What does it mean to be a birth mother? How do you navigate the emotional terrain of unplanned pregnancies, the heart-rending decision of adoption, and the aftermath of that choice? These are the raw realities we tackle in this potent episode, guided by the strength and resilience of author and birth mother, Candice Cahill. This conversation is a deep dive into Candice's personal journey—sharing her story, her grief, and her healing—providing invaluable insight into the often unseen dimension of adoption.
Candice's book, 'Goodbye Again,' is a testament the difficult journey following her decision to place her child for adoption. Undeniably, the emotional challenges of holidays and family events leave a lasting mark, but Candice shares how the unwavering support of her partner played a pivotal role in her healing process. As we navigate the complex landscape of motherhood after adoption, delve into the grief that often lingers and the importance of honoring one's role in the adoption process another layer of healing with Host Lisa Ann takes place.
Find your people, cherish your people and love your people.
#adoptee #adoptees #adopteevoices #adopteestories #adopteestrong #adoptionreality #adopteejourney #adoption #adopteesinreunion #wanderingtreeadoptee
Connect with Candice here:
Website: https://candacecahill.com/
Linked Tree: https://linktr.ee/candacecahill
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/candace.cahill.16/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/candace_cahill_/
Book via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Again-Candace-Cahill-ebook/dp/B0BLZSB8Y4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S51TUVC5Z2CQ&keywords=candace+cahill&qid=1688936642&sprefix=candace+cahill+%2Caps%2C91&sr=8-1
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, Lisa Am.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, the holidays, you know any of the holidays
anniversaries.
Those dates in particular werevery difficult for me throughout
, and in particular once theupdates and I had no report.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
In our latest episode and today, i have with me an author, a
first birth mother.
I'm excited about thisparticular episode, as I am many
times with our episodes, but Ireally am looking forward to
this conversation.
I have read her book and, asmost of you know, i don't spend
(00:59):
a lot of time talking about allof the books I've read, but the
ones that really resonate withme.
I go out and I try to get theauthor to come here and we talk
through a lot of the deep piecesof that puzzle, and so what I
would like to do at this time isturn the mic over to Candice
Cahill and, candice, introduceyourself to our listeners,
(01:20):
please.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Okay, thank you so much, Lisa Ann, for having me on
the podcast.
As you said, my name is CandiceCahill.
I live in Alaska, which issomething people are always like
oh, that's so cool.
Well, i live in a very remoteplace near Denali.
I work as a National ParkRanger during the summertime and
in the wintertime I'm an artist.
(01:41):
I'm very fortunate to be in acommitted partnership with a
partner who has allowed me toreally focus in on my art in the
winter months, so I considermyself very fortunate and very
privileged for that.
I am a birth mother.
I placed my son Michael when hewas an infant in 1990 and I
(02:04):
specifically use birth motherthere and placed there because
back in the day when all thishappened, i absolutely
completely bought into theadoptionist beautiful narrative
and used all of the terms theygave me and just kind of went
down the rabbit hole with them.
The kind of coming out of theadoption fog for people that use
(02:29):
that terminology began after Ireunited with my son When I was
18.
I began to really take a lookat the decisions I'd made and
the coercion that took placethat put me kind of on that path
.
But my son Michael he wasraised in Minnesota.
(02:50):
I didn't know where he was.
It was an open adoption, but Ididn't have direct contact.
It was early on in the days ofwhat's considered open adoption,
so I could quote unquote pickparents from vetted people and
meet them one time after theadoption was finalized and then
I would get updates once a yearAnd, as often happens, back then
(03:11):
and even in today's world,updates stopped.
They stopped when he was six.
I had to go request from theagency for the next couple of
years until finally going in andsaying you need to do something
.
They read the send theseupdates and the response was
they don't have to.
It's not a legal document whichI had kind of.
(03:33):
You know, it's a.
It's a manipulation tool, but Ihad no recourse.
But we did reunite when heturned 18.
We got to meet in person whenhe was 20.
I really tried to let him leadthe way and it was still is the
one of the most beautiful daysof my life, but it's the only
time we got to meet.
He passed away in his sleepwhen he was 23.
(03:53):
The grief of losing him a secondtime almost completely
destroyed me because I hadn'tdealt with the grief of the
first time.
You know, now we're coming upon 10 years and I still feel
really sad.
A lot of times I wish for somany things to have been
different.
But now I'm trying to focus onwhat can I do to make it better,
(04:16):
and writing my book was a bigpart of that, because people
need to know the you know thecomplicated mess, unplanned
pregnancies, at least for a lotof people.
They go into this and then theyget tricked and coerced and
manipulated into doing thingsand making a permanent, finding
a permanent solution to atemporary problem.
(04:37):
Yeah, i'm sorry if I went ontoo long.
You didn't at all.
That's kind of the nutshell.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, no, not at all, and I think that is a great
setup for our conversation.
The name of your book is calledGoodbye Again and it's your
memoir, and when you and I metwe were at the Untangling Your
Roots Conference in Kentucky.
I picked up your book, yousigned it, you put a little note
(05:05):
in there make sure you have aglass of wine and tissue and I
said, okay, not knowing.
And then I left and I knew Iwas going to reach out to you at
some point in time.
We kind of talked about thatRead your book.
And this is what I have said topretty much anyone that I talk
about relative to your book.
Your book was the book I didnot know I needed to read, and
(05:28):
the reason I say it that way isbecause when I think of all of
the books that I have read overthe course of getting connected
to the community, sitting in theconversation, saving space for
that, that area, this one helpedbridge for me things that I
(05:48):
have always thought about myapproach to some of those topics
.
It was really a builder ofunderstanding and I thought to
myself as I finished it wow, ithink every adopting might want
to read this one because there'sso many themes in it, and there
are themes that we co-share andmay not realize.
(06:10):
We co-share if that makes senseto you.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It absolutely does, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah.
So I want to talk a little bitabout relinquishment and I'm
going to share out kind of myadoptive perspective and then
you can talk about yourperspective as you were going
through that as well.
I have known that I am anadoptee since kindergarten.
That's my first memory ofknowing I was adopted.
(06:36):
I do not appreciate as an adultthe terms of your birth mother
loved you so much she gave youaway.
I just can't, as an adult,appreciate those terms.
I don't believe I really everappreciated that term.
That term, that narrative setthe tone for how I started
(06:59):
viewing myself as a human,because there is nothing in that
sentence at any point in timethat tells me I was worthy.
When I was reading your bookand thinking about the
relinquishment and the struggleyou went through, i immediately
had that empathy for you as wellas a birth mother, because I
(07:19):
could now see the other side ofthat conversation.
So maybe I'm asking you for ourlisteners talk a little bit
about you know, justrelinquishment, the theme of
relinquishment for you, what itmeant to you then and what it
means to you today.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah.
So going back, looking back atmy younger self, in going
through the what's calleddecision-making counseling that
was provided by the agency,which was a religious agency,
looking back at that now, theynever used the word
relinquishment.
(07:57):
They never used that word.
Everything was just about thisis adoption, this is a beautiful
experience, all of those things.
And they specifically used thatterminology with me to say, if
you want to be a good mother,you need to give your child away
(08:18):
, because you are not.
You are you, you have.
You have none of the skills,attributes, any of the things
that are Quote-unquote requiredfor you to be a good mother.
And they back that up withspecific you know, activities
and and pulling out things frommy past and all of these things
(08:41):
that that clearly indicated that, yeah, i did.
I was poor, i didn't have aneducation, i come from abusive
background, all of those things.
And instead of saying, here's anopportunity to teach you or to
give you some resources andthose things, they just latch
down to that and I I bought intoit hook, line and sinker,
(09:04):
having gone into it from thatbackground, particularly of
abuse and all of those things.
So my, my self-esteem was so lowthat it was like, okay, here's
my opportunity to be a goodperson, as if I did this, if I
follow the rules now, at thesame time, i was doing an
outstanding job of dissociatingfrom the fact that I didn't feel
(09:27):
that way, that that was notwhat was going on inside my body
, and Because I had grown upwith abuse systematic, you know,
long-term sexual abuse and andneglect and all of those things
I was pretty good at thedissociating from it.
So so I did, i shut that all off, and I never at though at that
(09:51):
time or even in the few yearsfollowing, i never thought about
.
What I had done wasrelinquishing.
I Had placed my baby, i hadgiven him a better life, i had
done all the things that wouldnow qualify me to be into that
better grade of human being, andit's horrible, and it's
(10:14):
horrible that That it was.
It felt so sanctioned, it feltlike I Mean it just to me when I
look back at it now, as anunbelievable, believable
betrayal of my spirit and mysoul, and I wasn't capable of
figuring it out on my own And Ididn't have the family support
(10:34):
to help me see differently.
And yeah, and I just I look atit and it's a tragedy.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Doesn't it just rip your heart out to us as where
you are now in life, and I feelit in the context of you're
speaking of your self-esteem,your worth and the positioning
of and becoming a good person asa result of this action,
because you're incapable, basedoff of your circumstances and at
(11:02):
the same time I I just sharedwith you, knowing I was adopted,
did Put a chink in my armor perse, to Myself worth and my
self-esteem.
And how ironic that the twoAngles of that little event
which isn't little is not littleyielded Years of probably the
(11:27):
same ultimate result as itrelates to the my own
Perspective of me as a personand your perspective of you as a
person.
Just, it's phenomenal for me.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, so so many parallels, right, and like you
know you're talking about, youknow reading books of, so I've
read quite a few, you knowadopted people's stories and and
I reflected in so many of thepieces of that and it's, It's,
it's kind of it's not only is iteye-opening and just really sad
(12:01):
, just really sad.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, you know the other kind of moving us forward
a little bit in our conversation.
One of the other things thatjust really Sat well with me and
reading your book and hearingyour story and we could have had
this as a Conversation withoutme reading the book and I think
I would have felt the same way.
The duration of time from theevent to reunion Has so many
(12:27):
Year over year parallels as well.
It is around their birthdays,major hallmark holidays and
major family holidays.
One of the things I know thatwas important for me when I met
my birth mother was to try tounderstand did you think of me
(12:49):
all of those many years and forus it was 40, some on my
birthday and Mother's Day andevery family holiday, because I
know I did from that momentforward, and to just have that
opportunity to hear through yourwords yeah, you did, and so
it's probably pretty common,drawing some, you know, parallel
(13:13):
conclusions that other birthmoms actually are doing that as
well And that comforts me as anadoptee to have that knowledge,
not just my own knowledge, right, i kind of asked my birth
mother before she passed but toknow it has a common theme And
so it kind of talked through foryour experience of those
(13:37):
holidays and you know just youremotional mental state at grand
level.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So for me, i wouldn't be this far along which I feel
like I've come a long way in myhealing through all of this but
I wouldn't be this far along ifit weren't for my partner, who I
got together with when Michaelwas six, and so Tom knew me when
I was pregnant.
We were friends.
Back then Tom was actually theonly person other than a few
(14:05):
family members to have put hishands on my mate and experience
the pregnancy with me, right Andsit with me in my grief because
I was already breathing, and soTom has never been afraid to
talk about it.
And he, immediately when wefirst got together, i said to
(14:26):
him about two weeks beforeMichael's birthday, i said his
birthday is coming.
It's going to be hard, we justneed to know.
And he's like he automaticallywas like I can be with you, i
can sit with you with this.
I don't need to fix it, i don'tneed to.
There isn't anything that I cando, that I can sit with you and
(14:46):
be with you and allow you toexperience whatever you are
capable of, because I stillwasn't, i wasn't good at feeling
it or talking about it oranything else, but he was just
very open, and that was the caseafter that Mother's Day coming
up, my birthday, all of thesedifferent anniversaries and
(15:09):
Christmas, et cetera And hewould always he began to always
check in with me about two tothree weeks before any of these
days and be like how are youfeeling this year?
Do you, are you scared, are youangry?
Or you know where are you atAnd what do you?
what would you like to do tohonor Michael, to honor this
(15:33):
experience, to honor yourmotherhood?
I mean, just being just sayingthat I was still a mother, even
though I didn't have my son withme was a huge step.
I didn't have a thought aboutit, never thought about it.
I thought of myself as a mother, but I didn't deserve it.
I didn't deserve it because notonly did I not have my son, i
gave him away.
Who does that?
(15:54):
Who deserves to be called amother?
if you've given away your child, i mean that's.
It just didn't make sense to me, right?
And?
and so for me, every singleyear, every single holiday,
every single birthday, that waswhat was going on in my head.
I was cycling through thisentire process every single time
that, okay, i have a child, idon't have him in my life.
(16:18):
I know nothing about him.
I wish I did, whichautomatically goes to you don't
deserve it because you gave himaway with Ben, my Tom, coming in
and saying, no, you're, it'sokay.
You need to look through that.
And it was this vicious cycleevery single time, because I'm
really really good at tearingmyself down And I have had to
(16:44):
learn to recognize those voicesand those messages and cut them
off in the sense of yes, youmade some decisions.
I mean, i need to recognizewhat I did wrong.
Be like yeah, you made amistake, so what are you going
to do about it?
now?
You can't go back and change it, you just need to move forward.
(17:07):
So it's a.
For me, it was getting to thepoint where I could accept my
role in all of this and thenfigure out what I can do moving
forward.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, you know, it's really interesting about that
portion of your story, hearingyou right now talk about your
partner, tom, asking you acouple of weeks in advance how
you were feeling that year.
Knowing it was a journey, i'mcurious what was your recovery
time?
on the back end And I speakfrom my own experience My
(17:41):
hardest day is actually Mother'sDay, but it's hard for me for a
couple of of couple of reasons.
I didn't have a strongconnection with my adoption
mother And so therefore I alwaysfeel like I've missed out on,
you know, those mother-daughterrelationships that everybody
just let you know.
When she's my best friend, ican't even imagine what it's
(18:02):
like.
And then I missed out on therelationship with my biological
mother, and then I am not a, ihave not had my own biological
children, and so that whole dayis just like one of my worst
days ever.
Every year And there was oneyear that it became my my like
breaking day, and the recoveryafterwards was was pretty
(18:27):
significant as well.
From that day and that wasabout eight years ago and
forward I now approach that daydifferently and in an attempt to
shorten my recovery.
So what does recovery on theback end look like for you?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
So for, me, it's a recognition that that I'm never
going to be over it.
That so many, so many adoptedpeople talk about okay, i wasn't
, i wasn't, i wasn't.
Being adopted isn't a one anddone thing, it's your whole life
.
You are, you weren't, you areadopted And I, for me, it has to
(19:07):
do with looking at it from fromthat kind of same thing that
it's an, it's an ongoing andevery day, every year is
different And I need to becapable and willing to recognize
that I'm never going to behealed.
I can be healing, i can, i canbe in the moment working towards
(19:29):
finding some peace with all ofit, but I'm it's not going to be
done.
It's never going to be done.
You know the the I like the termpost traumatic growth you know
finding some ways to get throughit, finding new, new techniques
and new skills and and findingthat inner growth, and I'm
(19:52):
always looking for new ways todo that or new avenues to and
and for me.
I think that the, the recoveryor the you know, coming around
them to the other side has beena lot to do with just
recognizing my emotions and myfeelings and being okay with
them, because I'd spent so longjust dissociating from them
(20:15):
because I thought they were allbad.
That was all bad And I didn'twant to be bad, i wanted to be
good.
I can embrace those quoteunquote bad parts of myself.
They can be a part of who I amand I can still move forward and
work towards being a betterperson.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I love the aspect of being at peace with things, and
that is relatable for me as well, in terms of our journey and
the connection and why Icontinue to say this is the book
I needed to read.
It helps put me at peace.
So, as an adoptee, i am gainingpeace every day, and so that
(20:54):
that makes me a different personin 2024 and 2025 and years to
come, and the closer I get tohaving peace on all of those
areas of the conversation, themore situated I will be for me
maybe not everybody else, but itdefinitely will be best for me
(21:15):
And so I love I really do lovethe aspect of you talking
through it on your side of thisconversation.
That it's an important piece ofmoving and growing And I love
the post traumatic growthnarrative.
I love that.
That angle.
Yeah, that's very wow.
That's very wow.
(21:35):
I'm just like and I'm justthinking of it and thinking of a
conversation I just had withthe husband and a friend of ours
, the mom, and they've been onthe show in previous seasons and
we're together this weekend Andwhat brings that to the table
is us talking about childhoodtrauma recovery, ptsd, the jobs
(22:00):
that they've had, you know,military PTSD and sitting in,
sitting in the trauma, year overyear over year over year.
So I I'm going to reiterate Ilove that narrative of post
traumatic growth, i love that.
Well, let's, let's kind of geta little further down, because
(22:21):
that was years.
We're talking years of thoseevents.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Right And again we're connecting ourselves to each
other in the context of years ofthe same events and similar
emotions and buildups and letdowns, and recoveries, and
moving forward and growing andcoming to peace.
reunion day like the first, theday you met.
(22:48):
Michael, Can you verbalize alittle bit of that for for us,
because I I will share with youthen my first day with my
birthday.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So the the best word I have ever found to describe
the experience is surreal AndI've heard other people use that
term as well and it definitelyfits for me And part of it was,
first and foremost, just theanticipation of it.
I mean, from my perspective,that he wanted to meet me.
(23:18):
Number one was, you know, justcreated this incredible euphoria
, for lack of a better word, andI think that works pretty well.
And then that anticipation ofgetting to go meet him, that he
wanted to see me Being.
In the moment it was almostthere were multiple things going
(23:39):
on for me personally In themoment.
First of all, just to see himphysically, as opposed to a
picture, to hug him, to hold himI really didn't want to let him
go.
I also didn't want to scare himaway, which I was really afraid
that I was going to scare himaway, you know.
So, holding him and having so Iin my mind, it's like there was
(24:01):
part of me that was out of bodyand out of body experience
looking down at the two of us.
And then there was also theexperience of feeling like I was
thrown back to that 20 year oldgirl that I was, that here I
was, i had this big man in myarms and this was my son, And
but I felt like a little girland I felt completely incapable
(24:25):
of communicating in any way,shape or form, And all I really
wanted to do was grab him andput his head on my chest and
then just not ever, just staythere And we didn't have, not
even have to talk or even justsit there with him.
But so all of that was going onat the same time.
When we met, and then it was so,it was me and my husband, tom,
(24:49):
michael, and his adoptive dad,david, and Michael and David
actually had very similar looks,similar mannerisms, similar.
It was rather strange.
And then you me next to him andhe looked just like me.
It was just a big boy manversion of me, with the, you
(25:09):
know, the reddish hair and thechubby cheeks, and his hands
were exactly like mine.
I mean, as we sat there for wewere there for almost five hours
and I just kept seeing allthese things that were me, but I
could also see things that wereDavid, and it was again surreal
.
It was just such a surrealexperience And I was completely
(25:32):
overwhelmed And I am again, i'mso grateful that Tom was there
with me because he helped toground me.
I seriously I feel like I wouldhave just floated away and
missed things, but Tom was ableto.
You know you could like.
For some reason he could alwaystell when I was going off
somewhere and he would grab myhand and hold my hand and bring
(25:55):
me back into the moment.
It was like the really the mostbeautiful day of my life And
I'm really sad I never got tohave another day with him.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Surreal is such a good word.
Out of body is also a reallygood word.
I would add disassociation.
And here's where I'm gonna go.
I did something in preparationfor this meeting that I didn't I
hadn't intended to do, but itworked out fantastic And I am
forever grateful for this eventI recorded with Damon Davis of
(26:26):
Who Am I Really?
11 hours before I met my birthmother.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
And in that recording , knowing where I was pacing a
room and sharing my story, whatI knew of it up to that point,
and knowing we both knew that onthe other side of the day,
right the next day, when I wouldmeet her, i would be different.
The reason I am grateful forthat event is because I don't
(26:58):
remember most of that event, andso I now have this opportunity
to go back and listen to mebefore I met her, and I barely
sound like me to me.
And so I know, based off oflistening to that and where I am
now, i was just like you.
(27:20):
I was.
I was so afraid.
I just wanted perfection,whatever that definition was in
that moment, and everything Iwas doing to prepare for that
event.
That meeting had so muchimportance, where we were
meeting, bringing in food,getting them gifts, decorating
the room.
Do I look good?
(27:41):
Does this outfit look okay onme?
How's my hair, how's my makeup?
You know, how is she gonnathink I'm fat?
Is she gonna think I'm tooskinny?
I mean all those things justflooding your psyche as you're
about to meet one of the moreimportant people of your life,
and so to hear you talk about itin the same again, the same
(28:05):
context on the other side of theconversation is just grounding.
I did so, i did meet her,clearly, and I was able to meet
her two times and then shepassed away.
But you know it, just I can't.
I don't think there's anythingin any conversation that we have
be it with me, with otheradoptees, or you with other
(28:27):
birth moms, or birth moms andadoptees talking that will truly
prepare any human for thatmoment.
We may be able to help you getto like 50% of preparedness
maybe 50%, but there isn'tanything else anyone can do
because it's your moment andyou're living it.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So yeah, i, you know, reunion so complex and so
complicated for, i think,everyone involved And you see,
yeah, there's absolutely nothingyou can do to prepare.
I tried to read everything Icould get my hands on and, yeah,
i did not feel like itnecessarily set me up for
success.
But I consider our meeting asuccess, mainly because I got to
(29:11):
tell him that I loved him andthat I got to hold him in my
arms.
And the one thing I didn't dothat I wish I would have was say
I was sorry.
I wish I would have done that.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Oh, that breaks my heart to hear you say that I
don't.
oh, that breaks my heart foryou, but it also breaks my heart
for him.
Can you share with me a littlebit?
What would you be sorry for?
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You know I'm sorry for sorry for mainly for not
trying that I should have tried.
I should have.
I mean, when I look back on itnow, i could have done it, i
could have done it, i justdidn't.
I didn't have anybody in mycorner.
(29:57):
I feel like, you know, i didn'thave even if I had just one
person.
What if one person had saidwell, you can do it, you know,
and I look at other people myage, you know who became parents
young and they did it and theysure they fucked up shit right.
Oops, sorry, but everybody,everybody makes mistakes, right.
That doesn't mean that youcan't, you know, do it right.
(30:19):
And so for me, i think thesorry mainly comes from I wish I
would have tried.
I wish I would have kept him,yeah, and I would not be the
person that I am today.
I know that, i know that Ican't go back and change
anything.
I know that And I know that hisfather was wonderful.
He had, you know he, fromeverything that Michael ever
(30:43):
told me, everything that I'velearned about him from other
family members.
You know all of this that hehad a good upbringing.
You know all of those things,but I still, yeah, i still wish
it could have been different.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I understand what you're saying.
I can only speak for me.
I don't think I was everexpecting, nor even to this day,
if she was here, i wouldn'twant Jackie to apologize for
anything.
Maybe my thought process behindthat and speaking only for
myself is grounded inpotentially my age.
(31:20):
I don't know.
I don't know if I have everfelt like I would have been owed
an apology.
That's a hard, wow, that's hardfor me to hear you say that by
the way, I mean yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I hear what you're saying And you know, maybe you
know, and so the apology part issomething that has happened in
more recent years, right Sincewell after he passed away, and I
think you know.
And, just talking about it, ithink it actually probably has
more to do with apologizing tomyself for letting myself down
(31:55):
And I'm also sorry if I'm sorrythat I caused any bad feelings
by saying that, but I just wishthings could have been different
and I wish I would have beenstronger.
Yeah, so I guess you know,looking at it from that
perspective, it is more of anapology to myself for not
(32:17):
believing in myself.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I can go with that, that I can go with and really
understand where you're comingfrom in that.
Absolutely Well, we've movedthrough.
you know the fact that you guyswere in reunion and we've
talked a little bit about youknow your one meeting, but you
guys had a reunion.
that was what I would say upand down, touch and go.
(32:42):
You can use either of those twophrases.
That had to have been hard aswell.
Did you feel that you wereready for that, like that roller
coaster ride of events where itwould be a little bit of
communication and then nocommunication, and a little bit
of communication and nocommunication?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
No, there was no way to be prepared for that and I
don't think there was anythingthat could have been done.
It was excruciating.
It was from my perspectivebecause, again, i wanted so much
to build a relationship, tocreate communication between us
(33:24):
really of any kind, but I hadreally wanted that And I'm very
grateful to Tom and to otherpeople in my life who were
adamant with me.
It's like you need to letMichael lead the way.
He didn't have any choice backthen.
He needs to be able to guidethings now and I totally
believed that and it was reallyreally hard to live into that
(33:48):
And it was.
it was just so, so hard.
And I know I've talked to otherfirst parents who have a similar
situation where they reunitedand then the adopted person
pulls back and they just want toreach out and I continue.
I encourage them as well to letthe adopting lead the way.
And I totally understand andeveryone's want to talk to
(34:08):
someone and they're like well, icut it off because I can't.
I can't deal with thedisappointment, i can't deal
with the waiting for them to getback to me or to responding to
my emails or phone calls oranything else, and I understand
that, because there were times Ifelt that way, but I also think
that that's wrong.
That is a wrong way to go aboutit.
(34:29):
I think you have to.
you have to remain as open.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Well, i'm going to pull together one of the things
you said at the beginning of ustalking about reunion and
overwhelming right, one of thefeelings of overwhelming.
I want to pull it into thispart of the conversation.
That theme of how we all areapproaching reunion gets
underplayed, and what I mean bythat is it's overwhelming from
(34:58):
this seat to think about all ofthe potential and you don't you
really don't know what we'regoing to get in many cases.
And I think it's overwhelming,from what I've just heard you
say, to know how far to go andto be patient.
I like the fact that youadvocate for let the adoptee
(35:20):
kind of drive the conversation.
At the same time, i would saydon't give up and put your wall
back up, because it's hard.
It was hard enough to gothrough the wall the first time
and to have to go through thewall a second or third or fourth
time.
You know I'm lucky.
I don't have that experience.
I don't know what I would havedone with that said, i have had
(35:41):
walls and I have walked awayfrom them because I'm not
willing to continue to beat myhead against it to try to get
through.
And so there's a.
There's a likeness to thatstatement too.
I'm I'm tired of the.
You know, what I think I justheard you say is I'm tired of
being hurt and I'm tired of thedisappointment.
That's a shared common trait.
(36:02):
Very good referencing to sharedexperience along this journey,
and you know you mentioned thatadoption and being adopted is
part of you know, it's not anevent, it's not a one and done
in life.
But also, being the birthmother is not a one and done
event either, and it is ajourney as well.
We talk sometimes, too, aboutloss and grief.
(36:24):
You have a lot of grief and Iwant to acknowledge that.
I have just today, heard youremotion around that.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Um.
So for me, you know, a big partof having had a child that I
then relinquished.
As I got beyond that event ofrelinquishment, i had thought
that I would would likely havemore children initially And, and
(36:54):
when I look at it now, i amgrateful that I didn't early on,
when I was still deep in my umdissociation from all of it.
I think had I, it would havetotally thrown me for a loop and
it would have been quite a uh,uh, an emotional and spiritual
thing that I would have had todeal with earlier.
(37:14):
Certainly.
But you know, as I, as I gotolder and then got together with
Tom, you know we talked aboutkids a lot and you know I spent
a lot of random times, you know,looking like driving by the
school or going into the schoolfor something and thinking about
.
You know how old Michael wasand how he related to those kids
.
There's an awful lot of time.
What I now know is referred toas like a ghost kingdom,
(37:37):
essentially.
You know, thinking about thatand thinking, especially after
the update stopped and nothaving any idea of where he was
or if he was okay and all ofthat.
But as we got older, you know,coming to the to the realization
that there's no way that Icould have another child,
because there's no way that Iwould one day, because I always
(37:57):
hoped he would reach out to me,there was, there was no way that
I could explain to him whyanother child was.
I kept and didn't keep him Andand that was, that was the kind
of the number one, became thenumber one reason why I wouldn't
.
I didn't want to have any morechildren, and that has impacted
(38:18):
us profoundly as a couple, youknow, tom and I.
And and then, you know, when wereunited with Michael, we
started dreaming about, you know, maybe when he's a little older
he might want to come, evencome visit us.
Or, you know, come for a week,come for a couple weeks, maybe
come for a whole summer.
And we had really just starteddreaming about that and talking
(38:39):
about that And we were justgetting ready to to talk to
Michael about it when he was thenext time he contacted us, we
were going to present to himbecause he was at a place in his
life where it seemed like hewas ready for some change, to do
something new.
In the fallout of that, sinceMichael passed, the grief of
losing those new dreams waspretty profound.
(39:00):
And it's been very profound forTom because Michael was going
to be his one possibility forhaving a relationship with
someone, almost in a fatherfigure kind of way.
And we talk about thisfrequently.
I mean, father's Day is comingup, you know, and it's like I've
asked Tom now, would you liketo do anything for Father's Day?
(39:22):
Would you like to celebrate orwould you like to honor us?
You know, i know that he's not,michael's not here, but we did
have dreams.
So that's kind of where we areat now.
And more recently particularly,i'm in several support groups,
online support groups for FirstMothers, and you know they.
(39:44):
For some they're reunited, somethey're not.
You know some some are reunions, are good, some are not.
You know all of those things.
But over and over and overagain they talk about grandkids
And it's like and I'll neverhave them And and and
particularly hard the lastcouple of years, to just be in
those groups and be happy forthem, particularly if they've
(40:05):
reunited with their theirrelinquished child And now they
have this relationship wherethey're feeling that role to a
certain extent.
Maybe not what what normal, butI find myself being very
envious.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Your explanation really does help strengthen
understanding.
I don't know if I'm justthinking through my own thought
process.
I don't know if I've everconsidered abandonment of dreams
by a birth parent as part ofthat grief and the need to work
through that.
I don't.
I don't think, candice, i'veever considered it that way.
(40:44):
I've never really sat in thatspace.
That's very humbling.
I just want to thank you forsharing, because that's very
humbling for me to think of itin that context where you know
there are a number of adopteesthat don't have children for the
simple reason that they wereadopted and they don't want to.
So that's a common theme.
(41:05):
I want us to kind of move nowaround your support system, your
healing and some of yourgo-forward activities In your
book.
Tom's all over your book and inthis conversation Tom's been
all over the conversation.
I feel like I know Tom, so if Iever get the opportunity to
(41:27):
meet him in person, you mightjust want to forewarn him.
I'm probably gonna hug himbecause I'm a hugger and you
know I have a good supportsystem, and so what I would like
to ask you to share is kind ofsome of the things that you have
done.
What are some things you'redoing to kind of move forward.
That would be applicableregardless if you're a birth mom
(41:48):
or an adoptee.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yeah, i have been very intentional with the steps
I'm trying to take to becomemore whole I guess it's the best
way for me to put it.
Certainly, the writing my book,the writing part of it, was
(42:11):
really to help me processeverything.
When I initially startedwriting, i didn't plan to
publish it.
I was just writing it because Ineeded to put it on paper and
I'm so grateful I did because itdid.
It was a big tool that I usedto help me process so much of
all of this The intentionallylooking for specific things to
(42:34):
help me.
So those things were I havehorrible self-esteem.
How do I fix that?
Like literally researching, howdo you increase your
self-esteem and then findingthose things and doing them and
making them a part of my routine.
And it took a long time to getit a routine in place, but I
(42:56):
have it now and I can clearlysee the benefits of that.
I can see it in my work life, ican see it in my personal lives
, i can see it in so many ways.
And the same thing is true forlearning to.
Part of that is learningself-compassion and compassion
for other people in whatevertheir experiences may be
(43:16):
Learning.
How do you sit with some ofthese really horrible feelings
because it feels like crap andmy body when something bad.
But something feels bad, myinitial reaction now is to shut
it down because I don't want tofeel it.
(43:36):
So learning techniques andtools to stop that initial
reaction and try to create a newreaction, and I'm still working
on that.
I don't know that I'll ever getthrough that necessarily, but I
am getting better at it.
I mean, i really I've been veryintentional, looking for
specific things to help me withcommunication, you know,
(43:58):
continuing to take littlecourses about learning how to
talk with people instead of atpeople.
I think I've been really goodat that for a long time and I'd
rather talk with people than atpeople.
With the book, you know, once Istarted, once I made the
decision to publish it, tom andI talked a lot about, if I do
that, what are going to be theconsequences and or
(44:20):
ramifications of that, becauseit's big and talking to the
people that are in the book youknow, michael's adoptive family
and and just working, workingthrough and just be like we
don't know for sure what's goingto happen with all of this, but
we need to be ready for thereto be consequences, fallout or
good things, you know, good, bad, whatever it may be and being
(44:43):
willing to, to address whatevercomes up.
So that was a very specificdecision to put it out there.
And you know there are otherpeople that that you know put up
books and they change your name.
It's like I didn't want tochange my name.
I didn't want to change it andI want to be.
I want to be accountable to it.
And now, after it's beenreleased, i feel like my, my
(45:07):
journey with it.
I'm continuing to use it as atool to feel because I'm sharing
it with people, specifically toopen dialogues and finding
avenues to do that, whether it'swith, you know, people like you
, on podcasts and getting theword out, or I'm going back to.
You know, i'm a social worker.
(45:28):
That's what I ended up gettinga degree in.
I'm going back to my alma materand working with them to
developing a curriculum.
That's like a relinquishment,one-on-one.
You know these are therealities and as I'm doing that,
i'm also being sure that I'mamplifying adoptee voices
because, again, they're the oneswho've been silenced in all of
(45:51):
this.
I mean, certainly, i thinkbirth, birth parents have been
silenced too, but more so Iabsolutely way more so adopted
people, because I feel like Iwas capable of writing my story
in a way that allowed people toexperience it along with me and
and feel compassion in thosemoments.
(46:12):
It helps them to stay open totalking about it.
That, to me, is the big issue,is that these these issues and
the feelings and the emotionsaround relinquishment and
adoption are very they'recharged and we need to kind of
take a little bit of that chargeoff so that it doesn't make it
so scary to talk about youabsolutely make a hundred
(46:36):
percent sense to me and I wouldsay on long those lines, that is
the advocacy that I think manyof us are pushing forward.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
One is better understanding, better ways of
addressing some of those items,more educational opportunities,
experiences, material, and thenreally again creating a bridge
between all of these differenthumans that are dealing with
human things, and we compound itwith this topic.
(47:09):
Well, i love everything that wehave talked about today and I
always kind of move into thisspace next as we're getting
ready to wrap up.
We have talked a lot.
I I can't tell you how thankfulI am to have had you today on
the show.
I I just again feel such akindred spirit with you.
Your book goodbye again was thebook I needed and the moment I
(47:33):
needed it, and thank you, thankyou for what you did to write
that and to put it out there andto put your story out there and
to understand that there couldbe positive and negative
consequences to that, and so Ireally want to raise you up in
that in that way.
If there was anything I couldhave asked you during the course
of this conversation that Ihave not, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
the one thing that I always like to reiterate, i
guess and that's what I'll dohere is, you know, when it comes
to adoption in our society ingeneral, the thing that is most
often either purposefullyignored or not recognized or
(48:17):
even not even thought about bythe vast majority of people is
that when an adoption takesplace, their identity is erased
and a new birth certificate isissued.
I mean, if, maybe, if adoptionwere different and we didn't
have to erase somebody's past inorder for them to have a future
, maybe that would be different.
But right now, adoption always,always, always begins with loss
(48:41):
, this basically the destructionof one family and then the
creation of a new family.
And if we can keep that,remember that, that, that the
foundation, the foundation ofevery adoption is built on grief
, maybe we can make some changes.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Maybe we can can get there yeah, well said, very well
said well.
I want to thank you for comingon the show today.
It has been my pleasure.
I typically don't fond, but Ifeel like I'm a little fawny
right now, and so you arewelcome here anytime for any
reason.
It has been my pleasure thankyou so much.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Yeah, this has been wonderful.
I, you, and I feel like you andI could talk for hours and I
would agree.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
I would absolutely agree.
Well, thank you and we'll seeyou soon.
Thank you for listening totoday's episode.
Make sure to rate, review andshare.
Want to join the conversation?
contact us atwanderingtreeadoptedcom.
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, Lisa Am.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, the holidays, you know any of the holidays
anniversaries.
Those dates in particular werevery difficult for me throughout
, and in particular once theupdates and I had no report.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
In our latest episode and today, i have with me an author, a
first birth mother.
I'm excited about thisparticular episode, as I am many
times with our episodes, but Ireally am looking forward to
this conversation.
I have read her book and, asmost of you know, i don't spend
(00:59):
a lot of time talking about allof the books I've read, but the
ones that really resonate withme.
I go out and I try to get theauthor to come here and we talk
through a lot of the deep piecesof that puzzle, and so what I
would like to do at this time isturn the mic over to Candice
Cahill and, candice, introduceyourself to our listeners,
(01:20):
please.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Okay, thank you so much, Lisa Ann, for having me on
the podcast.
As you said, my name is CandiceCahill.
I live in Alaska, which issomething people are always like
oh, that's so cool.
Well, i live in a very remoteplace near Denali.
I work as a National ParkRanger during the summertime and
in the wintertime I'm an artist.
(01:41):
I'm very fortunate to be in acommitted partnership with a
partner who has allowed me toreally focus in on my art in the
winter months, so I considermyself very fortunate and very
privileged for that.
I am a birth mother.
I placed my son Michael when hewas an infant in 1990 and I
(02:04):
specifically use birth motherthere and placed there because
back in the day when all thishappened, i absolutely
completely bought into theadoptionist beautiful narrative
and used all of the terms theygave me and just kind of went
down the rabbit hole with them.
The kind of coming out of theadoption fog for people that use
(02:29):
that terminology began after Ireunited with my son When I was
18.
I began to really take a lookat the decisions I'd made and
the coercion that took placethat put me kind of on that path
.
But my son Michael he wasraised in Minnesota.
(02:50):
I didn't know where he was.
It was an open adoption, but Ididn't have direct contact.
It was early on in the days ofwhat's considered open adoption,
so I could quote unquote pickparents from vetted people and
meet them one time after theadoption was finalized and then
I would get updates once a yearAnd, as often happens, back then
(03:11):
and even in today's world,updates stopped.
They stopped when he was six.
I had to go request from theagency for the next couple of
years until finally going in andsaying you need to do something
.
They read the send theseupdates and the response was
they don't have to.
It's not a legal document whichI had kind of.
(03:33):
You know, it's a.
It's a manipulation tool, but Ihad no recourse.
But we did reunite when heturned 18.
We got to meet in person whenhe was 20.
I really tried to let him leadthe way and it was still is the
one of the most beautiful daysof my life, but it's the only
time we got to meet.
He passed away in his sleepwhen he was 23.
(03:53):
The grief of losing him a secondtime almost completely
destroyed me because I hadn'tdealt with the grief of the
first time.
You know, now we're coming upon 10 years and I still feel
really sad.
A lot of times I wish for somany things to have been
different.
But now I'm trying to focus onwhat can I do to make it better,
(04:16):
and writing my book was a bigpart of that, because people
need to know the you know thecomplicated mess, unplanned
pregnancies, at least for a lotof people.
They go into this and then theyget tricked and coerced and
manipulated into doing thingsand making a permanent, finding
a permanent solution to atemporary problem.
(04:37):
Yeah, i'm sorry if I went ontoo long.
You didn't at all.
That's kind of the nutshell.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Yeah, no, not at all, and I think that is a great
setup for our conversation.
The name of your book is calledGoodbye Again and it's your
memoir, and when you and I metwe were at the Untangling Your
Roots Conference in Kentucky.
I picked up your book, yousigned it, you put a little note
(05:05):
in there make sure you have aglass of wine and tissue and I
said, okay, not knowing.
And then I left and I knew Iwas going to reach out to you at
some point in time.
We kind of talked about thatRead your book.
And this is what I have said topretty much anyone that I talk
about relative to your book.
Your book was the book I didnot know I needed to read, and
(05:28):
the reason I say it that way isbecause when I think of all of
the books that I have read overthe course of getting connected
to the community, sitting in theconversation, saving space for
that, that area, this one helpedbridge for me things that I
(05:48):
have always thought about myapproach to some of those topics
.
It was really a builder ofunderstanding and I thought to
myself as I finished it wow, ithink every adopting might want
to read this one because there'sso many themes in it, and there
are themes that we co-share andmay not realize.
(06:10):
We co-share if that makes senseto you.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
It absolutely does, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah.
So I want to talk a little bitabout relinquishment and I'm
going to share out kind of myadoptive perspective and then
you can talk about yourperspective as you were going
through that as well.
I have known that I am anadoptee since kindergarten.
That's my first memory ofknowing I was adopted.
(06:36):
I do not appreciate as an adultthe terms of your birth mother
loved you so much she gave youaway.
I just can't, as an adult,appreciate those terms.
I don't believe I really everappreciated that term.
That term, that narrative setthe tone for how I started
(06:59):
viewing myself as a human,because there is nothing in that
sentence at any point in timethat tells me I was worthy.
When I was reading your bookand thinking about the
relinquishment and the struggleyou went through, i immediately
had that empathy for you as wellas a birth mother, because I
(07:19):
could now see the other side ofthat conversation.
So maybe I'm asking you for ourlisteners talk a little bit
about you know, justrelinquishment, the theme of
relinquishment for you, what itmeant to you then and what it
means to you today.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah.
So going back, looking back atmy younger self, in going
through the what's calleddecision-making counseling that
was provided by the agency,which was a religious agency,
looking back at that now, theynever used the word
relinquishment.
(07:57):
They never used that word.
Everything was just about thisis adoption, this is a beautiful
experience, all of those things.
And they specifically used thatterminology with me to say, if
you want to be a good mother,you need to give your child away
(08:18):
, because you are not.
You are you, you have.
You have none of the skills,attributes, any of the things
that are Quote-unquote requiredfor you to be a good mother.
And they back that up withspecific you know, activities
and and pulling out things frommy past and all of these things
(08:41):
that that clearly indicated that, yeah, i did.
I was poor, i didn't have aneducation, i come from abusive
background, all of those things.
And instead of saying, here's anopportunity to teach you or to
give you some resources andthose things, they just latch
down to that and I I bought intoit hook, line and sinker,
(09:04):
having gone into it from thatbackground, particularly of
abuse and all of those things.
So my, my self-esteem was so lowthat it was like, okay, here's
my opportunity to be a goodperson, as if I did this, if I
follow the rules now, at thesame time, i was doing an
outstanding job of dissociatingfrom the fact that I didn't feel
(09:27):
that way, that that was notwhat was going on inside my body
, and Because I had grown upwith abuse systematic, you know,
long-term sexual abuse and andneglect and all of those things
I was pretty good at thedissociating from it.
So so I did, i shut that all off, and I never at though at that
(09:51):
time or even in the few yearsfollowing, i never thought about
.
What I had done wasrelinquishing.
I Had placed my baby, i hadgiven him a better life, i had
done all the things that wouldnow qualify me to be into that
better grade of human being, andit's horrible, and it's
(10:14):
horrible that That it was.
It felt so sanctioned, it feltlike I Mean it just to me when I
look back at it now, as anunbelievable, believable
betrayal of my spirit and mysoul, and I wasn't capable of
figuring it out on my own And Ididn't have the family support
(10:34):
to help me see differently.
And yeah, and I just I look atit and it's a tragedy.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Doesn't it just rip your heart out to us as where
you are now in life, and I feelit in the context of you're
speaking of your self-esteem,your worth and the positioning
of and becoming a good person asa result of this action,
because you're incapable, basedoff of your circumstances and at
(11:02):
the same time I I just sharedwith you, knowing I was adopted,
did Put a chink in my armor perse, to Myself worth and my
self-esteem.
And how ironic that the twoAngles of that little event
which isn't little is not littleyielded Years of probably the
(11:27):
same ultimate result as itrelates to the my own
Perspective of me as a personand your perspective of you as a
person.
Just, it's phenomenal for me.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, so so many parallels, right, and like you
know you're talking about, youknow reading books of, so I've
read quite a few, you knowadopted people's stories and and
I reflected in so many of thepieces of that and it's, It's,
it's kind of it's not only is iteye-opening and just really sad
(12:01):
, just really sad.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, you know the other kind of moving us forward
a little bit in our conversation.
One of the other things thatjust really Sat well with me and
reading your book and hearingyour story and we could have had
this as a Conversation withoutme reading the book and I think
I would have felt the same way.
The duration of time from theevent to reunion Has so many
(12:27):
Year over year parallels as well.
It is around their birthdays,major hallmark holidays and
major family holidays.
One of the things I know thatwas important for me when I met
my birth mother was to try tounderstand did you think of me
(12:49):
all of those many years and forus it was 40, some on my
birthday and Mother's Day andevery family holiday, because I
know I did from that momentforward, and to just have that
opportunity to hear through yourwords yeah, you did, and so
it's probably pretty common,drawing some, you know, parallel
(13:13):
conclusions that other birthmoms actually are doing that as
well And that comforts me as anadoptee to have that knowledge,
not just my own knowledge, right, i kind of asked my birth
mother before she passed but toknow it has a common theme And
so it kind of talked through foryour experience of those
(13:37):
holidays and you know just youremotional mental state at grand
level.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
So for me, i wouldn't be this far along which I feel
like I've come a long way in myhealing through all of this but
I wouldn't be this far along ifit weren't for my partner, who I
got together with when Michaelwas six, and so Tom knew me when
I was pregnant.
We were friends.
Back then Tom was actually theonly person other than a few
(14:05):
family members to have put hishands on my mate and experience
the pregnancy with me, right Andsit with me in my grief because
I was already breathing, and soTom has never been afraid to
talk about it.
And he, immediately when wefirst got together, i said to
(14:26):
him about two weeks beforeMichael's birthday, i said his
birthday is coming.
It's going to be hard, we justneed to know.
And he's like he automaticallywas like I can be with you, i
can sit with you with this.
I don't need to fix it, i don'tneed to.
There isn't anything that I cando, that I can sit with you and
(14:46):
be with you and allow you toexperience whatever you are
capable of, because I stillwasn't, i wasn't good at feeling
it or talking about it oranything else, but he was just
very open, and that was the caseafter that Mother's Day coming
up, my birthday, all of thesedifferent anniversaries and
(15:09):
Christmas, et cetera And hewould always he began to always
check in with me about two tothree weeks before any of these
days and be like how are youfeeling this year?
Do you, are you scared, are youangry?
Or you know where are you atAnd what do you?
what would you like to do tohonor Michael, to honor this
(15:33):
experience, to honor yourmotherhood?
I mean, just being just sayingthat I was still a mother, even
though I didn't have my son withme was a huge step.
I didn't have a thought aboutit, never thought about it.
I thought of myself as a mother, but I didn't deserve it.
I didn't deserve it because notonly did I not have my son, i
gave him away.
Who does that?
(15:54):
Who deserves to be called amother?
if you've given away your child, i mean that's.
It just didn't make sense to me, right?
And?
and so for me, every singleyear, every single holiday,
every single birthday, that waswhat was going on in my head.
I was cycling through thisentire process every single time
that, okay, i have a child, idon't have him in my life.
(16:18):
I know nothing about him.
I wish I did, whichautomatically goes to you don't
deserve it because you gave himaway with Ben, my Tom, coming in
and saying, no, you're, it'sokay.
You need to look through that.
And it was this vicious cycleevery single time, because I'm
really really good at tearingmyself down And I have had to
(16:44):
learn to recognize those voicesand those messages and cut them
off in the sense of yes, youmade some decisions.
I mean, i need to recognizewhat I did wrong.
Be like yeah, you made amistake, so what are you going
to do about it?
now?
You can't go back and change it, you just need to move forward.
(17:07):
So it's a.
For me, it was getting to thepoint where I could accept my
role in all of this and thenfigure out what I can do moving
forward.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
Yeah, you know, it's really interesting about that
portion of your story, hearingyou right now talk about your
partner, tom, asking you acouple of weeks in advance how
you were feeling that year.
Knowing it was a journey, i'mcurious what was your recovery
time?
on the back end And I speakfrom my own experience My
(17:41):
hardest day is actually Mother'sDay, but it's hard for me for a
couple of of couple of reasons.
I didn't have a strongconnection with my adoption
mother And so therefore I alwaysfeel like I've missed out on,
you know, those mother-daughterrelationships that everybody
just let you know.
When she's my best friend, ican't even imagine what it's
(18:02):
like.
And then I missed out on therelationship with my biological
mother, and then I am not a, ihave not had my own biological
children, and so that whole dayis just like one of my worst
days ever.
Every year And there was oneyear that it became my my like
breaking day, and the recoveryafterwards was was pretty
(18:27):
significant as well.
From that day and that wasabout eight years ago and
forward I now approach that daydifferently and in an attempt to
shorten my recovery.
So what does recovery on theback end look like for you?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
So for, me, it's a recognition that that I'm never
going to be over it.
That so many, so many adoptedpeople talk about okay, i wasn't
, i wasn't, i wasn't.
Being adopted isn't a one anddone thing, it's your whole life
.
You are, you weren't, you areadopted And I, for me, it has to
(19:07):
do with looking at it from fromthat kind of same thing that
it's an, it's an ongoing andevery day, every year is
different And I need to becapable and willing to recognize
that I'm never going to behealed.
I can be healing, i can, i canbe in the moment working towards
(19:29):
finding some peace with all ofit, but I'm it's not going to be
done.
It's never going to be done.
You know the the I like the termpost traumatic growth you know
finding some ways to get throughit, finding new, new techniques
and new skills and and findingthat inner growth, and I'm
(19:52):
always looking for new ways todo that or new avenues to and
and for me.
I think that the, the recoveryor the you know, coming around
them to the other side has beena lot to do with just
recognizing my emotions and myfeelings and being okay with
them, because I'd spent so longjust dissociating from them
(20:15):
because I thought they were allbad.
That was all bad And I didn'twant to be bad, i wanted to be
good.
I can embrace those quoteunquote bad parts of myself.
They can be a part of who I amand I can still move forward and
work towards being a betterperson.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
I love the aspect of being at peace with things, and
that is relatable for me as well, in terms of our journey and
the connection and why Icontinue to say this is the book
I needed to read.
It helps put me at peace.
So, as an adoptee, i am gainingpeace every day, and so that
(20:54):
that makes me a different personin 2024 and 2025 and years to
come, and the closer I get tohaving peace on all of those
areas of the conversation, themore situated I will be for me
maybe not everybody else, but itdefinitely will be best for me
(21:15):
And so I love I really do lovethe aspect of you talking
through it on your side of thisconversation.
That it's an important piece ofmoving and growing And I love
the post traumatic growthnarrative.
I love that.
That angle.
Yeah, that's very wow.
That's very wow.
(21:35):
I'm just like and I'm justthinking of it and thinking of a
conversation I just had withthe husband and a friend of ours
, the mom, and they've been onthe show in previous seasons and
we're together this weekend Andwhat brings that to the table
is us talking about childhoodtrauma recovery, ptsd, the jobs
(22:00):
that they've had, you know,military PTSD and sitting in,
sitting in the trauma, year overyear over year over year.
So I I'm going to reiterate Ilove that narrative of post
traumatic growth, i love that.
Well, let's, let's kind of geta little further down, because
(22:21):
that was years.
We're talking years of thoseevents.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Right And again we're connecting ourselves to each
other in the context of years ofthe same events and similar
emotions and buildups and letdowns, and recoveries, and
moving forward and growing andcoming to peace.
reunion day like the first, theday you met.
(22:48):
Michael, Can you verbalize alittle bit of that for for us,
because I I will share with youthen my first day with my
birthday.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
So the the best word I have ever found to describe
the experience is surreal AndI've heard other people use that
term as well and it definitelyfits for me And part of it was,
first and foremost, just theanticipation of it.
I mean, from my perspective,that he wanted to meet me.
(23:18):
Number one was, you know, justcreated this incredible euphoria
, for lack of a better word, andI think that works pretty well.
And then that anticipation ofgetting to go meet him, that he
wanted to see me Being.
In the moment it was almostthere were multiple things going
(23:39):
on for me personally In themoment.
First of all, just to see himphysically, as opposed to a
picture, to hug him, to hold himI really didn't want to let him
go.
I also didn't want to scare himaway, which I was really afraid
that I was going to scare himaway, you know.
So, holding him and having so Iin my mind, it's like there was
(24:01):
part of me that was out of bodyand out of body experience
looking down at the two of us.
And then there was also theexperience of feeling like I was
thrown back to that 20 year oldgirl that I was, that here I
was, i had this big man in myarms and this was my son, And
but I felt like a little girland I felt completely incapable
(24:25):
of communicating in any way,shape or form, And all I really
wanted to do was grab him andput his head on my chest and
then just not ever, just staythere And we didn't have, not
even have to talk or even justsit there with him.
But so all of that was going onat the same time.
When we met, and then it was so,it was me and my husband, tom,
(24:49):
michael, and his adoptive dad,david, and Michael and David
actually had very similar looks,similar mannerisms, similar.
It was rather strange.
And then you me next to him andhe looked just like me.
It was just a big boy manversion of me, with the, you
(25:09):
know, the reddish hair and thechubby cheeks, and his hands
were exactly like mine.
I mean, as we sat there for wewere there for almost five hours
and I just kept seeing allthese things that were me, but I
could also see things that wereDavid, and it was again surreal
.
It was just such a surrealexperience And I was completely
(25:32):
overwhelmed And I am again, i'mso grateful that Tom was there
with me because he helped toground me.
I seriously I feel like I wouldhave just floated away and
missed things, but Tom was ableto.
You know you could like.
For some reason he could alwaystell when I was going off
somewhere and he would grab myhand and hold my hand and bring
(25:55):
me back into the moment.
It was like the really the mostbeautiful day of my life And
I'm really sad I never got tohave another day with him.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Surreal is such a good word.
Out of body is also a reallygood word.
I would add disassociation.
And here's where I'm gonna go.
I did something in preparationfor this meeting that I didn't I
hadn't intended to do, but itworked out fantastic And I am
forever grateful for this eventI recorded with Damon Davis of
(26:26):
Who Am I Really?
11 hours before I met my birthmother.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
And in that recording , knowing where I was pacing a
room and sharing my story, whatI knew of it up to that point,
and knowing we both knew that onthe other side of the day,
right the next day, when I wouldmeet her, i would be different.
The reason I am grateful forthat event is because I don't
(26:58):
remember most of that event, andso I now have this opportunity
to go back and listen to mebefore I met her, and I barely
sound like me to me.
And so I know, based off oflistening to that and where I am
now, i was just like you.
(27:20):
I was.
I was so afraid.
I just wanted perfection,whatever that definition was in
that moment, and everything Iwas doing to prepare for that
event.
That meeting had so muchimportance, where we were
meeting, bringing in food,getting them gifts, decorating
the room.
Do I look good?
(27:41):
Does this outfit look okay onme?
How's my hair, how's my makeup?
You know, how is she gonnathink I'm fat?
Is she gonna think I'm tooskinny?
I mean all those things justflooding your psyche as you're
about to meet one of the moreimportant people of your life,
and so to hear you talk about itin the same again, the same
(28:05):
context on the other side of theconversation is just grounding.
I did so, i did meet her,clearly, and I was able to meet
her two times and then shepassed away.
But you know it, just I can't.
I don't think there's anythingin any conversation that we have
be it with me, with otheradoptees, or you with other
(28:27):
birth moms, or birth moms andadoptees talking that will truly
prepare any human for thatmoment.
We may be able to help you getto like 50% of preparedness
maybe 50%, but there isn'tanything else anyone can do
because it's your moment andyou're living it.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So yeah, i, you know, reunion so complex and so
complicated for, i think,everyone involved And you see,
yeah, there's absolutely nothingyou can do to prepare.
I tried to read everything Icould get my hands on and, yeah,
i did not feel like itnecessarily set me up for
success.
But I consider our meeting asuccess, mainly because I got to
(29:11):
tell him that I loved him andthat I got to hold him in my
arms.
And the one thing I didn't dothat I wish I would have was say
I was sorry.
I wish I would have done that.
Speaker 1 (29:23):
Oh, that breaks my heart to hear you say that I
don't.
oh, that breaks my heart foryou, but it also breaks my heart
for him.
Can you share with me a littlebit?
What would you be sorry for?
Speaker 2 (29:35):
You know I'm sorry for sorry for mainly for not
trying that I should have tried.
I should have.
I mean, when I look back on itnow, i could have done it, i
could have done it, i justdidn't.
I didn't have anybody in mycorner.
(29:57):
I feel like, you know, i didn'thave even if I had just one
person.
What if one person had saidwell, you can do it, you know,
and I look at other people myage, you know who became parents
young and they did it and theysure they fucked up shit right.
Oops, sorry, but everybody,everybody makes mistakes, right.
That doesn't mean that youcan't, you know, do it right.
(30:19):
And so for me, i think thesorry mainly comes from I wish I
would have tried.
I wish I would have kept him,yeah, and I would not be the
person that I am today.
I know that, i know that Ican't go back and change
anything.
I know that And I know that hisfather was wonderful.
He had, you know he, fromeverything that Michael ever
(30:43):
told me, everything that I'velearned about him from other
family members.
You know all of this that hehad a good upbringing.
You know all of those things,but I still, yeah, i still wish
it could have been different.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
I understand what you're saying.
I can only speak for me.
I don't think I was everexpecting, nor even to this day,
if she was here, i wouldn'twant Jackie to apologize for
anything.
Maybe my thought process behindthat and speaking only for
myself is grounded inpotentially my age.
(31:20):
I don't know.
I don't know if I have everfelt like I would have been owed
an apology.
That's a hard, wow, that's hardfor me to hear you say that by
the way, I mean yeah, and.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
I hear what you're saying And you know, maybe you
know, and so the apology part issomething that has happened in
more recent years, right Sincewell after he passed away, and I
think you know.
And, just talking about it, ithink it actually probably has
more to do with apologizing tomyself for letting myself down
(31:55):
And I'm also sorry if I'm sorrythat I caused any bad feelings
by saying that, but I just wishthings could have been different
and I wish I would have beenstronger.
Yeah, so I guess you know,looking at it from that
perspective, it is more of anapology to myself for not
(32:17):
believing in myself.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
I can go with that, that I can go with and really
understand where you're comingfrom in that.
Absolutely Well, we've movedthrough.
you know the fact that you guyswere in reunion and we've
talked a little bit about youknow your one meeting, but you
guys had a reunion.
that was what I would say upand down, touch and go.
(32:42):
You can use either of those twophrases.
That had to have been hard aswell.
Did you feel that you wereready for that, like that roller
coaster ride of events where itwould be a little bit of
communication and then nocommunication, and a little bit
of communication and nocommunication?
Speaker 2 (33:03):
No, there was no way to be prepared for that and I
don't think there was anythingthat could have been done.
It was excruciating.
It was from my perspectivebecause, again, i wanted so much
to build a relationship, tocreate communication between us
(33:24):
really of any kind, but I hadreally wanted that And I'm very
grateful to Tom and to otherpeople in my life who were
adamant with me.
It's like you need to letMichael lead the way.
He didn't have any choice backthen.
He needs to be able to guidethings now and I totally
believed that and it was reallyreally hard to live into that
(33:48):
And it was.
it was just so, so hard.
And I know I've talked to otherfirst parents who have a similar
situation where they reunitedand then the adopted person
pulls back and they just want toreach out and I continue.
I encourage them as well to letthe adopting lead the way.
And I totally understand andeveryone's want to talk to
(34:08):
someone and they're like well, icut it off because I can't.
I can't deal with thedisappointment, i can't deal
with the waiting for them to getback to me or to responding to
my emails or phone calls oranything else, and I understand
that, because there were times Ifelt that way, but I also think
that that's wrong.
That is a wrong way to go aboutit.
(34:29):
I think you have to.
you have to remain as open.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Well, i'm going to pull together one of the things
you said at the beginning of ustalking about reunion and
overwhelming right, one of thefeelings of overwhelming.
I want to pull it into thispart of the conversation.
That theme of how we all areapproaching reunion gets
underplayed, and what I mean bythat is it's overwhelming from
(34:58):
this seat to think about all ofthe potential and you don't you
really don't know what we'regoing to get in many cases.
And I think it's overwhelming,from what I've just heard you
say, to know how far to go andto be patient.
I like the fact that youadvocate for let the adoptee
(35:20):
kind of drive the conversation.
At the same time, i would saydon't give up and put your wall
back up, because it's hard.
It was hard enough to gothrough the wall the first time
and to have to go through thewall a second or third or fourth
time.
You know I'm lucky.
I don't have that experience.
I don't know what I would havedone with that said, i have had
(35:41):
walls and I have walked awayfrom them because I'm not
willing to continue to beat myhead against it to try to get
through.
And so there's a.
There's a likeness to thatstatement too.
I'm I'm tired of the.
You know, what I think I justheard you say is I'm tired of
being hurt and I'm tired of thedisappointment.
That's a shared common trait.
(36:02):
Very good referencing to sharedexperience along this journey,
and you know you mentioned thatadoption and being adopted is
part of you know, it's not anevent, it's not a one and done
in life.
But also, being the birthmother is not a one and done
event either, and it is ajourney as well.
We talk sometimes, too, aboutloss and grief.
(36:24):
You have a lot of grief and Iwant to acknowledge that.
I have just today, heard youremotion around that.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
Um.
So for me, you know, a big partof having had a child that I
then relinquished.
As I got beyond that event ofrelinquishment, i had thought
that I would would likely havemore children initially And, and
(36:54):
when I look at it now, i amgrateful that I didn't early on,
when I was still deep in my umdissociation from all of it.
I think had I, it would havetotally thrown me for a loop and
it would have been quite a uh,uh, an emotional and spiritual
thing that I would have had todeal with earlier.
(37:14):
Certainly.
But you know, as I, as I gotolder and then got together with
Tom, you know we talked aboutkids a lot and you know I spent
a lot of random times, you know,looking like driving by the
school or going into the schoolfor something and thinking about
.
You know how old Michael wasand how he related to those kids
.
There's an awful lot of time.
What I now know is referred toas like a ghost kingdom,
(37:37):
essentially.
You know, thinking about thatand thinking, especially after
the update stopped and nothaving any idea of where he was
or if he was okay and all ofthat.
But as we got older, you know,coming to the to the realization
that there's no way that Icould have another child,
because there's no way that Iwould one day, because I always
(37:57):
hoped he would reach out to me,there was, there was no way that
I could explain to him whyanother child was.
I kept and didn't keep him Andand that was, that was the kind
of the number one, became thenumber one reason why I wouldn't
.
I didn't want to have any morechildren, and that has impacted
(38:18):
us profoundly as a couple, youknow, tom and I.
And and then, you know, when wereunited with Michael, we
started dreaming about, you know, maybe when he's a little older
he might want to come, evencome visit us.
Or, you know, come for a week,come for a couple weeks, maybe
come for a whole summer.
And we had really just starteddreaming about that and talking
(38:39):
about that And we were justgetting ready to to talk to
Michael about it when he was thenext time he contacted us, we
were going to present to himbecause he was at a place in his
life where it seemed like hewas ready for some change, to do
something new.
In the fallout of that, sinceMichael passed, the grief of
losing those new dreams waspretty profound.
(39:00):
And it's been very profound forTom because Michael was going
to be his one possibility forhaving a relationship with
someone, almost in a fatherfigure kind of way.
And we talk about thisfrequently.
I mean, father's Day is comingup, you know, and it's like I've
asked Tom now, would you liketo do anything for Father's Day?
(39:22):
Would you like to celebrate orwould you like to honor us?
You know, i know that he's not,michael's not here, but we did
have dreams.
So that's kind of where we areat now.
And more recently particularly,i'm in several support groups,
online support groups for FirstMothers, and you know they.
(39:44):
For some they're reunited, somethey're not.
You know some some are reunions, are good, some are not.
You know all of those things.
But over and over and overagain they talk about grandkids
And it's like and I'll neverhave them And and and
particularly hard the lastcouple of years, to just be in
those groups and be happy forthem, particularly if they've
(40:05):
reunited with their theirrelinquished child And now they
have this relationship wherethey're feeling that role to a
certain extent.
Maybe not what what normal, butI find myself being very
envious.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Your explanation really does help strengthen
understanding.
I don't know if I'm justthinking through my own thought
process.
I don't know if I've everconsidered abandonment of dreams
by a birth parent as part ofthat grief and the need to work
through that.
I don't.
I don't think, candice, i'veever considered it that way.
(40:44):
I've never really sat in thatspace.
That's very humbling.
I just want to thank you forsharing, because that's very
humbling for me to think of itin that context where you know
there are a number of adopteesthat don't have children for the
simple reason that they wereadopted and they don't want to.
So that's a common theme.
(41:05):
I want us to kind of move nowaround your support system, your
healing and some of yourgo-forward activities In your
book.
Tom's all over your book and inthis conversation Tom's been
all over the conversation.
I feel like I know Tom, so if Iever get the opportunity to
(41:27):
meet him in person, you mightjust want to forewarn him.
I'm probably gonna hug himbecause I'm a hugger and you
know I have a good supportsystem, and so what I would like
to ask you to share is kind ofsome of the things that you have
done.
What are some things you'redoing to kind of move forward.
That would be applicableregardless if you're a birth mom
(41:48):
or an adoptee.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
Yeah, i have been very intentional with the steps
I'm trying to take to becomemore whole I guess it's the best
way for me to put it.
Certainly, the writing my book,the writing part of it, was
(42:11):
really to help me processeverything.
When I initially startedwriting, i didn't plan to
publish it.
I was just writing it because Ineeded to put it on paper and
I'm so grateful I did because itdid.
It was a big tool that I usedto help me process so much of
all of this The intentionallylooking for specific things to
(42:34):
help me.
So those things were I havehorrible self-esteem.
How do I fix that?
Like literally researching, howdo you increase your
self-esteem and then findingthose things and doing them and
making them a part of my routine.
And it took a long time to getit a routine in place, but I
(42:56):
have it now and I can clearlysee the benefits of that.
I can see it in my work life, ican see it in my personal lives
, i can see it in so many ways.
And the same thing is true forlearning to.
Part of that is learningself-compassion and compassion
for other people in whatevertheir experiences may be
(43:16):
Learning.
How do you sit with some ofthese really horrible feelings
because it feels like crap andmy body when something bad.
But something feels bad, myinitial reaction now is to shut
it down because I don't want tofeel it.
(43:36):
So learning techniques andtools to stop that initial
reaction and try to create a newreaction, and I'm still working
on that.
I don't know that I'll ever getthrough that necessarily, but I
am getting better at it.
I mean, i really I've been veryintentional, looking for
specific things to help me withcommunication, you know,
(43:58):
continuing to take littlecourses about learning how to
talk with people instead of atpeople.
I think I've been really goodat that for a long time and I'd
rather talk with people than atpeople.
With the book, you know, once Istarted, once I made the
decision to publish it, tom andI talked a lot about, if I do
that, what are going to be theconsequences and or
(44:20):
ramifications of that, becauseit's big and talking to the
people that are in the book youknow, michael's adoptive family
and and just working, workingthrough and just be like we
don't know for sure what's goingto happen with all of this, but
we need to be ready for thereto be consequences, fallout or
good things, you know, good, bad, whatever it may be and being
(44:43):
willing to, to address whatevercomes up.
So that was a very specificdecision to put it out there.
And you know there are otherpeople that that you know put up
books and they change your name.
It's like I didn't want tochange my name.
I didn't want to change it andI want to be.
I want to be accountable to it.
And now, after it's beenreleased, i feel like my, my
(45:07):
journey with it.
I'm continuing to use it as atool to feel because I'm sharing
it with people, specifically toopen dialogues and finding
avenues to do that, whether it'swith, you know, people like you
, on podcasts and getting theword out, or I'm going back to.
You know, i'm a social worker.
(45:28):
That's what I ended up gettinga degree in.
I'm going back to my alma materand working with them to
developing a curriculum.
That's like a relinquishment,one-on-one.
You know these are therealities and as I'm doing that,
i'm also being sure that I'mamplifying adoptee voices
because, again, they're the oneswho've been silenced in all of
(45:51):
this.
I mean, certainly, i thinkbirth, birth parents have been
silenced too, but more so Iabsolutely way more so adopted
people, because I feel like Iwas capable of writing my story
in a way that allowed people toexperience it along with me and
and feel compassion in thosemoments.
(46:12):
It helps them to stay open totalking about it.
That, to me, is the big issue,is that these these issues and
the feelings and the emotionsaround relinquishment and
adoption are very they'recharged and we need to kind of
take a little bit of that chargeoff so that it doesn't make it
so scary to talk about youabsolutely make a hundred
(46:36):
percent sense to me and I wouldsay on long those lines, that is
the advocacy that I think manyof us are pushing forward.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
One is better understanding, better ways of
addressing some of those items,more educational opportunities,
experiences, material, and thenreally again creating a bridge
between all of these differenthumans that are dealing with
human things, and we compound itwith this topic.
(47:09):
Well, i love everything that wehave talked about today and I
always kind of move into thisspace next as we're getting
ready to wrap up.
We have talked a lot.
I I can't tell you how thankfulI am to have had you today on
the show.
I I just again feel such akindred spirit with you.
Your book goodbye again was thebook I needed and the moment I
(47:33):
needed it, and thank you, thankyou for what you did to write
that and to put it out there andto put your story out there and
to understand that there couldbe positive and negative
consequences to that, and so Ireally want to raise you up in
that in that way.
If there was anything I couldhave asked you during the course
of this conversation that Ihave not, what would it be?
Speaker 2 (47:54):
the one thing that I always like to reiterate, i
guess and that's what I'll dohere is, you know, when it comes
to adoption in our society ingeneral, the thing that is most
often either purposefullyignored or not recognized or
(48:17):
even not even thought about bythe vast majority of people is
that when an adoption takesplace, their identity is erased
and a new birth certificate isissued.
I mean, if, maybe, if adoptionwere different and we didn't
have to erase somebody's past inorder for them to have a future
, maybe that would be different.
But right now, adoption always,always, always begins with loss
(48:41):
, this basically the destructionof one family and then the
creation of a new family.
And if we can keep that,remember that, that, that the
foundation, the foundation ofevery adoption is built on grief
, maybe we can make some changes.
Speaker 1 (49:00):
Maybe we can can get there yeah, well said, very well
said well.
I want to thank you for comingon the show today.
It has been my pleasure.
I typically don't fond, but Ifeel like I'm a little fawny
right now, and so you arewelcome here anytime for any
reason.
It has been my pleasure thankyou so much.
Speaker 2 (49:20):
Yeah, this has been wonderful.
I, you, and I feel like you andI could talk for hours and I
would agree.
Speaker 1 (49:26):
I would absolutely agree.
Well, thank you and we'll seeyou soon.
Thank you for listening totoday's episode.
Make sure to rate, review andshare.
Want to join the conversation?
contact us atwanderingtreeadoptedcom.
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