Episode 404 Podcast > Full Transcript
Lori Holden, Greeting:
This is Adoption: The Long View, a podcast brought to you by Adopting.com. I'm your host, Lori Holden, author of The Open-Hearted Way to Open Adoption. Join me as we take a closer look at what happens after you adopt your child and begin parenting them. Your adoption journey isn't over then; it's just beginning.
In this podcast, you'll hear from a variety of thought provoking and influential guests as we help you make the most of your adoption journey. Like any trip worth taking, there will be ups and downs and challenges. Here's what you're going to wish you'd known from the start. Ready? Let's go.
Lori Holden, Intro:
There is an ancient tale from South Asia about six blind men and an elephant. Each is experiencing an elephant for the first time and from a limited perspective. Each one projects his knowledge and experience to be the whole thing, certain that he knows the truth about the elephant. The man at the trunk thinks the elephant is like a snake. The man at the leg thinks the elephant is like a tree. The one at the ear thinks the elephant is like a fan and so on. The men disagree about the truth of the elephant, not having much common ground of understanding.
Adoption is fertile ground for something similar. From our limited experience of this vastly complex thing–adoption–we start to think we have a handle on it and we know the truth about it. The more we can become unblind to the parts we don't experience, the better grasp we have of the whole and the better we can relate with others who have a differing experience; like our children and their first parents.
Today's guest brings a double viewpoint when it comes to adoption. Janelle Ison was adopted as a newborn and has experienced life as an adoptee. When Janelle was 18, she found herself in an unexpected pregnancy and placed her newborn son for adoption and ever since has been walking the road of a birth mother. She has spent the last 15 years working for organizations like the National Council for Adoption and the Family-to-Family Support Network to improve understanding, policies and practices for all involved in adoption.
Today, Janelle is going to share with us what she as an adoptee and a birth mom thinks adoptive parents need to know. So, get ready for the elephant to get a lot more interesting.
Lori:
Welcome, Janelle Ison. I'm so excited to have you here today.
Janelle Ison:
Hi, Lori. Thank you so much for having me. I look forward to sharing my story and hopefully helping those listeners out there who need a little bit more information about that full elephant and what it looks like and feels like.
Lori:
Yeah, elephants today. It's a good topic. Let me tell everybody a little bit about you. Janelle Ison is a creative and collaborative business operations consultant who empowers visionary leaders to turn ideas into reality, and not only in the adoption arena.
Given her unique, personal and professional experiences, she has a strong passion for working with organizations that focus on improving the well-being of women and children. Janelle loves learning new things, traveling abroad and spending quality time with her family and friends.
And I am just so excited to hear your story again. Of course, you and I have worked together and I know your stories and I know that they're going to be really valuable for people to hear.
So, you have two stories about entering the realm of adoption. First is an adoptee, at birth, and then next as a birth mom later. Tell us what you'd like to about the circumstances for each.
Janelle:
Certainly, it's a long story. You know, obviously very involved, which we'll dig into later. But yeah, in a nutshell, my birth mom was 16 when she found out that she was pregnant. She was scared, afraid, alone. It was back in the 70s where lots of shame and secrecy were involved. But she also came from a very grounded, stable family. And they had – I think she was the oldest of five. And she knew in her heart that bringing a newborn baby into this house when she was so young, it wasn't going to be the best for anybody.
She talked to my birth father about marriage, but thought that's a little ridiculous. We're still young. How could we possibly do this? So, she knew pretty much immediately that she was choosing adoption.
And so, about two – Let's see here. Let's see here – About a month, I should say, before she was due, she was sent to a maternity home, which, for those that don't know, is where girls, young girls or unwed mothers would go often to be with other unwed mothers or those younger girls, to basically conceal the final stages of their pregnancy and then also to deliver and then be sent home.
So, we actually reunited several years ago. I've lost count because I feel like we've been connected for life, which we have. So, she tells me the story of that timeframe and how she felt and what it was like.
So, basically, she was dropped off. Her parents had planned to come back when she was in labor. And actually, the morning that they dropped her off – This is pre-cellphone, pre, you know, that kind of stuff – She went into labor. And we don't know the circumstances; if it was the stress of all of this. But she went into labor immediately and they couldn't figure out a way to get a hold of her parents, who were on the road. So, she was just alone and afraid. And she had a very complicated – I was born breech. You know, everything that could go wrong for somebody that may be fully prepared for what birthing looks like – went wrong in her situation.
And she tells me the story, though, of this one nurse that stood by the bedside, held her hand and really realize like, “This is traumatic. And until her parents get here, she needs somebody.” So, that one nurse held her hand and just asked her what she needed; said she'd be there. And that really comforted my mom during this traumatic time.
She actually had chosen to have me born behind a sheet because she knew that both she and my biological grandmother, if they saw me, would possibly change their mind. And so, she willingly decided to have that. So, again, a very – checking me out – a very hard experience for someone at that age. And just a very brave, brave, brave decision she made.
After that, she was sent back to high school. She had two more years. She was sent back. Basically, society saying, “This never happened. Move on.” I don't know a lot about my biological grandparents and the stories there, but I do know that they were not the ones that told her to move on. They were there for her. And two weeks later, she just had to see a picture of me. And so, she, through the agency, was able to get a picture of me that the family kept in a box for forever and would look at. She couldn't do it without that.
So, that's my birth story. Went home with my two adoptive parents. I have an adoptive brother. I have adopted cousins. So, growing up, adoption was just literally part of who I was. And I know we'll dive into that a little bit more and that experience.
But when I was 18, as you said, I found myself in the same situation. I was pregnant. It was not expected. The birth father, we weren't in love. It just happened. And I didn't really see a future there. But I was very independent. 18, I thought I was, you know, “I'm an adult now. I love this thing inside me. This love that I never thought I could have.” And I initially said, “I'm going to raise this child.”
And throughout that process, throughout my pregnancy, I had so many people telling me what to do and trying to say, “Well, you were adopted. Why don't you choose that?” And, you know, everybody thinking they had the right to really tell me how I should feel and what I should do.
And to be honest, it was the opposite of what they were trying to do. I shut down. I closed up tightly. I wouldn't listen. And my mom, who's my adoptive mom, she, to this day, feels awful that she made me go through that all alone. She was one that basically said, “This is yours to own. Good luck.” She's told me that she did it more because she thought if she was supportive of me being pregnant, that somehow that would make it okay and I would go on to do this again.
So, we've had lots of conversations around that. But also, in this loneliness before my son was born, there was some news about him having a possible birth defect; having some complications that required a procedure. And I was walking out of this procedure, and all of a sudden, everything just came caving in, as I'm absorbing this information, and I collapsed in the lobby of the clinic. And this nurse came and scooped me up naturally and sat me down and said, “Whoa, what's going on? What's going on?” And I said – I'm going back there now. But I said, “I don't know.” I said, “I tried to do the best for everybody around me, especially this baby. I don't know what to do anymore. It's a lot.” And I said, “All these people are telling me what to do and talking about adoption and I was adopted myself. And that has nothing to do with entering into whether or not I would place.” But I said, “I just I just don't know. I'm confused.”
And she said, “Well, do you want to talk about adoption?” And she had no connection. She was a nurse. There was no vested interest here. And she said, “I'll talk to you about adoption.” And I said, “I do. I want to talk to it with somebody that, you know, there's no judgment. There's no – I just need to talk to somebody that I can trust.”
So, we talked about it and that really opened the door. Still, at the time he was born, I was planning to parent him. And I had come to that decision on my own and feeling at peace with that. But when he was born, as we know, it becomes even more of a reality. And the love I had for him was even greater. And when I'd wake up in the morning crying and he would be giggling and just, you know, his birth father, I knew was not going to be a stable person in his life. I realized, like, “I don't want to do this to him. I love him so much. And he deserves more, just like I deserved more when I was younger.”
And yes, I could have raised him, but to me, it was so important that he have a mother and a father, whatever that look like, and the best chance possible to have the dreams and achieve things in life that were important to him.
So, I ended up during that journey, through my pregnancy, there was a couple that’s actually friends of the family. So, not super connected, not super close, but also trusted, know the family and they were unable to carry a pregnancy to full term. So, we had already kind of connected and I just said, “I want to talk to them. Something is calling me to them.”
And so, it took several months because I did choose post-birth to go through all the emotions and that was something in itself. But he was eventually adopted and we have an open adoption.
And today, he is about to turn 26 years old, has a family of his own. So, lots of things have happened in between there. But all in all, I do have a relationship with my birth mom and my birth son and I couldn't ask for anything more.
Lori:
Thank you for sharing all of that with us. That's quite a story. And I can tell how important it was to have that nurse be willing to listen to you without guiding you, without having an agenda, like you said, to point you in one direction or the other, but just give you the space to figure that out on your own. And that's quite a gift. Yeah.
How about your birth father? Are you in touch with him?
Janelle:
No, I am not in touch with my birth father. So, it's interesting because it was a closed adoption, but somehow, I receive the paperwork with both of my biological parents on it. So, naturally, over the years I've Googled them. I looked them up. But it really was, and I don't know if this because I'm a female or what, but from day one it was really more about my birth mom that I thought about.
But ironically, there was a piece of my birth father. But in my head as a child, I created him as this not super hero, but this person that he wasn't going to be in my life because he had these missions to solve and he was going to be away. I don't know if you remember the Knight Rider Show. But at one point the Knight Rider was my dad in my head and I had this special nightgown and I was like, “This was for my dad.” You know, in my head; I'm like four or five. “This is this is from my dad.”
And so, I tell that story because I just remember that. And he always filled that role and it was like, he's not here, but that's okay because he's off doing these wonderful things. But always my mom, that was really who I thought about. I thought, we must look exactly like. Yeah, there was never any discouragement about my biological father. But yeah, I leaned a lot towards my mom.
I have not connected with him. And there's a lot of different reasons around that. It was actually difficult for me to reach out to my birth mom, and that was only because I was so afraid of – I wanted to respect her decision and her story and her privacy and whatever her life was now. But I had come to the realization that if she and I are alike, she's doing the same thing out of respect.
So, just diving into that enough was hard that, I guess for now, I'm leaving well enough alone. I mean, everything's been wonderful, but I have, of course, heard some things about my birth father and I've learned some things, and I'll probably talk about this later with you. But my adoptive parents, my parents, I'm going to label them as adoptive here, just to clarify. But they always, always encouraged me that when the day came and if I wanted to search, they would be right there with me.
But they also said, “You don't know what's on the other side.” They had a letter from my birth mom. I have a beautiful letter from her that she wrote. They could tell from this letter that she made a very mature decision and came from this very good family. And we only had bits and pieces about my biological father. So, yeah. So, there was never any saying, "No, don't do that.” But that's in the back of my mind.
Things are good; I'm not going to lie. I do follow his family on Facebook, but…
Lori:
Let me ask you kind of a pointed question, because I think this is something I think adoptive parents wonder and even fear. While you were growing up, were you wondering and thinking about your biological parents, mean in any way that your adoptive parents were lacking?
Janelle:
Absolutely not.
Lori:
Is there a connection between wondering, searching and the kind of parenting you have in your everyday parents?
Janelle:
I mean, that is very dependent on the person. And it's unique to every adoptee; I will tell you that. For me, from day one, I knew I was adopted. From day one, they talked lovingly about my biological parents. And from day one, they said, “We will support you in this endeavor.”
I feel like obviously that really helped me feel comfortable and not feel ashamed or guilty. And my parents, my adoptive parents, they're separate entities. You know, they're my parents. They raised me. And just because I have my biological parents out there, they're not the same. They're not the same to me. And I didn't the need to fill a hole.
I would say the biggest part was my curiosity. Growing up and you don't look like anybody. You don't know anybody that looks like you. And it was more curiosity about just who are they? What are they? What do they look like? What did they talk like? That really drove me to search, but it had nothing to do – It was more about identity and curiosity than it was about something my adoptive parents were not providing.
Lori:
And what I've heard a lot of people say is that being able to search and find your pieces and answer those questions that you mentioned, who do I look like? Where do I get this? That actually can make you closer to your adoptive parents.
Janelle:
Absolutely.
Lori:
Because you've got that permission and they're alongside you on this journey rather than you have to do it behind their back or in secret or keep it from them in some way.
Janelle:
Right.
Lori:
So, you've kind of answered already answered one of the next questions I wanted to talk about, which is maybe a few of the things that your adoptive parents did that helped you process and integrate your adoptedness, which was they talked about it early, they were alongside you with where you want to take things and maybe one or two things you wish they'd done differently, not because they were wrong or they were bad just because you figure things out better in hindsight than in the moment sometimes.
Janelle:
Yeah, absolutely. I would say I mentioned this, I think, it was the fact that there was never a point that I did not know I was adopted. They shared that with me and then again, their support in my search. I will say, though – And again, they were doing everything they could. They bought the book that was the book at that time. I believe it was called The Chosen Child or the Chosen One. And that, in my mind, it helped. It created this expectation, also as the chosen child, that I did not know at the time, shaped who I became as I grew older. But it subconsciously, in my mind, I was special. I've got to live up to that expectation.
Again, thinking back, I don't know if it's things they did. I mean, there are other factors involved here. Very different story with my brother, who's also adopted; different parents.
I would say that they wanted me to feel – I felt part of the family; the whole family. But yeah, it's like I was put also on this platform, this pedestal, to know how special I was.
So, I can't even think of, right now, of how to avoid that, but just something to be conscientious of. You are different. You are unique. There are beautiful things about that, but you're also flawed. And there are going to be things that just – There's the biology involved. It's not just the nurture as we talk about; it's the nature. And just to be really flexible in your thinking about this child. I know you talk a lot about them not being a blank slate, as we know.
But really just being open to how do I balance this out with reality and not putting too much on that child. Even though I know they're doing it good heartedly. They're trying to help the child. It just, for me, it was really something I still struggle with that I'm the special chosen one. And that's a lot to try and meet up to.
Lori:
It's a lot to live up to. Yeah.
Janelle:
Yeah.
Lori:
So, let's shift over. That was all about you as an adoptee. Let's talk about you as a birth mom. What were some of the things that your son's adoptive parents did, that were notable in some way, either for you or for him?
Janelle:
Yeah. And my situation is unique in that I did choose adoption after he was born. I have countless birth mom friends that their story was different. And it's going to be different. It's going to look different if you chose before they were born or after.
And so, part of what really helped me is I was able to process my decision and really come to grips with, “I am making this. No one else has told – You know, people were trying to, but I am making this.” And that was really helpful for me.
So, with his adoptive parents, I try and think back of how that was different for them. Very notable, they embraced me. They wanted me to feel comfortable with everything in their life. And they also wanted me to know that, “Look, if this doesn't work out and we don't become parents to your child or any child, we have enough love for each other that it'll hurt, but that's going to be okay. We're not doing this to fill a hole” like we've talked about. And so, that really helped.
I know there was another couple that had reached out to my parents, and it was very clear that there was something missing that they were trying to fill. And so, they just – I mean, I look back now at lots of letters and lots of notes before he was even transferred into their care. And they just made me feel good; made me feel comfortable.
So, obviously he was a little bit older when the adoption was finalized. It took quite a while. There were some issues with the birth fathers side. But when it did, he was eight months old. And there were times when I thought, “I can't do this,” just because he was getting older. And obviously, that bond is just getting stronger and stronger.
But really just seeing them and how they handled it and it just I said, “No, this is what we're doing.” And yeah, they just – When the transfer happened, they did everything they could to – This was back when there weren't cell phones. So, set up an 800 number for me to call and, just put the support in place because they knew. My goodness, I'd spent eight months with my child. Like, they knew this wasn't just a simple – None of it's a simple transfer. But I just really appreciate what they did in those early days to make me feel okay and feel connected.
Lori:
Right. Oh, there's so much to unpack here. One of the things – I'm thinking of the emotional intelligence that your son's adoptive parents must have had to both attach and not attach at the same time to something they obviously wanted very much.
Janelle:
That’s really true.
Lori:
But they also understood that you needed to have the autonomy to make that decision, not out of any kind of obligation to them. And this is where we get into some ethical challenges of pre-birth matching, which is that if it's done because you've known each other and you feel like you owe it to them because you as the expectant mother, owe it to the adoptive parents because you know how bad they want it and you've been walking alongside them of a few weeks or months or whatever that you owe it to them. It can never come out of owing. It has to come out of your decision.
And I'm seeing also that not only did that affect you being able to make that decision, and then heal from it, but also, it affected how they parented him because they had, in the words of our mutual friend, Rebecca, who was on episode 108, and she came up with, “Do your own work, people.” They were doing their own work. They had reached that level of emotional intelligence where they were going to be okay no matter what, even though they had a preference, what you would choose.
Janelle:
Absolutely.
Lori:
But they didn't put that on you. Yeah.
Janelle:
Yeah, exactly.
Lori:
So, adoption has always loomed large in your life for all of these reasons, and two of your career steps have had to do with it. Can you tell us about your work and what you'd like to see happen for adoptees and birthparents like you and adoptive parents like me in the future?
Janelle:
Right.
So, yes, I have lived, eat, breathed adoption; sometimes loving it, sometimes wishing it would go away. I decided to start at National Council for Adoption in my – I was doing a lot of volunteer work in adoption and working with prospective adoptive parents and what to expect, working with teen moms, just doing what I could to volunteer my experience in that way. But I had decided that I wanted to do more. And it really was because I was at peace with being an adoptee and a birth mom. That is not – I mean, the likelihood of those two things happening together, I know, is not always the case.
Lori:
And let's point real quick, though, to the emotional intelligence that you were raised with and the emotional intelligence of your birth mom.
Janelle:
Yes.
Lori:
Yeah.
Janelle:
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Right.
So, I didn't – At the same time, though, I had family members that did not have the same experience, had the same supports, had the same upbringing, but was a different story. So, I knew that my story wasn't everyone’s story and that was okay. And I couldn't understand why – And this was back in mid-2000s – why adoption was still such a shameful, stigmatized thing. And I was my twenties, ready to change the world. And I and that was really what brought me to it; how do I bring education and awareness around adoption and the realities of it?
But also, just that it's not a scary, secretive thing anymore. I liken it to those that have experienced divorce. I don't know that experience, but I know it's hard. I've heard it's hard. But I've also heard that there are ways to get through it. And, once, it used to be very shameful as well, it's not something people seek to have happen in their life. But it's a part of life. It's a part of relationships. And I want people to see adoption that way, too, that, yeah, you might not understand it. And it's a little tricky and confusing and complex and beautiful at the same time. But I just wanted people to understand.
You have to realize that with adoption, and this took me a long time to admit to as well, but with adoption, it's really a separation similar to divorce. It's a separation of the child's parents. With adoption, it's a separation from the biological parents to the adoptive parents. And with that, even though I can say all I want about having peace with my stories, there is an element there that is unseen or goes unseen that we really need to pay attention here to.
And so, going back to your original question, I worked for about nine years in the advocacy and awareness organization. And I realized that I was not going to fix this overnight because with everything, there were so many facets to it.
Lori:
Like an elephant.
Janelle:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But I then moved on to where I currently work with is Family-to-Family Support Network. Their founder and executive director, Rebecca Varley and I had crossed paths while I was working for the National Council for Adoption.
But really, one thing I wanted to do was to be closer to the front lines. My work in education advocacy was wonderful, but I wanted to be closer to the front lines, in terms of helping adoptive families and birth moms. And what better way to do that than to work for an organization that trains that same health care that helped me and my birth mom through the most traumatic time in their life. What better place to start than with them as they interact with these families and these complexities?
So, that is currently what we work on at Family-to-Family Support Network is we have a training for a national training for nurses on providing neutral, compassionate care to those situations. Like an adoption where you've got the birth mom there and the adoptive parents there, how to be there as a support as they go through this difficult time.
Lori:
Yeah, and I love your work there. I love our work there. I'm going to put in the show notes a link to a video where you're talking about that one nurse. That one nurse that got your mom through some of her hardest days and that one nurse who got you through some of your hardest days and how we're trying to, with this national training program, create more nurses like that who are giving people the space to make their best decision without any obligation or expectations. I think that space is so important.
Janelle:
Yeah. And speaking about space, that's where as a birth mom and my birth mom, that space was the most trusted safe space to process those emotions, which I don't think healthcare realizes. So, yeah, we love the nurses. We love this space. And it's really moving for me to see how they're embracing this training and really understanding that compassion is involved here and empathy for all members of the Constellation, I will say. So, yeah, it's just been a joy to be able to do this.
Lori:
Yes, Rebecca calls it, the wedding and the funeral in the same room at the hospital and helping nurses manage all that complexity. And I'm sure a lot of people listening will understand that if they've been through an adoption placement, that wedding and the funeral feeling of it; somebody’s happiest day and somebody's saddest day all at the same time. And being able to have that space, to feel all those feelings freely just helps everybody increase their emotional intelligence, and for the long journey of adoptive parenting and being in adoption relationships over the life of that child.
You and I have walked around the elephant a little bit and you’ve really helped flesh it out and help us see more of what it is in from different aspects. So, it's time for our last question, which I'm asking all Season 3 guests. From your dual perspectives, as an adoptee and as a birth mom, what is the most important piece of the long view of adoption that people tend to miss on the front end.
Janelle:
On the front end? And I touched a little bit on this before, but I think, I guess, calling it what it is from the beginning that this adoption, so many facets to it, but we need to start with recognizing and appreciating that this is a separation. This is a rupture. This is a rupture in the child's story, a rupture in the biological mom’s story and the adoptive parent’s story.
Lori, you actually don't realize this, but you've taught me so many things over the years. And at one point you mentioned “rupture and repair” and that really stuck because, yes, there's this rupture. Yes, things we wish we'd have done them differently. We can't go back. But let's acknowledge that rupture and let's repair from there. Let's repair personally. Let's have compassion for what the birth mom would be going through.
Also, beyond the front end, of understanding that while the child may not exhibit the same way we would, our grief and our trauma and or even joy, that they will carry this with them. And we need to be sure, as a community and as a society, to have the resources there and just know that, you know, I know as parents I have a child that I parent; we want to do the best for them and there's no handbook and we're going to mess up. And that's okay.
But also, not to be afraid, thinking, “Okay, there's trauma there. There's going to be something there. We got to find it. We got to get on top of this.” Just knowing that it could present itself in what it might look like, I think, is key to really staying ahead of the trauma and also helping everyone involved just process it.
And I don't mean process it in a way that you process it and it's gone. It's an ongoing process that will be there for life. But just having the understanding of that and the grace for each other. And I think that is the best thing that I could suggest that we start doing, because I know that we tend to look at it when it's very evident, but I think if we start sooner, right at that separation, understanding, “This is hard. This hurts. But how do we repair and how do we put in the pillars to stay strong and grow together in this journey of adoption?”
Lori:
Oh, I love all of that. Thank you so much, Janelle. Especially the compassion for each other and the grace for ourselves, I think that's at the foundation of emotional intelligence. And having healthy relationships, adoption or otherwise, is understand how it feels for the other person. Cut people some slack because you're going to need people to cut you slack. So, that's what I call grace. So, I really appreciate your sharing with us today, your stories and your heart and your wisdom. Thank you so much, Janelle.
Janelle:
Thank you, Lori.
Lori:
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