November 21, 2025 • 32 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Michael Verry's show is on the air. It's Charlie from
BlackBerry Smoke. I can feel a good one coming on.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We are probably as good a time as any for
us to play maybe my all time favorite Thanksgiving call.
I have referenced this call over the years since that time.
Some of you will remember the subject of the call,
if not the name of the caller. Her name was Julianne,
(00:46):
and when she called in, it was just going to
be like any other call. She talked about the fact
that she's now married, her son has grown up, but
she went back to a time where she was a
single mom, her and her son had no money. And well,
(01:08):
I'll let her tell you the story, but before it starts,
I have to tell you I didn't see where this
story was going, and it has turned out to be
one of those stories that I love as much as
any call we've ever received. And it's also I think
one of the reasons I play it is because some
of you out there might be where Julianne was at
that time, and I like to think that maybe this
(01:31):
gives you the hope to understand things can get better,
and they will get better, Julianne. Yes, sir, tell us
about your odd tradition on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Well, I raised two little boys all by myself. I
was a single parent. They're both they're nineteen and twenty. Now.
One goes to ut and one goes to Texas State.
They're doing great. Good or night I raise them. I
raise them by myself, totally from infancy, and Tom's to
really lean.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Where was their name?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
It's a long story, sir. I'd rather not get into
that part.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Was he alive and just not taking care of his business?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yes, sir?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Is he a bad person?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
He's got some issues.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Is he still alive today? Yes, sir, okay, do you
wish him ill?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
No, I don't. I feel very bad for the man.
But that's neither here nor there. Well, I took many
years to get here, sir, believe me, but they're both
peace beyond understanding.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
We call that ramon. What did you do? How'd you
support those boys?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Well, initially I opened a little daycare and I took
in children because I didn't want them to go off
to daycare, so I took children in and then I
also made burritos, and tacos and drove around and sold
those out of my car. And then once they were
able to go to school, once I got them into
(03:02):
kindergarten and first grade, I worked in a little office job.
And then I got lucky and met someone at the pool,
and I got into oil and gas. And now I'm
a doctor, the controller. I have a great career. Things
just kind of progressed. God was good.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I wish you were righting here beside me, because I
would give you a big hug.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I admire people like you, I really do.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
My entire family lived in New Mexico, and their dad
would allow me to lead, and so it was just
the three of us. It was terrible. And one year
it was so bad we had sardines for Thanksgiving. That's
what we ate, sardines. So now every year for Thanksgiving,
I make sure that I have a beautiful plate and
(03:53):
I doll it up really pretty, and I make sure
I have sardines at our table so that we never
forget those. And that's my story.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I'll tell you what. We keep that one in the
archives and I always look forward at Thanksgiving to Ramone
pulling it out and playing it again and as I said,
I hope that helps somebody out there. If you're a
single mom or a single dad.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Or.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You you hit a spell of bad luck, maybe made
some bad decisions, lost your job, hit the bottle too hard,
got addicted to drugs, whatever it is, it's got you down.
I hope that call. I mean, things turned out well
(04:51):
for Julianne, but don't you couldn't have told her that
at the time. And so you know what I'm gonna do, Ramone,
I'm going to play at this moment one of my favorites,
Songs of Redemption by the Reverend Donnie McClurkin from the
what was the Horror Amityville Horror. His his church is
the Amityville Baptist Church. He is the pastor and the
(05:14):
song leader there. He's also a very very successful gospel
singer and a dear friend. But let's uh, this this
is a this is a segment of redemption. So this
is for any of you out there that had been
knocked out, knocked down, not knocked out, knocked down to
get back up. Oh my god, that's not what I wanted.
(05:41):
You know what, I hate you. I genuinely, deeply, seriously
hate you. Now play what I asked you to playful between.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Weful, but we all but we care?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Oh yes for the same.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
It's just the siner. But we can't stay there, can't
God say that over?
Speaker 5 (06:27):
Get back.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Back?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Oh my mind?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
If we get back and gass.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Against war, but we can't sty there there's a same,
a righteousness obsidy.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Oh I say long if we if we get back,
we falled up, We get back up again, just rise
back of a whim. Same s.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Very in the system to modern day. The highlight of
the year for me as we need to know, and
some of you who said it is for you as well,
is our adoption special, which of course is today. It's
very important to me on a personal level. It's very
(07:44):
important to me on a moral and writ large level.
There are more people who are adopted than you would
believe because you don't know that they're adopted, because you
didn't have any reason to know that. They don't wear
a shirt that says I'm adopted. But when we think
about the process of parenting and what our parents mean
to us, and what it means to be a parent,
(08:06):
which is so much more than just providing food and shelter.
It's discipline, it's love, its presence, it's so many things.
It's teaching. You know, our children should learn first and
foremost from parents before the schools. If you don't like
what the schools are teaching, it should never override what
you've already taught at home. The only time it's the
problem is if you're not using that opportunity to teach
(08:28):
at home. And that's about household finances. But that's about
our faith, that's about who we are as a people,
what our culture is. These are the things that a
parent should be instilling in a child. Well, the world's
not perfect, but God has a plan. And sometimes a
mother or a father dies early. Sometimes they abandon, sometimes
(08:48):
they leave. There are all sorts of things that can
occasion a child in a situation where there's not a
direct parent to parent them. And the adoption as well
as foster can be opportunities because don't we want every
child to have some sort of a chance. Don't we
want every child to have some sort of love like
(09:10):
we had from our parents. I know I certainly did,
so it's our adoption special and thank you for being
with us. In an op ed and Evy magazine, Leah
Outen shared a story, her story of experiencing an unexpected
pregnancy at the age of sixteen, and she talks about
that every year when we do this, we most years
(09:32):
we've had someone call up because we'll have people who
are adopted and they tell their stories, or parents who
adopted and they tell their stories. More often than not,
it's a kid who was adopted and they're so thankful
for their parents, and sometimes they've lost that parent. But
years ago, we had the first one where someone called
up and said, Hey, I know I'm the bad guy
in this story, but I had a child and I
(09:53):
gave that child up for adoption and it was an
act of love and it really made people think different.
And ever since then, every year we typically have a
caller who made that choice. Well, Leah Auten is one
of those. She had pressure to seek an abortion, but
she chose life for her child and she did something
(10:13):
that's very difficult to do. She put her child into
the adoption process and another family could enjoy that child.
And Kaylee grew up a beautiful, wonderful child and that's
what she's here to tell us about. So Leah out
and welcome to the program.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Oh thank you for having me, I'm excited to share more.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So to start with, what made you want to share
this story? It's deeply personal and not everyone will consider
you the hero I do out of it.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
For me, it changed my life, and you know, I
was at sixteen on a trajectory that I wasn't proud
of and to be able to now twenty two years ago,
since that moment of seeing those positive lines on a
pregnancy test and just the healing and the journey Gods
(11:00):
taken me on, and I want to share that.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
With other people.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
As one part of why this is important to me,
but also because I was so well loved by my church,
by my family, by the agency I used, by my
daughter and her family, which is not always common, and
especially twenty two years ago, and so to be able
to help communities and parents to know how to support
a woman or a girl, whatever the age, that's walking
(11:27):
through this very difficult experience of unexpected pregnancy and along
with if she chooses adoption, how to do that better,
how to love her more. Just spelling some of those
myths about birth parents and that we aren't necessarily the
bad guy in the story. We've been an invisible you know, silent,
often voiceless part of this, you know, adoption try and experience.
(11:49):
And so it's been very helpful for more birth parents
as you shared, to speak up and to share it's
not an easy decision. It's not that we just walked
away or didn't love or didn't want our children. It
was a decision that was difficult and made out of
love to help our children to have a better start
to life. And so I fared just to help undo
(12:13):
some of those myths and showing just what it can
look like to not only walk through this experience, but
also to have an open adoption with an adopted parent
and how that can benefit everybody as well.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And to start, let's define what an open adoption is,
because people outside the adoption world don't know what an
open and a closed adoption is. So why don't you
start with that.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Yeah, so I know, when I found out I was pregnant,
all I thought was closed adoption of where I would
never see her or know her, know how she was doing,
or have photos of what she looks like. And that's
for a long time, that's how it was done. And
then the last few decades we're starting to see a
shift of realizing that having access to birth family, to
answer medical questions, to know more of their adoption story, roots,
(13:00):
their identity, medical, all the things have become important to know.
And so with open adoption there it can look lots
of different ways, but there's some kind of contact with
birth family for us that looks like including visits along
with photos and updates.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, so it's almost more of a collaborative process. And
I realized that's not for everyone. We didn't. We have
a closed adoption in our case, and that was important
to us. And look, everybody is different, and that's okay.
You have to decide you know who and what you are.
But the fact that that was important to you and
led you to adoption, I think is the important part
(13:40):
of this conversation. Let's talk about where you were in
your life when you find out you are pregnant. You're
only sixteen years old. I'm assuming you're probably a sophomore
junior in high school, and how that happened.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Yeah, so I was just starting my junior year of
high school, had just turned sixteen, and I have been
dating someone through most of my sophomore year and we
had just really broken apart. You know, he was heading
in one way and I didn't like that, and we
were just not getting along, and so we had just
broken up and I found out I was pregnant a
(14:13):
few weeks later, and he really had said, you should
choose abortion or choose adoption, but you know, I'm not
ready to be a parent and we're not ready to
be parents, and didn't have a lot of contactors, you know,
support from him after that, and so I really was
left to decide what to do and really felt like
(14:35):
parenting was going to be my option because abortion did
not feel right to me. I innately knew that she
had a purpose in this world and it wasn't my
decision and my right to take that away from her.
And you know, grateful for parents who supported me in
that decision. I never felt forced to make a different decision,
(14:55):
and you know, they were willing to help me and
walk through with me through this process. So I thought
I was going to pair it for many months, but
as I wrestled with it, I just could not find
peace with parenting, and that led me to just being
encouraged to make an informed decision that if parenting is
not feeling right, explore ad option to make sure that
(15:17):
that's not what you want to do, or just learn
more about it. And as I had mentioned, I came
into this process with my own bias of close adoption
is all that there is, and that didn't feel right
for me. But once I learned that open adoption, clod
ad options and that process, talked to other birth moms
and adopted moms who had this really beautiful relations.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The first I've been destroying the black community is to
dismantle the black family. With Michael Barry's show.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Why don't we ask missus Willie Brown if Kamala Harris
cares about Black families?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Leah Alton is our guest. We're talking about adoption because
of course this is our Adoption special and we're talking
to Leah Alton. She wrote an op ed and magazine
about an unexpected pregnancy at the age of sixteen. You
can imagine a sixteen year old girl, how frightened she is,
and she was pressured to get in an abortion, and
(16:11):
she said, no, I'm going to choose life for my daughter,
whose name is Kaylee, And she did, and she pursued
an open adoption and it has worked beautifully. Not every
open adoption or closed adoption is going to work well.
Not every situation is going to work well, but I
think by and large, this is a solution for most people.
(16:33):
And it does honor life because we didn't choose life.
God did. And I think it's an incredible testimony in
addition to an experience, and that's why we've asked her
to join us today. Let's talk about how y'all worked
through the open adoption. How much did you see Kaylee?
Did that change over time? How are you referred to
(16:57):
by her? How much did you get to attend her
events and those sorts of things.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Oh yeah, so our agreement was two times a year,
and so her birthday falls in the summer, so that
was a great meeting point. I went to every birthday
party for eighteen nineteen years. And then we also had
a Christmas tradition where we would get together and have
lunch and exchange gifts and just have fun catching up.
(17:24):
So those two were always upheld through her childhood into adulthood,
and for us, we loved spending time together. So there
were other opportunities and visits that would come through through
different seasons of her life or just what worked for
our schedule. And so yes, I was invited to things
(17:44):
like kindergarten graduation and her high school graduation and those
kinds of things, or just hanging out to have dinner
and getting to know each other as extended family night.
Though they were just very intentional out upholsing that commitment
to me, which was really meaningful to me and to
(18:06):
her as as we grew, we knew when to expect
the next visit together. So she's one question that she
that her parents asked me when I was pregnant is
what do you want to be called? And I love
that they asked me that question and kind of gave
me some voice into our experience together. And you know,
because birth moms don't get a lot of say typically
(18:29):
about what all this can look like, and so they
were great at asking me questions and really inviting me
into you know, creating this this this relationship together. And
so they they offered different suggestions or ideas, and nothing
really felt right with me. So I decided just to
be miss Leah, which is what they called any you
know adult that I and they called me birth mom
(18:52):
as well, so she knew me as her birth mom
miss Leah. And then now that she's older and we've
she and I have more directly created a relationship in
her teen years. She now calls me mother Goose, which
is what my children did. My parents call me as
a joke because I have five of them and they
follow me around and I read a lot. So it's
(19:14):
fun that she's kind of felt comfortable to add another
name to me. And her mom is her mom, but
I have another, my own little name now that she's
comfortable with that.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So how she first called you mother goose? Did she ask?
She did? She just say it? Tell me about that moment.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
So my children here, as I said, they they call
me mother Goose. And so I think as she has
come to visit, she's she's come to visit us and
kind of immersed herself into, you know, her siblings here,
and so I think picking that up just being around
because sometimes we would have longer visits in the summer
(19:57):
for a weekend or a week and so it was
a much more immersive experience where it felt more comfortable
to include something that was more personal like that. So
it's I don't think she asked, It was just kind
of started to become part of the normal conversation as
we grew closer together. More naturally.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And how often did you see her? Have you seen
her over the years as have more or less now
and how has that changed. What's the nature of that interaction.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Yeah, I think it's as flows through different seasons. And
the first three years we had a lot of visits
as we were building this foundation of our relationship together.
So the first three years we had visits probably every
other month. I was sixteen with a frustriver's license, and
so I loved to be able to come visit them,
and they invited me, you know, to come spend time
(20:51):
with them and have dinner, and those those dinner table
moments really shaped how our relationship was building then and
that looks like now. The elementary years, it was we
were all busier, you know, her with school, me with
growing my family, married and all those kinds of things.
So that was really just the two times of year
(21:13):
that we knew to expect for Birthday and Christmas. And
then her teen years is when she started to ask more.
She was the third, you know voice and became the
more important voice in our adoption relationship. And she has
always known who I am and her story and wanted
to know more as she was heading into those identity
(21:34):
forming years and really the wheels turning about adoption and
her turning sixteen and really understanding, wow, this is what
you this is the age you were when you had me,
and I can understand more now about why you would
choose adoption, and you know, just having more opportunity to
grow and to learn from one another. And so her
(21:54):
teen years, she started to ask for about quarterly and
so that's where we've probably from sixteen up to now,
with her being twenty one, we aim for probably one
per season at least.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
That's fascinating. What led you to write the outbed in
EV magazine.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I think again, always just felt like I needed to
share the story because all that God has done in
my life helping other women to know that there is
support out there, whether they choose adoption or whether they
choose the parent, that you know, resources like her plan
exist and can be so helpful to find community and
(22:38):
resources and support for whatever the path is, because there's
no easy path. All of it is hard, and it's
just choosing your heart and knowing to go to and
where to go to to define that support. And I
just want women to know that there is hope that
you know there is a path forward beyond this, this
(23:00):
moment that can feel you know, a crisis or devastating
or you know the world's upside down, and that there's
there's hope. Yeah, that it's in the seeking the Lord
and for that guidance and for that peace and whatever
that looks like.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Hold with me for just a moment. Leah Outen is
our guest. The op ed she wrote in Evy magazine
caught our attention a few months back, and it was
about It was about her decision at sixteen with an
I don't want to call it unwanted. I want to
call it unexpected, which I think is the term she used.
(23:42):
As National Adoption Month in November and our Adoption special
roles on please celebrate those mothers who make the decision
of life. It's not an easy thing to do. It's
not an easy thing to do, but I think she
proves it's a rewarding and whole godly thing to do.
More with you. I will die for the country. I
(24:05):
will die for disclas to Michael Barry Joe, He's the
big honor to be living in the United States. Leah
Altin as our guest. She wrote an op ed in
Evie magazine about having an unexpected pregnancy at the age
of sixteen and she did not intend to supplant God's
will that child was there, and under pressure to seek
(24:28):
an abortion, she chose life for her daughter, Kaylee and
an open adoption, and she has had a rewarding relationship
with her daughter, who's adopted by another family. And her
daughter is now twenty one years old, and we're talking
about how she's navigated this and why it's important to
her to share with other people. And I love that.
(24:48):
I absolutely love that. I read that you have become
a prolific advocate, public speaker, and writer on the joys
of open adoption. How did you get involved doing that?
And I'm curious what kind of questions people ask about this?
Speaker 4 (25:05):
So I heard started speaking just a few months after
she was born because my agency wanted to share with
local nurses at the hospital of you know, how to
love a birth parent, will, who's choosing adoption in the
hospital setting, and the most vulnerable parts of diplacement process.
(25:28):
And so it's those opportunities have just come up through
the years and just been asked to write about it
and to share about it. I also blogged and wrote
through my pregnancy and the early years, and that's continued
to grow to the books I write, and writing with
such a healing part of my journey to process my
(25:51):
emotions and capture those moments that I got to share
with her through the years, and to connect with other
birth moms and adoptees and adoptive parents, because there's everybody's
coming into this with curiosity, whether they have a personal
experience with adoption or they're outside the experience and it's
something that's completely new, and so I think writing and
(26:15):
speaking has just been such a connecting experience to help
other people to know you're not alone in this, and
here's what's worked in our journey and what's been helpful
in our journey and my personal journey too. So common
questions you've asked a lot of them of what does
this look like, how often do you visit? What does
she call you? But I think another one is, you know,
(26:40):
navigating boundaries and conflict in open adoption, because it's not
always easy. It's an adoption relationship is just like any
other relationship that takes work and effort. And you know,
through the years, her parents and I have worked through
to navigate, you know, wanting to honor each other. They
(27:03):
are her parents, and I respect that, and they also
respect that I'm her first mom, and we both come
together knowing that there's things that we can provide and
speak to into her life that the other can't, and
within that there can still be conversations that we've had
to have, especially as I've shared my story more publicly
and making sure that I'm sharing things that are still
(27:24):
respectful of their privacy, and especially as she was under
eighteen navigating what's okay to share, what photos are okay
to share, and if there was ever real line that
was crossed, whatever that was that they gently came to
me and said, hey, you know, we're noticing this. Can
we do this differently next time? And they modeled healthy
(27:45):
communication for me and what that can look like. And
I think since open adoption can be very intimidating or
scary when you are just beginning the process of adopting,
that there's still a lot of fears in this and
being able to understand that boundaries are a good thing
and that open adoption is not co parenting. It's you know,
(28:07):
you're still the parents, but you have an open heart
and a bridge to those connections, to those answers that
are part of their life too, and being able to
advocate and work through that together.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Tell me about your own children, your children that you
parent as you say, you said you have five, I
do I have five?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
All right, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
So I had another unexpected pregnancy in my college years
and had thankfully a wonderful man by my side at
that point, and we got married at nineteen twenty and
so that daughter is now eighteen, and then our youngest
is eight.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
This is.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
This is a story of bounty.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
You know, so many women have so much trouble getting pregnant,
and you just keep having babies. And you know what,
God bless you for loving these babies, no matter what
the relationship is, no matter whether they were planned or not.
You know, I have so many friends that they're seemingly
the youngest.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I don't know why this has happened with my generation,
but they're the youngest, and they have you know, their
next in the order is you know, ten fifteen years
ahead of them, and they call themselves oopsie babies. And
yet they're spoiled rotten because by that time the parents
have you know, raised all these other kids, and then
here comes the kid that they didn't expect and they
didn't think mom could get pregnant anymore, but she did.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yep, we have definitely been wasn't our plan to have five,
but we're definitely still very fortunate for these children that
God's given us. And having worked I work with adopted
parents every day and they struggle with fertility, and so
I especially realized the humbling gift that it is that
(30:04):
as was able to.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I think that's absolutely right. And I think that you
have been as most true faithful Christians are. You have
been open to God's direction in your life that may
not have seemed like the perfect journey or the perfect film,
but somehow, with enough love and care and hard work
(30:32):
and you know, plenty of tears, and you get there.
And I see these journeys you know somewhere down the road,
and you do. You just get there. You figure out
how to make it work, and it's not always easy,
but at the end of it all, you're delighted that
you did.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Leah.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Before we let you go, Are there any other resources
you would recommend for folks who are going through some
aspect of all of this.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
One would be that I have a book if you're
curious about more of the details of what it, the
emotions of the experiences and through the hospital experience, and
how her parents and my support system imported being loved
me through the years, and also just what it looks
like up until she was eighteen. I also have a
nonprofit called the Ampersan Initiatives, and that is our post
(31:24):
placement resource to help not just birth parents, but also
adoptive parents and adoptees and kinship care foster care to
have retreats that are in a really safe, beautiful environment
and having fun, because you know, cultivating community and healing
could be a lot of heavy, you know, peers and
hard work, but it also you know, there's a lot
(31:45):
of healing that comes with joy, laughter, and you know,
being in beautiful places. So we have that as well,
and we have educational topics online that will help with
adoptive parents or just anybody involved that wants to learn
more about from a birth mom and because other people
in the in the adoption community and then her plan
(32:08):
of course is a great resource that someone is struggling
with an unexpected pregnancy and needs resources that they can
guide you national wide to find those those support networks
near you.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
God bless you. Leah Outman. Thank you for sharing your story.
You just never know who will hear it. You'll make
a difference for them. I appreciate your time than thank
you so nice, nice lot. Thank you and good night
It's that time, time, time, time, luck and load.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Michael Verry's show is on the air. It's Charlie from
BlackBerry Smoke. I can feel a good one coming on.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
It's the Michael Berry Show.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
We are probably as good a time as any for
us to play maybe my all time favorite Thanksgiving call.
I have referenced this call over the years since that time.
Some of you will remember the subject of the call,
if not the name of the caller. Her name was Julianne,
(00:46):
and when she called in, it was just going to
be like any other call. She talked about the fact
that she's now married, her son has grown up, but
she went back to a time where she was a
single mom, her and her son had no money. And well,
(01:08):
I'll let her tell you the story, but before it starts,
I have to tell you I didn't see where this
story was going, and it has turned out to be
one of those stories that I love as much as
any call we've ever received. And it's also I think
one of the reasons I play it is because some
of you out there might be where Julianne was at
that time, and I like to think that maybe this
(01:31):
gives you the hope to understand things can get better,
and they will get better, Julianne. Yes, sir, tell us
about your odd tradition on Thanksgiving.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Well, I raised two little boys all by myself. I
was a single parent. They're both they're nineteen and twenty. Now.
One goes to ut and one goes to Texas State.
They're doing great. Good or night I raise them. I
raise them by myself, totally from infancy, and Tom's to
really lean.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Where was their name?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
It's a long story, sir. I'd rather not get into
that part.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Was he alive and just not taking care of his business?
Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yes, sir?
Speaker 2 (02:10):
Is he a bad person?
Speaker 3 (02:13):
He's got some issues.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Is he still alive today? Yes, sir, okay, do you
wish him ill?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
No, I don't. I feel very bad for the man.
But that's neither here nor there. Well, I took many
years to get here, sir, believe me, but they're both
peace beyond understanding.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
We call that ramon. What did you do? How'd you
support those boys?
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Well, initially I opened a little daycare and I took
in children because I didn't want them to go off
to daycare, so I took children in and then I
also made burritos, and tacos and drove around and sold
those out of my car. And then once they were
able to go to school, once I got them into
(03:02):
kindergarten and first grade, I worked in a little office job.
And then I got lucky and met someone at the pool,
and I got into oil and gas. And now I'm
a doctor, the controller. I have a great career. Things
just kind of progressed. God was good.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I wish you were righting here beside me, because I
would give you a big hug.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I admire people like you, I really do.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
My entire family lived in New Mexico, and their dad
would allow me to lead, and so it was just
the three of us. It was terrible. And one year
it was so bad we had sardines for Thanksgiving. That's
what we ate, sardines. So now every year for Thanksgiving,
I make sure that I have a beautiful plate and
(03:53):
I doll it up really pretty, and I make sure
I have sardines at our table so that we never
forget those. And that's my story.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
I'll tell you what. We keep that one in the
archives and I always look forward at Thanksgiving to Ramone
pulling it out and playing it again and as I said,
I hope that helps somebody out there. If you're a
single mom or a single dad.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
Or.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
You you hit a spell of bad luck, maybe made
some bad decisions, lost your job, hit the bottle too hard,
got addicted to drugs, whatever it is, it's got you down.
I hope that call. I mean, things turned out well
(04:51):
for Julianne, but don't you couldn't have told her that
at the time. And so you know what I'm gonna do, Ramone,
I'm going to play at this moment one of my favorites,
Songs of Redemption by the Reverend Donnie McClurkin from the
what was the Horror Amityville Horror. His his church is
the Amityville Baptist Church. He is the pastor and the
(05:14):
song leader there. He's also a very very successful gospel
singer and a dear friend. But let's uh, this this
is a this is a segment of redemption. So this
is for any of you out there that had been
knocked out, knocked down, not knocked out, knocked down to
get back up. Oh my god, that's not what I wanted.
(05:41):
You know what, I hate you. I genuinely, deeply, seriously
hate you. Now play what I asked you to playful between.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Weful, but we all but we care?
Speaker 2 (06:05):
Oh yes for the same.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
It's just the siner. But we can't stay there, can't
God say that over?
Speaker 5 (06:27):
Get back.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
Back?
Speaker 3 (06:35):
Oh my mind?
Speaker 1 (06:37):
If we get back and gass.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Against war, but we can't sty there there's a same,
a righteousness obsidy.
Speaker 1 (06:54):
Oh I say long if we if we get back,
we falled up, We get back up again, just rise
back of a whim. Same s.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Very in the system to modern day. The highlight of
the year for me as we need to know, and
some of you who said it is for you as well,
is our adoption special, which of course is today. It's
very important to me on a personal level. It's very
(07:44):
important to me on a moral and writ large level.
There are more people who are adopted than you would
believe because you don't know that they're adopted, because you
didn't have any reason to know that. They don't wear
a shirt that says I'm adopted. But when we think
about the process of parenting and what our parents mean
to us, and what it means to be a parent,
(08:06):
which is so much more than just providing food and shelter.
It's discipline, it's love, its presence, it's so many things.
It's teaching. You know, our children should learn first and
foremost from parents before the schools. If you don't like
what the schools are teaching, it should never override what
you've already taught at home. The only time it's the
problem is if you're not using that opportunity to teach
(08:28):
at home. And that's about household finances. But that's about
our faith, that's about who we are as a people,
what our culture is. These are the things that a
parent should be instilling in a child. Well, the world's
not perfect, but God has a plan. And sometimes a
mother or a father dies early. Sometimes they abandon, sometimes
(08:48):
they leave. There are all sorts of things that can
occasion a child in a situation where there's not a
direct parent to parent them. And the adoption as well
as foster can be opportunities because don't we want every
child to have some sort of a chance. Don't we
want every child to have some sort of love like
(09:10):
we had from our parents. I know I certainly did,
so it's our adoption special and thank you for being
with us. In an op ed and Evy magazine, Leah
Outen shared a story, her story of experiencing an unexpected
pregnancy at the age of sixteen, and she talks about
that every year when we do this, we most years
(09:32):
we've had someone call up because we'll have people who
are adopted and they tell their stories, or parents who
adopted and they tell their stories. More often than not,
it's a kid who was adopted and they're so thankful
for their parents, and sometimes they've lost that parent. But
years ago, we had the first one where someone called
up and said, Hey, I know I'm the bad guy
in this story, but I had a child and I
(09:53):
gave that child up for adoption and it was an
act of love and it really made people think different.
And ever since then, every year we typically have a
caller who made that choice. Well, Leah Auten is one
of those. She had pressure to seek an abortion, but
she chose life for her child and she did something
(10:13):
that's very difficult to do. She put her child into
the adoption process and another family could enjoy that child.
And Kaylee grew up a beautiful, wonderful child and that's
what she's here to tell us about. So Leah out
and welcome to the program.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Oh thank you for having me, I'm excited to share more.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
So to start with, what made you want to share
this story? It's deeply personal and not everyone will consider
you the hero I do out of it.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
For me, it changed my life, and you know, I
was at sixteen on a trajectory that I wasn't proud
of and to be able to now twenty two years ago,
since that moment of seeing those positive lines on a
pregnancy test and just the healing and the journey Gods
(11:00):
taken me on, and I want to share that.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
With other people.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
As one part of why this is important to me,
but also because I was so well loved by my church,
by my family, by the agency I used, by my
daughter and her family, which is not always common, and
especially twenty two years ago, and so to be able
to help communities and parents to know how to support
a woman or a girl, whatever the age, that's walking
(11:27):
through this very difficult experience of unexpected pregnancy and along
with if she chooses adoption, how to do that better,
how to love her more. Just spelling some of those
myths about birth parents and that we aren't necessarily the
bad guy in the story. We've been an invisible you know, silent,
often voiceless part of this, you know, adoption try and experience.
(11:49):
And so it's been very helpful for more birth parents
as you shared, to speak up and to share it's
not an easy decision. It's not that we just walked
away or didn't love or didn't want our children. It
was a decision that was difficult and made out of
love to help our children to have a better start
to life. And so I fared just to help undo
(12:13):
some of those myths and showing just what it can
look like to not only walk through this experience, but
also to have an open adoption with an adopted parent
and how that can benefit everybody as well.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
And to start, let's define what an open adoption is,
because people outside the adoption world don't know what an
open and a closed adoption is. So why don't you
start with that.
Speaker 4 (12:36):
Yeah, so I know, when I found out I was pregnant,
all I thought was closed adoption of where I would
never see her or know her, know how she was doing,
or have photos of what she looks like. And that's
for a long time, that's how it was done. And
then the last few decades we're starting to see a
shift of realizing that having access to birth family, to
answer medical questions, to know more of their adoption story, roots,
(13:00):
their identity, medical, all the things have become important to know.
And so with open adoption there it can look lots
of different ways, but there's some kind of contact with
birth family for us that looks like including visits along
with photos and updates.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
Yeah, so it's almost more of a collaborative process. And
I realized that's not for everyone. We didn't. We have
a closed adoption in our case, and that was important
to us. And look, everybody is different, and that's okay.
You have to decide you know who and what you are.
But the fact that that was important to you and
led you to adoption, I think is the important part
(13:40):
of this conversation. Let's talk about where you were in
your life when you find out you are pregnant. You're
only sixteen years old. I'm assuming you're probably a sophomore
junior in high school, and how that happened.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Yeah, so I was just starting my junior year of
high school, had just turned sixteen, and I have been
dating someone through most of my sophomore year and we
had just really broken apart. You know, he was heading
in one way and I didn't like that, and we
were just not getting along, and so we had just
broken up and I found out I was pregnant a
(14:13):
few weeks later, and he really had said, you should
choose abortion or choose adoption, but you know, I'm not
ready to be a parent and we're not ready to
be parents, and didn't have a lot of contactors, you know,
support from him after that, and so I really was
left to decide what to do and really felt like
(14:35):
parenting was going to be my option because abortion did
not feel right to me. I innately knew that she
had a purpose in this world and it wasn't my
decision and my right to take that away from her.
And you know, grateful for parents who supported me in
that decision. I never felt forced to make a different decision,
(14:55):
and you know, they were willing to help me and
walk through with me through this process. So I thought
I was going to pair it for many months, but
as I wrestled with it, I just could not find
peace with parenting, and that led me to just being
encouraged to make an informed decision that if parenting is
not feeling right, explore ad option to make sure that
(15:17):
that's not what you want to do, or just learn
more about it. And as I had mentioned, I came
into this process with my own bias of close adoption
is all that there is, and that didn't feel right
for me. But once I learned that open adoption, clod
ad options and that process, talked to other birth moms
and adopted moms who had this really beautiful relations.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The first I've been destroying the black community is to
dismantle the black family. With Michael Barry's show.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Why don't we ask missus Willie Brown if Kamala Harris
cares about Black families?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Leah Alton is our guest. We're talking about adoption because
of course this is our Adoption special and we're talking
to Leah Alton. She wrote an op ed and magazine
about an unexpected pregnancy at the age of sixteen. You
can imagine a sixteen year old girl, how frightened she is,
and she was pressured to get in an abortion, and
(16:11):
she said, no, I'm going to choose life for my daughter,
whose name is Kaylee, And she did, and she pursued
an open adoption and it has worked beautifully. Not every
open adoption or closed adoption is going to work well.
Not every situation is going to work well, but I
think by and large, this is a solution for most people.
(16:33):
And it does honor life because we didn't choose life.
God did. And I think it's an incredible testimony in
addition to an experience, and that's why we've asked her
to join us today. Let's talk about how y'all worked
through the open adoption. How much did you see Kaylee?
Did that change over time? How are you referred to
(16:57):
by her? How much did you get to attend her
events and those sorts of things.
Speaker 4 (17:03):
Oh yeah, so our agreement was two times a year,
and so her birthday falls in the summer, so that
was a great meeting point. I went to every birthday
party for eighteen nineteen years. And then we also had
a Christmas tradition where we would get together and have
lunch and exchange gifts and just have fun catching up.
(17:24):
So those two were always upheld through her childhood into adulthood,
and for us, we loved spending time together. So there
were other opportunities and visits that would come through through
different seasons of her life or just what worked for
our schedule. And so yes, I was invited to things
(17:44):
like kindergarten graduation and her high school graduation and those
kinds of things, or just hanging out to have dinner
and getting to know each other as extended family night.
Though they were just very intentional out upholsing that commitment
to me, which was really meaningful to me and to
(18:06):
her as as we grew, we knew when to expect
the next visit together. So she's one question that she
that her parents asked me when I was pregnant is
what do you want to be called? And I love
that they asked me that question and kind of gave
me some voice into our experience together. And you know,
because birth moms don't get a lot of say typically
(18:29):
about what all this can look like, and so they
were great at asking me questions and really inviting me
into you know, creating this this this relationship together. And
so they they offered different suggestions or ideas, and nothing
really felt right with me. So I decided just to
be miss Leah, which is what they called any you
know adult that I and they called me birth mom
(18:52):
as well, so she knew me as her birth mom
miss Leah. And then now that she's older and we've
she and I have more directly created a relationship in
her teen years. She now calls me mother Goose, which
is what my children did. My parents call me as
a joke because I have five of them and they
follow me around and I read a lot. So it's
(19:14):
fun that she's kind of felt comfortable to add another
name to me. And her mom is her mom, but
I have another, my own little name now that she's
comfortable with that.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
So how she first called you mother goose? Did she ask?
She did? She just say it? Tell me about that moment.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
So my children here, as I said, they they call
me mother Goose. And so I think as she has
come to visit, she's she's come to visit us and
kind of immersed herself into, you know, her siblings here,
and so I think picking that up just being around
because sometimes we would have longer visits in the summer
(19:57):
for a weekend or a week and so it was
a much more immersive experience where it felt more comfortable
to include something that was more personal like that. So
it's I don't think she asked, It was just kind
of started to become part of the normal conversation as
we grew closer together. More naturally.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And how often did you see her? Have you seen
her over the years as have more or less now
and how has that changed. What's the nature of that interaction.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Yeah, I think it's as flows through different seasons. And
the first three years we had a lot of visits
as we were building this foundation of our relationship together.
So the first three years we had visits probably every
other month. I was sixteen with a frustriver's license, and
so I loved to be able to come visit them,
and they invited me, you know, to come spend time
(20:51):
with them and have dinner, and those those dinner table
moments really shaped how our relationship was building then and
that looks like now. The elementary years, it was we
were all busier, you know, her with school, me with
growing my family, married and all those kinds of things.
So that was really just the two times of year
(21:13):
that we knew to expect for Birthday and Christmas. And
then her teen years is when she started to ask more.
She was the third, you know voice and became the
more important voice in our adoption relationship. And she has
always known who I am and her story and wanted
to know more as she was heading into those identity
(21:34):
forming years and really the wheels turning about adoption and
her turning sixteen and really understanding, wow, this is what
you this is the age you were when you had me,
and I can understand more now about why you would
choose adoption, and you know, just having more opportunity to
grow and to learn from one another. And so her
(21:54):
teen years, she started to ask for about quarterly and
so that's where we've probably from sixteen up to now,
with her being twenty one, we aim for probably one
per season at least.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
That's fascinating. What led you to write the outbed in
EV magazine.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
I think again, always just felt like I needed to
share the story because all that God has done in
my life helping other women to know that there is
support out there, whether they choose adoption or whether they
choose the parent, that you know, resources like her plan
exist and can be so helpful to find community and
(22:38):
resources and support for whatever the path is, because there's
no easy path. All of it is hard, and it's
just choosing your heart and knowing to go to and
where to go to to define that support. And I
just want women to know that there is hope that
you know there is a path forward beyond this, this
(23:00):
moment that can feel you know, a crisis or devastating
or you know the world's upside down, and that there's
there's hope. Yeah, that it's in the seeking the Lord
and for that guidance and for that peace and whatever
that looks like.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
Hold with me for just a moment. Leah Outen is
our guest. The op ed she wrote in Evy magazine
caught our attention a few months back, and it was
about It was about her decision at sixteen with an
I don't want to call it unwanted. I want to
call it unexpected, which I think is the term she used.
(23:42):
As National Adoption Month in November and our Adoption special
roles on please celebrate those mothers who make the decision
of life. It's not an easy thing to do. It's
not an easy thing to do, but I think she
proves it's a rewarding and whole godly thing to do.
More with you. I will die for the country. I
(24:05):
will die for disclas to Michael Barry Joe, He's the
big honor to be living in the United States. Leah
Altin as our guest. She wrote an op ed in
Evie magazine about having an unexpected pregnancy at the age
of sixteen and she did not intend to supplant God's
will that child was there, and under pressure to seek
(24:28):
an abortion, she chose life for her daughter, Kaylee and
an open adoption, and she has had a rewarding relationship
with her daughter, who's adopted by another family. And her
daughter is now twenty one years old, and we're talking
about how she's navigated this and why it's important to
her to share with other people. And I love that.
(24:48):
I absolutely love that. I read that you have become
a prolific advocate, public speaker, and writer on the joys
of open adoption. How did you get involved doing that?
And I'm curious what kind of questions people ask about this?
Speaker 4 (25:05):
So I heard started speaking just a few months after
she was born because my agency wanted to share with
local nurses at the hospital of you know, how to
love a birth parent, will, who's choosing adoption in the
hospital setting, and the most vulnerable parts of diplacement process.
(25:28):
And so it's those opportunities have just come up through
the years and just been asked to write about it
and to share about it. I also blogged and wrote
through my pregnancy and the early years, and that's continued
to grow to the books I write, and writing with
such a healing part of my journey to process my
(25:51):
emotions and capture those moments that I got to share
with her through the years, and to connect with other
birth moms and adoptees and adoptive parents, because there's everybody's
coming into this with curiosity, whether they have a personal
experience with adoption or they're outside the experience and it's
something that's completely new, and so I think writing and
(26:15):
speaking has just been such a connecting experience to help
other people to know you're not alone in this, and
here's what's worked in our journey and what's been helpful
in our journey and my personal journey too. So common
questions you've asked a lot of them of what does
this look like, how often do you visit? What does
she call you? But I think another one is, you know,
(26:40):
navigating boundaries and conflict in open adoption, because it's not
always easy. It's an adoption relationship is just like any
other relationship that takes work and effort. And you know,
through the years, her parents and I have worked through
to navigate, you know, wanting to honor each other. They
(27:03):
are her parents, and I respect that, and they also
respect that I'm her first mom, and we both come
together knowing that there's things that we can provide and
speak to into her life that the other can't, and
within that there can still be conversations that we've had
to have, especially as I've shared my story more publicly
and making sure that I'm sharing things that are still
(27:24):
respectful of their privacy, and especially as she was under
eighteen navigating what's okay to share, what photos are okay
to share, and if there was ever real line that
was crossed, whatever that was that they gently came to
me and said, hey, you know, we're noticing this. Can
we do this differently next time? And they modeled healthy
(27:45):
communication for me and what that can look like. And
I think since open adoption can be very intimidating or
scary when you are just beginning the process of adopting,
that there's still a lot of fears in this and
being able to understand that boundaries are a good thing
and that open adoption is not co parenting. It's you know,
(28:07):
you're still the parents, but you have an open heart
and a bridge to those connections, to those answers that
are part of their life too, and being able to
advocate and work through that together.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Tell me about your own children, your children that you
parent as you say, you said you have five, I
do I have five?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
All right, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
So I had another unexpected pregnancy in my college years
and had thankfully a wonderful man by my side at
that point, and we got married at nineteen twenty and
so that daughter is now eighteen, and then our youngest
is eight.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
This is.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
This is a story of bounty.
Speaker 5 (28:57):
You know, so many women have so much trouble getting pregnant,
and you just keep having babies. And you know what,
God bless you for loving these babies, no matter what
the relationship is, no matter whether they were planned or not.
You know, I have so many friends that they're seemingly
the youngest.
Speaker 2 (29:16):
I don't know why this has happened with my generation,
but they're the youngest, and they have you know, their
next in the order is you know, ten fifteen years
ahead of them, and they call themselves oopsie babies. And
yet they're spoiled rotten because by that time the parents
have you know, raised all these other kids, and then
here comes the kid that they didn't expect and they
didn't think mom could get pregnant anymore, but she did.
Speaker 4 (29:42):
Yep, we have definitely been wasn't our plan to have five,
but we're definitely still very fortunate for these children that
God's given us. And having worked I work with adopted
parents every day and they struggle with fertility, and so
I especially realized the humbling gift that it is that
(30:04):
as was able to.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I think that's absolutely right. And I think that you
have been as most true faithful Christians are. You have
been open to God's direction in your life that may
not have seemed like the perfect journey or the perfect film,
but somehow, with enough love and care and hard work
(30:32):
and you know, plenty of tears, and you get there.
And I see these journeys you know somewhere down the road,
and you do. You just get there. You figure out
how to make it work, and it's not always easy,
but at the end of it all, you're delighted that
you did.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
Leah.
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Before we let you go, Are there any other resources
you would recommend for folks who are going through some
aspect of all of this.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
One would be that I have a book if you're
curious about more of the details of what it, the
emotions of the experiences and through the hospital experience, and
how her parents and my support system imported being loved
me through the years, and also just what it looks
like up until she was eighteen. I also have a
nonprofit called the Ampersan Initiatives, and that is our post
(31:24):
placement resource to help not just birth parents, but also
adoptive parents and adoptees and kinship care foster care to
have retreats that are in a really safe, beautiful environment
and having fun, because you know, cultivating community and healing
could be a lot of heavy, you know, peers and
hard work, but it also you know, there's a lot
(31:45):
of healing that comes with joy, laughter, and you know,
being in beautiful places. So we have that as well,
and we have educational topics online that will help with
adoptive parents or just anybody involved that wants to learn
more about from a birth mom and because other people
in the in the adoption community and then her plan
(32:08):
of course is a great resource that someone is struggling
with an unexpected pregnancy and needs resources that they can
guide you national wide to find those those support networks
near you.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
God bless you. Leah Outman. Thank you for sharing your story.
You just never know who will hear it. You'll make
a difference for them. I appreciate your time than thank
you so nice, nice lot. Thank you and good night
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