Ep #38: Building Families Through Adoption

episode summary

Welcome to Part 2 of my chat with Tommy Geary! This episode is mostly about our experiences with adoption - Tommy (and his wife) and I are both adoptive parents - but there are coaching nuggets in there as well.

Adoption is an incredibly beautiful, joyful, and heartbreaking journey, and I love to talk about it. Tommy and I share about the profound respect we have for our children's birth mothers and our crazy tales of being matched with our first babies so quickly we didn't even have car seats.

We also talk about the importance of the MGI (the most generous interpretation), feeling your feelings, and connecting with others who have similar experiences.

We hope our stories will resonate with those who have adopted, are considering adoption, or simply have a heart for this beautiful way of creating a family.

Featured on the Show
We've Judged Her All Wrong by Brenda Geary
Is That Your Real Mom? by Brenda Geary

For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.

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CHAPTERS:

2:19 - Adoption Story, Chapter 1

8:10 - The Strength and Love of Birth Moms

12:39 - Adoption Story, Chapter 2

17:02 - The Full Picture

listen to the episode:

Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. Hey, friends, you're tuning into part two of an episode with my friend, Tommy Geary. Tommy is a coach. He coaches men. His podcast is called the Durable Dad Podcast and he helps men who are feeling stressed and overwhelmed. Just like I help women who are feeling stressed and overwhelmed, he helps them feel better. In part one, we talked in detail about his coaching, how he helps men, how you can get a hold of him if you feel like your husband or another man in your life could use this kind of coaching. That's a great episode to listen to. He gives tips on how he thinks you can influence your husband if you think that he needs coaching. That is all part one. Part two we are talking pretty much strictly about adoption. He and I both have two kids who are adopted and we found out in the interview that they are adopted through the same agency. We talk about he and his wife's experience with quickly adopting their first child. We have the same experience, so we talk about that. We talk about some of the funny questions that you get when your kids are adopted. We talk about raising children who are a different race than you are and what comes up with that. And then we talk in depth about our respect for birth moms or anyone who chooses to make an adoption plan for their child. So if this is a topic that is of interest to you and you want to hear more about my adoption story and Tommy and his wife's adoption story, tune in. Even though this is not a podcast about adoption, even though this episode is, if you or anyone you know is considering adoption or just wants to talk to someone about it, I would love to. I love talking about adoption and I'm happy to talk about it all day long. I think it's a beautiful situation and can just be absolutely wonderful, despite what we see in the media sometime. So feel free to always reach out to me if you or someone you love is considering it. Okay, here's my conversation with Tommy. Please enjoy part two of our chat! If you don't mind talking about it, tell me a little bit about the story. Was it quick? Did you try to have baby for a long time? I mean, what happened? What's your adoption story?

Tommy: 2:19
Yeah. So Brenda and I got married, had fun for a couple years, thought we were going to have kids the natural way, and it didn't work out. We ended up finding out that I don't have vas deferenses - deferensi? I should know how to say it because I talk about it a lot, and that was just something I was born with. We kind of like thought, because we had been trying for a while, that something was up, and then we were already talking about adoption. And then we got the final news and it was sad. There were definitely tears, and at the same time, I think we were kind of ready for it and we had already talked about adoption, so we were fully in. And then we're like but, now, if we're not on a biological clock, what do we want to do first? And so this isn't really part of the adoption story, but it is. We quit our jobs and we traveled for four years in Central America, which was an amazing experience and so much from that. But then, in 2016, we decided to really dive in and we jumped through all the hoops and did all the paperwork and they said, okay, you're in line and it should take about 12 to 15 months and then three weeks later they were like hey, we got you matched. And that's not how it happened with our second daughter - it took a lot longer - but with our oldest, who's now five, it happened really quickly and we met her birth parents three weeks before she was born. And then, yeah, she came a week early and we didn't have a car seat yet. She was born in Sedona, Arizona. We were in Colorado, we hopped in the car and drove overnight, slept in a Target parking lot. Target opened at 7 am. We bought a car seat and clothes that were way too big and went to the hospital and met our daughter.

Michelle: 4:13
Oh my gosh, I'm sure those clothes looked really tiny until you saw the actual child.

Tommy: 4:21
I'm sure everyone says it, but yeah, we're like no, no, no, no, that won't fit her, we got to get this one.

Michelle: 4:25
Yes, oh, my gosh, that is amazing. That's so crazy. So then did you have to stay there in Arizona with her for a certain amount of time before you could bring her back home?

Tommy: 4:36
Yeah, it moved pretty quickly. We stayed in Sedona for two nights and then we moved up to Flagstaff. I think we were there for four nights because it was just closer to home and then, as soon as we got the word, we took off.

Michelle: 4:51
Oh my gosh. And for those people who didn't adopt their children, if you adopt in a different state you have to get clearance before you can take them back to the state you live in. Sometimes it can take like a month and sometimes it's quick, so good, I'm glad it was quick for you guys. That is so crazy, oh my goodness. So when you got home, were you ready? Like, did you have stuff at home?

Tommy: 5:14
Stuff from Amazon was coming. It was there. I think it was there. When we got home, we had yeah, we had a few things and a lot of support from our community back in Colorado. Yeah, we fell into the parenting. It was pretty fun. I mean, we lived on a ranch in Colorado that was like 300 acres up in the mountains and we actually got really lucky. So our daughter was born in December and it was a really bad snow year is what the ski mountains would call it. Well, actually, everyone, everyone wants a lot of snowpack in the Rockies. And for us, it was really nice because we would plow every time that it snowed more than like three inches and we didn't have to plow much at all and we were able to get Nell outside a ton on hikes and everything like that, because it wasn't too bad.

Michelle: 6:01
Oh, how fun. So it worked out. It wasn't a bad snow year for your family.

Tommy: 6:05
No, it worked out for the Gearys.

Michelle: 6:07
That's so great, that's awesome. Ours was very similar, with our first one. Very little notification, like, they called us at four o'clock one day and we got in the car at about seven to go pick him up. It was a 10-hour drive, but we lived in Texas so we didn't have to actually leave the state. But same thing, yeah, same thing. So we got there and we didn't have a car seat. We had to borrow a car seat. Same kind of happy story as you when you're like, okay, I guess we'll figure this out eventually.

Tommy: 6:34
Yeah, you just. I mean it's just like everything in life. You just do the next step and you figure it out. What agency did you guys use?

Michelle: 6:43
The Gladney Center.

Tommy: 6:45
We're a Gladney family too.

Michelle: 6:46
No way yeah, oh my gosh! [Both of our daughters.] That - both of my kids! Yeah, oh my gosh that's amazing, yes, okay, if anyone out there is thinking about adopting the Gladney Center, by the time we went through them for our adoption, they had been in business and facilitating adoptions for like a hundred years I mean especially living in Texas. There's just the term Gladney baby. Like, oh, do you have Gladney babies? Like yeah, I have a Gladney baby. Oh, my goodness.

Tommy: 7:16
Yeah, and I mean we lived in Colorado and then when we adopted number two, we were in Ohio and still went to Gladney. I think, yeah, I don't know if people are listening and really thinking about adopting, but what I think is so why we really honed in was the resources that they had and, like you said, the knowledge from hundreds of years and their advocates in all states, and they support the birth mothers and the adoptive parents very strongly. They each have their own caseworker and I think that, like that's something that really spoke to us, and, yeah, so I love Gladney.

Michelle: 7:52
Same, same. I remember touring it and them talking about how sometimes the birth mothers move in there. They pay for them to go to school, they help them get to work, all these things. They really took the best care of them and that I mean it still gives me the chills right now to think about it. It is such a lovely thing.

Tommy: 8:10
I got tears right now too. You have to read Brenda - that's my wife - you have to read Brenda's article she wrote recently on - I don't know what she called it - but it was around birth mothers and what her thought before she adopted and the thoughts during and after. And yeah, she talks about that room at Gladney -

Michelle: 8:33
There's this placement room - is that what you're talking about?

Tommy: 8:35
No, actually the, the, the did they tell you about, like the rose ceremony they do sometimes, if the moms are living there. Oh, I don't know. Yeah, we're going to get real teary eyed if we go this direction.

Michelle: 8:47
I'm not afraid. We're vulnerable, we can do it.

Tommy: 8:51
So these birth moms are making the hardest decision of their life and everything mother nature is doing is telling them they shouldn't do this and they want to give their baby a better life situation than they have. And this is no fault of theirs, right? They have their own baggage that they're bringing, and so some of these birth moms live at Gladney and they, I guess, after the birth mom has the baby and they make the adoption plan and the adoptive parents get the baby, she comes back to the center and they do a rose ceremony and, like all the other birth moms are there and they each hand her a rose and they tell her why she's amazing and why she's a good person. Oh and yeah, I don't know, it's just it's really special to love on them because they get a lot of flack and I think people judge them very incorrectly.

Michelle: 9:56
I do too. Oh my gosh, I gotta pull it together. You're right, that was some tears, yes, oh my gosh. And I think too, now that I have my first son, who we adopted, is 16, which is a year older than his birth mom was when she had him, and I think about her going to high school, like that, like I can remember her telling me in one of our update letters that she had taken the ACT and I thought, oh my gosh, that she had our son, placed him with us, and then took the ACT. You know a thing that you would think of as like part of late childhood, you know, oh, just, they're so amazing and I can't imagine the emotional maturity it takes to be able to make that decision. Yeah, I get, I'm sure you might be this same way, but I get very defensive when people sort of are dismissive about that or like, oh, do you have to still talk to them? Do I have to still talk to them? No, I don't have to still talk to them. They're like, some of the most important, no matter how much I talk to them, some of the most important people in my whole life. I mean, yeah, it's we could go on about that.

Tommy: 11:06
And people don't know. People just don't know and they may be hear what they've heard on TV shows or what society thought about adoption 50 years ago.

Michelle: 11:17
Yeah, I do think it's true, and I you know people have said some really weird or funny things over time and I really do think, like people use what you and I might consider the wrong terms, like they just don't know the words to use, but the question that they're asking is from genuine curiosity. So it's like try to re-ask the question using the right, like "birth mom" is a good term, like sometimes people will say "so. Is he sad he's never met his real mom? Oh gosh, yeah, there's so much to say there. But I really agree with you. I don't think that people are trying to come at it in a bad way. They just don't know the ways to talk about it.

Tommy: 11:57
Yeah, are you a Dr. Becky fan?

Michelle: 12:00
I don't know her.

Tommy: 12:01
Good Inside podcast?

Michelle: 12:03
No, I've never heard of it. Am I missing out?

Tommy: 12:05
There are great episodes. Conscious parenting, kind of. And she has MGI, MGI, most generous interpretation.

Michelle: 12:17
Oh my gosh, I love that.

Tommy: 12:19
That's what we try to remember in the adoption world. Like people don't mean to say the wrong thing, there's a wrong thing to say they don't mean to be jerks, but they yeah. So most generous interpretation.

Michelle: 12:33
Oh, I love that. I absolutely love that.

Tommy: 12:35
When I notice myself get frustrated and defensive, no, they don't mean harm, don't bite their head off.

Michelle: 12:39
I love that. Oh my gosh, I need to teach that to my kids too. Oh my goodness. Okay, we could stay on this adoption topic forever, I think. But just real quick, while we're still here, tell me about your second daughter. So how did that work out?

Tommy: 12:53
Yeah, we waited a lot longer and it was also beautiful. So she's only seven months now, so this was not even a year ago. We got the call. Yeah, Marlo was already born. She was three weeks old. We Zoomed with her birth mom and her birth grandma and grandpa and yeah, then we were on a flight to Austin the next day.

Michelle: 13:18
Oh, my goodness.

Tommy: 13:19
Yeah, so she was born in Austin, Texas, and that interstate took longer and so that interstate wait is really special time with Marlo. It was a little harder because Nell was at home and she did great, she was with my sister-in-law and cousins and everything, but it was just it was a little harder and I think we were gone from Nell for like 10 days, so that was tough. We just wanted to all be together by the end of the day.

Michelle: 13:45
Yeah, that's a long time.

Tommy: 13:47
Yeah, but the first three days were amazing. We had a nice big Airbnb and just chilled, right? There's nothing - you don't have to run around and meet family and everyone wants to say hi to the baby and you have to keep everything clean. And it was just me, Brenda and Marlo and it's a good connection time.

Michelle: 14:05
Oh, that's so wonderful. So you brought her home when she was around like a month old, yep, yeah, and oh man.

Tommy: 14:11
Well, okay, I think Brenda writes about this in the article on our flight home. You know, everyone's like ooh ah, ooh, ah, new baby, new baby. And one of the flight attendants was like - and Marlowe's black, so it's kind of obvious that she was adopted - and one of the flight attendants just said something like you guys are. Everyone says you guys are amazing, but something about her. And then we talked to her in the back and she was a birth mom and she had made an adoption plan like 20 years earlier. And, oh my gosh, we sat on the back of the plane bawling and hugging.

Michelle: 14:46
Oh my gosh. Oh, that's so wonderful. Oh, my goodness, does your oldest daughter? She's white and you guys are both white. Since people can't see you, I'm going to tell them what you look like, okay.

Tommy: 14:59
Nell is 50% Hispanic, 50% white.

Michelle: 15:03
Okay, so is my first son who's adopted from Gladney, and it's enough so that people will sometimes assume that maybe he's adopted, but not always. I'm just wondering from your perspective is it almost easier when people can just like tell right away, or is that even something that you think about?

Tommy: 15:22
So far it's been new to know that that conversation is right there, point blank in your face, right away. There's like this proud aspect of it. Like you're walking around like this is my daughter and I'm proud of her, and at the same time it's a little maybe exposed, like we haven't had any weird interactions yet. But, like you know, you're inviting more conversations pretty easily, which we love talking about adoption. But you know, at the same time, do you want to do it every day? We'll see, I'll let you know.

Michelle: 15:56
Yeah, maybe sometimes you just want to like run in the store without getting into the conversation, who knows. But yeah, anytime I get the chance I'd love to go into it. Something.

Tommy: 16:06
I think I'm guessing the listeners can like hear the excitement in our voices and love the amazingness of it.

Michelle: 16:12
Something I get sometimes is people will look at my kids and say, oh, they don't look like they're related. They're not actually. And then they're like oh, I thought they're a brother and sister. Well, they are not in like the way that you're thinking.

Tommy: 16:27
So yeah, and I'm getting better at it too. Right, like it's a learning process for everyone, cause someone's like oh, Nell's got beautiful brown eyes, where'd those come from? And I'd be like oh, her birth dad had big brown, has big brown eyes, or something like that. Yeah, yeah, so your daughter is younger.

Michelle: 16:45
She's younger, yeah, she just turned 13. She's also a Gladney baby, yeah.

Tommy: 16:50
You guys still in Texas when you adopted her.

Michelle: 16:52
Yeah, and she was actually born in Fort Worth, really close to Gladney, so we did our placement at Gladney in that case.

Tommy: 16:59
Oh, was that cool. We didn't get to do that.

Michelle: 17:02
It is heartbreakingly cool, yeah, you know, because with my son, his birth mom wanted to not be there when we got there she didn't want to leave until she knew we were going to be there and she left some things for him for us to have. It was very loving, but it she just didn't want to meet us at that time. And so it just feels a little bit different when you just have the baby and it's, everything is happy. And then the second time we had about three months notice. I mean, you never know for sure, as you know, but we had about three months notice with our daughter and then, when she was still in the hospital, after having our daughter, they wanted us to come to the hospital. So we have these pictures of being in the hospital bed together, my daughter and then her birth mom and me all sitting in the hospital bed, and I think those are some of the most precious things I own. Used to be like if your house burns down, what would you say? Okay, now they're all like in the cloud somewhere, but physically speaking, that would be one of my top memories that I have. So that was amazing. But then the next day when we went to Gladney and like did the official placement and it was Josie's birth mom, her parents and then her birth father, his parents and then us and you know just them placing our daughter with us and how happy it was for us and how sad it was for them. It's like it is the true. You get the full picture of what adoption is. It's like the most beautiful, happiest, heartbreaking, saddest thing that could ever happen. Yeah, so the good thing was with them that we had an open adoption right away, so, for example, I could like text her the next day and send her pictures. So that felt better to me. We still did like the official you know, would write letters and send pictures and things like that, but we had that open relationship so I could check in on her and she could check and make sure that the baby was okay and all that.

Tommy: 18:57
Yeah, with Marlowe, and our placement was yeah, there was, there was bigger emotions and all of them and man, I think coaching and I guess when we adopted now and we hadn't, I hadn't had a coach yet, Brenda had, but you know, I'm a yoga instructor and meditation guide and been like I've meditated a lot and I think that, like those big emotions, like it's, you know, just this is what we coach on managing, self-regulating yourself in those kinds of situations is really powerful. Right to know that the sadness is okay and it's only because underneath there's love.

Michelle: 19:41
And yeah, yes, and I did not have that at the time. I didn't have had gotten into this world of coaching and really just feeling my feelings or crying or doing anything that could be seen as like a normal human emotion. So that was a real that was a heartbreaker. I just talked about that on the podcast, I think last week, where when I couldn't have a baby, I just felt nothing but shame and I totally isolated myself from other moms. I felt like something was wrong with me and I just wish I would have had somebody to tell me this is just sad. You could be sad. It's okay to be sad and just feel that feeling and talking to other people who are in the same situation is probably gonna make you feel better, and instead I was just like locking myself away from anyone who cared about me. So I wish I had had those tools, but I think that's part of what got me here was going through all that. Yeah well, you'll have to send me that article, definitely link that in the show notes and I want to read that too. Cool, I'm hoping that you know, obviously, this isn't a podcast about adoption, but I'm hoping that someone who is a birth mom or is adopted or is thinking about adopting is hearing this. You know there's got to be something, some reason that we're talking about this in such depth right now.

Tommy: 20:57
Yeah, and I mean I've heard you say it on your podcast before that you like love having these conversations and same like me, Brenda, like, and we've had a few adoptive parents that we talked to before the process that had been through Glagney, and it's like you said don't shut yourself down, don't go in the hole. You're like, whatever you're feeling about your situation, someone else is feeling that and yeah someone else has felt that and will understand.

Michelle: 21:32
Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthier. com. See you next week.