mean it, I think that's in the epilogue of
my book, but it is definitely something that I feel like.
It was a healing thing for me for sure, and
it makes me so happy that I was able to
give that to these kids who had been f time
(30:00):
and again. I mean when we went to court in Russia,
and most of the time it takes between four to
six hours just one day in court.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
For us, it took three days in court.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
And I had to go through a whole day of
medical exams because they I have scoliosis. I put that
in my home study, which is the document that everything goes.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
It's like the Bible of adoption once it's an holy study.
It's true.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
And I had been taking a medication for pain because
of my scoliosis. And when I did the home study
and then by the time we got to court, it
was a year and seven months later, and I wasn't
on the medication, but they kind of seized on this
one sentence and put me through the ringer. And we
(30:53):
really thought that they weren't going to allow us to adopt.
This was just kind of a scam to get us,
get us to pay more money, and and yeah, it was.
It was a really scary day. And it ended with
the doctor assaulting me.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
Yeah physically, yes.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Sexually, oh, oh my gosh. Yeah, so that.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
But at that point I was just like, you know what,
I will do anything for these kids.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
I don't care.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I will, I'll do anything because I'm not leaving Russia
with I'm not abandoning them here. I knew what it
felt like to be abandoned, and I did not want
to do that to them.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
They already knew too. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
I'm like, in awe, that's crazy.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
On top it is crazy.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I think about it, I'm like, wow, that really happened.
Sorry to drop the bomb.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
It was like I was like, whoa, I'm so sorry
it happened to you.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
That's nuts.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
It's just like it was.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Really it was really just a.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Power play by the doctor and totally unnecessary, but they
are looking that they were worried about, and then Russia.
The thing at that point, nobody can adopt anymore, unfortunately
because President Putin has shut that down. But the thing
back then was that they wanted to make sure you
weren't an addict or had cancer. Those are the two
(32:18):
things that if you've ever had cancer, even if you're
cancer free, you can't adopt. And if you've ever been
an addict, even if you've been sober for twenty years,
they won't let you adopt. And so really it was
about putting me through all these tests to make sure
I didn't have cancer. But it was it was not
pleasant and so scary, but it has a happy ending,
(32:39):
which is good, you know. And it also served to me,
who was, you know, constantly weighing and should I do this,
should I not? You know, like I wanted to do
it for Sutlan and Andre. But this made me realize
that like.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
I really wanted this.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Yeah, you know, if if I could have said no,
and the doctor probably wouldn't have signed the form and
we would have just gone back to the us and
not had kids, and so I was just like, I
want these kids. And it was a moment of me
me choosing them and saying I'll do anything so I
and and that was, in a weird way.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Important to me, you know. So even through all I
don't think it's weird.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
I think it shows like a complete change of heart
for you, you know, of like I didn't even want
children and now I'm fighting so hard. I think that's
I don't think that's weird. I think that's powerful. Like, uh,
mothers are resilient. Women are resilient, but mothers there's another
level of like I will do anything for this child,
(33:45):
and you were already tethered to them, so you were
already their mother and fighting for Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Has How has motherhood changed you?
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Big question?
Speaker 5 (33:55):
I know, but.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
It has. Wow, that is a big question.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I think it's changed me in a lot of ways. One,
I think I am a less selfish person. I definitely
live my life very like I'm going to do this
and everyone can suck it.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
You don't like it, I don't care.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Yeah, and you can't do that when you're a mom.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
So it also has made me a much more anxious person.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Frankly, and I don't know if it is more tied
to the fact of the assault and them coming home
and all the just suddenness of being a mom to
a ten and twelve year old who didn't speak English.
But I'm still working on like trying to be calm
in my life instead of being activated.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
That's a big thing.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I would imagine that would be a very anxiety written
time period. I mean, motherhood with a newborn baby that
you raised from the star is anxiety ridden. To have
all those added elements to it is a lot to handle.
I imagine it kind of changed your nervous system a little.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Bit, oh just a little.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I feel like that's completely natural, and like, you know what,
so good of you that you have this history with
like therapists and working on your mental health and even school,
going to grad school for that to like have the
tools in your toolbox to regulate the anxiety and recognize
it before it becomes you know, dangerous overwhelmed for sure.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Okay, So then this book, your memoir that's so bad
at saying the name the word memoir more memmoir, memoir,
my memoir, So my memoir.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
I love it?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
What what I know you said you pulled from old journals,
which is really cool that you've been writing since you
were fifteen.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
But the process of publishing a book, what was that like.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Oh my gosh, well, yeah, I started when we adopted them.
I was kind of like, oh my god, I've been
working all my life and they need me. But I
have these hours in the day when they're at school
where I could just sit and shake for a while,
like physically to get all this energy out, or I
(36:15):
could find something to do that was more productive, which
is much more of my personality. And since I'd been
writing in my journal and I'd always wanted to write
a book, this is another It would have been a
regret if I didn't write it. And I finally felt
like I had the time and the story because I
(36:35):
was just like wow. I'd read a lot of adoption
memoirs and a lot of them are very saccharine, and
I don't know, just to me, there's no for a
book to be good for me. I like to see
the ugly side and the beautiful side. I think it's
important to show both instead of just oh, this is
(36:57):
so wonderful.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
These kids are so.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Wonderful, Like everything's great. Yeah, you know, I'm like, that's
not really that exciting. I mean, I'm glad, but I'm
so I felt pretty strongly about, you know, talking about
my childhood and what led me to adopt. And so
the first part goes back and forth in time between
us deciding to adopt and my childhood, and then there's
a part two where it moves forward chronologically in time, and.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
I just, yeah, I felt like I had a story
to tell.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
And I started taking writing classes because my undergrad is
food science, so that doesn't really match up with writing,
and therapists a lot of therapists write books.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
But I actually was working.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
I had started a nonprofit in Chicago that was Girls
on the Run is after Yeah, actually in North Carolina,
or you are Molly Barker, the founder, that's where she's from.
She actually blurbed my book because yeah, I started the
Chicago chapter of that and grew it to where we
(38:00):
were serving ten thousand girls and you know, in like
four hundred schools, and that I really thought was my
legacy because it combined a lot of things that were
dear to me. Running was huge in my life. Girl power,
I wanted, I want still every woman girl in America
(38:21):
to realize her power, that we can do hard things,
as Glennon Doyle says, and Girls on the Run is
that's what they teach the girls. It's like life skills
lessons training for a five k. And when the girls
do the five k and they cross that finish line
and you can just see they're like, Wow, I didn't
think I could do that, and now I can do
(38:43):
other things.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
Like what else can I do?
Speaker 3 (38:46):
And that was when I ran my first marathon and
I crossed the finish line. I heard my mom say
that to me, like, look at what you've done, Betsy,
what are you going to do now? And that question
has always been in my head, like what can I
do now? What can I do that's bigger, that's going
to make me better, that's going to change the world.
And so, yeah, when I quit my corporate job and
(39:06):
went off to you know, do nonprofit and mental health stuff,
and I loved Girls on the Run.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
I still, I mean, I'm a still huge supporter of them.
Speaker 5 (39:16):
But it's amazing. I'm a runner as well.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
I used to be.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I used to do like marathons and chaplons and all that,
but then I had two kids and everything stopped, but
I still love to run.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Like everything I figured in soul, I knew you had
some kind of workout thing going on.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yes, So actually my business now I run a fitness
studio for women. And I love what you said about
the you can do hard things because there is something
so like spiritually and mentally, like breakthrough happens when you
when you conquer something physically, because then you realize like,
it wasn't just my physical body that got me through it. It
(39:56):
was my mental strength, it was my community, it was
the support. It was yeah, the big step to sign
up for the race and actually run in train for it.
And there's something really empowering about that for women. And
I found that just through movement in general outside of
running as well, movement in general. When you conquer like
a workout together, after an hour, you just find yourself like,
(40:19):
even even if you didn't even talk during class, You're like,
I have a deeper connection with this person because we
did this together.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
We just swept together, we just wrung ourselves dry together.
Totally cool. I love it.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, I s the fact the fact that you are
an endurance runner, I do think plays a lot into
your endurance to get those children because you have that
mindset of like I'm going to finish the race, whatever
the race may be, whether it be like a metaphorical
race or an actual twenty six point two mile race.
I mean I've got I've run races where literal races
(40:54):
where at mile twenty two vomiting, I'm like I get
sick and and I'm just like how can I finish
this thing? But I'm like, I'm going to finish this race.
I don't care if I walk across the finish line.
And so to build that like mental resilience from running
to then go into adoption and all the like overcoming
your story and then writing a book, and it's like
there's a lot of mental resilience that you accumulate from
(41:17):
being a runner.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
And absolutely I completely agree.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
And yeah, when I worked at Girls on the Run,
one of the things that I started was a charity
running team and now they're called Soulmates. So it kind
of goes with your podcast a little bit, like that's
perfect U. And so they they run a marathon and
you know, in honor of Girls on the Run and
(41:42):
raise money. And when we started that, I'll never forget
the first summer, like I was kind of like the
trainer and like, let's go for a run, everybody.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
We had nineteen women, and a whole bunch of them did.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yes, they did the marathon, but then they also they
made these other changes in their life, like a couple
got divorced because they weren't happy in their relationships, and
then some others decided to change careers. And I just
think it is such an empowering thing for a female,
especially to feel physically strong.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Yeah, and like, okay, you know I can kick some asks.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Can I say that on your podcast? Okay? Yeah, I
mean I just and I want women to feel that way.
Speaker 5 (42:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
I love that.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
And then you also now have this, and I love
what you said about you didn't want to write a
book that was almost like Rainbows and Butterflies of adoption
because authenticity also is what creates that connection and community.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
And people don't.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
Want to hear like I have everything together in my
life is perfect.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
I mean, they want to hear like they want to
have a me too moment with you exactly.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Yeah, Oh I had doubts.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
Oh that does get anxious yea, and all those things.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And to have that type of vulnerability in your I
feel like is way more powerful than just being like,
I'm this, you know, badass woman who adopted two kids
from Russia and that's that. And you know, there's there's
a lot more to vulnerability. That is a lot more vulnerability.
Is strong is strength. I can't talk absolutely, and so
I think it's really cool that you wrote it all
(43:18):
down for people to experience with you. So where is
the best place Obviously I'll put all these links in
the show notes, but where's the best place to get
connected with you to read your book?
Speaker 5 (43:30):
How can my listeners continue on your journey?
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Okay, thanks for asking.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
They can go to my website that's the Armstrong dot
com b E T S y A R M S
T R O n G dot com and you can
find my book The Mother of All Decisions on Amazon,
on bookshop dot org, any.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
Of the places you buy books.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
And I also recorded an audiobook which hopefully will be
up when my book is released, which is May sixth,
so coming.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
Order that helps, but you know you don't have to.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
Actually, I'm looking at the calendar, well, this podcast, what's
two weeks is the May sixth, two weeks from now.
Speaker 4 (44:08):
It's close for sure.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
May, so this episode will be out May seventh, so
your book will have just come out, so you can
purchase this now, listeners.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Yeah, the perfect.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
Timing for that.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
Yay.
Speaker 5 (44:23):
So you can go in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I've put these links in the show notes so you
can go click there, order her book, get to know
Betty a little bit more, and then follow her on
social and all the things to stay connected with her
as she continues to be vulnerable and sharing her story.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Yes, this has been so much Betty. Oh my gosh,
it's been such a great conversation. I want to continue it.
At some point. I'd love to.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
You know, my daughter wasn't about to wake up. We
could continue talking, but that's.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
Why you go. You go give that little girl what
she needs.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yes, I will thank you so much for sharing your story,
and I'm sure we'll connect again in the few future.
Speaker 5 (45:00):
And listeners, I will talk to you guys next week. Bye.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
Thank you, Catherine, Bye.
Speaker 5 (45:06):
Thanks for listening to Heart and Soul.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
If this episode encouraged you in any way, please leave
a review.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
On Apple Podcasts or wherever you get to your podcast.
Talk to you next week.
You're listening to the Heart and Soul Podcast with Catherine Banko.
I'm on a mission to celebrate breakthrough, empowerment and shameless
living in the lives of women everywhere. Join me and
let's live unashamed together.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to Heart and Soul today.
I am joined by Betty Armstrong all the way from
Las Vegas, Nevada, so across the country, who just wrote
a memoir memoir called The Mother of All Decisions, which
is a memoir of mother lass, legacy and adopting kids
(00:34):
in midlife. Is a story of resilience and hope and
leaving a legacy. And so I'm excited to talk to
you today, Betsy and get to know you a little
bit better.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hi, Catherine, thank you so much for having me on
your podcast. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Yes, okay, so why don't you start off by just
telling my listeners a little bit more about who you
are and what you do?
Speaker 3 (00:56):
Okay, Well, I'm Betsy arms I'm a mom, a writer,
an athlete, and a philanthropist. And right now the writer
persona is highest on that list just because well my
kids are in their twenties, so that helps.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
But yeah, I.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Once I adopted my kids, I kind of went a
little nuts because I'd worked since I was fifteen years old,
and we adopted them when I was forty eight. So
I quit my dream job to raise my kids, who
were ten and twelve from Russia.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
At the time.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
They didn't speak any English, so they needed a lot
of support, and so I quit my job and I
kind of went nuts. Once I got them in school,
I decided I need to do something, and I've been
journaling since I was fifteen, and so I just decided
to take something that I was already doing and turn
it into you know, a hobby at first, and then
(01:59):
it became a book. Surprise, surprise, twelve years later. It
only took that long.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Yeah, exactly, that's awesome. I want to hear more about adopting.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Your children, especially at that age, and especially from a
foreign country coming in and not knowing our language. Will
you walk me through the process of what led you
to adopt, and then we'll get into.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Just the process of adoption itself. Sure.
Speaker 5 (02:28):
So, I was.
Speaker 3 (02:31):
Very much a person who has achievement oriented, and I
never thought i'd have kids. The home I grew up
in was pretty dysfunctional, and I did not want to
repeat the patterns that happened in my growing up years.
So I just kind of thought, I'm not going to
have kids. That's just one way of avoiding any of
the drama. And my mother got sick when I was
(02:56):
twenty three and she was forty six, and she died
from diagnosis to death. It was five months, so she
passed away quite quickly. I talked with her a lot.
I was one of her primary caregivers, and I talked
with her a lot about what she would have wanted
in her life. She was so just stunned and saddened
(03:19):
by the fact that she her life was suddenly going
to be so short, and there were things she had
wanted to do, and she talked to me about that,
and those are really painful conversations to have with a
dying person knowing that they're not going to get to
do what they had wanted. So it really stuck with me.
And immediately after she died, I like went on this
(03:42):
whirlwind of Oh, I'm going to run marathons, I'm going
to do triathons, I'm going to you know, get an
awesome job, a corporate job, and make lots of money,
and I did all those things, and the running gave
me a lot of joy, but it just wasn't enough.
And at a certain point in my life. Well, actually,
(04:05):
when I was looking at my forty seventh birthday, when
I was going to be a year older than my mom,
I suddenly the idea of kids just came into my
head and I thought, if I don't at least try this,
I'm going to regret it. And for me, regret is
like the thing that makes me go from no dy yes.
You know, if it's if I think I'm going to
(04:26):
regret something or not doing something, I'm going to do it.
Doesn't matter how big it is, how long it's going
to take, I'm going to do it. So I looked
at adoption that way, and we had done a lot
of research over the years. My husband definitely wanted kids.
He was more of a yes and I was the no.
And we decided, hey, there's got to be two yes's
(04:47):
for this situation.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
I'm sorry, my throat is so dry. I don't know why.
That's okay, I need a sip, Thanks girl.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Thanks so yeah. I kind of was looking at my
forty seventh birthday and a friend of ours, a couple
friend of ours had adopted two girls from a Russian
orphanage four years before, and she had sent me emails
about the program that they went through every single year,
and it just so happened. I got this email and
(05:16):
I forwarded to my husband and just kind of with
very flippantly saying I want to adopt some kids in
the subject line, and he wrote back by not saying
yes or no, but inviting me to the information session
about the kids that we ultimately adopted.
Speaker 5 (05:35):
So that's what.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Yeah, I woke up. I went, I'm going to be
I'm going to be older than my mom.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
I kind of thought I was going to die like
she did, unfortunately, but it didn't happen.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So here I am.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
I would imagine after losing your mom when she was
at young age and you were such young aged. But
that's like a perspective shift that unfortunately comes in tragedies
like those, and it sucks that sometimes it takes something
as awful as that to happen for us to kind
of wake up and be like what do I want?
Speaker 4 (06:08):
Like what is well?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
How am I gonna spend the rest of my life
on this earth? And then to have those hard conversations
with your mom, Like I get a little emotional thing
about it, because, like, I mean, my mom's like my
best friend. So I'm thinking about how much I have
needed my mom even into I'm almost forty, you know,
even into my thirties, and to lose that so young,
(06:33):
and then to.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
Have her be like, I don't know what the word
I would use.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I guess wise enough to share with you like this
is what I wish I would have done, And for
you to be bold enough to ask those questions, I'm
sure it did prevent or provide a wake up call
of like what what do I love to do? How
am I spending this precious life right?
Speaker 5 (06:55):
Right?
Speaker 3 (06:55):
And it was a really strange feeling. And you realize
that you've been living your life thinking it's going to
end at a certain point, and then you get past
that point. For me anyway, I just I had never
in a million years that I'd end up with children,
Like it was really pretty strong in my in my
(07:18):
heart that that just wasn't a path. And so yeah,
I surprised everyone my friends were doing and my husband,
but he was like, Okay, she's yes, let's go.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Well, you mentioned earlier that you had some like you
had a tough growing up and that's why you didn't
want to have children. Would you mind sharing a little
bit of where you came from and why why that
kind of put a block on children for you in
the first place. Sure.
Speaker 4 (07:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
So when I was ten, my parents got divorced, and
my mom immediately kind of turned around and married a
man who wanted her very badly, but did not want
her children. So, you know, I was suddenly thrust into
this family where I was the youngest. I have one
older brother with my real parents, if you want to
(08:13):
call him that, and then I had two stepbrothers suddenly.
From ten to twenty three, I grew up in this
family where there were four kids, two parents, and the
dynamic was very much skewed toward my stepbrothers get everything,
they're not in trouble. My brother and I got a
(08:34):
lot of emotional abuse, and my brother was physically abused.
My mom tried to leave him many times, and there's
stuff in my book about it. Just how she would
take me, We're going to Grandma's, and then we'd never
actually get to grandma's. She would turn around and we'd
always go back home. And then when my mom passed,
(08:54):
my stepdad he completely disinherited me.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And my brother.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
So not only did I see this dynamic when my
mom was alive, after she died, the family just totally disintegrated.
And at twenty three, I didn't have a mom, I
didn't have a stepdad, I didn't have my stepbrothers. I
only had my brother, and he was already married, you know,
with his high school sweetheart. So it was just so lonely.
(09:23):
I mean, I can't it hurt my heart to think that, like, Wow,
my childhood home. I can't even get in there and
get pictures, you know, of my mom and me. I
can't get any heirlooms or things that meant things to me,
but not to my stepdad. So not only did that
turn me off from children, it really made me. It
(09:43):
made it difficult to have relationships. And yeah, yeah, and
so it's kind of funny. I right before I met
my husband, I had this pattern of dating guys. I
date them for like three months, and as soon as
there was like some I don't know, I think this
(10:05):
could go somewhere, I might love you kind of feeling,
I would freak out and I'd run away, and my
running was not just an actual physical thing. It was
so metaphor for my personality. When things get rough, I
like to run away from them. And so I had
a therapist at the time, and I was talking about
this guy who you know. A couple of months before,
(10:27):
I'd been all, he's so great. I love him, He's wonderful,
and all of a sudden, I'm like, I want to
break up with them, and she goes, I get it.
Everything has an expiration date for you, and she goes,
so you can't break up with him.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
You have to stay for two weeks. And I'm like, no,
I don't want to.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
She saw it, she saw the pattern, and she's like,
we got to break this pattern. So I lasted a
week and then I broke up with him, and then
I met my husband. And at the three month mark,
I had this conversation with the therapist Jennifer was her name,
Thank you Jennifer, wherever you are now, and she was like,
(11:04):
what if he's the one? And I thought, wow, what
if he is the one? And she came to our wedding, so.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Wow, So do you what made you at a three
month mark? I mean, obviously her advice but what about
him set him apart from other relationships. Yeah, maybe I
don't want to run it.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
It's just that I could not find a reason to
break up with him. And the reasons I found to
break up with guys were so dumb, like, oh you're
too short, like I didn't know that going in. Oh
you'd drink too much. Oh you don't drink enough. I
mean it was you could just pull something out of
a hat, and that's what I would use. And I
have this very vivid memory of laying in bed and
tears rolling down my.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Face and just going like, I'm so scared.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
I was so scared that if I put my if
I trusted him with my heart, that he would break it.
But I also knew that my husband's name is Doug.
We can call him that as a Doug. But he
wasn't like he was a good guy. He is a
good guy. And I you know, it was one of
(12:11):
those moments in your life where you again, you go,
if I if I walk away from this, is it
gonna Am I gonna.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
Regret not trying?
Speaker 5 (12:19):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:20):
And I would imagine just like given your pass of
rejection and especially with your stepdad, like I cannot imagine
I would imagine that you were just trying to avoid
It's like a defense mechanism, like just trying to avoid
getting hurt, so you would just run first. And yeah,
(12:41):
and it takes a lot to break those that generational
trauma of like like, that's just the pattern you.
Speaker 5 (12:48):
Were raised in.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
It's like people leave people five people and then to
be like now just people like commit to someone is
that's a big thing.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Yeah, I mean commit I'm probably I think being a
commitment phobe was maybe a little bit of.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
What drew my husband to me, because.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
You know, a lot of women, especially in their late
twenties early thirties, which is when we met, are kind
of needy and they're like, oh, my person has to
be everything to me, and I was like, I wanted
to be a part of my life, but not all
of my life. And for me and for us, we've
been married now twenty seven years, and it's been really
(13:34):
awesome because we both respect each other's kind of independence
and support each other's dreams and it's just it's really
been nice. He's definitely my soft place to land. I'm
going to quote doctor Phil. I can't believe I'm quoting him.
Speaker 5 (13:51):
But he's got some good he's got some good.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
Does he has a few?
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Few things?
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Okay, So when you get married to death, did he
want children from the start?
Speaker 4 (14:03):
Not from the start?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Now, I think, you know, we were very much like, oh,
we're in our I was what was I when we
got married thirty four and he was thirty six, and
so you know, fertility, you're like, oh, I'm already in
my thirties. But I was not worried about it. I
thought I very much took it. If it's going to happen,
(14:25):
it's going to happen. And a lot of people when
they end up adopting kids, they feel that it's sort
of like, oh, I tried to have my own baby.
I went through a lot of infertility stuff. I didn't
do any of that. And so I feel sometimes like
people look at me and just assume a lot of
(14:46):
things and assume things about my children like that, oh,
their second best, just because you know they didn't come
out of my body, And that's not at all the case.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
These are the perfect These were the perfect children for me.
Speaker 3 (15:00):
Yeah, so we get married, he you know, we're having
a good life. He's working at a business consulting firm
I had as part of my no regrets lifestyle. Had
quit my corporate job before I met him to go
back to grad school to become a therapist. Because my
therapist changed my life. I was like, I want to
(15:20):
do this, I want to change people's lives. And so yeah,
I went back to grad school and graduated just as
we got married. So I was working in the mental
health space, and we just we had really great life,
lots of friends. His family is big and loving and
we're like just a hug for me.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I mean, his mother's everything you needed that you didn't have.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
They healed me. Yeah, in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
I'm like, it still astounds me that, like, there's four
children in this family choose to vacation together, they hang
out together all the time, and that's just not the
family I grew up with.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
It's really been awesome.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
I think watching his siblings, you know, have their kids
and getting to know them, I could see why Doug
wanted kids and would appreciate that, and our family would
embrace them. It wouldn't be anything like what I experienced,
but I still just couldn't kind of let it happen.
(16:24):
And along the way, I watched so many of my
friends go through just I mean, miscarriage after miscarriage and
IVF after IVF, and you know, are how many embryos
and can we you know, just so many stories. And
I think at that point in my life I had
(16:46):
lost so much, frankly because my dad had also died
seven years after my mom, so I was an orphan.
Speaker 4 (16:54):
I felt very orphaned in the world.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
And so yeah, I just I couldn't bring myself to
like do it. But then yeah, when I realized, oh
my gosh, I'm going to survive. I'm going to live
past forty six. Okay, this is what I'm going to
do now. And I mean, it was very serendipitous. My
(17:18):
birthdays in December. This email came in December from our
friends who had adopted, saying, Hey, the kids are coming
next summer. You know, do you want to host some
kids because we did a really interesting program called Bridge
of Hope that brings older groups of older orphans to
the US from well back then it was Russia and
(17:40):
Ukraine and they stay with host families for four weeks.
So the kids, who are all older, they get a
chance to see where they might be going, and the
parents get a chance to really know the child. International
adoptions are so I mean, you get a picture and
a paragraph about a kid, and you're supposed to say,
(18:02):
oh this, yes, I feel it, you know. And the
whole time of our adoption process, which was from January
twenty eleven to October of twenty twelve, is how long
it took. The whole time, I was weighing my heart
and going is this right? Do I feel this? I
(18:22):
don't know, I'm not sure. I need a sign. I
need a sign. And along the way we had a
failed adoption first from a sibling set in Ukraine, which
was really hard. And when that fell through after we'd
hosted this little girl named Mia, her little brother was
(18:43):
too young to come and yeah, the Ukrainians unfortunately found
two more siblings and they told us that if we
wanted to adopt her and her little brother, we had
to take a three year old and a baby too.
And I was like going from zero to four when
I'm so and are hosting with Mia. She clearly thought
(19:08):
she had a family back in Ukraine that she was
going to go back to, and she it was the
whole thing was.
Speaker 4 (19:15):
Just a big no.
Speaker 3 (19:18):
Like in my heart, I was just the whole time going,
if this is how it's going to be, I can't
do it. I was like this anxious ball of crazy.
To be honest, time was just like I can't sleep,
I don't know, I can't eat, I don't know what
to do with this little girl who's really not She
was so resistant to me and Doug. So when that
(19:40):
fell through, we found out about Andrea and Spatlana spoiler
alert to your listeners, there's an adoption. And I was
again just a ball of nerves, going, if this goes
the same way, I can't do it. And the day
we met them at O'Hare Airport and Caago, where we
(20:00):
lived at the time, I just remember there's there's a
whole process where you have a translator and they ask you,
the kids ask you questions, and you ask them questions.
And one of the questions was what do you want
to call me? You know, what do you want to
call me? And him Doug and Andre looked right in
(20:24):
my eyes and he said mom and dad, And I
was emotional totally, and I mean I was just like,
maybe that's the sign. Because one of the things about
Mia was that she in apparently in the orphanage, the
kids call their caregivers like Mama, Betsy, Mama, Catherine, So
(20:46):
I you know, she would not call me mama.
Speaker 4 (20:48):
That was a big thing with her. She's like, I
don't need a mama. I have a mama.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
And so when andre knew mom and dad were actual
like what we call parents in our country, I was like, whoa,
he wants to be adopted, Like he really wants.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
This, and so his sister it was him and his sister, yeah,
biological sister.
Speaker 3 (21:08):
Yes, yeah, you at least at that point, they wouldn't
let you adopt two kids at the same time unless
they had a relationship already. Okay, because especially with older kids,
it's it's really a challenge to you know, bond and
bring them in your family and have them become your family.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
And like, how cool for them at that age. I
mean I would imagine being an orphan at ten and
twelve you said ten and twelve, Yes, for them to
have each other and like a new and a new environment,
like a completely new environment. That's hard for them too,
to have someone that's been with them from the beginning
kind of thing.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Yeah, and they're very close. They were and they.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Are and that That's part of why we wanted to
adopt too, because we felt like, you know, it's just
it's really important to have a bond with a sibling,
and I didn't want an only child.
Speaker 4 (22:00):
I feel like that's that's just kind of a repeat
of my childhood.
Speaker 3 (22:04):
Even though I had all those brothers, they weren't really
my brothers. And yeah, so yeah, it's beautiful. And it
was kind of funny at first our house we had,
you know, we had two bedrooms, one for Andre one
for Saltlanta, and they did not want to sleep separately.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
It was like, no, I have to be by my brother,
my brother, my brother. Okay, you can't.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
I mean, I don't care, you'll well, we'll figure it out,
you know.
Speaker 5 (22:31):
So yeah, how long were they with you? Not where
you were not able to like speak the same language as.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Them, Well, the whole time that we hosted them, so
for three weeks. And it is amazing what you can
do with the thumbs up the thumbs down.
Speaker 4 (22:44):
Or like a teeter totter yn Yeah, yeah, is this good?
Is this bad? What do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (22:50):
And like Andrea was so clever there was he would
he would do things like my Doug gave the kids
like a twenty dollar bill each because they were obsessed
with American money, Like you could have given him a dollar,
not twenty, but whatever.
Speaker 4 (23:07):
And so he had put.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
The money in his jeans pocket and I had washed
his jeans, and he woke up in the morning and
he was just like he was looking for something, and
he's looking in like our dirty clothes hamper, and I'm like, Andre,
what do you need? And so he goes and he
gets a piece of paper and he drew a little
pair of jeans. He drew a pocket on one side
(23:32):
and a money sign and an arrow, and I was like, whoh,
you want your jeans with the money in the pocket,
Let's go to the washer. And I pull them out
and there's this twenty dollar bill. So very clever, very smart,
And it just endeared me to him even more, you know,
that he was so upset about something, but that we
(23:55):
were able to figure out a way to communicate. It
was really you know, it was really fun in a
way and frustrating in others.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
Oh, I'm sure I have never adopted children from a
different country, but I have done like short term like
mission trips in other countries where we'll be there for
like two weeks a week or two at a time,
and you typically would work with children. And I remember
before my first one was it was in Africa. I
(24:23):
was in college and I was thinking, how are we
going to talk to these kids, like, how are.
Speaker 5 (24:27):
We going to connect?
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Yet within like an hour, it's like you just find
this kind of like unspoken, obviously emotional connection to these children,
and you kind of find that language isn't so much
of a tough barrier to get through.
Speaker 5 (24:43):
When it comes to love. You know, love can like
trade through the barriers totally.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
And so when they were there for that four week,
I guess, uh, trial, I don't know what that was.
Host How long after that did the adoption take for
it to be final?
Speaker 4 (25:02):
Excuse me?
Speaker 3 (25:03):
Yeah, So they were with us December through January twenty
eleven to twenty twelve, and then they went back to
the orphanage because that's how it goes. And then we
fill out all this paperwork, paperwork, paperwork, so much paperwork,
and then in August we got our invitation to court
(25:28):
in Russia and went to Russia. Had a difficult time
in court. This is in the book too, But to
answer your question, we got through the court and then
there's a thirty day waiting period and then we went.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
Back to Russia and brought them home.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
So October third is our gotcha day. That's a thing
in adoption circles. Yeah, day that you you get them
get each other.
Speaker 5 (25:51):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
So then when they got here and it was finalized,
did you have to like hire a translator or an
English teacher?
Speaker 5 (26:00):
How did that? Like?
Speaker 2 (26:01):
How does that work? I mean I would imagine that
it takes a while too.
Speaker 4 (26:05):
Yeah, it was. It's a good thing.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I quit my job because just figuring out how to
care for them and get them all the things they
needed was a full time job. I at one point,
after the first ninety days, I counted I took them
to thirty appointments in three months, and it was with
educational psychologists to determine their grade level, the eye doctor.
(26:32):
They were both legally blind without correction, so we were
able to get like free books on tape. There's a
program for that. If you're blind, you can do that,
so they could read, like look at a book and
then also listen to it to learn the words. So
they needed glasses. My husband got them contacts, which like.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
Honey, what are you doing to my mornings? You're going
to kill me.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I have to put these in, I know. And anyway,
so yeah, I mean it was just a dentist. That
was another thing. They had no dental care, and so
we did. We had translators. One funny story. Once I
got them into school, I got a call from the
school going, hey, Spatlana has lice. I'm like, what do
(27:22):
I do? Thank God, there's Google. I did not know
what to do about this. So go to the drug store,
get the kit, you know, bring her home.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
And she does.
Speaker 3 (27:31):
I mean she's been with us less than a week
at this point. So I call a tran, I call
her translator, and I have him on the phone while
I put her in the bathtub and he's talking to
her and I'm like, this is going in your hair,
do not touch it, do not rub your eyes. Then
I have to and she's just sitting there kind of
shivering in the bathtub, and I felt like just the
(27:53):
worst mom. But you know, we got through it. And
she she wouldn't let me put her hair in a ponytail. Dude,
you're gonna get LCE again. Okay, it all worked out.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Wow, I mean, parent had parent had is hard enough
speaking the same language as my child, and I cannot
imagine starting at that level of like, oh, we have
to like not only learn each other as a certain age,
but also like learn how to communicate with each other
at the same time.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
Yeah, a lot.
Speaker 3 (28:21):
Yeah, And I was terrified because at first, you know,
they barely knew their last name or our last name.
Speaker 4 (28:30):
Yeah, I didn't know my phone number.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
You know, It's like if they walked out of our
house and somebody took them, they wouldn't know how to
They wouldn't even know how to who to call, what
to do, you know, So I was Yeah, I mean
I was on high alert for a long time.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
My nervous system needed to.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
It was going to say.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Your anxiety was probably like through the roof, through the slam.
Speaker 4 (28:53):
In the deep end of the pool of anxiety.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
You're like, I think I'm going to become a mom
and I'm going to do it this and it's going
to be a lot more anxiety ritten. But you know
what I love about your story is, you know, I
would imagine most of your childhood you didn't feel chosen,
and so I almost feel like an adoption for you
was like a redemption story for your childhood of like,
these are my children, and I chose these specific kids
(29:19):
to be my children at this age. And what a
beautiful like rewrite of your childhood to like flip that
narrative of you know, maybe I didn't feel chosen as
a kid, but I'm going to choose these children every
day and choose to like embrace this new world together exactly.
Speaker 4 (29:37):
And it really was for me.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
I mean it, I think that's in the epilogue of
my book, but it is definitely something that I feel like.
It was a healing thing for me for sure, and
it makes me so happy that I was able to
give that to these kids who had been f time
(30:00):
and again. I mean when we went to court in Russia,
and most of the time it takes between four to
six hours just one day in court.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
For us, it took three days in court.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
And I had to go through a whole day of
medical exams because they I have scoliosis. I put that
in my home study, which is the document that everything goes.
Speaker 4 (30:26):
It's like the Bible of adoption once it's an holy study.
It's true.
Speaker 3 (30:31):
And I had been taking a medication for pain because
of my scoliosis. And when I did the home study
and then by the time we got to court, it
was a year and seven months later, and I wasn't
on the medication, but they kind of seized on this
one sentence and put me through the ringer. And we
(30:53):
really thought that they weren't going to allow us to adopt.
This was just kind of a scam to get us,
get us to pay more money, and and yeah, it was.
It was a really scary day. And it ended with
the doctor assaulting me.
Speaker 5 (31:12):
Yeah physically, yes.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
Sexually, oh, oh my gosh. Yeah, so that.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
But at that point I was just like, you know what,
I will do anything for these kids.
Speaker 4 (31:22):
I don't care.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
I will, I'll do anything because I'm not leaving Russia
with I'm not abandoning them here. I knew what it
felt like to be abandoned, and I did not want
to do that to them.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
They already knew too. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
I'm like, in awe, that's crazy.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
On top it is crazy.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I think about it, I'm like, wow, that really happened.
Sorry to drop the bomb.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
It was like I was like, whoa, I'm so sorry
it happened to you.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
That's nuts.
Speaker 5 (31:52):
It's just like it was.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
Really it was really just a.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
Power play by the doctor and totally unnecessary, but they
are looking that they were worried about, and then Russia.
The thing at that point, nobody can adopt anymore, unfortunately
because President Putin has shut that down. But the thing
back then was that they wanted to make sure you
weren't an addict or had cancer. Those are the two
(32:18):
things that if you've ever had cancer, even if you're
cancer free, you can't adopt. And if you've ever been
an addict, even if you've been sober for twenty years,
they won't let you adopt. And so really it was
about putting me through all these tests to make sure
I didn't have cancer. But it was it was not
pleasant and so scary, but it has a happy ending,
(32:39):
which is good, you know. And it also served to me,
who was, you know, constantly weighing and should I do this,
should I not? You know, like I wanted to do
it for Sutlan and Andre. But this made me realize
that like.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
I really wanted this.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
Yeah, you know, if if I could have said no,
and the doctor probably wouldn't have signed the form and
we would have just gone back to the us and
not had kids, and so I was just like, I
want these kids. And it was a moment of me
me choosing them and saying I'll do anything so I
and and that was, in a weird way.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
Important to me, you know. So even through all I
don't think it's weird.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
I think it shows like a complete change of heart
for you, you know, of like I didn't even want
children and now I'm fighting so hard. I think that's
I don't think that's weird. I think that's powerful. Like, uh,
mothers are resilient. Women are resilient, but mothers there's another
level of like I will do anything for this child,
(33:45):
and you were already tethered to them, so you were
already their mother and fighting for Yeah.
Speaker 4 (33:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (33:51):
Has How has motherhood changed you?
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Big question?
Speaker 5 (33:55):
I know, but.
Speaker 4 (33:58):
It has. Wow, that is a big question.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I think it's changed me in a lot of ways. One,
I think I am a less selfish person. I definitely
live my life very like I'm going to do this
and everyone can suck it.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
You don't like it, I don't care.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
Yeah, and you can't do that when you're a mom.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
So it also has made me a much more anxious person.
Speaker 3 (34:27):
Frankly, and I don't know if it is more tied
to the fact of the assault and them coming home
and all the just suddenness of being a mom to
a ten and twelve year old who didn't speak English.
But I'm still working on like trying to be calm
in my life instead of being activated.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
That's a big thing.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
I would imagine that would be a very anxiety written
time period. I mean, motherhood with a newborn baby that
you raised from the star is anxiety ridden. To have
all those added elements to it is a lot to handle.
I imagine it kind of changed your nervous system a little.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
Bit, oh just a little.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
I feel like that's completely natural, and like, you know what,
so good of you that you have this history with
like therapists and working on your mental health and even school,
going to grad school for that to like have the
tools in your toolbox to regulate the anxiety and recognize
it before it becomes you know, dangerous overwhelmed for sure.
Speaker 5 (35:32):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
Okay, So then this book, your memoir that's so bad
at saying the name the word memoir more memmoir, memoir,
my memoir, So my memoir.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
I love it?
Speaker 2 (35:46):
What what I know you said you pulled from old journals,
which is really cool that you've been writing since you
were fifteen.
Speaker 5 (35:52):
But the process of publishing a book, what was that like.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Oh my gosh, well, yeah, I started when we adopted them.
I was kind of like, oh my god, I've been
working all my life and they need me. But I
have these hours in the day when they're at school
where I could just sit and shake for a while,
like physically to get all this energy out, or I
(36:15):
could find something to do that was more productive, which
is much more of my personality. And since I'd been
writing in my journal and I'd always wanted to write
a book, this is another It would have been a
regret if I didn't write it. And I finally felt
like I had the time and the story because I
(36:35):
was just like wow. I'd read a lot of adoption
memoirs and a lot of them are very saccharine, and
I don't know, just to me, there's no for a
book to be good for me. I like to see
the ugly side and the beautiful side. I think it's
important to show both instead of just oh, this is
(36:57):
so wonderful.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
These kids are so.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
Wonderful, Like everything's great. Yeah, you know, I'm like, that's
not really that exciting. I mean, I'm glad, but I'm
so I felt pretty strongly about, you know, talking about
my childhood and what led me to adopt. And so
the first part goes back and forth in time between
us deciding to adopt and my childhood, and then there's
a part two where it moves forward chronologically in time, and.
Speaker 4 (37:24):
I just, yeah, I felt like I had a story
to tell.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
And I started taking writing classes because my undergrad is
food science, so that doesn't really match up with writing,
and therapists a lot of therapists write books.
Speaker 4 (37:38):
But I actually was working.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
I had started a nonprofit in Chicago that was Girls
on the Run is after Yeah, actually in North Carolina,
or you are Molly Barker, the founder, that's where she's from.
She actually blurbed my book because yeah, I started the
Chicago chapter of that and grew it to where we
(38:00):
were serving ten thousand girls and you know, in like
four hundred schools, and that I really thought was my
legacy because it combined a lot of things that were
dear to me. Running was huge in my life. Girl power,
I wanted, I want still every woman girl in America
(38:21):
to realize her power, that we can do hard things,
as Glennon Doyle says, and Girls on the Run is
that's what they teach the girls. It's like life skills
lessons training for a five k. And when the girls
do the five k and they cross that finish line
and you can just see they're like, Wow, I didn't
think I could do that, and now I can do
(38:43):
other things.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
Like what else can I do?
Speaker 3 (38:46):
And that was when I ran my first marathon and
I crossed the finish line. I heard my mom say
that to me, like, look at what you've done, Betsy,
what are you going to do now? And that question
has always been in my head, like what can I
do now? What can I do that's bigger, that's going
to make me better, that's going to change the world.
And so, yeah, when I quit my corporate job and
(39:06):
went off to you know, do nonprofit and mental health stuff,
and I loved Girls on the Run.
Speaker 4 (39:12):
I still, I mean, I'm a still huge supporter of them.
Speaker 5 (39:16):
But it's amazing. I'm a runner as well.
Speaker 4 (39:18):
I used to be.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I used to do like marathons and chaplons and all that,
but then I had two kids and everything stopped, but
I still love to run.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
Like everything I figured in soul, I knew you had
some kind of workout thing going on.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Yes, So actually my business now I run a fitness
studio for women. And I love what you said about
the you can do hard things because there is something
so like spiritually and mentally, like breakthrough happens when you
when you conquer something physically, because then you realize like,
it wasn't just my physical body that got me through it. It
(39:56):
was my mental strength, it was my community, it was
the support. It was yeah, the big step to sign
up for the race and actually run in train for it.
And there's something really empowering about that for women. And
I found that just through movement in general outside of
running as well, movement in general. When you conquer like
a workout together, after an hour, you just find yourself like,
(40:19):
even even if you didn't even talk during class, You're like,
I have a deeper connection with this person because we
did this together.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
We just swept together, we just wrung ourselves dry together.
Totally cool. I love it.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, I s the fact the fact that you are
an endurance runner, I do think plays a lot into
your endurance to get those children because you have that
mindset of like I'm going to finish the race, whatever
the race may be, whether it be like a metaphorical
race or an actual twenty six point two mile race.
I mean I've got I've run races where literal races
(40:54):
where at mile twenty two vomiting, I'm like I get
sick and and I'm just like how can I finish
this thing? But I'm like, I'm going to finish this race.
I don't care if I walk across the finish line.
And so to build that like mental resilience from running
to then go into adoption and all the like overcoming
your story and then writing a book, and it's like
there's a lot of mental resilience that you accumulate from
(41:17):
being a runner.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
And absolutely I completely agree.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
And yeah, when I worked at Girls on the Run,
one of the things that I started was a charity
running team and now they're called Soulmates. So it kind
of goes with your podcast a little bit, like that's
perfect U. And so they they run a marathon and
you know, in honor of Girls on the Run and
(41:42):
raise money. And when we started that, I'll never forget
the first summer, like I was kind of like the
trainer and like, let's go for a run, everybody.
Speaker 4 (41:51):
We had nineteen women, and a whole bunch of them did.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Yes, they did the marathon, but then they also they
made these other changes in their life, like a couple
got divorced because they weren't happy in their relationships, and
then some others decided to change careers. And I just
think it is such an empowering thing for a female,
especially to feel physically strong.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
Yeah, and like, okay, you know I can kick some asks.
Speaker 3 (42:17):
Can I say that on your podcast? Okay? Yeah, I
mean I just and I want women to feel that way.
Speaker 5 (42:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (42:26):
I love that.
Speaker 5 (42:27):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (42:28):
And then you also now have this, and I love
what you said about you didn't want to write a
book that was almost like Rainbows and Butterflies of adoption
because authenticity also is what creates that connection and community.
Speaker 4 (42:42):
And people don't.
Speaker 5 (42:42):
Want to hear like I have everything together in my
life is perfect.
Speaker 2 (42:47):
I mean, they want to hear like they want to
have a me too moment with you exactly.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Yeah, Oh I had doubts.
Speaker 5 (42:54):
Oh that does get anxious yea, and all those things.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And to have that type of vulnerability in your I
feel like is way more powerful than just being like,
I'm this, you know, badass woman who adopted two kids
from Russia and that's that. And you know, there's there's
a lot more to vulnerability. That is a lot more vulnerability.
Is strong is strength. I can't talk absolutely, and so
I think it's really cool that you wrote it all
(43:18):
down for people to experience with you. So where is
the best place Obviously I'll put all these links in
the show notes, but where's the best place to get
connected with you to read your book?
Speaker 5 (43:30):
How can my listeners continue on your journey?
Speaker 4 (43:33):
Okay, thanks for asking.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
They can go to my website that's the Armstrong dot
com b E T S y A R M S
T R O n G dot com and you can
find my book The Mother of All Decisions on Amazon,
on bookshop dot org, any.
Speaker 4 (43:51):
Of the places you buy books.
Speaker 3 (43:53):
And I also recorded an audiobook which hopefully will be
up when my book is released, which is May sixth,
so coming.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
Order that helps, but you know you don't have to.
Speaker 5 (44:03):
Actually, I'm looking at the calendar, well, this podcast, what's
two weeks is the May sixth, two weeks from now.
Speaker 4 (44:08):
It's close for sure.
Speaker 5 (44:11):
May, so this episode will be out May seventh, so
your book will have just come out, so you can
purchase this now, listeners.
Speaker 4 (44:19):
Yeah, the perfect.
Speaker 5 (44:20):
Timing for that.
Speaker 4 (44:23):
Yay.
Speaker 5 (44:23):
So you can go in the show notes.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I've put these links in the show notes so you
can go click there, order her book, get to know
Betty a little bit more, and then follow her on
social and all the things to stay connected with her
as she continues to be vulnerable and sharing her story.
Speaker 4 (44:39):
Yes, this has been so much Betty. Oh my gosh,
it's been such a great conversation. I want to continue it.
At some point. I'd love to.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
You know, my daughter wasn't about to wake up. We
could continue talking, but that's.
Speaker 4 (44:51):
Why you go. You go give that little girl what
she needs.
Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yes, I will thank you so much for sharing your story,
and I'm sure we'll connect again in the few future.
Speaker 5 (45:00):
And listeners, I will talk to you guys next week. Bye.
Speaker 4 (45:04):
Thank you, Catherine, Bye.
Speaker 5 (45:06):
Thanks for listening to Heart and Soul.
Speaker 1 (45:08):
If this episode encouraged you in any way, please leave
a review.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
On Apple Podcasts or wherever you get to your podcast.
Talk to you next week.
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