Wandering Tree ®, LLC Podcast
Wandering Tree ®, LLC Podcast is the ultimate audio companion for curious and adventurous minds, offering a journey through thought-provoking discussions and unique perspectives on life, culture, and the journey of an adoptee. This show has been established with the simple goal of reaching other adoptees who may benefit from just hearing other adoptees share on the lived experience. Host, Adoptee Lisa Ann, will share the tangled roots of the life long journey as an adoptee, the search for biological connections, the good and bad of reunions and how saying "I am adopted" has connected to so many others. The candid discussions between Adoptee Lisa Ann and her guests will tackle the term "adoption" and how it is covers so many aspects of our society.
Wandering Tree ®, LLC Podcast
S3:E9 Unveiling a Birth Mother's Perspective on Adoption, Grief, and Healing with Candice Cahill
What does it mean to be a birth mother? How do you navigate the emotional terrain of unplanned pregnancies, the heart-rending decision of adoption, and the aftermath of that choice? These are the raw realities we tackle in this potent episode, guided by the strength and resilience of author and birth mother, Candice Cahill. This conversation is a deep dive into Candice's personal journey—sharing her story, her grief, and her healing—providing invaluable insight into the often unseen dimension of adoption.
Candice's book, 'Goodbye Again,' is a testament the difficult journey following her decision to place her child for adoption. Undeniably, the emotional challenges of holidays and family events leave a lasting mark, but Candice shares how the unwavering support of her partner played a pivotal role in her healing process. As we navigate the complex landscape of motherhood after adoption, delve into the grief that often lingers and the importance of honoring one's role in the adoption process another layer of healing with Host Lisa Ann takes place.
Find your people, cherish your people and love your people.
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Connect with Candice here:
Website: https://candacecahill.com/
Linked Tree: https://linktr.ee/candacecahill
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/candace.cahill.16/
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Book via Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Goodbye-Again-Candace-Cahill-ebook/dp/B0BLZSB8Y4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=S51TUVC5Z2CQ&keywords=candace+cahill&qid=1688936642&sprefix=candace+cahill+%2Caps%2C91&sr=8-1
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast. I am your host, Lisa Am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the holidays, you know any of the holidays anniversaries. Those dates in particular were very difficult for me throughout, and in particular once the updates and I had no report.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast. In our latest episode and today, i have with me an author, a first birth mother. I'm excited about this particular episode, as I am many times with our episodes, but I really am looking forward to this conversation. I have read her book and, as most of you know, i don't spend a lot of time talking about all of the books I've read, but the ones that really resonate with me. I go out and I try to get the author to come here and we talk through a lot of the deep pieces of that puzzle, and so what I would like to do at this time is turn the mic over to Candice Cahill and, candice, introduce yourself to our listeners, please.
Speaker 2:Okay, thank you so much, Lisa Ann, for having me on the podcast. As you said, my name is Candice Cahill. I live in Alaska, which is something people are always like oh, that's so cool. Well, i live in a very remote place near Denali. I work as a National Park Ranger during the summertime and in the wintertime I'm an artist. I'm very fortunate to be in a committed partnership with a partner who has allowed me to really focus in on my art in the winter months, so I consider myself very fortunate and very privileged for that. I am a birth mother.
Speaker 2:I placed my son Michael when he was an infant in 1990 and I specifically use birth mother there and placed there because back in the day when all this happened, i absolutely completely bought into the adoptionist beautiful narrative and used all of the terms they gave me and just kind of went down the rabbit hole with them. The kind of coming out of the adoption fog for people that use that terminology began after I reunited with my son When I was 18. I began to really take a look at the decisions I'd made and the coercion that took place that put me kind of on that path. But my son Michael he was raised in Minnesota. I didn't know where he was. It was an open adoption, but I didn't have direct contact. It was early on in the days of what's considered open adoption, so I could quote unquote pick parents from vetted people and meet them one time after the adoption was finalized and then I would get updates once a year And, as often happens, back then and even in today's world, updates stopped. They stopped when he was six. I had to go request from the agency for the next couple of years until finally going in and saying you need to do something. They read the send these updates and the response was they don't have to. It's not a legal document which I had kind of. You know, it's a. It's a manipulation tool, but I had no recourse.
Speaker 2:But we did reunite when he turned 18. We got to meet in person when he was 20. I really tried to let him lead the way and it was still is the one of the most beautiful days of my life, but it's the only time we got to meet. He passed away in his sleep when he was 23.
Speaker 2:The grief of losing him a second time almost completely destroyed me because I hadn't dealt with the grief of the first time. You know, now we're coming up on 10 years and I still feel really sad. A lot of times I wish for so many things to have been different. But now I'm trying to focus on what can I do to make it better, and writing my book was a big part of that, because people need to know the you know the complicated mess, unplanned pregnancies, at least for a lot of people. They go into this and then they get tricked and coerced and manipulated into doing things and making a permanent, finding a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Yeah, i'm sorry if I went on too long. You didn't at all. That's kind of the nutshell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, not at all, and I think that is a great setup for our conversation. The name of your book is called Goodbye Again and it's your memoir, and when you and I met we were at the Untangling Your Roots Conference in Kentucky. I picked up your book, you signed it, you put a little note in there make sure you have a glass of wine and tissue and I said, okay, not knowing. And then I left and I knew I was going to reach out to you at some point in time. We kind of talked about that Read your book.
Speaker 1:And this is what I have said to pretty much anyone that I talk about relative to your book. Your book was the book I did not know I needed to read, and the reason I say it that way is because when I think of all of the books that I have read over the course of getting connected to the community, sitting in the conversation, saving space for that, that area, this one helped bridge for me things that I have always thought about my approach to some of those topics. It was really a builder of understanding and I thought to myself as I finished it wow, i think every adopting might want to read this one because there's so many themes in it, and there are themes that we co-share and may not realize. We co-share if that makes sense to you.
Speaker 2:It absolutely does, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about relinquishment and I'm going to share out kind of my adoptive perspective and then you can talk about your perspective as you were going through that as well. I have known that I am an adoptee since kindergarten. That's my first memory of knowing I was adopted.
Speaker 1:I do not appreciate as an adult the terms of your birth mother loved you so much she gave you away. I just can't, as an adult, appreciate those terms. I don't believe I really ever appreciated that term. That term, that narrative set the tone for how I started viewing myself as a human, because there is nothing in that sentence at any point in time that tells me I was worthy. When I was reading your book and thinking about the relinquishment and the struggle you went through, i immediately had that empathy for you as well as a birth mother, because I could now see the other side of that conversation. So maybe I'm asking you for our listeners talk a little bit about you know, just relinquishment, the theme of relinquishment for you, what it meant to you then and what it means to you today.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So going back, looking back at my younger self, in going through the what's called decision-making counseling that was provided by the agency, which was a religious agency, looking back at that now, they never used the word relinquishment. They never used that word. Everything was just about this is adoption, this is a beautiful experience, all of those things. And they specifically used that terminology with me to say, if you want to be a good mother, you need to give your child away, because you are not. You are you, you have. You have none of the skills, attributes, any of the things that are Quote-unquote required for you to be a good mother. And they back that up with specific you know, activities and and pulling out things from my past and all of these things that that clearly indicated that, yeah, i did.
Speaker 2:I was poor, i didn't have an education, i come from abusive background, all of those things.
Speaker 2:And instead of saying, here's an opportunity to teach you or to give you some resources and those things, they just latch down to that and I I bought into it hook, line and sinker, having gone into it from that background, particularly of abuse and all of those things.
Speaker 2:So my, my self-esteem was so low that it was like, okay, here's my opportunity to be a good person, as if I did this, if I follow the rules now, at the same time, i was doing an outstanding job of dissociating from the fact that I didn't feel that way, that that was not what was going on inside my body, and Because I had grown up with abuse systematic, you know, long-term sexual abuse and and neglect and all of those things I was pretty good at the dissociating from it.
Speaker 2:So so I did, i shut that all off, and I never at though at that time or even in the few years following, i never thought about. What I had done was relinquishing. I Had placed my baby, i had given him a better life, i had done all the things that would now qualify me to be into that better grade of human being, and it's horrible, and it's horrible that That it was. It felt so sanctioned, it felt like I Mean it just to me when I look back at it now, as an unbelievable, believable betrayal of my spirit and my soul, and I wasn't capable of figuring it out on my own And I didn't have the family support to help me see differently. And yeah, and I just I look at it and it's a tragedy.
Speaker 1:Doesn't it just rip your heart out to us as where you are now in life, and I feel it in the context of you're speaking of your self-esteem, your worth and the positioning of and becoming a good person as a result of this action, because you're incapable, based off of your circumstances and at the same time I I just shared with you, knowing I was adopted, did Put a chink in my armor per se, to Myself worth and my self-esteem. And how ironic that the two Angles of that little event which isn't little is not little yielded Years of probably the same ultimate result as it relates to the my own Perspective of me as a person and your perspective of you as a person. Just, it's phenomenal for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so so many parallels, right, and like you know you're talking about, you know reading books of, so I've read quite a few, you know adopted people's stories and and I reflected in so many of the pieces of that and it's, It's, it's kind of it's not only is it eye-opening and just really sad, just really sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know the other kind of moving us forward a little bit in our conversation.
Speaker 1:One of the other things that just really Sat well with me and reading your book and hearing your story and we could have had this as a Conversation without me reading the book and I think I would have felt the same way.
Speaker 1:The duration of time from the event to reunion Has so many Year over year parallels as well. It is around their birthdays, major hallmark holidays and major family holidays. One of the things I know that was important for me when I met my birth mother was to try to understand did you think of me all of those many years and for us it was 40, some on my birthday and Mother's Day and every family holiday, because I know I did from that moment forward, and to just have that opportunity to hear through your words yeah, you did, and so it's probably pretty common, drawing some, you know, parallel conclusions that other birth moms actually are doing that as well And that comforts me as an adoptee to have that knowledge, not just my own knowledge, right, i kind of asked my birth mother before she passed but to know it has a common theme And so it kind of talked through for your experience of those holidays and you know just your emotional mental state at grand level.
Speaker 2:So for me, i wouldn't be this far along which I feel like I've come a long way in my healing through all of this but I wouldn't be this far along if it weren't for my partner, who I got together with when Michael was six, and so Tom knew me when I was pregnant. We were friends. Back then Tom was actually the only person other than a few family members to have put his hands on my mate and experience the pregnancy with me, right And sit with me in my grief because I was already breathing, and so Tom has never been afraid to talk about it. And he, immediately when we first got together, i said to him about two weeks before Michael's birthday, i said his birthday is coming. It's going to be hard, we just need to know. And he's like he automatically was like I can be with you, i can sit with you with this. I don't need to fix it, i don't need to. There isn't anything that I can do, that I can sit with you and be with you and allow you to experience whatever you are capable of, because I still wasn't, i wasn't good at feeling it or talking about it or anything else, but he was just very open, and that was the case after that Mother's Day coming up, my birthday, all of these different anniversaries and Christmas, et cetera And he would always he began to always check in with me about two to three weeks before any of these days and be like how are you feeling this year? Do you, are you scared, are you angry? Or you know where are you at And what do you? what would you like to do to honor Michael, to honor this experience, to honor your motherhood?
Speaker 2:I mean, just being just saying that I was still a mother, even though I didn't have my son with me was a huge step. I didn't have a thought about it, never thought about it. I thought of myself as a mother, but I didn't deserve it. I didn't deserve it because not only did I not have my son, i gave him away. Who does that? Who deserves to be called a mother? if you've given away your child, i mean that's. It just didn't make sense to me, right? And? and so for me, every single year, every single holiday, every single birthday, that was what was going on in my head.
Speaker 2:I was cycling through this entire process every single time that, okay, i have a child, i don't have him in my life. I know nothing about him. I wish I did, which automatically goes to you don't deserve it because you gave him away with Ben, my Tom, coming in and saying, no, you're, it's okay. You need to look through that. And it was this vicious cycle every single time, because I'm really really good at tearing myself down And I have had to learn to recognize those voices and those messages and cut them off in the sense of yes, you made some decisions. I mean, i need to recognize what I did wrong. Be like yeah, you made a mistake, so what are you going to do about it? now? You can't go back and change it, you just need to move forward. So it's a. For me, it was getting to the point where I could accept my role in all of this and then figure out what I can do moving forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, it's really interesting about that portion of your story, hearing you right now talk about your partner, tom, asking you a couple of weeks in advance how you were feeling that year. Knowing it was a journey, i'm curious what was your recovery time? on the back end And I speak from my own experience My hardest day is actually Mother's Day, but it's hard for me for a couple of of couple of reasons. I didn't have a strong connection with my adoption mother And so therefore I always feel like I've missed out on, you know, those mother-daughter relationships that everybody just let you know.
Speaker 1:When she's my best friend, i can't even imagine what it's like. And then I missed out on the relationship with my biological mother, and then I am not a, i have not had my own biological children, and so that whole day is just like one of my worst days ever. Every year And there was one year that it became my my like breaking day, and the recovery afterwards was was pretty significant as well. From that day and that was about eight years ago and forward I now approach that day differently and in an attempt to shorten my recovery. So what does recovery on the back end look like for you?
Speaker 2:So for, me, it's a recognition that that I'm never going to be over it. That so many, so many adopted people talk about okay, i wasn't, i wasn't, i wasn't. Being adopted isn't a one and done thing, it's your whole life. You are, you weren't, you are adopted And I, for me, it has to do with looking at it from from that kind of same thing that it's an, it's an ongoing and every day, every year is different And I need to be capable and willing to recognize that I'm never going to be healed. I can be healing, i can, i can be in the moment working towards finding some peace with all of it, but I'm it's not going to be done. It's never going to be done.
Speaker 2:You know the the I like the term post traumatic growth you know finding some ways to get through it, finding new, new techniques and new skills and and finding that inner growth, and I'm always looking for new ways to do that or new avenues to and and for me. I think that the, the recovery or the you know, coming around them to the other side has been a lot to do with just recognizing my emotions and my feelings and being okay with them, because I'd spent so long just dissociating from them because I thought they were all bad. That was all bad And I didn't want to be bad, i wanted to be good. I can embrace those quote unquote bad parts of myself. They can be a part of who I am and I can still move forward and work towards being a better person.
Speaker 1:I love the aspect of being at peace with things, and that is relatable for me as well, in terms of our journey and the connection and why I continue to say this is the book I needed to read. It helps put me at peace. So, as an adoptee, i am gaining peace every day, and so that that makes me a different person in 2024 and 2025 and years to come, and the closer I get to having peace on all of those areas of the conversation, the more situated I will be for me maybe not everybody else, but it definitely will be best for me And so I love I really do love the aspect of you talking through it on your side of this conversation. That it's an important piece of moving and growing And I love the post traumatic growth narrative. I love that. That angle. Yeah, that's very wow. That's very wow.
Speaker 1:I'm just like and I'm just thinking of it and thinking of a conversation I just had with the husband and a friend of ours, the mom, and they've been on the show in previous seasons and we're together this weekend And what brings that to the table is us talking about childhood trauma recovery, ptsd, the jobs that they've had, you know, military PTSD and sitting in, sitting in the trauma, year over year over year over year. So I I'm going to reiterate I love that narrative of post traumatic growth, i love that. Well, let's, let's kind of get a little further down, because that was years. We're talking years of those events.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right And again we're connecting ourselves to each other in the context of years of the same events and similar emotions and buildups and let downs, and recoveries, and moving forward and growing and coming to peace. reunion day like the first, the day you met. Michael, Can you verbalize a little bit of that for for us, because I I will share with you then my first day with my birthday.
Speaker 2:So the the best word I have ever found to describe the experience is surreal And I've heard other people use that term as well and it definitely fits for me And part of it was, first and foremost, just the anticipation of it. I mean, from my perspective, that he wanted to meet me. Number one was, you know, just created this incredible euphoria, for lack of a better word, and I think that works pretty well. And then that anticipation of getting to go meet him, that he wanted to see me Being. In the moment it was almost there were multiple things going on for me personally In the moment. First of all, just to see him physically, as opposed to a picture, to hug him, to hold him I really didn't want to let him go. I also didn't want to scare him away, which I was really afraid that I was going to scare him away, you know. So, holding him and having so I in my mind, it's like there was part of me that was out of body and out of body experience looking down at the two of us. And then there was also the experience of feeling like I was thrown back to that 20 year old girl that I was, that here I was, i had this big man in my arms and this was my son, And but I felt like a little girl and I felt completely incapable of communicating in any way, shape or form, And all I really wanted to do was grab him and put his head on my chest and then just not ever, just stay there And we didn't have, not even have to talk or even just sit there with him. But so all of that was going on at the same time.
Speaker 2:When we met, and then it was so, it was me and my husband, tom, michael, and his adoptive dad, david, and Michael and David actually had very similar looks, similar mannerisms, similar. It was rather strange. And then you me next to him and he looked just like me. It was just a big boy man version of me, with the, you know, the reddish hair and the chubby cheeks, and his hands were exactly like mine.
Speaker 2:I mean, as we sat there for we were there for almost five hours and I just kept seeing all these things that were me, but I could also see things that were David, and it was again surreal. It was just such a surreal experience And I was completely overwhelmed And I am again, i'm so grateful that Tom was there with me because he helped to ground me. I seriously I feel like I would have just floated away and missed things, but Tom was able to. You know you could like. For some reason he could always tell when I was going off somewhere and he would grab my hand and hold my hand and bring me back into the moment. It was like the really the most beautiful day of my life And I'm really sad I never got to have another day with him. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Surreal is such a good word. Out of body is also a really good word. I would add disassociation. And here's where I'm gonna go. I did something in preparation for this meeting that I didn't I hadn't intended to do, but it worked out fantastic And I am forever grateful for this event I recorded with Damon Davis of Who Am I Really? 11 hours before I met my birth mother.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:And in that recording, knowing where I was pacing a room and sharing my story, what I knew of it up to that point, and knowing we both knew that on the other side of the day, right the next day, when I would meet her, i would be different. The reason I am grateful for that event is because I don't remember most of that event, and so I now have this opportunity to go back and listen to me before I met her, and I barely sound like me to me. And so I know, based off of listening to that and where I am now, i was just like you. I was. I was so afraid. I just wanted perfection, whatever that definition was in that moment, and everything I was doing to prepare for that event.
Speaker 1:That meeting had so much importance, where we were meeting, bringing in food, getting them gifts, decorating the room. Do I look good? Does this outfit look okay on me? How's my hair, how's my makeup? You know, how is she gonna think I'm fat? Is she gonna think I'm too skinny? I mean all those things just flooding your psyche as you're about to meet one of the more important people of your life, and so to hear you talk about it in the same again, the same context on the other side of the conversation is just grounding. I did so, i did meet her, clearly, and I was able to meet her two times and then she passed away. But you know it, just I can't. I don't think there's anything in any conversation that we have be it with me, with other adoptees, or you with other birth moms, or birth moms and adoptees talking that will truly prepare any human for that moment. We may be able to help you get to like 50% of preparedness maybe 50%, but there isn't anything else anyone can do because it's your moment and you're living it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, i, you know, reunion so complex and so complicated for, i think, everyone involved And you see, yeah, there's absolutely nothing you can do to prepare. I tried to read everything I could get my hands on and, yeah, i did not feel like it necessarily set me up for success. But I consider our meeting a success, mainly because I got to tell him that I loved him and that I got to hold him in my arms. And the one thing I didn't do that I wish I would have was say I was sorry. I wish I would have done that.
Speaker 1:Oh, that breaks my heart to hear you say that I don't. oh, that breaks my heart for you, but it also breaks my heart for him. Can you share with me a little bit? What would you be sorry for?
Speaker 2:You know I'm sorry for sorry for mainly for not trying that I should have tried. I should have. I mean, when I look back on it now, i could have done it, i could have done it, i just didn't. I didn't have anybody in my corner. I feel like, you know, i didn't have even if I had just one person. What if one person had said well, you can do it, you know, and I look at other people my age, you know who became parents young and they did it and they sure they fucked up shit right.
Speaker 2:Oops, sorry, but everybody, everybody makes mistakes, right. That doesn't mean that you can't, you know, do it right. And so for me, i think the sorry mainly comes from I wish I would have tried. I wish I would have kept him, yeah, and I would not be the person that I am today. I know that, i know that I can't go back and change anything. I know that And I know that his father was wonderful. He had, you know he, from everything that Michael ever told me, everything that I've learned about him from other family members. You know all of this that he had a good upbringing. You know all of those things, but I still, yeah, i still wish it could have been different.
Speaker 1:I understand what you're saying. I can only speak for me. I don't think I was ever expecting, nor even to this day, if she was here, i wouldn't want Jackie to apologize for anything. Maybe my thought process behind that and speaking only for myself is grounded in potentially my age. I don't know. I don't know if I have ever felt like I would have been owed an apology. That's a hard, wow, that's hard for me to hear you say that by the way, I mean yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I hear what you're saying And you know, maybe you know, and so the apology part is something that has happened in more recent years, right Since well after he passed away, and I think you know. And, just talking about it, i think it actually probably has more to do with apologizing to myself for letting myself down And I'm also sorry if I'm sorry that I caused any bad feelings by saying that, but I just wish things could have been different and I wish I would have been stronger. Yeah, so I guess you know, looking at it from that perspective, it is more of an apology to myself for not believing in myself.
Speaker 1:I can go with that, that I can go with and really understand where you're coming from in that. Absolutely Well, we've moved through. you know the fact that you guys were in reunion and we've talked a little bit about you know your one meeting, but you guys had a reunion. that was what I would say up and down, touch and go. You can use either of those two phrases. That had to have been hard as well. Did you feel that you were ready for that, like that roller coaster ride of events where it would be a little bit of communication and then no communication, and a little bit of communication and no communication?
Speaker 2:No, there was no way to be prepared for that and I don't think there was anything that could have been done. It was excruciating. It was from my perspective because, again, i wanted so much to build a relationship, to create communication between us really of any kind, but I had really wanted that And I'm very grateful to Tom and to other people in my life who were adamant with me. It's like you need to let Michael lead the way. He didn't have any choice back then. He needs to be able to guide things now and I totally believed that and it was really really hard to live into that And it was. it was just so, so hard.
Speaker 2:And I know I've talked to other first parents who have a similar situation where they reunited and then the adopted person pulls back and they just want to reach out and I continue. I encourage them as well to let the adopting lead the way. And I totally understand and everyone's want to talk to someone and they're like well, i cut it off because I can't. I can't deal with the disappointment, i can't deal with the waiting for them to get back to me or to responding to my emails or phone calls or anything else, and I understand that, because there were times I felt that way, but I also think that that's wrong. That is a wrong way to go about it. I think you have to. you have to remain as open.
Speaker 1:Well, i'm going to pull together one of the things you said at the beginning of us talking about reunion and overwhelming right, one of the feelings of overwhelming. I want to pull it into this part of the conversation. That theme of how we all are approaching reunion gets underplayed, and what I mean by that is it's overwhelming from this seat to think about all of the potential and you don't you really don't know what we're going to get in many cases. And I think it's overwhelming, from what I've just heard you say, to know how far to go and to be patient. I like the fact that you advocate for let the adoptee kind of drive the conversation.
Speaker 1:At the same time, i would say don't give up and put your wall back up, because it's hard. It was hard enough to go through the wall the first time and to have to go through the wall a second or third or fourth time. You know I'm lucky. I don't have that experience. I don't know what I would have done with that said, i have had walls and I have walked away from them because I'm not willing to continue to beat my head against it to try to get through. And so there's a.
Speaker 1:There's a likeness to that statement too. I'm I'm tired of the. You know, what I think I just heard you say is I'm tired of being hurt and I'm tired of the disappointment. That's a shared common trait. Very good referencing to shared experience along this journey, and you know you mentioned that adoption and being adopted is part of you know, it's not an event, it's not a one and done in life. But also, being the birth mother is not a one and done event either, and it is a journey as well. We talk sometimes, too, about loss and grief. You have a lot of grief and I want to acknowledge that. I have just today, heard your emotion around that.
Speaker 2:Um. So for me, you know, a big part of having had a child that I then relinquished. As I got beyond that event of relinquishment, i had thought that I would would likely have more children initially And, and when I look at it now, i am grateful that I didn't early on, when I was still deep in my um dissociation from all of it. I think had I, it would have totally thrown me for a loop and it would have been quite a uh, uh, an emotional and spiritual thing that I would have had to deal with earlier. Certainly. But you know, as I, as I got older and then got together with Tom, you know we talked about kids a lot and you know I spent a lot of random times, you know, looking like driving by the school or going into the school for something and thinking about. You know how old Michael was and how he related to those kids. There's an awful lot of time.
Speaker 2:What I now know is referred to as like a ghost kingdom, essentially. You know, thinking about that and thinking, especially after the update stopped and not having any idea of where he was or if he was okay and all of that. But as we got older, you know, coming to the to the realization that there's no way that I could have another child, because there's no way that I would one day, because I always hoped he would reach out to me, there was, there was no way that I could explain to him why another child was. I kept and didn't keep him And and that was, that was the kind of the number one, became the number one reason why I wouldn't. I didn't want to have any more children, and that has impacted us profoundly as a couple, you know, tom and I. And and then, you know, when we reunited with Michael, we started dreaming about, you know, maybe when he's a little older he might want to come, even come visit us. Or, you know, come for a week, come for a couple weeks, maybe come for a whole summer. And we had really just started dreaming about that and talking about that And we were just getting ready to to talk to Michael about it when he was the next time he contacted us, we were going to present to him because he was at a place in his life where it seemed like he was ready for some change, to do something new.
Speaker 2:In the fallout of that, since Michael passed, the grief of losing those new dreams was pretty profound. And it's been very profound for Tom because Michael was going to be his one possibility for having a relationship with someone, almost in a father figure kind of way. And we talk about this frequently. I mean, father's Day is coming up, you know, and it's like I've asked Tom now, would you like to do anything for Father's Day? Would you like to celebrate or would you like to honor us? You know, i know that he's not, michael's not here, but we did have dreams. So that's kind of where we are at now.
Speaker 2:And more recently particularly, i'm in several support groups, online support groups for First Mothers, and you know they. For some they're reunited, some they're not. You know some some are reunions, are good, some are not. You know all of those things. But over and over and over again they talk about grandkids And it's like and I'll never have them And and and particularly hard the last couple of years, to just be in those groups and be happy for them, particularly if they've reunited with their their relinquished child And now they have this relationship where they're feeling that role to a certain extent. Maybe not what what normal, but I find myself being very envious.
Speaker 1:Your explanation really does help strengthen understanding. I don't know if I'm just thinking through my own thought process. I don't know if I've ever considered abandonment of dreams by a birth parent as part of that grief and the need to work through that. I don't. I don't think, candice, i've ever considered it that way. I've never really sat in that space. That's very humbling.
Speaker 1:I just want to thank you for sharing, because that's very humbling for me to think of it in that context where you know there are a number of adoptees that don't have children for the simple reason that they were adopted and they don't want to. So that's a common theme. I want us to kind of move now around your support system, your healing and some of your go-forward activities In your book. Tom's all over your book and in this conversation Tom's been all over the conversation. I feel like I know Tom, so if I ever get the opportunity to meet him in person, you might just want to forewarn him. I'm probably gonna hug him because I'm a hugger and you know I have a good support system, and so what I would like to ask you to share is kind of some of the things that you have done. What are some things you're doing to kind of move forward. That would be applicable regardless if you're a birth mom or an adoptee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i have been very intentional with the steps I'm trying to take to become more whole I guess it's the best way for me to put it. Certainly, the writing my book, the writing part of it, was really to help me process everything. When I initially started writing, i didn't plan to publish it. I was just writing it because I needed to put it on paper and I'm so grateful I did because it did. It was a big tool that I used to help me process so much of all of this The intentionally looking for specific things to help me. So those things were I have horrible self-esteem.
Speaker 2:How do I fix that? Like literally researching, how do you increase your self-esteem and then finding those things and doing them and making them a part of my routine. And it took a long time to get it a routine in place, but I have it now and I can clearly see the benefits of that. I can see it in my work life, i can see it in my personal lives, i can see it in so many ways. And the same thing is true for learning to. Part of that is learning self-compassion and compassion for other people in whatever their experiences may be Learning. How do you sit with some of these really horrible feelings because it feels like crap and my body when something bad. But something feels bad, my initial reaction now is to shut it down because I don't want to feel it. So learning techniques and tools to stop that initial reaction and try to create a new reaction, and I'm still working on that. I don't know that I'll ever get through that necessarily, but I am getting better at it. I mean, i really I've been very intentional, looking for specific things to help me with communication, you know, continuing to take little courses about learning how to talk with people instead of at people. I think I've been really good at that for a long time and I'd rather talk with people than at people.
Speaker 2:With the book, you know, once I started, once I made the decision to publish it, tom and I talked a lot about, if I do that, what are going to be the consequences and or ramifications of that, because it's big and talking to the people that are in the book you know, michael's adoptive family and and just working, working through and just be like we don't know for sure what's going to happen with all of this, but we need to be ready for there to be consequences, fallout or good things, you know, good, bad, whatever it may be and being willing to, to address whatever comes up. So that was a very specific decision to put it out there. And you know there are other people that that you know put up books and they change your name. It's like I didn't want to change my name. I didn't want to change it and I want to be. I want to be accountable to it.
Speaker 2:And now, after it's been released, i feel like my, my journey with it. I'm continuing to use it as a tool to feel because I'm sharing it with people, specifically to open dialogues and finding avenues to do that, whether it's with, you know, people like you, on podcasts and getting the word out, or I'm going back to. You know, i'm a social worker. That's what I ended up getting a degree in. I'm going back to my alma mater and working with them to developing a curriculum.
Speaker 2:That's like a relinquishment, one-on-one. You know these are the realities and as I'm doing that, i'm also being sure that I'm amplifying adoptee voices because, again, they're the ones who've been silenced in all of this. I mean, certainly, i think birth, birth parents have been silenced too, but more so I absolutely way more so adopted people, because I feel like I was capable of writing my story in a way that allowed people to experience it along with me and and feel compassion in those moments. It helps them to stay open to talking about it. That, to me, is the big issue, is that these these issues and the feelings and the emotions around relinquishment and adoption are very they're charged and we need to kind of take a little bit of that charge off so that it doesn't make it so scary to talk about you absolutely make a hundred percent sense to me and I would say on long those lines, that is the advocacy that I think many of us are pushing forward.
Speaker 1:One is better understanding, better ways of addressing some of those items, more educational opportunities, experiences, material, and then really again creating a bridge between all of these different humans that are dealing with human things, and we compound it with this topic. Well, i love everything that we have talked about today and I always kind of move into this space next as we're getting ready to wrap up. We have talked a lot. I I can't tell you how thankful I am to have had you today on the show. I I just again feel such a kindred spirit with you. Your book goodbye again was the book I needed and the moment I needed it, and thank you, thank you for what you did to write that and to put it out there and to put your story out there and to understand that there could be positive and negative consequences to that, and so I really want to raise you up in that in that way. If there was anything I could have asked you during the course of this conversation that I have not, what would it be?
Speaker 2:the one thing that I always like to reiterate, i guess and that's what I'll do here is, you know, when it comes to adoption in our society in general, the thing that is most often either purposefully ignored or not recognized or even not even thought about by the vast majority of people is that when an adoption takes place, their identity is erased and a new birth certificate is issued. I mean, if, maybe, if adoption were different and we didn't have to erase somebody's past in order for them to have a future, maybe that would be different. But right now, adoption always, always, always begins with loss, this basically the destruction of one family and then the creation of a new family. And if we can keep that, remember that, that, that the foundation, the foundation of every adoption is built on grief, maybe we can make some changes.
Speaker 1:Maybe we can can get there yeah, well said, very well said well. I want to thank you for coming on the show today. It has been my pleasure. I typically don't fond, but I feel like I'm a little fawny right now, and so you are welcome here anytime for any reason. It has been my pleasure thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this has been wonderful. I, you, and I feel like you and I could talk for hours and I would agree.
Speaker 1:I would absolutely agree. Well, thank you and we'll see you soon. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Make sure to rate, review and share. Want to join the conversation? contact us at wanderingtreeadoptedcom.