241 – Abandoned at Birth: Searching for the Arms that Once Held Me

241 - Abandoned at Birth: Searching for the Arms that Once Held Me

[00:00:00] most birth mothers saw the child or health of their care until they were placed. And she just kept refusing and asking when she could sign the papers.

[00:00:12] Janet: And they said to her at one point, is this baby even real to you? And she said, quite frankly, no. I She just completely dismissed me completely from her life from the get go. I'm Damon Davis and you're about to meet Janet. She spoke to me from her home in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Janet grew up with a mother who presented to [00:01:00] the outside community as a saint whom everyone loved, but at home she was unkind to her family. Janet said she spent her whole life wanting to know her birth mother when she finally found the woman.

[00:01:12] Damon: Janet's birth mother didn't want to know her and only met her after her other children forced the issue. However, her birth father welcomed her with open arms and compassion, the kind of welcome every adoptee hopes for. This is Janet's Journey.

[00:01:29] Damon: Janet was the second adopted child in her family of four adoptees. She said she always knew she was adopted, but it wasn't something the family discussed, despite the fact that the family had so many adoptees. Janet said adoption was part of their bedtime stories, but any discussion of adoption was limited to then.

[00:01:50] Damon: Reflecting on the era in which she was adopted, in the 1950s, Janet said adoption was seen as very wholesome, like the feel good plot of a Hallmark [00:02:00] movie.

[00:02:00] Janet: A needy baby was given into the loving arms of strangers and lived happily ever after.

[00:02:07] Janet: And of course, we know that's not the case. and Silence. You was even though I didn't understand that I didn't understand the feelings of disconnect and otherness.

[00:02:42] Janet: But I remember, when I was a little girl, I had brown hair and it was cut in a style at the time that was like a little bob with little short bangs. And I have this brown face and when I smile, my eyes are pretty small. And I remember about five years old reading my golden book of children around the [00:03:00] world and seeing the illustrations of the little Chinese girls.

[00:03:04] Janet: And saying, Oh, I look like them. And I must be of course I'm five. I must be a kidnapped Chinese princess. And and someday people and people must be looking for me. And it's so funny that I wasn't scared of being found and taken away to China because I thought even at five, I had the sense that when I'm reunited with my biological family, I will feel intact and I'll feel whole and I'll be at peace.

[00:03:33] Janet: And that's such a strange thing because I loved my parents and I actually was overly dependent on them. And yet, I had this profound feeling of when I'm found and returned to my authentic home, I will be at peace.

[00:03:50] Damon: That's remarkable. It's really interesting. It's funny, the juxtaposition of the five year old brain

[00:03:57] Damon: that sees your face

[00:03:58] Damon: on the [00:04:00] Asian children in the book and assumes that you're one of them,

[00:04:03] Damon: but also the complexity of the lack of language that you had to be able to express that you felt different, other, whatever disconnected, right?

[00:04:16] Damon: It's so fascinating that you were having these. Both simplistic and extremely complex thoughts

[00:04:22] Damon: at the same time.

[00:04:23] Janet: No one talked about it, of course, and so there was no way to understand, but I have come to really believe, especially since Search and Reunion, that so much of us in our experience of life is chemical, cellular, almost the animals that we are. And I say just as animal mothers can look out over a sea of What we look at and see as identical babies, they know who their babies are.

[00:04:48] Janet: There's something chemical, there's a smell, there's scent, there's, and I have decided that belonging and identity is so biological and that our cells must [00:05:00] recognize each other or our blood must recognize our kin, because all my life, there were four children, four adopted children, my parents, and we'd sit around the table at night and.

[00:05:11] Janet: You just felt it. You just felt like everyone was their own person in their own world, their own little bubble of DNA. And we were sharing things and talking and communicating, participating, but we didn't belong to each other. And when I ultimately met my birth parents individually, that the feeling of with no knowledge, couldn't answer two questions about like my birth father was who I first met, couldn't answer two questions about him.

[00:05:39] Janet: an instant never felt more connected, more grounded, more at peace and more of a sense of belonging. Like I had been wandering my whole life and I had just come back to my people. It was and the only way I can describe it is There must be something chemical, there must be, my cells must recognize this is my family and my clan going [00:06:00] back through history.

[00:06:01] Janet: And I think there's a lot we don't understand, or we don't talk about, we haven't studied, perhaps, and I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of biology in that feeling of belonging.

[00:06:15] Damon: I suspect you're probably right. I you alluded to what we don't know. And I'm thinking about, I had a similar immediate rapport and connection with my birth mother when I met her. but I'm thinking more meta, more on a larger scale. Like the, there's some kind of energy between us that I am far from being able to explain, but just that thing where you've been sitting like you, you're standing at a party and you're staring at someone across the room.

[00:06:42] Damon: And if all the people they could have looked at, they turn and look right at you. Like you can feel that

[00:06:47] Janet: Yeah, Yeah,

[00:06:48] Damon: I would imagine that is also true in our families that just the very fact that we were created from the same [00:07:00] DNA that are linked to each other is impossible to deny. And it's fascinating to think about that connection that you had.

[00:07:07] Damon: And I want to get to your reunions shortly, but you said something really interesting. You said, Adoption was part of our bedtime stories. Can you tell me a little bit more about what does that even look like for parents and children?

[00:07:20] Janet: it was how we how they each they told us we were adopted. They told us that they went to an agency to get us and they talked about how they get a call from the agency to come to us up and they drive to the agency and we'd be waiting in a little cradle and they. Take us home. So there was always that story.

[00:07:40] Janet: And then when my youngest sister is seven years younger than me. And so I remember going to the agency with my parents and brothers to pick her up. So I was then witnessed that experience with my little sister. but that was all that was said, a fact of how you came to being.

[00:07:56] Janet: And as a child, children don't really [00:08:00] understand pregnancy in the olden days, they talk about the stork dropped you off or, they had silly stories like that. So I guess we just accepted that's how we came into the world. And there wasn't any further discussion about, who we might have come from or why we were placed.

[00:08:13] Janet: But then I don't know if they knew that, closed records, everything sealed. There was not really any information traded in, in those days.

[00:08:21] Damon: Can you share a little bit about how you and your siblings and your parents got along? So you've said you were one of four siblings, all of whom were adoptees. And where did you fall in the age order?

[00:08:36] Janet: was the second child and the oldest daughter. There were two boys and two girls. And we were the classic adoptees. Two of us were rebels, pushing the boundaries and testing the safety in the waters. And two of us were, tried very hard to be the perfect Children. So myself and my younger brother both tried to be, not do anything wrong and be [00:09:00] perfect.

nowadays people will say, Oh, I know some adopted Children and they're just perfect there. They don't act out and they're just, I said, that's not always a good sign. That could really be a sign of greater insecurity for me. And stress on them than otherwise, if they're free to act out normal range of human emotions.

[00:09:19] Janet: But,

[00:09:19] Janet: That's a great point.

so I fit in really well, but that's because I was obviously so scared and so insecure. I just wasn't going to do anything to rock the boat. I had a very loving father who I was very close to and adored and a mother who was Someone admired by the communities that she served. She was a professor and then she became an ordained minister and she did a lot of nonprofit work.

[00:09:45] Janet: The wider community thought of her as a saint, and, but she just shouldn't have been a mother. She couldn't she, children she discovered were, messy and complicated, and it interfered with her ambitions, and [00:10:00] none of us ever remember being hugged by mom. It wasn't that she was cruel she yelled all the time, and that was scary.

[00:10:07] Janet: But again, there was that duality of the, I understood the wider world's opinion of her was just a saint. And yet in the house, it was tense and uncomfortable and not a loving, warm household.

[00:10:22] Damon: Did you get the sense that she was narcissistic at all?

[00:10:27] Janet: yes, yeah, she closed. And yet I, when I got older I, Understood more of her story, which was that she was a surprise child back in 1922 came 10 years after her other siblings, three of them, which were much older and before she was one, her older sister, who was 10 died of diphtheria and scarlet fever.

[00:10:50] Janet: And her parents went into deep depression. And so I think I, she, you had this little child who was so desperate to get the attention of her parents that [00:11:00] she just. Wanted to excel at everything and so I understood that she didn't get what she needed and she was trying to get their attention and by being she just excelled at everything she did but

[00:11:13] Janet: of the more rebellious sort of Hellions. And I think she was very disappointed that he wasn't as academic as her and wasn't the perfect child. And she once said, overheard her saying to a friend when Eric was a teenager and acting out at least we can take comfort in the fact that he's not really ours.

[00:11:51] Janet: Yeah, so I think adoption gave her that excuse that if we weren't behaving in her shadow, you know, mirroring [00:12:00] her, that she just distanced from it. And so I of course made sure I was excelling in all the things that she valued. she was not the parent you'd hoped to have.

[00:12:11] Janet: My father on the other hand was just, I adored him. He was kind and gentle and generous and I loved him very much and as a therapist once told me, you just need one parent to save you. And I think he saved me.

[00:12:26] Janet: That's amazing.

[00:12:27] Damon: And it's absolutely right because the one parent that is, for lack of better words, good good at the job, good and loving, good and supportive, is a safe space to go,

[00:12:41] Damon: right? From the other one, from the siblings, from the outside world,

[00:12:45] Damon: right? When they are supportive, they can mean everything to you.

[00:12:49] Damon: And that's really powerful. Do you know why they adopted

[00:12:55] Janet: you?

[00:12:55] Janet: I think it was because it was the thing to do. And I know my father was [00:13:00] resistant at first. They had tried to have children for five years. This was in the mid 1950s and everyone they knew had multiple children at that point. It was just the American dream and they had everything else. They had the education and the jobs and the home and the, the community they lived in and they didn't have the children.

[00:13:19] Janet: And why they adopted four of us, I don't really know. Cause again, mom didn't really like the job. Her mother lived very close and her mother, my grandmother really did a lot of the childbearing and was there a lot for us back to work and to teach. But I think it was just social pressure and the desire to mom wanted to be a plus in everything she did.

[00:13:41] Janet: And I think in the 1950s, that included. having children and having, a number of children.

[00:13:47] Damon: Yeah.

[00:13:48] Damon: that makes sense. Wow. The reason I raised the narcissist thing a moment ago was because I listened to a podcast called Diary of a CEO. And this guy, Stephen Bartlett interviewed an [00:14:00] expert on narcissism. And one of the characteristics that was outlined was that a narcissist will be incredible to everybody outside of the home and god awful to everybody inside the home.

[00:14:16] Damon: The people that they're closest to, they're terrorists to, and people who are outside where the image quote unquote counts, they are pillars. And I recommend for anybody who is in this community and is interested and thinks that , their adoptive or some other person in their life is a narcissist. It was an enlightening episode for me So that was the reason

[00:14:38] Janet: is confusing as a child to have, be aware that the outside world absolutely reveres. People were saying to me all the time, Oh my God, your mother's a saint, or she saved my life, or she's I, that's what I heard all the time. And so I thought, must be me, there must be something wrong with me.

[00:14:55] Janet: She's mean, and she's yelling all the time, and she wasn't even yelling at me. She was mostly yelling at my brother, [00:15:00] but we're brothers, but it scared me, and it upset me too. And and so I couldn't resolve that my knowledge of my mother and the communities. And it wasn't until my parents were in their mid nineties and my, they were both really dying.

[00:15:16] Janet: And at one point my father said to me, cause mom was just, Being a terror to the home health aide and he said, no one outside this family knows what she's really like. and that was the first time in my entire life that my father acknowledged that side of my mother.

[00:15:31] Damon: So he had been living under

[00:15:33] Damon: her that terror to that awful sort of

[00:15:38] Janet: yeah, he just ignored it. He just passively, aggressively, probably, but he just ignored her when she was like hurricane she was. But and I remember about 12 years old choosing, deciding that I was going to pattern myself after my father and not my mother. That it was the first time I felt relief in knowing that I wasn't, [00:16:00] Made from those people because I wasn't going to have to be like my mother and I could choose to be by like my father and so it was a real conscious decision and the first glimmer of an advantage in that situation of not being

[00:16:17] Damon: interesting choice of words, right? You basically alluded to prior to that being at a disadvantage, right? You are in the face of the adults, , they have control and you also are the adoptee, not necessarily feeling anchored to them as a unit, as a family.

[00:16:38] Damon: Because you and all of the other adoptees that you said have lived in their own microcosms, but all in there in a unit as a family. That's really interesting that you chose the word finally having the advantage. That's really

[00:16:51] Janet: It was just the first time I was relieved not to be a part of her DNA. And I don't know how I understood that behavior can [00:17:00] come through the genes or I don't know why I had that feeling, but it was just a really conscious moment.

[00:17:06] Damon: It's also interesting too that you pointed out that we can sometimes choose what we want to be or what we do not want to be. You've said I've modeled myself after I don't, I do not want to be like that. Therefore I will model myself more after my father. That's also an interesting thing that

[00:17:23] Janet: It's interesting that when I ultimately met my birth parents, my birth mother was. Not a great woman and not a lovely one. And my birth father was lovely and kind. So it was near there's the real situation, but people often ask about what if, when you search, you find something, unpleasant or not nice or not warm and not loving or traits about these people that you don't like.

[00:17:45] Janet: And I said in a normal quote unquote family, you don't get to choose. Who the people are and what troubles they might have and what personality they might have, but you incorporate that into yourself, your formation of yourself, the things you learn to avoid or [00:18:00] accept, or, push away from or become part of.

[00:18:02] Janet: And I said, so we need, adoptees need that same choice as well. And it was, I was so grateful to meet my birth mother and really see traits in her that I knew I didn't want to let. Get strong in me, things that maybe I had flashes of, but I could dismiss because I didn't know where they came from.

[00:18:22] Janet: I could just saying, oh, I must be in a mood today or something. And when I met her and it was just a real cautionary tale and I was grateful. I think we can't truly know ourselves unless we know the good and the bad and what's really in us. And we have to make choices. Just don't see how you can be a whole human being if you're not willing to take in the good and the bad and make it work for yourself and make choices in your life.

[00:18:48] Janet: So I. I wouldn't trade that for anything. I think it was very helpful to see that I have the tendencies that I have in me that I can't deny are real and are there.

[00:18:59] Damon: [00:19:00] I was curious about how adoption came up outside of Janet's family. Where did it appear in the community? But Janet said their method of family formation never arose outside of her siblings. She said there was only one other kid in the community who was adopted, but no one talked about adoption.

[00:19:18] Damon: Sometimes, Janet would express her lament for the fact that she had no mirroring in her home.

[00:19:24] Janet: When

[00:19:24] Janet: I talked to friends about it and said, Oh, I so wish I could see someone who had my eyes or my nose.

[00:19:31] Janet: And they go, oh, I don't look like my parents. That's not important. And they'd be really dismissive. It made me feel like just retreating to myself further. It's they think it's not important. I must do something must be wrong with me, but they didn't think it was important because they had that.

[00:19:45] Janet: Or they say, I don't share the interest with my parents or I don't even like my parents. Oh, that's not important, but it's so important to our development. And when you have it. You don't really appreciate what you have if you have nothing, there was nothing to push against, there was nothing to take, to grab [00:20:00] onto, there was just nothing, and to try and form yourself as an intact and whole human being with no knowledge of where you came from, what your heritage is.

[00:20:11] Janet: And anything about yourself or your lineage it's impossible. It's impossible. And I ended up with such anxiety and panic disorder and it was very difficult to live with that kind of disconnect and aloneness and sadness and loss and grief and all the things that are part of being an adoptee.

[00:20:30] Damon: Yeah.

[00:20:37] Damon: have. And we do it all the, time in our lives, right? We have either a certain socioeconomic status or, material things, or, just things that we take for granted about how we interact with our friends and family and stuff.

[00:20:49] Damon: And then when you see someone else not having that same thing, it's a reminder to you, Oh yeah I have this over here already, but something as basic as being. [00:21:00] In your family with

[00:21:01] Damon: people that you're related to, it's almost unfathomable to anybody else who's not been through the adoption experience, either as a birth mother or birth father, or as an adoptee, right?

[00:21:12] Damon: It's impossible to imagine being in a quote unquote family and not having family mean that my genetic branch is attached to your genetic mom and dad, It's just, people can't get it.

[00:21:25] Janet: And you hear it, but I don't know if you feel it. So one of the purposes of my book was to try and write the feelings and communicate and express the feelings so that someone reading it could go, Oh, yeah. I feel that and get that and take that emotional understanding with them when they're thinking and they're when their state's talking about should we open up birth records or not and they get to vote on that, but they didn't really know anything about it or when they're talking about the rights of donor conceived individuals or any of the contemporary issues that we still face with adoption.

[00:21:59] Janet: [00:22:00] I wanted to really try and make sure to communicate those feelings, like this is what it feels like to be the adoptee. This isn't the needs or morality of the birth parents or adoptive parents. This is what the individual, not a helpless baby, but the individual person, human being that's, that is the adoptee really feels and then what they, I think they really need to heal.

[00:22:21] Damon: Yeah, I love that. And as you said it, I was thinking, yeah, that's what I was trying to do was dump the feelings that people would understand. It's just not, I was adopted. I want to go meet my birth family. It's I've got feelings about those experiences in adoption. And I've got serious curiosity and feelings attached to wanting to know what my genetic heritage is.

[00:22:45] Damon: So you're right that part of the writing is in fact, an exercise in trying to help others understand. Here's the part you're not seeing, If you could look in my head and see what all of the [00:23:00] emotions and challenges and issues and. Curiosities are this is what it looks like. So that's

[00:23:06] Janet: Yeah, because the narrative is usually, the needs or an immorality of adopted birth and adoptive parents. And then they think as long as you've been adopted to a kind family, that's that's intact and it's somewhat secure that there's going to be a, Beautiful ending and after rainbows and pops.

[00:23:24] Janet: And so I really, I'm so glad there's so many adoptees speaking up these days and really saying that's not all that it takes to be a healthy human being. And look at, the birth family, look at extended members of that birth family, try and keep that individual with their clan and with their family in some way and how to, how else to support that family rather than just give that child away to strangers.

[00:23:53] Janet: And I. There will always be a need for adoption. There'll always be babies that do need homes. [00:24:00] And they're always luckily be parents who are happy to raise them. But I think we have to shift our understanding to say, you can't just take a child in and pretend they're yours, give them a false identity and pretend and expect that to work out well for them.

[00:24:15] Janet: Yeah, that's exactly

[00:24:16] Janet: right. That's exactly right.

[00:24:18] Damon: I was interested to know more about what catalyzed Janet to want to search for her adoption reunion. She said she always wanted to search, every day of her life. from the time she was young. But she had no information whatsoever to go on. No names, no locations.

[00:24:35] Damon: Nada. her curiosity was part of her before the internet took over our lives. So in college, she relied on organizations like ALMA, the Adoptees Liberation Movement Association, and their registry to try to help her match with anyone who might be searching for her too. There was just no other way to make an attempt back then. During a conversation with her adoptive mother Around the year [00:25:00] 2010, when Janet was in her fifties, she asked about the adoption agency that supported her family's formation. Janet assumed that the agency was long since closed, but her mother told her that it was still open and they had a website.

[00:25:14] Damon: When Janet explored the agency's website, there was a button that said Search. 650 fee, the agency would interview you and reach out to find your birth parents.

[00:25:26] Janet: now I had reached out to the agency.

[00:25:28] Janet: When I was in college and I actually sent them a paper I had written, I did an independent class at Colgate University where I graduated from on identity and adoption that got an A plus and I sent it off to the agency as if to say, I'm not just some, crazy teen. I have studied this and thought about it and I really, what can you tell me?

[00:25:48] Janet: And they gave me very little information and of course a very happy narrative. Oh, everyone's happy. Everything's perfect. You're just great parents. Everyone's healthy. Everything's great. But meanwhile, three years later, unbeknownst to me, they started doing these [00:26:00] connecting adoptees and birth parents, if both were consented.

[00:26:04] Janet: And I never knew that all those years. And so I, applied. I sent in my check and they, of course, had all the information and they had a backlog at the time and it took, about nine months, ironically. And and then they called me to say , they found my birth mother within a couple of days.

[00:26:22] Janet: Sadly, she refused to meet me. She just said, No, I don't want to think about it. No one in my family knows. Now, meanwhile, she was on her second marriage, didn't live in the same community. She had five other children. She worked outside the home. We could have met for lunch and no one would have had.

[00:26:41] Janet: She refused to meet me and that was devastating. But it was really the first opportunity that I had to search. I had thought about it. I never didn't want to search.

[00:26:52] Janet: Yeah.

[00:26:53] Damon: you had. Thought about it almost every day of your life, but it wasn't until you were 56 [00:27:00] that you reached a point where the internet and The ability to have this

[00:27:05] Damon: search button on their site.

[00:27:07] Janet: And Our whole, my, my husband Rick is just wonderfully supportive husband. And he had said throughout our lives, let's hire a private investigator. And he goes I'll tell, I'll just, it doesn't matter to me.

[00:27:18] Janet: Let's just do whatever we need to do. But we had nothing to go on. I didn't have a name. I didn't have a location. In fact, the information the agency had given me in college was very misleading. They said, your parents were from a distant state. When, in fact, it turned out they were from the very next state, an hour and a half from the town I grew up in.

[00:27:40] Janet: So the information was so misleading. I would have been looking. I don't know where I would have been telling investigators to look, but there was nothing to go on. And so it was the 1st. Opportunity I had to have information and make that connection I took it and it took that long that far into my life to have that [00:28:00] opportunity.

[00:28:01] Damon: That's really wild. .

[00:28:02] Damon: What was the correspondence like when you got the notification that they had found her, and then the notification that she didn't want to know you?

[00:28:13] Janet: I think I remember there was phone calls, but I was instructed first they said they found her. She was alive. And I should write a letter telling about my life briefly and why I wanted to meet her and to enclose three photographs, one of myself as a baby, one as a young person and one current. So I had to, prove myself to her, and I was to send that to the agency. They would forward it to, she allowed them to forward the letter to her, but she refused. To meet me. And when they said, but Janet doesn't want anything from you. And she's, a lovely woman. She had the nerve to say I wouldn't expect anything else.

[00:28:56] Janet: It's like you don't get to say that. You gave me away. It [00:29:00] was and it's interesting they, in the original paperwork they had shared with me in college was that she was a very thoughtful and very mature young woman and she was doing this in my best interest and all that. And I ultimately was able to see the reports of the actual reports of the adoption.

[00:29:17] Janet: And there was nothing like that. They kept saying how much denial this woman was in and that they'd never had a birth mother in this much denial. And most birth mothers saw the child or health of their care until they were placed. And she just kept refusing and asking when she could sign the papers.

[00:29:33] Janet: And they said to her at one point, is this baby even real to you? And she said, quite frankly, no. I She just completely dismissed me completely from her life from the get go. But that's not what I had been originally told. So

[00:29:49] Damon: And where did you get the original narrative from that she had been this thoughtful, pensive

[00:29:54] Janet: When I wrote to the agency in the late 70s after completing that course and that I [00:30:00] did at Colgate on identity and adoption, I asked the agency for any information about my birth parents that they could share. And they wrote I want to know why I looked like I did, and things.

[00:30:10] Janet: And they described her and my father, wrong but somewhat accurately and describe their personalities and talked about her, which was not anything that you saw reflected in the actual social workers notes that I eventually saw. But, they were just perpetuating that myth that we've done a great job.

[00:30:31] Janet: Everything's fine. You should be happy. You're in a good family. Don't ask questions. And it was just incredible that, the Pollyanna. If they put on paper and sent me, which was not true at all.

[00:30:43] Janet: Yeah,

[00:30:43] Damon: that was why I asked that. I heard you say it

[00:30:46] Damon: but I just, I had in my mind that they had created And perpetuated the false narrative of positivity that you ended up disproving by [00:31:00] actually meeting her much later and then actually reading the real documents. And this is. The more I talk to adoptees about their stories, The more I realize just how false so many originating narratives are, they're just not true.

[00:31:20] Damon: It's everything from, the qualities of the parent to, Your records were burned in a fire. The

[00:31:26] Janet: right

[00:31:26] Damon: It's every, there's so many false narratives out there about the health of the child in

[00:31:33] Damon: the records, about the ethnicity of the child, it's astonishing to me how many lies are fluid in adoption stories.

[00:31:46] Damon: It's just, they're rampant.

[00:31:47] Janet: is. And, there, I really take exception to a lot of the, the whole institution of it, especially back in the fifties, sixties and seventies what the social workers and those agencies did was, Awful, [00:32:00] to put it nicely. And it's just incredible. We've all read the real horror stories about things that happened back then, but to see it to proven true over and over again,

[00:32:11] Janet: Yeah.

[00:32:12] Janet: My younger sister had to them with my mother's permission as a teenager and , said, if my birth mother ever wants to meet me, I want to meet her.

[00:32:21] Janet: And, to go on record there around the same time, her birth mother wrote to the agency and said, I'm about to move overseas. But before I do, if there's any chance I could meet my daughter, I'd really like to,

[00:32:32] Damon: Wow.

[00:32:33] Janet: had both of those records in her file and never connected them. And it wasn't until after I met my birth father that we searched for, we had to search the world literally for her mother.

[00:32:46] Janet: And luckily we found her and they made that connection. But it was at that point. That the current social worker at that agency said, Oh my God, these things were both in your [00:33:00] file Oh, wow. to you. Yeah,

[00:33:03] Damon: I want to go back for a minute, Janet, because you said something really interesting that I want to dig into a little bit. The adoption agency conveyed to your birth mother that Janet is a lovely woman and you should meet her.

[00:33:17] Damon: And your birth mother took credit for it of course. you were like no. You don't get to take credit for this. I picked up on that.

[00:33:23] Damon: Tell me what that means. What is that? Why did you say you don't

[00:33:26] Janet: I was just like, how could she had nothing to do with me. She denied me here. She was denying me again. She wouldn't even meet me. She had never looked at me and she was taking credit for my being a good person. I was just incredulous. It's like you had nothing to do with this. that's summed her up though.

[00:33:48] Janet: , we met a few, we ultimately met a few times, five years later we met a few times, but she could just not could let me, she just could not let me into her life. I could be a friend of her daughter's because [00:34:00] I have a relationship with all of her, the five children she had after she married and after me, but but she just couldn't, she just couldn't go there with me.

[00:34:09] Janet: She just kept her guard up and kept me at arm's length.

[00:34:14] Damon: Which is also, I mean, I can't say that it's that interesting because what you've already said is that the record showed she was already disengaged, like your birth was a time of disengagement for

[00:34:25] Damon: her, which is really interesting. And I wonder if I've heard more than one adopted person say. That their birth mother said cruelly, if I could

[00:34:36] Damon: have, I would have aborted you.

[00:34:38] Damon: And I can't help thinking that someone who gives birth to a child and then isn't completely disinterested in touching, engaging the child, given the opportunity, I can't help thinking that may have been in the back of her mind later,

[00:34:52] Janet: Yeah. I'm sure probably if the option had been available in the 1950s she would have opted. And I don't I don't take [00:35:00] exception to that. I, I have a friend who's adopted and she said, people are always surprised when adoptees support women's rights and abortion, she said, but we wouldn't wish this on anybody.

[00:35:12] Janet: That's a strong statement. That's a strong statement about the trauma that you feel. given what the outside world would look at and say is a wonderful life or a life it is, but I also say two things can be true at once. You can have a perfectly fine adoptive experience. And be traumatized by having been adopted.

[00:35:34] Damon: I'm so glad you said that. I've been writing my second book, and this is one of the themes that I've been pulling through is that you can have two things at the same time. I can be extremely thankful for the adoption experience that I got.

[00:35:49] Damon: so much. And at the same time, very much wonder who my biological

[00:35:53] Damon: parents are and wish that I had known that life that we could have had together.

[00:35:58] Damon: You can have those can both [00:36:00] be in your brain at the same time.

[00:36:01] Damon: It's absolutely incredible. I'm so glad that you said

[00:36:04] Janet: Yeah. People don't understand that they always want us to be very grateful as adoptees. And Yeah. You can say you aren't but yes, I had a good family growing up and better life opportunities in life than I probably would have had with my birth mother. But at the same time, I was traumatized and I've had a life of grief because I was separated from her at birth and knew nothing about myself.

[00:36:31] Janet: for so long. So

[00:36:34] Damon: In what you said to continue that thread of two things happening at once, what I just realized In you saying people often want us to be grateful is that they only

[00:36:45] Damon: want us to be grateful

[00:36:45] Janet: exactly. Yes, it's

[00:36:47] Janet: only

[00:36:47] Damon: don't want us to feel anything else. Just be grateful.

[00:36:50] Janet: they think if you do feel the other that you're not grateful. So it's very black and white. You can't, there's no,

[00:36:56] Damon: right, It's not and it's not binary. It's [00:37:00] gratitude perhaps

[00:37:02] Damon: and something else and it may be related or completely different, but it's not that if you say you're grateful that you can't feel any other thing. I'm so glad you said that. That's amazing. Wow.

[00:37:11] Damon: When Janet's birth mother was located, the woman didn't want to meet her at all. When I asked her how that situation hit her, Janet said after her maternal reunion rejection, she was in a depression.

[00:37:25] Janet: I was just catatonic almost for about a month or two. I didn't understand it at the time, but I was just, every emotion of rejection and abandonment and sorrow, it Come back into me.

[00:37:34] Damon: But the agency revealed they had her birth father's name, which was unusual for that era of the 1950s, when most birth fathers had no rights. And in Janet's situation, it seemed like her birth mother just wanted to get rid of her. The agency offered to try to find the man, and Janet thought to herself, this guy has to be fairly old.

[00:37:55] Damon: He didn't even know of her existence. Her birth mother had never revealed her pregnancy [00:38:00] to the man according to the agency's records. Janet's main concern had been finding her birth mother and seeing that connection, but then Janet realized she might be able to obtain some medical information if she made a paternal connection.

[00:38:14] Damon: Her birth father was not her main concern, but the opportunity was on the table, so Janet just kinda said yeah, why not, without a second thought.

[00:38:24] Janet: Of course they found him.

[00:38:25] Janet: He was still living in the same hometown. And they connected us and we met a few weeks later. It was about Christmas

[00:38:33] Janet: time when that was happening. So we, the first opportunity after Christmas to meet. And I was scared out of my mind. I don't know why. And I was, again, very, Irrationally, we had talked on the phone once I knew he was a retired state trooper.

[00:38:50] Janet: I knew that, he, we've had a perfectly lovely conversation. I, but I also found no information about him online. I didn't realize that oftentimes law enforcement [00:39:00] have, I think, online presences, Oh, but I was like, why don't, why can't I find anything about this man? I thought, and driving to meet him with my husband, I thought, Oh my God.

[00:39:09] Janet: What am I getting myself into and who horrible and I just was terrified and we arrived at a spot as the agency suggested, pick a spot halfway between your homes and meet there. And then I'm standing there it's wintertime I take my coat if I'm sweating I'm so nervous and I'm holding my coat in front of me and clutching it to me and I'm just.

[00:39:32] Janet: Like in another world and I'm thinking oh, no, I should have told us to wear carnations You're like, how are we gonna know each other? And meanwhile, my husband was looking across the lobby of this resort that we're at and he sees this old man older man sitting there and He realizes, they look at each other and he realizes in an instant, that's my father.

[00:39:53] Janet: And Larry was his name and I still don't see that. And I'm just standing there like freaking out. And all of a sudden there's this man in [00:40:00] front of me and he puts his hands. Over mine. And he looks me right in the eyes and he says, you're Janet. And in that moment, that big black hole filled up that I had my whole life and I never even had words for that.

[00:40:16] Janet: It was just like this, like the cylinder just filled up a chunk, it just built up and I just felt complete and whole and I couldn't have answered two questions about him. But he looked into my eyes and I looked at him and I finally made sense. It was immediate and like primal. And then he had his high school yearbook with him to show me pictures of he and my birth mother who had dated for a couple of years in high school.

[00:40:39] Janet: And his senior class picture was on top from a name tag from a recent reunion and I looked down it looked exactly like our older son. Wow, went, Oh my God, that's Will. So it was the most amazing, immediate experience.

[00:40:58] Damon: that is surreal. [00:41:00]

[00:41:00] Damon: That is surreal. You know what I love about that moment too, beyond your connection, is how gently he approached and accepted you. You

[00:41:10] Janet: Oh yeah. Yeah.

[00:41:12] Damon: a lot of guys of his generation wouldn't necessarily have that ability,

[00:41:19] Janet: When they, the agency called him tell him to ask him. He was like at home watching Jeopardy and he gets this call from this agency saying you have a daughter and she'd like to meet you. And I guess the, investigator in him said call me tomorrow. And he first checked them out to make sure they were legit.

[00:41:36] Janet: But when they called him back or when he, they called him back the next night, he said, if she's has my blood, of course, she's my daughter. Of that It was just an immediate reaction on his part that I was family. And

[00:41:48] Janet: so yeah,

[00:41:49] Janet: was

[00:41:49] Janet: Wow. just immediate.

[00:41:50] Damon: Tell me more this first meeting. He's taken you by the hands. during you as his. He's shown you some pictures. What else did you guys [00:42:00] My half siblings, his son and daughter were with him and his son's wife and my husband, of course. And we went and got a table and we just sat there at this big round table. And Larry and I just, we were there for hours. We were just talking and it felt so comfortable. I felt like Rick and I both felt like.

[00:42:21] Janet: We were with family. It just was so comfortable and we were laughing and talking and Larry and I couldn't take our eyes off each other. And I tell people that there is something extraordinary about meeting a parent in midlife because there's no baggage. It's just joy and love. No, they didn't raise you.

[00:42:43] Janet: You and you want to know everything about them. They want to know everything about you. You've not heard the stories a hundred times. You can't wait to hear all the stories. It was just joy. and he said, Oh my God, you look so much like your mother.

[00:42:55] Damon: And it made him feel like he was 18 again. And

[00:42:58] Janet: Yeah,

[00:42:59] Damon: you [00:43:00] nailed it to this notion that when we get to meet our birth parents as adults, we didn't go through all of those when you, you you walked away into your room and you're like, I hope you get hit by a right? Like you've just wished them away and been so pissed with each other and all of the drama and stuff, even though they make for memories and you eventually get to be friends with your parents.

[00:43:24] Damon: With your birth parents, you just get to walk in and try to be friends. And that's a totally different thing than growing up with

[00:43:32] Janet: Yeah. It's really a unique experience. And very lucky to have that.

[00:43:37] Damon: Yeah. And hopefully too, I think you walk in with the maturity of adulthood as well. Like

[00:43:42] Janet: Very true.

[00:43:43] Damon: I hope that when adoptees get the opportunity to meet their birth parents, they've done enough of their own work to feel, whole enough to be able to say, this is me, take me or leave me, but you hope that. We can connect

[00:43:59] Janet: you [00:44:00] just said something very important. Do the work. They've done enough work. And I just really want to say that But going through this whole process, first of all, just being adopted and figuring out yourself and your life, but certainly search and reunion.

[00:44:13] Janet: I think you need help. I think you need support.

[00:44:15] Janet: I think you need people who really understand what you're going through and whether it's a social worker a therapist minister, a teacher, someone, I don't think you can process it alone. I think it's. It's a lot and nothing that I did was done without years of work on myself and my understanding of all this and continue to been writing the book dredged everything up again.

[00:44:44] Janet: You, it's, it never goes away. I say to people when they say well, are you all happy now? You've written the book, you've done all the story. And I said, no, it's like grief. It never goes away. You just incorporate into your life. You don't, maybe not think about it every day. But then something can [00:45:00] trigger you and you can, feel sad again about something but it's just a part of you.

[00:45:03] Janet: And but I'd say to anybody, it's, you've got to read whatever you can or reach out to other adoptees in the community. But I think Helpfully. Going through this process, you need support. I don't think you can do it on a whim or alone.

[00:45:22] Janet: I agree. 100%.

[00:45:23] Damon: And I've spoken to enough people to know that those who parachuted in and didn't do some level of pre work they will tell you I could have done things differently, right? That they overshot in some way. They came in too hot with too many questions and too much enthusiasm or were too selfish.

[00:45:44] Damon: Mhm. And, weren't considerate enough of being empathetic to what the situation was that created their life and what their birth parent had been through in order to realize I need to take this a little bit more slowly so I can get to know this [00:46:00] story from his or her side as I'm trying to get to know them.

[00:46:05] Damon: So there's a, you're absolutely right. There's a lot of

[00:46:07] Janet: and then you're not,

[00:46:08] Damon: and good work to be done.

[00:46:10] Janet: yeah, and then you're not either or, you're not your adopted self and you're not your biological self. You are always a mix of both. You have to then, you meet your biological side and now you have to integrate that into who you are and what you are. So you're never really a part of any of those families.

[00:46:26] Janet: And you're unto yourself and you have to, and to take all that information and integrate it and accept it is a whole nother journey. So it's not just finding it out. There's another step after that,

Janet's birth father said she looked just like her birth mother. He had been in touch with Janet's birth mother as a result of a recent high school reunion. Janet said that after meetintg her birth father, she wanted to meet her birth mother even more. He talked about the woman with reverence, carrying a bit of a spark in his heart for her still, And he said Janet reminded him of her birth mother so [00:47:00] much. Over the next three years, Janet wrote letters to her birth mother agency, but the woman never responded.

[00:47:08] Janet: Nothing came in. It hurt every time. And the social worker said to me, You need to reach out to your siblings. You have five half siblings. You're all adults. They deserve to know that you exist and to choose whether they want a relationship with you or not. She doesn't get to decide that.

[00:47:24] Janet: And I hesitated. I said, Oh, if she raised them, maybe they're all like her and they'll think I'm an interloper and not one. And she's not very nice. I don't know if I want to know anyone there. And I kept hesitating. But I also realized that one of the things that kept me from reaching out earlier was that I was afraid they'd reject me and not want me and protect her.

[00:47:46] Janet: And I was afraid she'd be mad at me. So I'm in my fifties. I've done all this work. I've thought about this a lot. I'm a smart woman. And that's how primal this hurt and rejection and fear is as an [00:48:00] adoptee. I still don't want to get her mad at me, to reject me further. And finally I I was reading Blue Nights by Joan Didion.

[00:48:08] Janet: I always loved Joan Didion. And she's writing about her adopted daughter and who had died and some things about her a reunion with her birth family. And I got mad. Some of the things Joan wrote about just were so like adoptive parent comments. And I was so mad and I said, you know what, I'm going to do them.

[00:48:25] Janet: I'm going to, I'm going to write to those five siblings. So I wrote a letter, copied it to the five siblings, put some photographs of myself in it. And. overnighted it to all five of them so they'd all get it the same day and thought. Whatever, maybe I'll hear nothing. But whatever, I certainly didn't expect to hear anything right away.

[00:48:44] Janet: And the very next day I, and I was clearly traumatized about it because I fell asleep on the sofa and I know I'm an insomniac. I never sleep, especially during the day, but I was clearly overwhelmed. I'm woken up at 7 PM to this phone call and this voice [00:49:00] saying, Hello, Janet. This is your sister, Diane. And and she was crying.

[00:49:06] Janet: And she was crying. My her sister, my other half sister, Carol's crying. They had shared with their brothers. They were all astounded. And they said, when we first started reading the letter, we thought, oh, this poor woman has it all wrong because birth mother's maiden name was Jones.

[00:49:22] Janet: And that's a very common name. So they said, oh, this poor woman thinks our mother was her mother. And then they said, they turned the page and saw the pictures. And went, Oh, my God,

[00:49:32] Janet: Wow.

[00:49:33] Janet: so it was so obvious and and we just had such a connection and I'm so grateful to all of them. They welcomed me into their lives, they confronted our mother they told her how disappointed they were with her to have denied me all this time and they expected her to make it right.

[00:49:50] Janet: It still took her some time, but they said right away, she wasn't a good mother. She was cold and and she lied and, she had a lot of very [00:50:00] denial. And and I think it was interesting because I was like older than all of them. So I think in a way they were hoping that maybe my relationship with our mother might repair something that they didn't understand, but might've been hurting her.

[00:50:15] Janet: And maybe the kinder and gentler

[00:50:22] Damon: Yeah.

[00:50:23] Damon: After decades

[00:50:24] Damon: of being the Shirley that she was, sometimes it's hard. Some people do come to light. My, I was told that my birth mother seemed to be under a layer of clouds and that when I reappeared, inside sister told me it was like a flower had bloomed her. I thought that was so cool.

[00:50:43] Damon: So I can understand what you were hoping for. And I didn't know it because I had never seen, I didn't know the previous version of her,

[00:50:50] Janet: that's right.

[00:50:51] Damon: But I could see how that would be the case. And I've heard other adopted people say that their return was very much a reawakening [00:51:00] of something had been dead inside of that woman for a long time.

[00:51:03] Damon: And it's bad that. That wasn't the case, but as we said, her history was demonstrative of the fact that she was not likely to do that based on how your beginning was. but you know what I loved Janet was that your siblings created a united front. They

[00:51:22] Damon: were all together and going to your birth mother say this was wrong and you need to make it right.

[00:51:28] Damon: How did that make you feel?

[00:51:30] Janet: very good. And I think that, as I said to them you gave me the loving connection to this side of me that our mother couldn't give me. But and I saw myself so much. In them and in each of them and again, just recognize traits and patterns. And again, I felt like I'd found my family and I, despite the rejection from our mother, they gave me so much their love and acceptance and they had so

[00:51:57] Janet: much empathy, which I was actually [00:52:00] surprised at first.

[00:52:01] Janet: I thought, gee, why do they care? They don't know me at all. Why are they so touched by this? But they had grown up with a mother who was keeping them at arm's length too. But they said, we, even though we know her mother, we still are surprised that she could have been this cruel. And then I think there was a lot of hope that maybe my coming into her life would free her in some way, but they were wonderful.

[00:52:25] Janet: They certainly all accepted me and were so empathetic and so understanding. I'm just very lucky. Yeah.

[00:52:32] Damon: That's really amazing because it sounds like what they ended up to themselves She's one of us,

[00:52:39] Damon: thinking

[00:52:40] Janet: Yeah.

[00:52:41] Damon: They were probably already very much united, for lack of better words, against their mother, right?

[00:52:48] Janet: I think they're all united from the trauma

You may remember Janet said that she met her birth mother. Given all she said about how cold and uncaring the woman was, how her siblings had shared the [00:53:00] trauma of growing up with the woman, I couldn't imagine how this meeting ever took place. When I asked about how such a meeting ever came to be, Janet said it all started with her siblings.

[00:53:11] Damon: Her sister and brother, Diane and Steven, had approached their mother about the facts of Janet's story and told the woman she needed to make things right. Their mother said she could not do so and she needed time. the following weekend, Janet and her husband, her sisters, and their husbands all went out to dinner together.

[00:53:31] Damon: When Janet's birth mother heard about everyone else meeting Janet, she called her out of the blue. Janet said she was floored by the call as the woman, presented only one opportunity to meet for lunch. Unfortunately, Janet's husband was out of town, so she would have to go into her maternal reunion alone.

[00:53:51] Janet: I thought, I cannot believe I'm going to go face this alone. There'll be no witness. There's no one to help support me through this, but I'm going to meet her. [00:54:00] And if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. And part of me was almost going, damn it, I'm going to show up there and I'm going to face this.

[00:54:08] Janet: Another was more scared than I'd ever been in my life. I just falling off a cliff. I was terrified. It was fine. Met at a restaurant. I told the hostess when I got there on my meeting my birth mother for the first time, please give us a nice table and not and she got so excited and I was sitting at the table, waiting and I was like, gave left the other seat, the better seat for my mother.

[00:54:31] Janet: And in a little while, I see the hostess walking towards me and she's walking. Like triumphantly and expectantly, almost like she's leading a parade. And I realized my birth mother's behind her. And I jump up and I run over and throw my arms around the woman and she just, stiffens and I just. Let go and we walked and the hostess looks so disappointed and confused and just turns and walks away

[00:54:56] Janet: like,

[00:54:56] Janet: oh, this wasn't the hallmark moment I was hoping to be a part of.[00:55:00]

[00:55:00] Janet: And we talked for three hours. It's like she wasn't ready to let me just leave or dismiss but the first thing she said to me the very first thing was. I don't know who you look like, you don't look like anybody in my family. And then she said, the girl said you, you look like me, but you don't.

[00:55:17] Janet: And then, and she just denied me to my face like the whole time. And then at one point I had my phone on the table and I had it there to show her pictures of my husband and my sons, her grandsons. And she was like, why would she want to see, she wasn't interested in that. And I thought I showed her one or two pictures.

[00:55:37] Janet: She had absolutely no reaction to them. She's pulled herself further away, but yet she kept chatting with me. She kept talking to me about her business, and conservative politics and things that were just like you talk to a colleague about.

[00:55:53] Janet: It was the strangest thing. Like you clearly don't want to be here.

[00:55:56] Janet: You wouldn't acknowledge me as any part of you. [00:56:00] But you're also not letting me leave. It was very strange and exhausting. And and then she didn't want me to take a picture at the end. I got her to, we took one together. It didn't come out well, but

[00:56:13] Damon: there's an irony there

[00:56:15] Janet: there. Yeah. And it was just a, it was a painful experience.

[00:56:20] Janet: I, I, at first I was like, oh, that went, that was okay. I was okay.

[00:56:25] Damon: You try to convince yourself

[00:56:26] Janet: Yeah.

[00:56:27] Janet: But I just, I, as I drove You collapsed and I was, she was denying me to my face the whole just, and every time we met, three times, and every time she was polite. we were at, lunch and often the last few times my sister, both sisters were with us.

[00:56:48] Janet: And yet she was just jamming me the whole time. She had this amazing ability of being polite and looking socially. Everything was just great, but she just iced me out at the same [00:57:00] time. It was really

[00:57:01] Damon: Wow.

[00:57:03] Damon: That is awful. I'm so sorry. That is really

[00:57:07] Damon: rough.

[00:57:08] Janet: Yeah, we didn't see each other obviously through COVID for a couple of years and as COVID, the, the restrictions let up by, sent her a bouquet for her birthday. And she asked me to recall it. She didn't want them. And she just, I think COVID had given her the space again away from me.

[00:57:29] Janet: And she just didn't want to reintroduce me to her life. So it was really it was really hard.

[00:57:35] Damon: May I ask, and you may not know this answer,

[00:57:39] Damon: her would you rather just not knowing

[00:57:43] Janet: No, I'm absolutely grateful. I learned so much about myself from meeting her physically, if nothing less than of course, all my siblings that are so wonderful and dear. and the bad stuff too, I saw things in her that I recognized tweaks of myself [00:58:00] in and I'm like, don't let that, don't let that grow.

[00:58:03] Janet: But I, like I said earlier, you have to take the good and the bad to really know yourself. And it hurt it still hurts. Someone asked me after all this, if you could say one more thing to your birth mother what would it be. And I hadn't thought about that before. I just answered just from spontaneously from the heart.

[00:58:22] Janet: And I said, I would tell her, I still want you to want, I mean, look at my age and my, all I've done on this theme. And that's still, what was my honest answer to that question. So it still hurts, but I would not understand myself as much as I do now had I not met her. I think it was absolutely critical to my mental health and being and integration that, that I met her.

[00:58:48] Janet: Yeah.

[00:58:49] Damon: this is, I'm so glad you said these things cause it's illustrative of the fact that it doesn't matter what your age is as an adoptee, you still want to [00:59:00] be wanted.

[00:59:01] Damon: I just spoke adoptees about this very issue and as you said, no matter what your age is. The fact that you've been away from each other for decades, you just want to know that person ultimately wanted you.

[00:59:17] Damon: And for that to be, summary rejection of wanting to know you is really, it's gotta be so tough. really sorry, that's really hard. But I want to go back for a moment, because you started to allude to what my, that question I was holding in my back pocket You've talked about this mother that you grew up with. The mother who raised you was, seemed not a very kind person. And now you've met your birth mother and there's this rejection and you've noted like, I don't want to be like either to either one of these women. I'm curious. You've talked a little bit about your own self reflection and there's the nature and nurture.

[00:59:59] Damon: I'm wondering [01:00:00] how you reconcile seeing pieces of each individual person, either by experience or biology and saying, I don't want to do that. How do you check that? Or what do you see that you want to hold back?

[01:00:11] Janet: with my adoptive mother, she was just such a completely different person than I am that I, and she wasn't cruel. She was just mean. And I'm saying that in a different, like she yelled all the time and she had no patience for us. And we were just. Yeah. Yeah. When the kids acted up, she just took it personally, like, why are you doing this to me?

[01:00:32] Janet: And you're right. And we were just a distraction. And so she just was impatient and mean and impatient. Not cruel though. I think my birth mother, from what my siblings have told me was cruel and verbally cruel to them. And I. I've said to others that had she raised me, she would have devastated me.

[01:00:55] Janet: I don't know that I would have had the strength to [01:01:00] survive the kind of abuse. And then she had married a man who was a terrible alcoholic horrible alcoholic. And he really devastated the lives of all my siblings. that would have been, I don't know how I would have handled that because I didn't have that level of cruelty or certainly an abusive father to deal with.

[01:01:19] Janet: And and again, my adoptive mother, there's just nothing about us that's similar. We didn't have the same interests. We didn't have the same personalities. So there's I want to say there's nothing I took from her, but that's probably not true. She was a very accomplished woman. She led many advanced degrees and a lot of volunteer work.

[01:01:37] Janet: And I think I, In probably trying to please her and having her continue to want me and love me. I picked up many of those traits, education and community service and having those kinds of values, external values that she had probably came from watching her [01:02:00] my and in the jobs I've been able to do I've been able to be in the people I've known other than her Behavior in that way. hmm. .

[01:02:10] Damon: If I could ask a final question,

[01:02:12] Damon: Given all that you've been through as an adopted person, how did you parent your own kids?

[01:02:19] Janet: I just wanted to be there You know, I didn't work outside the home. I had the privilege of staying home and being a full time mother. And I, that's what I wanted to do more than anything. I just wanted to be a mother and I wanted to be there and I wanted to be understanding. And open and loving and kind and I wanted to be the kind of person my dad was and not the kind of person and I think that and I've talked about this with with my sister as well my biological sister and way she wanted to parent having been raised by Shirley you want to do the opposite we just wanted to be you know the kind of mother we wished [01:03:00] we'd had.

[01:03:01] Janet: And we never succeed perfectly and what we hope. And I know that, or I understand there are ways that I was hindered by having been adopted with how much I could express true feelings or. Or having grown up with my mother, my fear of anger or really trust and intimacy and all that.

[01:03:23] Janet: I know that there are things that held me back and I know I wasn't the perfect mother, but I have a great relationship with my sons and can't wait to have grandchildren and loved being a mother. It is still the thing that brings me the greatest joy in life. And, would drop anything in a heartbeat.

[01:03:40] Janet: For my children, I love having them with me. I really don't like the fact that they grow up and leave home.

[01:03:46] Damon: That is the problem with kids. stay young and cute. They all grow and move out and all that

[01:03:51] Damon: stuff.

[01:03:52] Janet: Yeah.

[01:03:55] Damon: that's really awesome. And I'm glad that you found it in [01:04:00] yourself to. Turn away from what you didn't like about your own experience and turn towards the things that you did appreciate because some people aren't able to do it.

[01:04:09] Damon: They, we often parent how we were parented

[01:04:14] Janet: Yeah.

[01:04:15] Damon: and some people are not able to extract themselves from their own parenting experience and we carry forward trauma, which is partially how it ends up being generational. And it's to

[01:04:25] Damon: well

[01:04:26] Damon: your kids. in the ways that you wanted well

[01:04:29] Damon: of my ability. That was certainly my intention all along.

[01:04:32] Damon: Excellent. Janet, what's the name of your book for everybody who wants to read?

[01:04:36] Janet: It's abandoned

[01:04:36] Janet: at birth searching for the arms that once held me.

[01:04:40] Damon: Abandoned at birth, searching for the arms that once held thank you so much for being here. This was really great. I appreciate your time.

[01:04:47] Janet: Thank you. Thank you for care conversation. I really enjoyed speaking with you.

[01:04:51] Damon: Me too. Take

[01:04:52] Janet: You as well.

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[01:04:59] Damon: [01:05:00] Hey, it's me. Janet grew up in a home full of adoptees, but her adoptive mother, a narcissistic high achiever, wanted the appearance of a great family without any of the hard work it takes to make a strong family. after years of wanting her maternal connection, she found a woman who denied nearly every attempt for Janet to connect.

[01:05:20] Damon: I can't imagine the feeling of jumping up from the lunch table to meet the woman whose body you came from only to be met with an emotionless individual who didn't want to be there but wouldn't let you leave. Thankfully, Janet's paternal role models, her adoptive and biological fathers were loving.

[01:05:37] Damon: she said she adored her adoptive father, and it was so nice to hear that her biological father heard about her existence and felt that if she had his blood, then she is his daughter. when they met, her birth father entered their relationship with thoughtful compassion, And that's all any adoptee really wants when we seek reunion. I'm Damon Davis, and I hope you [01:06:00] found something in Janet's journey that inspired you, validates your feelings about wanting to search, or motivates you to have the strength along your journey to learn, Who am I really? If you would like to share the story of your adoption and your attempt to connect with your biological family, please visit whoamireallypodcast.

[01:06:19] Damon: com slash share. You can follow me on Instagram at Damon L. Davis, and follow the podcast, WAI Really. If you like the show, take a moment to leave a 5 star review in your podcast app or wherever you get your podcasts. Ratings really do help others to find the podcast, too. And, if you're interested, you can check out my story in my memoir, Who Am I Really?,

[01:06:44] Damon: available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible. I hope you'll add my story to your reading list.