Regina spoke to me from her home in North Carolina. When Regina was a child, she learned she was adopted and how other kids cruelly viewed adoptees. She never told anyone about being an adopted person until the big reveal in adulthood. 

After seeking counseling to overcome the monster of adoption, Regina finally sought reunion. She found her birth mother and father in the same day, and eventually heard from her siblings that she was fortunate for the opportunities that adoption provided her.

This is Regina is journey.

Book- Adoption: The Unknown Blessing

Who Am I Really?

• Who Am I Really? Website
• Share Your Story
• Damon's story

Find the show on:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Apple
• YouTube
• Spotify
• Google
• TuneIn 
• Stitcher
• Player FM
• Podbean

235 - Adoption: The Unknown Blessing

Promo

[00:00:29] Damon: And I'm happy to say book two has been going really well. In the early mornings on the weekends. And even while I'm traveling, I make time to write as much as I can about what I've learned From this incredible collection of adoptees stories. To give you some context on what book two will be about at a super high level. My writing explores what it's like growing up in adoption, our relationships with our adoptive families. The myriad catalysts that make us want to search for our birth families. Various [00:01:00] methods of searching and how adoption reunions unfold. And of course how we are impacted by the journey. Now that was truly an oversimplification of book to The elevator pitch as it were. Anyway, I have to say I'm really enjoying, pouring myself into synthesizing our various adoption experiences and sharing our collective lessons learned. If this sounds like a book that you'll want to dig into, then go to who am I?

[00:01:43] Damon: Really? podcast.com/book to. Okay, I'm ready. Let's go.

Cold Cut Intro

[00:01:57] ReGina: I wish we had those memories with you. But to [00:02:00] see where you are at in life and seeing all the opportunities that you were bestowed upon. I wouldn't change a thing because I lived it. don't get me wrong. Ma was an amazing woman. She did the best she could for what she had, but I guarantee you, you would not receive the same.

Show Open

[00:03:06] Damon: Regina finally sought reunion. She found her birth mother and father in the same day, and eventually heard from her siblings that she was fortunate for the opportunities that adoption provided her. This is Regina is journey.

Opening

[00:03:43] ReGina: So my parents actually just pulled me aside and they just told me that I was adopted, and it was like, I was loved and, and they really didn't go into too much detail about my birth parents too much.

[00:04:04] Damon: Right.

[00:04:15] ReGina: They threw them away. , they, they took them to the fire station. You like a step, redhead stepchild, those kinds of jokes. Kind of talking about back and forth. And so over the years, I heard those jokes and stuff. And I said, well, it's not going to happen. I'm not letting nobody know I'm adopted because I see what happens when they find you adopted, they use it against you.

[00:05:02] ReGina: And I never used to think that was funny because I was, I'm an adopted kids. So my childhood really wasn't normal childhood. Cause I didn't tell nobody I was adopted. So nobody didn't know until I turned 50 years old.

[00:05:19] ReGina: Only my immediate family knew and no one talked about it.

[00:05:30] Damon: Like

[00:05:40] ReGina: My family has nine adopted children in it now. And we don't talk about it.

[00:05:47] ReGina: first one, but we don't talk about it. We never talk, like the months the ones that have been adopted. We, I'm the first one to really talk about my adoption. My other cousins, they don't really talk about it.

[00:06:06] Damon: That's really interesting. Nine adoptees in the family, but it's not a topic of discussion. That is absolutely fascinating.

[00:06:14] Damon: Really? Where, tell me, where did you grow up, Regina?

[00:06:19] Damon: Gotcha. Very good. And so this whole time you were in Mount Vernon, New York, no discussion. You heard how people were talking about adoption, adoption and adoptees. And you said, forget that. I'm not going to say a word.

[00:06:32] ReGina: ain't gonna get me.

[00:06:36] Damon: So tell me what your life was like in your family. Tell me what your family structure was. First of all, did you have siblings?

[00:06:54] Damon: Man, you got big numbers in your family, man.

[00:07:01] ReGina: Yeah. So they had, they was like, okay, we want one child. We're not trying to have a bunch of kids because my mother was one of the oldest ones. So she was taking care of all these younger kids that were coming through there. My father was one of the younger ones, but they were just wanting one child.

[00:07:33] ReGina: My parents were amazing parents. I lost my dad in 2012. I just lost my mother last. April 1st. It's been one year

[00:07:41] ReGina: Yeah. Thank you. I just lost my adopted mom. So, they gave me the best life. They set me up for success. I was able to go to college. I have degrees. I didn't work for anything.

[00:08:10] ReGina: So I was raised balanced, and I appreciate them so much. Yeah.

[00:08:33] Damon: And the odd irony of that is it's my biological father who didn't even know I existed. So everybody else who knew I existed is gone. This guy who didn't even know I existed. is the only one left. He's real cool too.

[00:08:55] ReGina: She passed away before I found him.

[00:08:58] ReGina: My mother was here. So my [00:09:00] dad, my, my adopted dad was gone already. 2012. My birth mother was gone in 2007. My mother was still here and my adopted dad was still here. I mean, my biological dad was here. So I just lost her. So he's the only one left.

[00:09:15] Damon: Wow. Talk to me about learning that you were adopted from your adoptive parents. They've taken this moment.

[00:09:41] Damon: What do you recall about the news hitting you?

[00:10:01] ReGina: But as a child, my cousin, my favorite cousin, we do everything together. She looks just like my mother. I mean, just like my mother. She looked more like my mother than her own mother. So every time we go somewhere and we were kids or we'll, go places, they, Oh, your daughter, people who didn't know us.

[00:10:36] ReGina: So,

[00:10:39] ReGina: that kind of kept that reminder going in my head because even if I didn't want to remember, or I wasn't thinking about it, that would bring it up. Cause people always thought that she was my mother's daughter, but when I became a teenager in my twenties, I started kind of saying like, especially around my birthday, I think my birthday was the key.

[00:11:12] ReGina: But when I became like in my twenties, I started getting kind of like curious. And then by the time my thirties came, I went to , the hospital was born and this is God's wink right here.

[00:11:39] ReGina: Cause she's Caucasian. It's only two left. It was one of the African lady and was one of this lady. And she took my birth certificate number and she didn't say nothing. She just pointed at the lady and just walked away.

[00:11:52] ReGina: I was so grateful because she was not supposed to do that.

[00:12:01] Damon: Right, right.

[00:12:12] Damon: Tell me about the time in your life.

[00:12:23] ReGina: I think I kind of was ready to You know how you feel when you're younger, you kind of feel like you're betraying your, your parents because you feel like they gave you this great life, whatever, and you didn't want to tell them you want to find your family because you felt that was going to be a slap in their face, but when I got to that age, I was like, you know what? We have the God given right to know where we came from. Everyone else get it automatically defaulted like they birthed through the canal and they with their parents and they know it and they don't realize that that's a blessing. That's a gift. [00:13:00] We adopted people don't get that privilege to know where we are from and they don't understand that is a biological connection that they take for granted that we are just cut off at the, we cut off at the head.

[00:13:25] Damon: Mm hmm.

[00:13:34] ReGina: That's a, you know how hard it is, especially if you're a parent yourself to sit there and place a child in someone's arms and they walk down the hallway and they just disappear with the child you just gave birth to. Do you understand how hard that is? That is someone who truly loves you because they know that you're going to become a better person or you're going to have a better chance in life.

[00:14:04] Damon: Yeah. It's, there's a lot of adoptees who struggle with the idea that their birth mother loved them so much that they did whatever they did to relinquish or place the child.

[00:14:38] Damon: Like whatever the challenges are, she recognizes that it's going to be super difficult. And this was, this was you know, whether it was an accident or, or a violent act or whatever, this is not the right time for her to be a mother as much as she may want to. And there's a lot of them that'll say, I wanted to keep you, but I made the choice based on the [00:15:00] pressures that I felt that I was under.

[00:15:20] ReGina: If people overlook the birth mothers, they look over them like they You know, oh, they must've been on drugs or they must've been on this.

[00:15:44] ReGina: I wish we had those memories with you. But to see where you are at in life and seeing all the opportunities that you were bestowed upon. I wouldn't change a thing because I lived it. don't get me wrong. Ma was an amazing woman. She did the best she could for what she had, [00:16:00] but I guarantee you, you would not receive the same.

[00:16:14] Damon: And it really is because that's an acknowledgement. Of the challenges that they did go through with your mom.

[00:16:42] Damon: So you, you've gotten all that was intended for you, which is incredible.

[00:17:08] Damon: So back in Harlem,

[00:17:16] ReGina: That was my stopping ground. I went there every weekend. I passed her house a hundred times. a hundred times, I'm not even over exaggerating this. I walked past that building many times at that sort of address. I said, is this a kick in the head?

[00:17:56] ReGina: I always thought about it. I was like, wow, I probably passed my mother on the [00:18:00] street. so when I saw that name and I saw that address, I was just like, ain't this something? I said, I saw her before. I guarantee you that. I saw her before.

[00:18:13] ReGina: I just, someone just blurs right past

[00:18:16] ReGina: You don't really think about it, but I was happy to get the name. But the funny part was soon as I got her information, I sent it over to the state to get the actual statements that she wrote, because she wrote some statements and she has some documents and stuff.

[00:18:50] ReGina: Who used to find adopted parents and connect them with their kids.

[00:19:15] ReGina: And I will tell you this too. I had to do work on me. I had a breakdown in 2019 and, and during this breakdown, I did go get help. I went to go get a coach and I had to work through some things. And what I found out was the stem of my issues. I had validation issues, low self esteem abandonment issues.

[00:19:57] ReGina: I always needed people to validate me. Always. I had low self [00:20:00] esteem. I had the abandonment issues. I didn't like people leaving me. I liked it to be around people. I always had a bunch of people, friends, I didn't realize that it stemmed from my adoption. So when I figured that out, I said, you know what, I got to conquer this monster.

[00:20:30] ReGina: Me hiding it made my life worse because I suppressed it. And so I'm not loving myself because I'm hiding from being adopted. So if I'm doing that, I'm not loving myself. So when I'm not loving myself, I'm allowing things to happen to me. I'm bringing people in my life that don't need to be there. I'm dating people.

[00:21:06] ReGina: And that one looked like Regina. Like they was looking, they couldn't figure it out. And so I had this, I had wrote this nice little thing. And at the end I said, by the way, I am adopted. It was people screaming, people running in circles, people crying. People kept on saying, Oh my gosh, I can't believe it. I can't believe my family knew course, but my friends and like close people in my family, close friends of mine, I didn't even tell them.

[00:21:35] Damon: That is incredible. Wow. I had

[00:21:42] Damon: These are your birth family after reunion? Oh, wow. Cause

[00:21:48] Damon: get there, let's, let's, I want to go back a bit because we're going to get ahead of ourselves.

[00:21:52] Damon: I want to go back to the work that you did because this is something that a lot of people need to focus on. Doing the work.

[00:22:23] Damon: You could be let down. You're, you're putting so much, I liked what you said about giving it too much power, you giving too much power to this potential thing out there that you haven't actually done yet. And what you, I heard you say is that by focusing in on acknowledging that you are adopted, it allowed you to overcome this hurdle in your life.

[00:23:12] Damon: That a lot of kids are told when they are a toddler. When even before that, that they are adopted. And so , the language is always in their head such that as was the case for me, I just grew up with the knowledge at seven years old, you have formulated some ideas about your life, your family, who you are, be they immature ones.

[00:24:05] Damon: So I think there's something significant to be taken from the fact that even though we as adults consider seven to be young, right, that Along the adoption timeline, that is late to be discovering that you are adopted because you were then able to quickly turn to the playground and see how everybody else was talking about adoption.

[00:24:48] ReGina: That's right. Yeah, exactly right. Cause I suppressed it, and my parents were the first ones to do this. They didn't have a playbook. They didn't know. I don't know [00:25:00] if, even if these people are so advanced back then, and it was 1970, to even tell them how to do it. Did they just tell them, hey, congratulations, here's your baby girl, and have a good life?

[00:25:26] Damon: Yeah. I mean, I think it's safe to say you and I, We're around the same age. By all accounts, the era was not super informative nor supportive for anybody. The adoptee, the adoptive parents, the birth mothers and birth parents. I've spoken to everybody in the, in the triad and a lot of them will tell you that baby scoop era was rough in terms of information sharing and, supportive services, there was just not much, babies were considered to be a blank slate, parents were expected to be great parents.

[00:26:21] Damon: Regina had her birth mother's name and the information returned from New York state, which revealed that both of her parents were black. her birth father was tall and her birth mother already had two children in her home. The woman was supported by public assistance.

[00:27:25] ReGina: After I had my breakdown, and then I realized that that was the reason why I was having these issues. I said, I have to face this. I got to do this. If I don't, I'm never going to get past this stage. So I went to got the kit from Amazon. I did the little, accessory kit.

[00:27:42] ReGina: And I got it back in one day.

[00:27:47] Damon: Dang, that's incredible. Wow.

[00:27:53] Damon: Let me ask you really fast. I realize I'm about to let an opportunity go by. Can you, with, you don't have [00:28:00] to go into the breakdown itself, but for those who are skeptical of therapy and who are, those who are interested in it, can you just tell a little bit about, What your therapy process was like, how did you even arrive at the notion that the adoption was the anchor for your challenges?

[00:28:31] ReGina: She didn't know. I didn't tell her. The way that she kind of asked questions, open ended questions and the work I had to do like physical, like I had to do reading and writing and everything else.

[00:29:05] ReGina: I wanted to be with someone. I want someone to tell me they love me. I wanted to, I thought that was in all be all, I was putting so much faith in people. Like I wasn't happy unless somebody made me happy. And that's not how it goes. You gotta be happy internally.

[00:29:20] ReGina: I realized that, that abandonment piece was a problem because I felt like I had to be with someone or I couldn't be alone.

[00:29:47] ReGina: And you feel like you're being gypped. Like something is like why I'm not understanding where I'm from. Why? And I, I suppress, suppress, suppress. And though, so I just kind of created all these other issues in, in the interim of that. [00:30:00] I just started and I, I just was like, okay, all the work keep going down the same street.

[00:30:12] Damon: Yeah. I

[00:30:16] Damon: So ultimately the counselor did not give you the answer, but she gave you the tools for you to discover the answer on your own.

[00:30:41] ReGina: I seen two first cousins on, no, excuse me, two second cousins online.

[00:30:47] ReGina: And I didn't know who they were. I didn't know who they related to, but they were very active on the website.

[00:31:09] ReGina: We look just alike. We look so alike. So when I reached out to them and I told them what was what and who I was, and my cousin Terry was saying, okay, I'm, I'm related to you on your father's side. Cause this is this side of the, of the tree. I could tell you, but she knew how to work this thing. I didn't know how to work it.

[00:31:46] ReGina: And found out, and , he was at work. He worked there a shift and he said, wait a minute. She, she's saying I'm her father. She's like daughter. That was, yeah. How did she, he was like, yeah. He's like, I think that's her. So he called [00:32:00] me the next morning. And he was like, who's your mother?

[00:32:05] Damon: he called you.

[00:32:20] Damon: Oh my, I looked at him. I

[00:32:41] ReGina: He said, what are you screaming about? What's wrong with you? I said, look at your pinky. I got the same pinky.

[00:32:47] ReGina: grandfather, I was blessed with a grandfather. His father was still alive. He was 94. I had two years with him before he passed.

[00:33:18] Damon: Can you tell me about that phone conversation? Like this is happening at lightning speed. What was it like to have that first phone conversation with this dude?

[00:33:35] ReGina: So it was kind of like weird and I'm like, it's a man I never met before, but I supposed to have all the love. I supposed to feel like I'm connected to him because he's my dad, so you feel like you're automatically supposed to feel a certain way and be a certain way because he's your dad. So when I had that conversation, we did it on a video, of course.

[00:34:17] ReGina: Me and my sister actually at the same age, but three months apart. Right. And then it goes younger from there. And my younger sister is 20 years younger than me. So he would just tell me all that. He said, you got a grandfather. Your grandfather's alive in Baltimore. And he called me. He's like, baby.

[00:34:42] Damon: Oh, that is wild.

[00:34:58] ReGina: It's very overwhelming. [00:35:00] I don't even know all my nieces and nephews names. I know my mother's side. I know them very well. Like, the first day after they got to know who I was, they all called me. They was like, that, I would tell you that first night, never, I made my first call at four o'clock. I ended up calling my sister.

[00:35:24] Damon: Oh my gosh, what a call to make.

[00:35:39] ReGina: I got a sister, a brother out there. I got a, another sibling because my mother had a picture of herself pregnant with me I was born in June. So this picture was, was is April. It was Easter. Uhhuh.

[00:35:52] ReGina: pregnant. My sister was four, my brother was three. And she kept asking my mother Why? She's like, are you pregnant?

[00:36:00] Damon: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . So that

[00:36:17] Damon: Oh, I bet not. I bet not. So take me to, so take me to well, I, I'm going to let you guide where we go next because you've already told me that you found both birth parents the same day. The next morning, it sounds like you have a video call with your birth father. Do you want to talk about meeting him?

[00:36:44] ReGina: Yeah.

[00:37:00] ReGina: Well, it was kind of working together. It wasn't like it was working at the same time. Like I said, I got on a phone call at about three in the afternoon. I didn't get off the phone till like two that morning. It was crazy because when everybody started finding out, they kept calling other people and giving my number and these people were calling me.

[00:37:36] ReGina: But anyway, for my cousin, the one that looked like me, I contact her and she was just saying, Who are you? And I said I told her my mother's name. I said, I'm her youngest daughter. She was like, what? Okay. And she said, let me see. And she saw my picture. She said, Oh my goodness. She let me call my mother.

[00:38:18] ReGina: She's like, no, that's no way my cousin. I know her like the back of my hand. There's no way she had a child and didn't tell me there's no way. She's like, mom, I'm going to send you her picture. But she said to her picture, she just screamed. She said, that's her daughter.

[00:38:33] ReGina: Because my mother was in New York.

[00:38:48] ReGina: So, they was all shocked.

[00:39:06] ReGina: I'm so, I said, it was something with, that's when you were talking about the birth mothers. Yeah. There's something that happens to them. They don't get the help they need when they do something like this. Cause this is, they have two children who knows, she probably, they thought, how can I do this to her?

[00:39:39] Damon: So, who between the two of them did you meet first?

[00:40:03] ReGina: She's got to be alive. I was just praying that she was alive. And when she, they said she wasn't, you know what I said, you know what, is this part of what comes with it? You got to be ready for everything. You got to be ready for death. You got to be ready for rejection. You got to be ready. For, if they not ready or they feel that, looking at you reminds them or whatever, and they can't do it or whatever, whatever the case is, you got to be ready for everything.

[00:40:43] ReGina: I already got married. I got a whole nother family. I don't want to even start this, but with mine, it was good at just that she passed away. I wish I always said, I wanted to meet her to tell her, thank you so much for what she'd done. Cause she gave me a beautiful life, even though I know she hears me in heaven, but I [00:41:00] wanted to tell her personally, let her know that it's okay.

[00:41:06] Damon: That's a, that's a beautiful message to even want to deliver to her. And especially in light of what you said, your siblings later told you about growing up there. So what did they describe in terms of the challenges in their home? I'm curious.

[00:41:22] ReGina: It wasn't a situation that was like a horrific situation. It was just opportunities weren't in there. You just make it ends meet. You were just, you just making it,

[00:41:38] ReGina: They had sold me some great stories about mom and how much fun they had and how she was. they said I would just like her, like my nieces and nephews, like you just like grandma. She's always been very social. She always liked to have get togethers. That's how I do. I love having to get together at the house.

[00:42:11] ReGina: You walk like her. You slide your feet just like her. Cause I would walk into the house. My nephew said, if you don't pick your feet up, I say, well, you told me she's like, you walk just like grandma. Grandma used to do that all the time, sliding her feet. It's just a blessing that for someone who I never met, I'm just like her.

[00:42:36] Damon: Dang. That's incredible. But you know what I also heard in what you've said so far is that you are, you look like both of them

[00:42:51] Damon: But I also think I heard you say that about your birth father. Somebody said, I look, yep. Yeah, so that's a funny thing too is, [00:43:00] you can look like both at the same time and that can be very, it's oddly grounding, right?

[00:43:11] ReGina: It's so weird. I have a perfect combination of both of them.

[00:43:24] ReGina: We got the same, all of us three at the same. Yeah. But I love them. They are so amazing.

[00:44:06] ReGina: And when my father got that car, he looked just like my son. Oh my gosh. One of my twins and him will just like, just like he, came, he brought me some flowers.

[00:44:40] ReGina: So it will not be that hard. You know what I'm saying? Like, You had some joy on that side of that scale too. Did you just be at home getting that phone call? You were with me, you were with your wife, you were with your daughters. you wouldn't have had everybody there if you didn't come and see me because you brought everybody with you.[00:45:00]

[00:45:15] ReGina: You want to come with me? I said, yeah, let's go. So I drove with them down to Virginia and I met all my family.

[00:45:29] ReGina: Yes.

[00:45:39] Damon: It

[00:45:57] Damon: So

[00:46:04] Damon: Yeah.

[00:46:10] Damon: Yeah, yeah, that's true. Wow, that must have been really tough. you are an adoptee who has found a family. You are. With the family at an intense time of grief and it's COVID time when you want to hug everybody, but you don't want to get close to anybody.

[00:46:33] Damon: Dang. And that's really crazy. Your grandfather's

[00:46:48] ReGina: So he came home and I'm just like looking at him like, Oh my God, I look just like this man. But I didn't say nothing. But when he had saw me, I went to go visit him in Baltimore a couple of times and he kept looking, [00:47:00] I was doing a selfie picture. And he kept looking at me. I said, I said, where did they look at the camera?

[00:47:13] Damon: Wow. That's amazing. So I'd love to ask about, I'm going to revisit the therapy and where you are now. Right. Therapy got you out of these poor decisions and, sort of self doubt and things along those lines.

[00:47:40] ReGina: Oh, yeah.

[00:47:48] Damon: What, where do you sit now?

[00:48:13] ReGina: I'm a motivational speaker. I'm an author. I am a podcast talk show host. I have a vending company business. I have a nonprofit that I named after my birth mother, Patricia M. Morton Foundation, and we give back to less unfortunate and give a number of training and life coaching skills and stuff that people who felt like me that didn't really love themselves.

[00:49:00] ReGina: And after I did that, it's been on and popping for the last. Going on four years now. I retired from my job I was working at for 20 years and I just went full force and did all this in about two and a half, three years. I did all that.

[00:49:21] Damon: What's the name? What's the title of your book?

[00:49:26] Damon: Love it. One of the things that I often tell people is to get your story out of your body, right? When it's, when it's just you inside your head talking to yourself about what the opportunities and challenges are, what you, what you think or what you believed that didn't come true.

[00:50:09] Damon: Write your book, express it in poetry, write the song, paint whatever you feel, but don't just sit in it because it's not good. It's not doing you any good and and you need to bounce it off of some people and and express it in order for people to point out where you're absolutely right and where you're completely off the mark and and I love what you said about being free after authoring your book because you basically said I own this story.

[00:50:50] ReGina: Oh, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah. I helped well, actually one of my sorority sisters found out she was adopted.

[00:51:23] ReGina: I don't know who I am no more. I don't know. Like she, I, I thought I was, Oh my gosh. I was like, Oh, my heart sunk because I'm like 40 something years thinking you were one person and they, and now you can't even talk to them. You're not even here to even talk to them about it.

[00:51:39] ReGina: So it was a blessing that that book, she said, she saw my post.

[00:52:02] ReGina: And I walked her through it all the way through her meeting date. And she met her mom.

[00:52:20] Damon: And one of the big challenges is that you're suddenly thrust into being in the adoptee community and it's not familiar. The terms aren't familiar. The feelings are totally unfamiliar. The, the lists of resources are you're blinded to them. Cause you don't know that there are. And I mean, it's just, it, it probably feels a lot like being transported onto another planet, right?

[00:53:10] Damon: For that. I'm glad that

[00:53:46] ReGina: They asked me a question all the time, but I'm adopted. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what elements that my family have that I could maybe avoid. If I know ahead, I don't know, it's even medical just alone. Just the [00:54:00] medical piece is enough that you need to find out, where you from,

[00:54:16] ReGina: Yes, however,

[00:54:43] Damon: Yvonne Rivers on Birth Moms Real Talk, but she has a podcast where she interviews. birth mothers like herself,

[00:54:57] ReGina: And there's no kind of stipulations or [00:55:00] rules or regulations? They have no recourse?

[00:55:27] Damon: But the adoptive parents has said, we're, we're trying to do this over here. You got to give us space. You basically Are going to create tension by trying to make space for yourself in their life. You see what I mean?

[00:55:53] Damon: Yeah, it's really

[00:55:55] Damon: Yeah, and I want to go back to something that you said also the notion that , adoptees [00:56:00] are expected to just be grateful and there's a wonderful book. I don't know if you've seen Angela Tucker's book. You should be grateful. It's literally the name. It's yeah. And she was on my show recently.

[00:56:33] Damon: Like when you're born into a family, you come out of the womb and boom, everybody you're related to standing right there. If they're not right there, they're coming over to the house and your history is their history. But as an adoptee, you and I were transplanted into another family, family we loved, but not our actual genetic history.

[00:57:12] Damon: So I shouldn't be judging. Their life because I've never done that. Similarly, they may not understand what it may be to walk through life as a black man or a black woman or a woman, right? If they are a male, you see what I'm saying? Like we've all got our challenges in trying to understand everybody else's perspective,

[00:57:34] ReGina: You

[00:57:39] ReGina: you know what I mean? Very well. They do it very well. Yeah. Very well. And, and that's why people like myself suppressed stuff, but that's part of me not knowing who I was because I didn't allow myself to know who I was.

[00:58:00] Damon: That's a great party.

[00:58:13] Damon: wow. I'm glad that you're in a much better space now, Regina.

[00:58:24] ReGina: Yes, you do the same. Thank you so much for letting me grace your platform.

Closing

[00:59:21] Damon: I hope you're also prepared with a huge parachute of self-love and confidence in who you are firmly strapped to your back. I'm Damon Davis, and I hope you found something in Regina journey that inspired you. Validate your feelings about wanting to search or motivates you to have the strength along your journey to learn who am I really. If you would like to share your story of adoption in your attempt to connect with your biological family members. Please visit who am I?