Shownotes
Sharon, from Springfield, Missouri, grew up in a small town as part of a large family. After leaving home, she became pregnant and was abandoned by the birth father. Following the placement of her daughter, she suffered in silence for years. For decades, Sharon hid her pain behind a smile—until the day her daughter found her.
When they reconnected, they finally saw the beauty in each other. Sharon is a birth mother, and this is her journey.
Who Am I Really?
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Transcripts
243 - Out of the Turtle's Shell
[:[:
[00:01:05] Damon: They connected and got to see how beautiful each other are. Sharon is a birth mother, and this is Sharon's Journey.
Opening
[:[00:01:40] Damon: Or help the teacher after school. In the fourth grade, Sharon's teacher told her parents they needed to make sure she went to college because she would make an excellent teacher one day. When Sharon graduated high school, her school counselor called to see if she was interested in enrolling in a free vocational technical school, [00:02:00] Monday through Friday, all day for six months.
[:[00:02:19] Damon: When the program was complete, Sharon and four of her classmates got on a bus to Arlington, Virginia, Where civilian jobs awaited them in the Department of the Navy in Washington, D. C. It was Sharon's first time away from home at 18 years old, and the culture shock was very real.
[:[00:02:47] Damon: So you had roommates there? I
[:[00:02:59] Damon: And what was your [00:03:00] job? What were you doing?
[:[00:03:19] Sharon: I said, can I just go and pick up supplies for other offices? And they finally let me, I kind of worked myself into that, doing that every week. But that really was not a job for me. So it was very boring and I couldn't stand it. , .
Yeah, I think a lot of people have had a job where we've been there and you're just like, I cannot, I can't take this anymore,
[:[:
[00:04:26] Sharon: The night that I told him I was pregnant upon telling him he got up to leave and showing no emotion, he told me, that's your problem.
[:[00:04:39] Damon: Oh my gosh. And how were you in that moment?
[:[00:04:54] Damon: So he got up and left.
[:[00:04:59] Sharon: [00:05:00] Well, I had, of course, I probably cried myself to sleep that night. I don't remember, but I then had so many decisions to make. I'd always been close to my nieces and nephews and loved them so much, but I couldn't afford to take care of a baby. I barely making it on my own, the way it was.
[:[00:05:38] Sharon: How could anyone understand placing a child for adoption? And I felt like that was my only option. I told my boyfriend's aunt who had introduced us that I had given notice at my apartment because I was wanting to move back home, but I didn't want to quit my job yet. And I never told her I was pregnant, but she offered to let me move back in with [00:06:00] them and stay until I was ready to quit my job to move back home, which was just a few weeks.
[:[00:06:10] Damon: Yeah, if you didn't tell her, and he wouldn't have told her because he didn't even want to talk to you, so No,
[:[00:06:27] Damon: So you did move in with the aunt. And she never revealed your pregnancy. Wow. Never.
[:[00:06:42] Damon: Yeah.
[:[00:06:44] Damon: Right.
[:[00:06:50] Sharon: And then I moved back home, but I had called home first and I did call mom and tell her I was pregnant. And I told her that I thought adoption was my only [00:07:00] choice. I didn't think it was fair to her and dad to let me move home and raise a baby since they had raised so many already. I was just too independent for my own good.
And what did she say when you told her that you were pregnant?
[:[00:07:32] Sharon: And so it's all worked out that, that worked. My, my brother and his wife said I could come with them and live with them until after the baby was born.
So you moved from your boy, former boyfriend's aunt's home to Kansas city, Kansas to relatives homes to carry out the pregnancy. Gotcha. Yes.
[:that's really interesting. So there was a opportunity for a kinship adoption, but you just couldn't, you couldn't stomach it.
[:Yeah. I understand. So how was your time being pregnant at your brother and sister in law's house?
[:[00:08:26] Sharon: And I remember my nephew got his friends all together because one day we were playing in the sandbox. I was out there playing with them. And he told his friends, Come here, I've got the biggest aunt you'll ever see in my sandbox. And they got there and they didn't appreciate seeing me because they didn't understand.
[:Like an insect, but you were a person. Yeah, I was a
[:Can you just take me back for a moment? I want to hear a little bit more about your experience living with [00:09:00] your own family.
In laws tell me like, what were you talking about? Your thoughts? You're alone in this process. You're with, you know, relatives, but you're alone. You don't have your mom or your dad. You don't have any siblings. You don't have your boyfriend. Well, it's just you and your
[:No, your brother. So you're with your brother and his wife.
[:[00:09:41] Sharon: I have a lot of things I don't remember about that time, which I'll explain later.
[:[00:10:04] Damon: And the whole plan to place her child with that family sounded good to her. Sharon admits now that back then, she knew little about the intricacies of adoption. In the middle of the night, Sharon started to have pains in her abdomen, so her sister drove her to the hospital.
[:[00:10:27] Sharon: And on the inside, the sign advising I was not to leave the room. my daughter was born in August of 69. I hemorrhaged and almost died after her birth. And I did not see her at all.
[:[00:10:45] Sharon: here I am, yes.
[:[00:10:49] Sharon: Well, I was given transfusions two units of blood and I stayed in the hospital six days. And they had told my sister in law [00:11:00] that she could go ahead and leave. The baby was born and I was going to be fine. And it's the middle of the night, so she needed to go home and she could come back in the morning.
[:[00:11:32] Sharon: But I do remember being awakened. By some yelling, and it was my sister in law yelling at them wanting to know why she wasn't called. I almost died there in the night. And did they not think she is important enough for them to be for her to be called? And that's what woke me up. so she was very upset.
[:[00:12:04] Damon: You said that on the outside of your door was a sign that the baby was not to be brought in. Is that right?
[:[00:12:13] Damon: What did you feel when you saw that and thought about it?
[:[00:12:44] Damon: Yeah, this is what I often say about all of these adoption experiences is We've never gone through them before the relinquishment process the reunion process so You don't know what you don't know and you trust what everybody [00:13:00] else is telling you because you don't have any set of experience, you know what I mean?
[:[00:13:13] Sharon: And then it's a time when nobody talked about it anyway. That's why I didn't know. when you don't talk about stuff, you don't learn anything and of course, nowadays, there's a book out every week or every day.
[:[00:13:43] Damon: And it's funny that you mentioned the volume of adoption related content today, you know, the ubiquity of what the internet offers us. Creates all of these platforms, you know, it's social media. It's the ability to self publish It's the ability to [00:14:00] create a podcast a YouTube channel and every other medium that I haven't named You just there's so much adoption content out there, which is wonderful because it really does offer people a lot of An opportunity to get education in a way that was never present before and you can get a diversity of perspectives, right?
[:[00:14:39] Sharon: much better now.
[:less ignorant. I agree. 100%. And I
[:I thought that,
[:right.
It was flippant matter of fact kind of advice with no true guidance on how to execute That's right. We'll get to that in a minute. I want to hear a little bit more about your Transition from the hospital back to real life. So you've had this baby you have hemorrhaged your After her birth, you've not been allowed to see her at all.
And now it's time for your sister in law to take you back home. What do you recall anything about going home and answering? I live
[:[00:15:47] Sharon: Just like the social worker told me. And I spent the next 25 years keeping that secret.
Did you tell your brothers and sisters that you had been
[:Interesting. And they never asked about how you were doing.
[:[00:16:26] Sharon: Cause it's going to make her sad. So, so nobody ever talked to me about it.
[:[00:16:45] Damon: But something like giving birth to a child doesn't just go away and never resurface. Sharon has already said that while she was told to forget what had happened, she didn't realize at the time she had been asked to do the impossible. When [00:17:00] I asked what she meant by the task being impossible, Sharon told me a story.
[:[:
[00:17:45] Sharon: I said, of course, I told her I would. And I did without giving any indication of placing a baby daughter for adoption just a few months earlier. I guess it is possible that since I didn't see my baby that I didn't see her in every baby with whom I came [00:18:00] in contact after that, but it just seems weird to me that, but I was so used to my nieces and nephews to being around babies that, you know, I did not see my daughter in every one of them.
[:[00:18:17] Damon: Did you wish that you had an opportunity to see her?
[:[00:18:25] Damon: yeah You were acting on me for her advice.
[:[00:18:55] Sharon: And she went on to say she is a birth mom. She gave up her baby [00:19:00] for adoption. Can you believe that? And I was just so shocked at her remark. I said, really? And then I quickly changed the subject, because I had not told her I was pregnant. And so Jeanette started in June of 74, and she was the first birth mom that I had ever met, that I knew of.
[:[00:19:30] Damon: Incredible. And
[:[00:19:40] Sharon: And I eventually thought of myself like a turtle since I keep in my secrets, it's like a turtle going into its shell when danger approaches. and staying untilit's over, but I didn't even share that analogy until many years later.
[:[00:20:02] Damon: Passion for these turtles. That's so interesting. How did you think about your daughter over the years? You didn't tell anybody about your pregnancy. You didn't tell anybody about the relinquishment, but you've also said it was impossible to get over what you had been.
[:[00:20:18] Damon: thought
[:[00:20:30] Sharon: I just didn't talk about anybody, even love , getting together for my family.
[:[00:20:57] Sharon: But they didn't see the other side of me. [00:21:00]
[:[00:21:18] Damon: a little bit like magic. Magic is the, this art of redirecting people's attention away from what's actually happening, and that sounds like what you were doing was creating this Hiding behind a smile. Yes. Yes, that's exactly right. Redirecting people away from the sorrows. Wow.
[:[00:21:36] Damon: Then, she watched a movie that featured a story of an adoptee who needed a bone marrow transplant.
[:[00:21:47] Damon: she thought about the possibility that her daughter might need to find her.
[:[00:22:01] Damon: Once she started her process, she learned that Kansas was a state that had never closed its adoption records.
[:[00:22:14] Damon: Sharon never searched for her daughter. Later, Sharon learned of a program where the city offered reimbursement for college classes, so she jumped at the opportunity. So, she jumped at the chance and enrolled in night classes.
[:[00:22:34] Damon: m. on February the 2nd, 1995, at 9 a. m., Sharon received a call.
[:[00:22:49] Sharon: She says, my name is Marsha. I'm a social worker in Kansas city. In August of 69, you gave up a baby girl for adoption, and she would like to see [00:23:00] you now.
[:[00:23:22] Sharon: I wanted to hear everything. I was afraid she would hang up and I'd never hear from her again. she said, your daughter's name is Lori. Can she call you tonight? And without hesitating, I said, yes. Just knowing she was alive and wanted to meet me was a turning point. I, yes, I definitely wanted to meet her.
[:[00:23:59] Sharon: I started [00:24:00] laughing and I said, if she could see me or my, some of my nieces, she would understand where she got the hair. So, so that night, nine o'clock. Lori called and she said, Sharon, this is Lori. I've known all my life. I was adopted and that I would try to find you when I turned 21. I have love and respect for you because of your sacrifice.
[:[00:24:39] Damon: That's amazing. Wow. your heart must've skipped a beat when that phone call came in. Oh,
[:[00:24:47] Sharon: it was just, it was wonderful. I didn't cry when talking to her. I couldn't believe my life was changing. You know, but and it did change. I mean, I came out of that shell with that phone [00:25:00] call. I didn't care. I mean, I started talking about her to everybody, even the clerks in the stores.
[:[00:25:11] Damon: Wow. Really? Did you turn to your coworker whom had been sounded like judged for being a birth mother? Did you reveal yourself to her as well?
[:[00:25:29] Sharon: And then when I go back to work on my regular shift, I wouldn't cause such a commotion. And then, well, wrong idea there. And then I remember Jeanette was on vacation and I knew I couldn't let her come back to work and hear about Lori from everybody else. So I called her at home and asked her to meet me for breakfast the next morning.
[:[00:26:11] Sharon: and cried
[:[00:26:15] Sharon: Because we could have both been there for each other all those years. Because I said I wish that too. But I just couldn't do it. And I was also the first birth mom she had ever met.
[:[00:26:32] Sharon: That's right.
[:[00:26:37] Damon: Oh, wow. Yes. Fascinating. Because
[:[00:26:44] Damon: Oh, so you both were silently suffering, sitting right next to each other. Oh my gosh. Yes.
[:[00:26:50] Damon: Unreal. So go back to your phone call with Lori. What other kinds of things do you remember her saying, and how did you [00:27:00] feel?
[:[00:27:15] Sharon: And I'd like to see every picture that you've ever had made, which would be impossible. But she says. That's okay. My hobbies, photography also. So I've got lots of photos I can bring to you. we talked about things like that. we didn't really probably didn't talk too long, I told her a little bit about my life.
[:[00:28:12] Sharon: She said they included reports from the social worker who completed the home study, and documents that provided a surprising amount of information about me. And she said the fact that she was born in Kansas made her research easier. But because of my name being so unusual, what's its own blessing.
[:[00:28:43] Damon: laurie had a friend from college who lived in Springfield, Missouri, so she asked her friend for the favor of looking through the phone book to find all of the people with Sharon's last name. There were several listed, and Sharon was the last one. Laurie [00:29:00] didn't want to make the call to Sharon herself.
[:[00:29:23] Damon: Marsha even knew the judge whose signature appeared on Lori's adoption paperwork for their first meeting. Lori wanted to go to Sharon's house.
[:
[00:29:36] Sharon: Oh man, I thought she was the most beautiful person I'd ever met.
[:[00:29:57] Damon: Oh, really?
[:[00:30:00] Sharon: But after she left. And I got the film developed, no instant photos on your phone, you know, and so I had to wait to get the film developed. And I saw the photos of a side by side.
[:[00:30:21] Damon: Yeah, I had the same challenge with my biological father, right? I didn't see it when I came face to face with him. And it wasn't until my wife showed me a photo of the two of us standing next to each other. I was like, Oh, wow.
[:[00:30:36] Damon: Yeah. It's really crazy. Really crazy. So how was your reunion day? She came to your home?
[:[00:30:43] Damon: And what'd you guys do?
[:[00:31:00] Sharon: That was her favorite thing to do. And she went to music concerts, And so I got my photo albums out and showed them to her. And I had album after album of photos showing me going to music concerts.
[:[00:31:16] Sharon: I am serious.
[:[00:31:25] Damon: I mean, this is unbelievable. You, not only did you never ever get to see her, but after years and years apart, You have so many of the same and similar interests. It's just astonishing. Wow.
[:[00:31:48] Sharon: I was happier than I had ever been. But then just as quickly I would, I think, Oh, what if she sees me now? And then she, that's enough for her. And she never wants to see me again. So I was [00:32:00] just going back and forth all that time. But we did see each other a lot during that first year because, well, we were three hours apart from Springfield to Kansas City, but neither one of us was married at that time.
[:[00:32:36] Sharon: And so we went over to her house, their house, and to meet Lori for the first time. And my niece looked at us and she says, I can't believe it. We were standing on the hearth of the, you know, the fireplace and we were sitting exactly. I like, I was leaning with my hand up, leaning on my My chin, you know, holding my face, crossing my legs and just sitting there talking and [00:33:00] she says, you two are setting exactly the same way.
[:[00:33:12] Damon: You can separate the people, but the connection just does not sever. It's really unreal
[:[00:33:53] Sharon: / we met and I actually spent the night with her mom, just the two of us in her house.
[:[00:34:09] Damon: How was it to see those photos of her in her youth as presented to you by the woman who raised her?
[:[00:34:20] Sharon: I could not get enough of her. I wanted to see everything, I just wanted to see everything. And I really did not see resemblance. There are just a very few pictures that I saw of her in the photo albums. I thought of myself at those at that same age. I didn't think that we looked looked alike growing up, but wasn't that I've been told by classmates.
[:[00:34:53] Damon: Lori's adoptive father had passed away a year before her reunion with Sharon. About a year [00:35:00] after their first meeting, Sharon was invited to Lori's wedding. She was so glad to be there, but it was an emotionally difficult time for her. Sharon got to see the daughter she had always loved get married, but she didn't want the spotlight to be on her on Lori's special day. So, only a few people at the wedding knew her true identity. But even deeper than that, Sharon was among the guests.
[:[00:35:32] Sharon: I was a smile for everybody because you know, the people there didn't know who I was. There were a few that did, but most of them did not know me, just, I was just one of her friends, to them. And I wouldn't have had it any other way because I wouldn't have wanted to. Everybody to come over and say, Oh you're Lori's mom, you know, and all this, because it was her day.
[:[00:35:58] Damon: As a relative [00:36:00] anonymous participant to most. Yeah. Right. Right.
[:[00:36:11] Sharon: Right. And she said, if it weren't for you, we wouldn't be here today. And I thought, you know, that was very nice of her to say that.
[:[00:36:32] Damon: So for her to be able to step to you and acknowledge that that was really special. Very cool. Yes.
[:[00:36:53] Sharon: So that, that made my day too.
/
[:[00:37:12] Damon: So Sharon tried to find him so she could give Lori at least some information to go with. But Sharon never located the man. His name was too common as there were over 200 versions. Of the same first name last name combination everywhere she searched on the day They met as they looked at photo albums Lori gently asked Sharon if she could ask about something placing her hand on Sharon's knee Saying she understood if it was too painful to discuss Then, she asked about her birth father.
[:[00:37:59] Damon: Had Lori [00:38:00] not located Sharon, she might not have learned the man's identity unless through some other search method, like what we have available today through DNA testing. Recall that Sharon and the man had been introduced by his aunt, was able to locate later. The aunt recommended that if it came down to it, she should avoid speaking with the man's wife. It was a bad idea to speak with his spouse because she would not understand the history between them, even decades later. Sharon took the man's phone number from his aunt and then called his house one morning.
[:
[00:38:37] Damon: and I
[:[00:38:40] Sharon: And I asked for him and she says, Well, he's asleep right now. He works nights and I was real hateful. And I said, well, she says, what do you want with him anyway? And I said, well, I just talked to the, his aunt in Texas and I, she suggested I call him and she said, Oh, [00:39:00] okay. How are they? I haven't talked to them in a long time.
[:[00:39:23] Sharon: And he said, yes. And I said, do you remember the night that I told you I was pregnant? He said, yes, so then I just told him about her and told her that she had contacted me and that she would like to see him or see a photo of him or something, you know, and get his medical history. And so he said, I don't know too much about medical history at this point, but he told me what he had.
[:[00:40:11] Sharon: He didn't say don't contact me. He said just don't contact my mother or my son. And so I told him I would tell her and I said I can't say what she will do. But anyway, that was it. his mother died a couple years after that, and Dory sent him a sympathy card, and he never responded to that, so, and that was it as far as I know she's never heard, she just looks at, same way I do, I just think it's totally his loss.
[:[00:40:56] Damon: that's totally understandable, right? This person has clearly indicated, [00:41:00] I do not want to know you.
[:[00:41:27] Damon: So I,
[:[00:41:38] Sharon: 28, I think.
[:[00:41:43] Sharon: it's still going. I. Became a grandmother a few years after they got married, and there's nothing like being a grandmother.
[:[00:42:29] Sharon: They always had three grandmothers on the front rows, cheering them on.
[:[00:42:36] Damon: the funny thing about adoption. To me, union is. It's not just that the family expands, but the way that it expands, you go from having two parents to potentially four parents. And so there's a lot more people to invite to stuff.
[:[00:42:56] Sharon: So the things I've done since then is I got [00:43:00] a book published in December of 2006. And I started out just being a story for Lori to know about my life before she met me. But after so many people, my mom and a bunch of others read my manuscript, they said, you've got to get this published so that other people can benefit from it.
[:[00:43:39] Sharon: So, I had made a trip in 2000 to Jefferson City and talked with a bunch of other people from all over the state trying to get the laws changed, but it, we were not successful then. But later on in 2015, representative Don Phillips was a reunited adoptee and he filed a [00:44:00] house bill and we got it passed in
[:[00:44:05] Sharon: had a big celebration and Jeanette even started going to Jefferson City with me all those times. She started opening up too and being able to share her story for the first time. And Lori, when we had the big celebration, the day that all the records were adoptees were able to request their information, we had a conference.
[:Oh, that's amazing. Wow.
[:[00:44:54] Sharon: adoption triad of the Ozarks and we had the big celebration last year for celebrate [00:45:00] 20 years and Lori was able to come and attend with it. And it was just awesome. And now I'm also one of the peer support facilitators for first family, birth first families for adoption knowledge affiliates based in Austin, Texas.
[:Yeah, I can imagine.
[:[00:45:47] Damon: Absolutely. Unreal, Sharon. Really unreal. It's so interesting to hear, too, that you spent so much time in the turtle shell [00:46:00] that when Lori came around and you were finally able to come out and you were You turned a lot of your life's passion into adoption advocacy, right?
[:[00:46:18] Sharon: Yes, it is. In fact, I have to watch my time because My my husband has been very supportive of everything that I do, but he did ask me one time if he's going to have to get adopted to get some of
[:[00:46:39] Sharon: I said, Oh, poor guy.
[:But
[:[00:47:19] Damon: And three, sort of promoting the advocacy that's going to allow others to have a smoother path towards reunion and have a smoother journey through it. Yeah, really incredible. Before we go, Sharon, go ahead.
[:[00:47:41] Sharon: And so they have found each other since then. And of course she owes me a lot, owes it all to me because I was, brought her out of her shell. But it's just the way things happened that I was so pleased with that. And her son, when he found out that [00:48:00] she had worked 28 years at the police department, he was shocked because he is a sheriff in another county in Missouri.
[:[00:48:10] Damon: Wow. It's unreal. I tell you, Sharon, I wish I could help everybody tell all of them, but there's just too many to get to. I know. You know what I mean? There's just
[:[00:48:20] Damon: Really incredible. I know. Well, Sharon, before we go, you mentioned your book. Tell everybody what the name of your book is.
[:[00:48:31] Damon: Really cool. I hope folks will check it out and get something meaningful from the depth of your story. I'm so glad that we found you. It's really amazing.
[:I love it. And I
[:[00:48:45] Damon: Oh, it's my pleasure, Sharon.
[:[00:49:00] Sharon: Yes,
[:[00:49:02] Sharon: much. So
[:[00:49:04] Damon: Thanks for sharing your story. I, like I said, I believe it's important for us to hear. Birth mother, first mother stories as well. And I'm really grateful for you to trust me to help you tell it.
[:[00:49:18] Damon: You take care of Sharon, all the best to you.
[:[00:49:21] Sharon: Okay. Thank you.
[:[00:49:28] Damon: Hey, it's me. Sharon was forced to make a very tough decision about placing her daughter for adoption after she was rejected by Lori's birth father. I hope you picked up on the important things Sharon said about her experience, that she was drugged to make her forget the birthing process, that her social worker told her to forget the entire experience, but that she thought about Lori every day that she hid behind her smile.
[:[00:50:13] Damon: Sharon was able to be at Laurie's wedding, and she has the experience of being a grandmother. Adopted birth parents miss out on so much of what could have been our lives together. And many times adoptees are thankful for the life we did live. So when reunion happens and adoptive parents are able to accept it for what it is, everyone's deep healing can begin or Continue.
[:[00:51:00] Damon: com slash share. You can follow me on Instagram at Damon L. Davis and follow the podcast at WAI really.
