[00:00:35] Christie: Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

[00:01:10] Damon: It wasn't until she was an adult, where her adopted brother unexpectedly suggested that Christy might want to search, that her mother shared her adoption information with her. When she found her birth father, he openly acknowledged their relation. and explained the complexities of their situation as young parents long ago.

[00:01:57] Damon: Christie has a younger brother, also an [00:02:00] adoptee, but they're unrelated. They had a loving family where adoption was an accepted part of how things were. She talks about her demeanor as a child.

[00:02:19] Christie: Um, I, I mean, I had friends, but I wouldn't say I was terribly outgoing, and I could never really put a label on it, but I would always compare myself to other people and find myself lacking in certain ways, like, you know, they were always prettier than I was, or smarter than I was, or more interesting, or whatever.

[00:03:10] Christie: So I didn't want to draw any attention to myself. I, you know, I didn't go to. School dances or things like that. And I mean, like I said, I had friends that I would go hang out with. So it wasn't like I didn't have some sort of a social life, but if I was the person I am today, I would have probably done things much differently as a child.

[00:03:32] Damon: That's really fascinating. It's, you know, adoptees often talk about fear of rejection and, and things like that, but it sounds like you almost were. Pre empting other people's rejection by pushing yourself down.

[00:03:56] Christie: I didn't associate the two. I didn't really, I mean, we [00:04:00] didn't even really discuss adoption in my house. Not that it was a secret, because they had told us about it, but I don't think it was necessarily encouraged to talk about it. And I don't. I don't recall any instances of me bringing it up and they, and my parents squashing the conversation, but I just always had the sense that if I expressed any interest or questions or anything like that, that it might hurt their feelings and make them feel like, like they weren't good parents or they weren't enough.

[00:04:59] Damon: They never [00:05:00] did when they were young. Christy did broach the topic with another child in her neighborhood who would openly discuss her own adoption in front of her mother. It was very different from Christy's home, but even those open conversations away from her house didn't make Christy feel like she could talk about it at home.

[00:05:36] Christie: About maybe 25 years ago, um, I was with my parents and my brother, and we were, I remember we were having dinner somewhere, we were out to dinner, and my brother brought up, The conversation right in front of my parents, and he asked me if if I'd ever considered searching, and I remember, like, just being shocked that he would talk about it in front of our [00:06:00] parents and kind of looking at them for their reactions and then expressing, you know, to him that, you know, that I kind of would be interested in finding out something when it seemed like they weren't You know, gonna, you know, be upset or whatever.

[00:06:32] Damon: Her mother just sent the documents out of the blue after that dinner conversation, with no follow up discussion.

[00:06:44] Christie: And it was a consent for medical care, and it was signed by my biological mother, and it had her name typed, and she had signed it, and it identified her as my mother. So that's the first time I actually saw her name and I saw, and [00:07:00] her signature.

[00:07:23] Damon: Christy didn't take any action with her package of information for years. The internet information age hadn't exploded yet, so she would just pull the documents out and review them from time to time. She got an application form for a search group she had heard about, but she never had the courage to fill it out.

[00:08:00] Damon: But his teacher asked the students to do their project using an Ancestry. com two week free trial.

[00:08:32] Christie: So I was probably around two or three, I want to say, um, when the two names, when my mother and that witness name got married. So that made me feel even stronger, stronger that that could have been my biological father.

[00:08:46] Christie: made me feel like, okay, you know, they, they had a relationship. You know, there probably was some love there, you know, and it kind of made me feel more, you know, more comfortable with the [00:09:00] idea of my conception.

[00:09:20] Damon: Christy paused and sat with the address. She questioned whether that address could be correct, whether she should send a letter out of the blue, and if she might be outing her birth mother if her birth was a secret. Fear of rejection prevented Christy from taking any other steps. Years later in 2010, she was at home alone one Friday afternoon watching a TV program where a man takes on the task of reuniting people.

[00:09:59] Christie: [00:10:00] She's a professor at a university in San Diego and it brought up his page and it had a picture of him and I looked at the picture and I thought, well, I don't see an obvious resemblance, but he looks to be about the right age and He doesn't not look like me and so I kind of sat there with it for about 45 minutes and looked at it and there was an email address there, but it was his professional email address.

[00:10:34] Damon: I don't know.

[00:10:53] Christie: If I don't do it, they're just more likely by the time I do it for something to have happened for them to [00:11:00] have passed away or whatever. So I finally just went ahead and scratched out a quick email.

[00:11:12] Damon: She said if he was interested, he could email her back. She went about the rest of her afternoon, not really expecting an answer to come back very soon.

[00:11:31] Christie: Wow. I know I was stunned. I was, and I, you know, my husband was sitting over in another chair and all of a sudden I was like, Oh my God. Oh my God. And I hadn't even told him what I had done because I just didn't expect a response soon. You know, I hadn't even really thought to tell him what I'd done. And it was so crazy that all of a sudden I decide to do it.

[00:11:56] Damon: crazy. Your reunion like happened behind your husband's back yet right [00:12:00] under his nose. Unreal.

[00:12:37] Damon: The man explained that he and her birth mother were both 16 year old high school students when Christy was conceived. Effectively, neither of them had parents in their lives at the time. Christy's birth mother was in foster care. Her birth father's own father died when he was very young and his mother passed away when he was about 14 years old.

[00:13:23] Christie: He told me afterward he had been in away for the weekend with some friends. He was, um, somewhere further back east and even though it was much later at night where he was, you know, he stayed up because he just knew I would email him back because I was his daughter and so he stayed up late.

[00:13:46] Damon: Nearly a month after their initial contact, one Friday afternoon, he flew from San Diego to Northern California to meet Christy. He arranged to stay in a hotel to allow them both to have their respective space.

[00:14:19] Christie: Sure. So I took the day off from work and just, you know, kind of hovered around that morning, you know, preparing meals and cleaning and, you know, obsessing about everything. And. Just keeping busy, I guess, to, to not be nervous, and then, you know, and then he, he came to the door, I think he got there, like, mid afternoon or something like that, and it was, I don't know, I guess everybody says it was surreal, but it was kind of surreal, just, um, you know, to be able to actually see him in person, and, and, I mean, what struck me at first was just his blue eyes, and how, You know, just [00:15:00] how blue his eyes were.

[00:15:20] Damon: that night.

[00:15:31] Christie: In reality, she just wanted to meet my dad. And so , you know, she came in and, and I, you know, I introduced the two him and I said, and you know, this is my dad, Russ.

[00:15:46] Damon: that he wanted,

[00:15:49] Damon: We agreed as we talked that those first meetings can be so interesting and awkward. An initial meeting with a different kind of stranger isn't nearly as loaded with [00:16:00] significance as it is when you meet a biological parent.

[00:16:25] Damon: But finding him was also significant because Christy's father in law and her own adopted father had passed away. So her son didn't have any grandpas left to bond with, until she found her biological father.

[00:16:49] Christie: I think, I didn't feel like I had to balance the two

[00:16:54] Christie: much. You know, I felt like it, it kind of freed me up. Plus I feel like my adoptive dad would have been [00:17:00] supportive had he been around for that. I think he would have been interested and, and wanted to be a part of it.

[00:17:14] Damon: Sometimes, we have this posthumous guilt about going behind our adopted parents backs in reunion. So, feeling like your adoptive parents would have been supportive is really comforting. Turning to the search for her biological mother, her biological father was the one who helped them connect over Facebook.

[00:17:39] Christie: Seeing her picture for the first time was incredible because she and I do look quite a bit alike. And so, it was, I mean, it was quite, kind of a shock to see how much we resembled each other.

[00:17:53] Christie: And so Yeah, and so I kind of sat with that for a while because I felt like I, I didn't want to reach [00:18:00] out yet while I was still While he and I were still kind of getting to know each other in that early stage and while we were dealing with him Because he he actually showed, you know connected me to her Facebook account before he came up to visit.

[00:18:31] Damon: Sunday night, after her biological father left to return to San Diego, Christy reached out to her biological mother.

[00:19:00] Christie: So I gave her the phone number and she called me right away. And similar kind of thing, um, I think she was a little bit more reserved. But we talked for several hours and the first thing she wanted to talk about was, you know, where they had been and that they really put me up for adoption out of, you know, love and, and hope for a better life for me kind of thing.

[00:19:40] Damon: I was going to ask, how did her words sit with you that she put you up for adoption out of love?

[00:19:49] Christie: Um, again, I think it, you know, It, it, it went with what I always, I had always seen it growing up as an, a selfless act. I, I guess I always had a [00:20:00] sense of how difficult it would be to give up a baby, and I felt like I had seen people who had Who had kept a child and who weren't prepared for emotionally or or Financially or whatever and so I think that to me if you you know Sometimes putting the best interest of that child ahead of your own interest can be a loving act at least That's how I felt back then and

[00:20:31] Christie: I, I have a little bit more mixed feelings now about it, but I still think that ultimately there's some people who are unable to care for a child and I, and if They don't have, you know, family or somebody that can, can help or do it that I think it is maybe sometimes still in their best interest to do it.

[00:21:21] Damon: And it really does, you do sort of wish wash back and forth between any level of gratitude that you have for the life that you lived. And wondering what could have been. And, uh, and that's really tough.

[00:21:44] Christie: Because it's like I, I am grateful and I, and I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't go back and trade the life that I lived and the parents that I had and the brother that I had. But, um, by the same token, I, you know, you. You missed [00:22:00] out on all that time getting to know, you know, my biological family, and so I, I can't give that back.

[00:22:22] Damon: Christy pointed out that her sister, 12 years her junior, didn't get to be an aunt to her children, who were nearly grown when they first met.

[00:22:33] Christie: And I do see the advantages of us being reunited as adults, because being 12 years apart, realistically, you know, would we have been close as kids? I don't, I don't know. You know what I mean? That's, that's a big age span, so part of me knows that the reality of it could be quite different than my, than what I would think, you know, but, you know, but I do still kind of [00:23:00] grieve for the loss of, of those years together, and, and, you know, if I'm honest, I have jealousy, like, she has some really long time, very close friends that she grew up with from as kids, and she was an only child.

[00:23:36] Damon: Yeah. It's really easy to speculate on what you missed, what you could have been part of. And, but you know, similarly, you would have missed out on some of the great stuff that you did do. It is so tough to balance everything. It's really, really hard. And the other thing, you know, that I can't help, but think about is.

[00:24:13] Damon: You know, life would have been completely different on a different trajectory. So it's hard not to sort of look at these possibilities for other situations and without reflecting on the current moment that you're in. And I think that's a real struggle that adoptees often have. So. Um, tell me more. And I think that's where

[00:24:34] Damon: That's where you've been recently. I

[00:25:03] Damon: In the following weeks, Christy and her birth mother talked for hours. She asked if her birth mother had a chance to speak with her daughter, Christy's sister. Growing up, her sister used to ask for a sister for Christmas, and their mother was torn between sharing that there actually was a sister out there somewhere, We're keeping that fact to herself.

[00:25:41] Christie: Then we started chatting back and forth and then, and then she was at a, Like a baby shower or a wedding shower or something for a friend and it was all this group of friends that she'd grown up with and so she was sharing this secret with them that she had just found out right before she went to this.

[00:26:01] Damon: Wow.

[00:26:21] Christie: I'm on the phone with, you know, my sister and she goes, You mean, Do you mean my daughter? That was fast work. Ha ha ha. Yeah, exactly.

[00:26:40] Damon: Their existing relationship was important when Christy went down to San Diego to visit her birth mother for the first time. When her flight landed, her birth father picked her up at the airport and took her to a restaurant to meet her birth mother, her husband, and her sister.

[00:27:02] Christie: I'm more of a one on one person, so it was a little bit more awkward for me.

[00:27:08] Christie: So I think I kind of more keyed in on my sister during the dinner, but I was there for a week, so my mother and I did get to spend some time alone and together and to get to know each other. And I think our relationship probably moved the most slowly out of the three, because I think we were both very, very careful around each other in the beginning.

[00:27:37] Christie: Multiple foster care situation. So she had some baggage from growing up and, um, I think in general, she can be a little bit more guarded just with everybody. And so I think our relationship was just a little bit more slow growing, um, You know, more, a little bit on the surface in the beginning.

[00:28:09] Damon: She says she didn't have the foresight to plan a slow, methodical reunion with her birth mother, but that's how things unfolded, and it's been a productive approach in the end. Christie and her birth mother eventually did a DNA test just to confirm what they already knew. That technical validation, and their slow process of getting to know and trust one another, have made them very close.

[00:28:57] Christie: I don't know.

[00:28:59] Christie: Something changed. [00:29:00]

[00:29:20] Christie: My adoptive mom actually, when I first reunited with my dad over the, um, you know, the email, I I felt like she needed to be the first person that I told so I, I think I had her over for dinner the next night and I told her and, and she said, Oh, well, I, you know, that's great. I'd really like to meet him. And so when he came up to visit, she came over for dinner and met him.

[00:30:05] Damon: know,

[00:30:11] Christie: You know, the short term memory at that time,

[00:30:15] Christie: she really didn't retain it for very long. And then, one of the times I went down to San Diego, she went with me. And, and so she met my mother at that time, and my sister, and all that, and um, and, and then she went and visited, you know, friends that we had grown up with, and my brother, and And that sort of thing.

[00:30:37] Damon: Well, that's amazing that you were able to include her. Even, I'm, I'm sensitive to that piece right there. Because I have a similar challenge with my own adoptive mother. And, you know, struggles with mental illness. And, but it's great that she, your adoptive mother, was able to be involved.

[00:31:08] Christie: Yeah, because it really, I, you know, I mean, clearly whatever reaction I would have gotten from her at the time would have carried forward with me going full, you know, going, you know, Moving on with them.

[00:31:48] Damon: When we closed, Christy said Reunion has helped her understand herself as an adoptee and allowed her to acknowledge the effects of adoption on herself. She's focused on her own [00:32:00] growth as an adoptee, reading blogs and books and, of course, listening to podcasts. She closes, telling us about her growth journey.

[00:32:47] Christie: You know, doesn't affect you in some way, and I feel like it really was a big part of making me sheltered down and hunkered down against the world and not letting, [00:33:00] you know, like you said, you know, kind of pre empting this reject, rejection.

[00:33:05] Christie: And And so being able to be reunited with them and feeling that acceptance and, I mean, it's not been without, you know, bumps in the road with emotions that came up that I had no idea that were going to happen, you know, out of the blue and all of a sudden, you know, I'm dealing with these, these Heavy emotions, but it's really pushed me to kinda do some self therapy, I guess.

[00:33:41] Damon: a lot of,

[00:34:20] Christie: It was me putting on myself. And from such a young age, I don't even recall it happening that I have felt ashamed of being adopted, that I, That I wasn't worthy of being capped, you know, so I've done a lot of work and it's really Profoundly changed as a person. I mean, I I'm just such a different person and I'm so at ease with myself now Different way than I used to be and I'm so much more willing to Go to places I wouldn't have gone before and to experience emotions.

[00:35:00] Damon: and

[00:35:22] Christie: And I don't want to, I don't want to live my life with these buffered emotions. You know, I don't want to live the rest of my life that way, and you know, and I, And so that's what a lot of my, my self work has been on since I've realized all of this.

[00:36:05] Damon: I mean, reaching this point as an adult is, is tough for anybody, but I think it's can be incredibly challenging for adoptees who have lived an entire life with this question in the back of their mind. Why was I adopted? And if you don't have those answers, um, you'll struggle with that mightily.

[00:36:31] Christie: I mean, and lucky that I've, that I have forged these relationships with my biological family. I mean, I know so many people get that secondary rejection and that just is so heartbreaking. Yeah. You know that they have to go through it again and that all these hopes they had of having this are so dashed So I gosh it I mean that just that just breaks my heart when I hear those stories So I do feel fortunate that I that I have had the reception that I've had [00:37:00] from them but you know, but it has allowed me to do the personal work that I needed to do and so

[00:37:07] Christie: That's, that's even a, almost a bigger gift, but you know, it's been worthwhile because it's led me to this, I, what, what I think is a much more healthy place for me to be in. Yeah.

[00:37:35] Damon: But I'm glad that. They were able to give you some of the closure that you've wanted, that they were receptive and open to reuniting with you, and that things seem to be going okay. So I'm, I'm glad for you for that.

[00:37:49] Damon: good. Thank you, Christy, for taking time to talk to me. I appreciate it.

[00:38:31] Damon: Yeah, thank you.

[00:38:35] Damon: That's exactly why I think most of us do this, is because we recognize that there are so many people out there who are impacted. You know, positively, negatively, and in other ways, by adoption. And, uh, it tends to be one of those things that people don't talk openly about.

[00:38:59] Christie: All right. [00:39:00] Same to you. Bye.

[00:39:28] Damon: And I was really interested to hear about her birth mother's trepidation over their reconnection because they needed to build trust between them. But I was especially sensitive to Christy's adopted mother's issues at the time of her maternal reunion. I had the same problem in my maternal reunion, except my adopted mother was much further in her mental deterioration.

[00:40:09] Damon: Who am I really? If you would like to share your adoption journey and your attempt to connect with your biological family, please visit whoamireallypodcast. com slash share. You can choose to share your whole story, maintain some privacy about parts of your journey, or share completely anonymously. You can find the show at facebook.

[00:40:56] Damon: Those ratings can help others to find the podcast [00:41:00] too.