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0:33

Susan was just 17. She

0:35

was standing in front of a closed door, and on the

0:37

other side of it was her birth mom. This

0:40

would be Susan's first time meeting her. She

0:43

took a deep breath and opened the door.

0:47

I remember her standing up, like, right

0:49

away, and just, like, rushing over

0:52

to me and giving me a huge

0:54

hug. And she was crying

0:56

and, like,

0:58

touching my hair and touching my

1:00

face.

1:02

They were in a bland conference room at an adoption agency,

1:05

the same agency that had facilitated Susan's

1:08

adoption so many years ago. They

1:10

embraced each other. Her birth mom kept

1:13

saying Susan's name over and

1:15

over again. It was like, you

1:17

know, this has been 17 years in the making. I

1:21

felt her love for me, and I felt her

1:23

grief right away. They

1:26

shared the same curly hair,

1:28

same eyebrows. Susan

1:30

was in a kind of dreamlike state. I remember

1:33

her smell. I remember being like, oh, that's what she smells

1:35

like. And, like,

1:38

really liking her perfume. It

1:40

was a lot to take in, but it was like, oh,

1:43

thank God this is finally happening. Like, I'm not going to have

1:45

to live with these questions. Like,

1:49

I'm going to know who I am, where I come

1:51

from, and there

1:55

won't be someone out there missing.

4:00

Susan describes her childhood as pretty happy.

4:03

She grew up middle class in Chicago. She

4:05

was athletic and a strong student who volunteered

4:07

in her spare time. Her parents would often

4:09

tell her, you were the perfect child.

4:12

And she knows they meant well. But looking

4:15

back, it made her feel like there wasn't space for

4:17

imperfections. I think for a lot

4:19

of adopted people, there's a sense of, like, you

4:21

know, we've got to earn our place. We've

4:24

got to earn our keep and our families. We've

4:27

already lost one family, and we don't want

4:29

to lose another. And so I

4:31

think for some adopted people, that shows up as,

4:33

like, you know, being perfectionists

4:36

and trying to do the most all the time.

4:39

She tried hard not to get in trouble, not make

4:41

waves. One of the few times

4:44

she can remember getting into an argument with her parents

4:46

ended with her yelling at her mom, slamming

4:48

the basement door, and then turning up

4:50

her favorite song, Time After Time,

4:53

by Cyndi Lauper.

4:54

I remember lying there, just,

4:56

like, lying on the ground, listening to the

4:59

song, and crying, and thinking about my birth mom. It

5:05

was, like, maybe the first time where I didn't... like, it didn't

5:08

make sense to me that

5:10

I was crying. Like, I knew there was something, like, big there,

5:13

but, like, I didn't entirely understand

5:15

it. The lyrics

5:17

stuck with

5:18

her. If you're lost, you can

5:20

look and you will find me.

5:22

There was a deep well of sadness within

5:25

her that

5:27

she couldn't quite name. Then

5:32

when Susan turned 15, the feelings mushroomed.

5:36

She couldn't contain them anymore. She wanted

5:38

to start an earnest search for her birth mom. Susan

5:41

was adopted in the 80s when closed adoptions

5:43

were the norm, meaning there's no contact

5:45

between the birth mom and child after

5:47

the adoption is finalized. Adoptees

5:49

get little to no information about

5:52

the identities of their birth parents. Record-keeping

5:55

at adoption agencies was also pretty common.

5:57

inconsistent.

6:01

But Susan took a first step. She went to

6:03

the adoption agency and asked, do

6:05

you have any records relating to my birth

6:08

mom?

6:09

And it turns out they did. The

6:11

records had just been sitting untouched in an office

6:14

for 15 years.

6:16

They handed her a Manila folder.

6:18

I remember being in my kitchen and just

6:20

like devouring the non identifying

6:23

information, like just sitting at the

6:25

kitchen table and like, oh my God,

6:27

like, what is this?

6:30

The file didn't include her birth parents names,

6:32

but she got answers to some other big

6:33

questions. Birth father

6:36

is Mexican, Native American.

6:38

So that was like, okay, finally,

6:41

I know what I am. They also gave

6:43

my parents a letter

6:46

that my birth mother had written to me, like

6:49

several days after she gave birth to me

6:51

that they had had that whole time.

6:54

Oh my gosh. And they just

6:56

didn't bother to give it to your parents or even

6:58

let them know that it exists. Like

7:02

as far as I can tell, yeah, that just

7:04

blows my mind. It

7:05

was, you know, this like incredibly heartfelt,

7:08

like heart wrenching letter. I'm

7:14

pretty sure what she said was

7:17

like that she loved me, that

7:19

this was the hardest thing she'd

7:22

ever had to do. She

7:24

explained why she placed me for adoption,

7:27

that she was 16 when

7:29

she got pregnant, 17 when

7:31

she had me. And, you

7:34

know, that it wasn't for like lack

7:37

of love, but like more of just

7:39

like, I'm not ready to be a parent

7:42

and I want you to have a better life.

7:46

Susan's birth mom had also left her a

7:48

gift. They also, the

7:51

agency had had, you know,

7:53

basically since then, a necklace.

8:03

A necklace that she wanted me

8:05

to have. And

8:10

like, I put that necklace

8:12

on right away. Um,

8:19

yeah, I mean, it's just, you

8:22

know, I mean, I'm 42 and I've known my birthmark.

8:29

I've known my birth mom, you

8:31

know, since I was 17 and just

8:33

like the fact that this

8:36

can go like

8:38

straight into all of those feelings.

8:41

It's just like

8:41

such a reminder of like, yeah,

8:44

like how hard it was

8:46

and how

8:48

important it was for me to like gather

8:51

these pieces of myself. A

9:02

couple years later, Susan was 17,

9:04

the age her birth mom had been when Susan was born.

9:07

She felt ready to meet in person. The

9:10

adoption agency coordinated the meeting, which

9:12

is where we started our story.

9:14

After Susan and her birth mom hugged each other

9:16

in that office conference room, Susan

9:19

pulled out a photo album. I pretty

9:21

quickly was like, hey,

9:25

like, here's this photo album that my

9:27

mom, you know, put

9:29

together for you. Like, you

9:31

know, this is let's

9:33

look at this so I can like show you what my

9:35

life has been like so far.

9:37

Susan's parents were also with her that day.

9:39

Initially, they waited outside the room.

9:42

Susan knew they were having a hard time with the whole thing.

9:45

I think they even said, we

9:48

wish you didn't want this, but

9:50

we'll support you getting this.

9:53

I get that they

9:55

were scared that like I was going to love

9:58

her more. She was going to replace them. It

10:01

was going to make things complicated. Did

10:03

you say anything to comfort them or how would you respond

10:06

to them?

10:08

Yeah, I didn't

10:11

and I couldn't. And I think to some

10:13

degree I got like, oh, this isn't

10:15

my job to like comfort you.

10:17

I'm the kid and like

10:20

you need to be the parents.

10:23

Susan's parents came to accept her relationship

10:25

with her birth mom.

10:27

Over the next several months, Susan would visit

10:29

her birth mom every now and then. They lived just

10:31

an hour and a half away from each other.

10:33

And eventually Susan met other members of her birth

10:35

family, including her birth father and her half-brothers.

10:39

It was transformative.

10:44

Meanwhile, Susan began college and

10:46

was excited about the future. She was majoring

10:48

in photojournalism with the hopes of one day traveling

10:51

the world. She had no interest in

10:53

getting married or having kids. Not now,

10:55

probably never. She wanted to be untethered,

10:58

a free spirit. She got a taste

11:00

of that her junior year when she traveled to South

11:02

Africa. When she came back, she

11:04

started dating a guy

11:05

at school, Austin. He

11:07

made her laugh and had beautiful eyes. It

11:10

was supposed to be a casual thing. But

11:13

then we, you

11:15

know, we were sexually active and

11:18

my birth control failed. And

11:21

I found out that I was pregnant maybe

11:23

six or seven weeks after that. Susan

11:27

was just 20 years old. She

11:29

remembers sitting on her bed with her boyfriend in the room

11:31

and a positive pregnancy test in her hand. She

11:35

felt a tension in the pit of her stomach. There

11:38

was a fleeting thought of what if I terminate?

11:41

What if I have an abortion? It

11:43

was fleeting. It sort of came and went.

11:46

Susan is pro-choice, always has been.

11:49

Sitting there on the bed that day, she turned

11:51

to her boyfriend.

11:54

I pretty much immediately said,

11:57

I'm going to place this baby for adoption.

14:01

After Susan called up the facilitator from the phone

14:03

book, they gave her and her boyfriend Austin

14:06

a binder of ten families to choose from.

14:08

There wasn't a ton of information. A

14:11

letter and maybe

14:13

like one photo of the

14:16

potential couple.

14:18

Susan had two big priorities when

14:20

choosing a family.

14:21

First, it absolutely had to be an

14:23

open adoption,

14:25

meaning everyone involved knows each other

14:27

and is in regular contact.

14:29

My child cannot experience what

14:31

I went through and I will

14:33

not let that happen and I won't do

14:36

this if it's a closed adoption.

14:38

My vision is that basically we would

14:40

get to see her grow up and she would

14:43

always know that we loved her and that

14:45

even though we felt like we couldn't be her

14:47

day in and day out parents that we were

14:50

there for her.

14:51

Second thing was stability. Her

14:54

baby would need to have the things Susan had

14:56

growing up.

14:57

Two parents and a comfortable, happy

14:59

home. I had just sort of been conditioned

15:02

as an adopted person to value

15:04

like financial security

15:08

and to value stability

15:10

over things like blood and like

15:13

lineage.

15:15

Paging through that binder of families, Susan

15:17

and Austin found

15:18

one that fit the bill. It was

15:20

just this very like white picket

15:22

fence, you know, kind of stereotype

15:25

of like the quote perfect

15:27

family. The mom was planning

15:30

to be a stay at home mom. So it was like, OK,

15:33

you know, they have the ability to do that. They

15:36

looked

15:37

upper middle class. They owned a home.

15:41

They were going to get a dog. A

15:43

picture perfect family. Susan,

15:45

along with her parents, met the couple. Her parents hit

15:48

it off with them right away.

15:50

They, of course, had been through

15:51

an adoption process themselves. So they

15:53

bonded pretty quickly with the couple.

15:56

Now that they'd selected a family, all

15:58

Susan had to do was wait. At

16:00

that stage, it was a little bit of a

16:02

relief. Like, we know what's gonna happen,

16:05

and now I just have to, like,

16:07

get through this pregnancy.

16:09

The adoptive family paid for her medical bills, and

16:12

since she was still in college, Susan's parents

16:14

helped out with rent and food.

16:19

Then, when Susan was about five

16:21

months pregnant, she found out that she was having

16:23

a baby girl. She could feel

16:25

her kicking. She became acutely

16:27

aware that this was the only time she truly

16:30

had as her daughter's only mom.

16:32

Something within her shifted. I

16:35

remember, like, it

16:37

was, like, springtime, and just really

16:39

feeling, like, connected to my daughter

16:43

and to life, and I remember,

16:45

like, smelling flowers and, like, talking

16:48

to her like, you know, these flowers

16:50

are so beautiful, and, like, I can't wait to, like,

16:52

show you flowers. And

16:55

so, yeah, just, like, starting to relate to her as,

16:58

like, a person who was gonna be

17:00

here.

17:02

Susan felt the weight of her decision to

17:04

place her daughter for adoption, how

17:06

she wouldn't be the one feeding her crying baby in

17:08

the middle of the night, teaching her daughter how

17:10

to count to 10 or clapping when she

17:12

walked for the first time. She

17:14

wouldn't introduce her to all the small, beautiful

17:17

things in the world. A

17:19

wave of doubt washed over her. You

17:22

know, those feelings of, like, I

17:25

just really love her, and

17:28

I don't know if I can go through with this.

17:31

Early on, the adoption facilitator had

17:33

recommended she write a list of all the reasons

17:35

why she wanted to place her daughter for adoption.

17:38

She'd think back to it whenever she felt this way.

17:41

You're still in college, and you're not married,

17:44

and how would this work? And,

17:47

you know, this is the right

17:47

thing to do. This is the smart thing to do. You

17:51

need to stick with your plan. And

17:53

knowing she'd still be in her daughter's life

17:56

brought some amount of comfort. The

17:58

adoptive parents would remind her. We

18:01

believe that you can never have too many people

18:03

loving a child. You know,

18:05

there's nothing you can do

18:07

that would make us end contact

18:09

with you. Her

18:12

brain was telling her, place your daughter

18:14

for adoption. It's what she needs.

18:17

But emotionally, it seemed impossible.

18:20

Still, Susan moved forward with the plan.

18:28

On the day of her delivery, she was surrounded by

18:30

the people she loved. Her parents, her best

18:33

friend, and the baby's

18:34

father, Austin. They weren't dating

18:36

anymore, but they were on good terms.

18:38

The couple adopting her daughter would visit the next day.

18:42

Labor was a blur. It

18:44

lasted 27 hours. It

18:46

was intense. It was painful. And

18:48

then Susan heard her daughter cry. She'd

18:51

entered the world. The nurses

18:54

immediately put her on Susan's chest.

18:56

I remember her holding onto my hospital

18:59

gown. And we

19:01

just looked at each other. And

19:04

I was like,

19:05

you've had a big day today. And

19:10

her father's crying, sobbing. I

19:14

was just so happy to meet her. And I was

19:16

also really glad to be done with labor. But

19:19

I was like, you've had a really big day.

19:23

Typically, within the first hour or so after

19:25

birth, a mom will breastfeed her baby. But

19:28

Susan hesitated. I

19:31

was fighting my desire to

19:34

bond with her because I was like, if I breastfeed,

19:37

I don't think I'll be able to place her.

19:40

If I let myself really fully

19:43

go there as a mother, I'm

19:45

just not going to be able to do it. It

19:48

sounds agonizing to deny a primal

19:51

desire to connect with the baby you've been growing

19:53

in your body for months.

19:55

When it was time to discharge, Susan

19:57

told the hospital social worker, I'm

20:00

not ready. I was like, I

20:02

need another day in the hospital. I'm not

20:05

ready to separate tomorrow, which

20:07

is when they like medically would have discharged

20:09

me. So she's like, OK, I'll see

20:11

what I can do. So she got me another day.

20:14

And that's probably when

20:17

I started to be like, why do I need more

20:19

time? And, you know, am I doubting this?

20:26

Seven

20:26

months earlier, when Susan first contacted

20:29

the adoption facilitator, it felt like she'd

20:31

boarded a train, steadily heading

20:33

towards the moment she'd eventually hand her daughter

20:35

off to another family.

20:37

After she gave birth, it felt like the train

20:40

sped up and now all Susan wanted

20:42

to do was pull the emergency

20:44

break. It just kind of kept like

20:46

denying it until it was like literally

20:49

a few hours before I was supposed to discharge.

20:52

And then it was like

20:54

just everything needs to come to a halt.

20:57

Like, I don't know if I can

20:58

go through with this.

21:05

After the break, Susan makes a decision.

21:23

Welcome back. When we left off, Susan

21:26

was considering her options, gaming

21:28

out what she and Austin, the baby's father,

21:31

would need to do if they decided to bring this baby

21:33

home and start parenting her. First,

21:35

Susan called the agency looking for advice.

21:38

They told her, remember that list you wrote

21:40

of all the reasons why you're doing this? Pull

21:43

that out.

21:44

I am just like in the feelings

21:46

of like how much I love her. I don't even care what's

21:48

on this list. It's totally irrelevant

21:50

now. Now I just have to figure

21:53

out, like,

21:54

can I walk away

21:56

from her?

21:58

Susan needed advice from her parents.

21:59

They were actually back at home waiting

22:02

around with the couple planning to adopt

22:04

Susan's baby. Because her parents

22:06

are adoptive parents themselves, she

22:08

felt like they sympathized more with the couple than

22:10

they did with her, which stung. Still,

22:14

Susan was just 21 and she wanted guidance

22:16

from her mom and dad, so she called

22:18

them from the hospital. My mom

22:21

was very much like, you can't do this

22:24

to them, and if

22:27

you don't place her, we're not going to pay for

22:29

your

22:29

college anymore. It was

22:31

this emotional,

22:36

almost blackmail moment of

22:39

you either do this thing that you said you were going

22:41

to do and make these people happy and not

22:44

bring shame on our family, or if

22:47

you're going to do this, you've got to do it without

22:50

any of the support that you've come to rely on

22:53

from us. I

22:55

just very quickly hung up the phone

22:57

and I just lost it. Money

23:00

absolutely was a factor at

23:03

that

23:03

very critical time of like, I

23:06

had never had to be self-supporting, much

23:09

less support myself and a baby.

23:13

Looking back, Susan realizes what she

23:15

really needed was an unbiased opinion.

23:18

Her parents felt connected to the adoptive parents.

23:21

Like her, Austin was in turmoil and

23:23

the adoption facilitator, well, they're

23:25

trying to facilitate

23:26

the adoption. The hospital

23:28

social worker who is like the

23:31

only neutral party who came

23:34

into my room and was like, I hear

23:37

that you're having a hard time, very empathetic

23:39

and

23:41

just like being kind

23:51

and like, you know, how can I help you make this

23:53

decision?

23:55

The social worker told her, I

23:57

think you already know what you need to do.

24:00

think that is. It was like

24:02

assuming that I knew

24:04

my answers and I just needed

24:06

like permission to say

24:08

them or something. Yeah. And how did

24:10

you respond to that? I

24:13

felt like she

24:16

deserves to have this

24:19

life that I believe

24:21

she'll get to have with her adoptive family

24:24

that I didn't believe I

24:25

could give her. I

24:28

was like, I think I need to stick with my

24:30

original plan and,

24:34

you know, I just need a little bit more time to

24:37

say goodbye and, you

24:39

know, then I can leave the hospital. Throughout

24:42

the pregnancy, Susan had been listening

24:45

to a lot of Simon and Garfunkel. One of her

24:47

favorites was bridge over troubled water.

24:54

Hours before being discharged, alone

24:56

in that hospital room, Susan

24:58

and Austin gazed into their daughter's eyes as

25:01

they played that song. Sail

25:03

on Silver Girl, sail on by.

25:11

Your time has come to shine. All

25:13

your dreams are on their way. And

25:15

if you need a friend, I'm sailing right

25:17

behind. I think

25:18

those are the lyrics. So

25:21

that was very much what we wanted for

25:23

her.

25:24

All your dreams are on their

25:27

way. They cried

25:29

as the song played. She decided

25:31

to go through with adoption. Susan

25:45

and Austin left the hospital, met up

25:47

with the adoptive parents,

25:49

and handed them their baby.

25:52

Even though she'd made the choice that felt logical,

25:54

that would leave her free to have the adventurous

25:56

life she'd dreamed of,

25:58

the car ride home was excruciating. I

26:01

didn't, like, want to die, but I was like, it

26:03

would be better if, like, the car flipped

26:05

over and I was killed.

26:08

It was almost as if my

26:10

daughter was dead.

26:13

The grief was overwhelming. Yet life continued.

26:17

Her senior year of college began just a week or

26:19

two after she gave birth.

26:22

She had classes, exams. She went

26:24

back to her routines, as if this traumatic

26:26

thing hadn't just reshaped her world.

26:29

I threw myself back into

26:31

school. I can't just be thinking about this all the

26:33

time. I can't

26:36

just, like, wallow in this grief. I'm

26:38

just gonna, like, grind,

26:40

get this done, graduate, and

26:43

then go back to, like,

26:43

what I thought my

26:46

life should be like.

26:48

Over the next few months, every now and then, she'd

26:50

get a packet in the mail with pictures of her daughter

26:53

or a phone call with updates.

26:55

But Susan started to worry that she and the

26:57

adoptive parents weren't on the same page.

27:00

They only wanted her to visit once or twice

27:02

a year while Susan had envisioned visiting

27:04

more often. She wanted her daughter

27:06

to feel her love for her, to not experience

27:09

the same pain she did as an adoptee. Susan's

27:12

relationship with the adoptive parents started

27:14

to feel strained. Then,

27:17

six months after giving birth, the

27:19

parents emailed her.

27:21

They told her,

27:22

We have wonderful news. We actually

27:24

were able to adopt a second baby. She

27:27

was just a couple weeks younger. You

27:29

know, we're so happy that they're gonna have each

27:32

other growing up.

27:33

And I was like, what?

27:38

The

27:38

family had apparently adopted this second child

27:40

six months ago, just weeks

27:42

after they'd adopted Susan's daughter. Yet,

27:44

they'd never mentioned to her that they had any intentions

27:47

of doing that. If this is wonderful

27:49

news now, why wasn't

27:51

it wonderful news six months ago when

27:53

you first found out that you were

27:55

gonna adopt another baby? Like, I was just

27:58

livid. I

28:01

just felt completely deceived, lied

28:03

to, betrayed.

28:06

Susan had imagined her daughter having her parents'

28:08

undivided attention, at least initially,

28:11

but her anger wasn't really about that. Susan

28:14

felt betrayed because she'd shared so many

28:16

intimate details of her own life with this couple.

28:19

She'd introduced them to her parents, confided

28:21

in them about her fears, shared her medical

28:23

details, and they hadn't shared

28:25

that they were adopting two babies instead

28:28

of one.

28:29

Susan sat at her desk and began typing

28:31

them an email. I did not hold

28:34

back my anger. I didn't name call

28:36

and I didn't threaten and I wasn't nasty,

28:38

but I wrote my truth.

28:41

I would not have chosen you if I knew

28:44

that you were the kind of people that thought

28:46

it was okay

28:48

to hide this kind of information.

28:49

She

28:51

told them she would have been happy for them had they told

28:53

her sooner, but that omitting this

28:55

big detail hurt her trust in them.

28:58

Austin, the baby's birth father, wrote an email

29:01

to the couple too, expressing his feelings

29:03

of anger and betrayal. So we

29:05

sent them our emails and they

29:07

wrote, the dad wrote back

29:10

and was like, why

29:13

can't you guys just be happy for us?

29:16

We don't understand like why

29:19

you're so negative.

29:21

Susan showed us their email

29:23

exchanges. The adoptive dad

29:25

told Susan that because of her hostility,

29:28

they were canceling an upcoming visit. Susan

29:31

apologized. She was planning to leave the country

29:33

for a two year stint with the Peace Corps. She

29:35

pleaded to see her daughter before then. Months

29:38

later, he wrote back with the worst

29:40

possible

29:40

news for Susan.

29:47

We've consulted with our

29:49

attorney

29:51

and they're advising us to end contact

29:53

with you.

29:55

You're too angry to be a part of our family.

29:58

We don't think it's good for us. our daughter.

30:01

Wow. They'd

30:03

assured her throughout her entire pregnancy that

30:05

she would always be connected to their family. Now

30:09

no more visits with her daughter. I

30:11

was like just in shock and also

30:13

like

30:15

like what can I like can I can

30:17

they do this and can I fight this

30:20

can I fight this decision. Throughout

30:23

the process she had every reason to

30:25

believe it would be an open adoption that she'd have

30:27

direct contact with her daughter as she grew up.

30:30

Susan leaped into action. She called up everyone

30:32

she could and asked what can we do

30:34

about this. The professionals

30:37

that I was working with they were like don't

30:39

worry we're gonna talk to them we're

30:41

gonna remind them of what they said and

30:44

how we operate and why open adoptions best.

30:47

But that didn't work. So then Susan

30:50

appealed to the family directly. I

30:52

wrote back and was like will you please reconsider

30:55

like can we talk.

30:56

I

30:58

think I might have said like I thought you said

31:00

there's never too many people loving a child

31:03

like what happened there. They

31:05

wouldn't budge.

31:07

Susan had lost contact with

31:09

her daughter.

31:14

When I first heard this story well at first

31:16

it shocked me and then I wondered

31:19

is this even legal. Susan

31:21

told me that she'd called lawyers but they told her

31:23

look the only way you can nullify the adoption

31:26

is if you can prove that there was fraud and

31:28

that's a tough thing to prove. Pursuing it

31:30

would take years and

31:31

tens of thousands of dollars and by the time

31:33

you finish if you even win your daughter will

31:35

be old enough that leaving the adoptive parents and

31:37

returning to you will be traumatic. But

31:40

that's unlikely to even happen because you'll probably

31:42

just lose this case be out tens of thousands of dollars

31:44

and be on even worse terms with these parents.

31:47

So Susan accepted

31:49

that there would be no quick solution that would reunite

31:51

her with her daughter.

31:53

Like Susan her daughter

31:55

would grow up not knowing her birth parents.

32:06

Over the years, the parents wouldn't send anything

32:08

to Susan directly, but they'd send some

32:10

updates to Susan's parents. Susan

32:13

would send birthday cards to her daughter. She'd

32:16

keep the message pretty superficial. Happy

32:18

birthday, I'm thinking of you. She

32:20

wouldn't dare to say anything that could be construed as

32:22

inappropriate for fear that the few updates

32:25

she would get would also be taken away. Yet

32:28

Susan never gave up trying to reconnect.

32:32

Every few years, she'd write to the parents. I

32:34

would try different strategies.

32:38

One time it was like, hey, I'm not even asking

32:40

to see her anymore. Can we just talk?

32:43

As adults, can we have a conversation?

32:47

She thought, well, saying the wrong thing

32:49

made them cut me off. So maybe

32:51

if I can say the right thing, they'll reconsider.

32:55

But nothing worked. Still, she

32:57

kept reaching out. I want

32:59

a paper trail that I asked them

33:01

every few years and they said no, because

33:05

I want my daughter to know that I didn't stop

33:07

trying and that I don't know

33:09

what stories

33:09

they're telling her. I don't even know if she knows she's

33:11

adopted. Susan put

33:14

everything in a binder with the hope that one day,

33:16

if she could ever reconnect with her daughter, she'd

33:18

be able to show her how hard she'd

33:19

fought to be in her life. I would

33:22

send her birthday

33:24

and Christmas presents every year. Oh, really?

33:27

Like what? Like toys

33:29

or cute dresses or like books. But

33:33

I didn't know, like, are

33:36

these presents just like going into the ether?

33:38

Are they getting tossed out? I don't know.

33:42

As the years passed, Susan kept moving forward.

33:45

She went to graduate school and became a therapist,

33:48

specializing in marriage and family counseling.

33:50

She came to forgive her mom for issuing that ultimatum

33:53

while she was lying on the hospital bed. And

33:56

it was during this time in her mid

33:58

20s when she had a kind of break. through

34:00

moment.

34:01

In graduate school, she'd been taking these classes

34:03

on human development, learning

34:04

the trauma that happens when a newborn is separated

34:07

from their mom. She started to think

34:09

not only about her daughter's experience, but

34:11

about what it means that she herself was adopted.

34:14

She describes her reflections as coming

34:16

out of the fog. It's a term that many

34:19

adopted people use. The fog

34:21

represents the

34:23

dominant societal narrative

34:26

that adoption is good

34:29

and adoptees are

34:31

lucky and should be grateful and

34:34

adoption is a win-win-win

34:36

for everyone and there's

34:39

no space for other feelings.

34:41

I think the fog is also obscuring

34:44

that adoption is an industry and

34:46

that people profit from

34:48

it and that

34:50

motivations might not always be

34:53

good.

34:54

Susan learned that the adoption industry

34:56

is way more complicated than it seems.

34:59

There

35:01

are for-profit attorneys, for-profit

35:04

facilitators, for-profit

35:07

mediators who, the more

35:09

placements they do, the more money they

35:11

make and that's just a fact.

35:14

Some experts estimate that the American adoption

35:16

and child welfare industry is worth more than $24

35:19

billion. Because

35:22

there are relatively few babies placed for

35:24

adoption compared to people hoping to adopt,

35:27

agencies can increase their rates and

35:29

their profits. In levels of oversight

35:32

vary, each state has their own individual

35:33

laws about private adoption.

35:35

Learning all of

35:37

this made Susan think about her own adoption

35:39

differently. Why did she grow

35:41

up knowing so little about her birth parents?

35:44

Why hadn't the agency told her parents about her

35:46

birth mom's letter? Susan

35:48

also started to think about the way that she was treated

35:51

when she was pregnant. Looking for

35:53

adoptive families, she was only allowed to speak

35:55

to one family at a time, which seemed to

35:57

really center the needs of the potential adoptive

35:59

family.

35:59

over her needs. And

36:02

I think the professionals even said

36:04

like, well, you know, this is a vulnerable

36:06

thing for them, so we don't want people to

36:08

get their hopes up. And it's like,

36:11

okay, yes, their feelings matter. I get that.

36:14

And in retrospect, it's like,

36:15

you

36:17

know, who's the really vulnerable

36:19

person here?

36:27

One of the most difficult parts of coming out

36:29

of the fog for Susan, and for a lot

36:31

of adopted people we spoke to,

36:33

was that people often see criticism

36:35

of the adoption industry

36:37

as an attack on people seeking to

36:39

adopt.

36:40

Susan encountered that a lot as she got more

36:42

involved with adoption activism. Like

36:44

if she talked critically of her own adoption,

36:47

people would feel protective of my parents,

36:49

but they loved you so much. They were such good

36:52

parents, like, you know, that it's like

36:54

people can't hold two things.

36:56

It's true that Susan's parents love her

36:58

and she had a good childhood. And

37:00

it's also true that being separated

37:02

from her birth parents was a deep loss

37:05

and that closed adoptions can be harmful.

37:09

Today, Susan works in the adoption world. Her

37:11

organization mostly works with families after

37:13

an adoption has taken place, offering

37:16

services like counseling and summer camps. But

37:19

they do a small number of infant placements. Susan

37:22

will tell pregnant people who are in a similar position

37:24

that she was once in,

37:26

that they have the option to change their mind, even

37:28

if they bonded with the people hoping to adopt their baby.

37:32

People will say to me, you know,

37:34

they're so nice. And I'll

37:36

say, yes, they're nice. You know, we

37:39

have nice families. They're nice people. We believe

37:41

in them. And you don't owe them your

37:43

baby. Just because someone wants to adopt

37:45

a baby does not mean you owe them yours.

37:59

money behind marketing campaigns that

38:02

targeted ads directed towards vulnerable

38:04

pregnant women.

38:06

For example, when we were researching for this story,

38:08

we saw an ad that read, Get paid

38:10

to give your baby up.

38:12

When you consider that poverty is a big

38:14

reason people place their child for adoption, these

38:17

ads, as shocking as they are,

38:19

can also be enticing. I think

38:22

it's creating

38:24

competition and desperation,

38:26

neither of which

38:27

are child centered.

38:30

This is going to sound really gross, but there's

38:32

a sense of, okay, for adoptions

38:34

to happen, we have to have, quote,

38:36

the product, which is the baby, and

38:39

who is the

38:40

holder of that product is the pregnant person.

38:42

She worries that professionals

38:44

sometimes lead pregnant women to make decisions

38:46

while they're in a state of panic.

38:48

Like Susan told me about a woman who went to

38:50

the hospital for abdominal pain and then discovered

38:53

not only was she pregnant, she was in labor.

38:56

She had a stable living situation, but was stressed

38:58

about having things she'd need for a baby and

39:01

was considering adoption.

39:03

I'm thinking about myself at

39:05

the hospital 20 years ago being like, okay,

39:07

if I were to bring this baby home, I don't have anything.

39:10

And so I say to people, look, babies don't

39:13

need a lot at this stage. And the

39:15

things that they do need, we can help you get

39:17

those things. So it was like, what are

39:19

the things you think you need in order

39:21

to bring this baby home, take some time

39:23

to decide? One of the things was

39:26

she was like, I don't know that I can afford a breast pump

39:28

and I don't know that my insurance can pay for it. So

39:32

we had someone who donated

39:34

a breast pump that we could give to her.

39:37

The woman was able to go home with her baby with

39:39

basics like a car seat and diapers and

39:41

take the time she needed to make a decision.

39:44

I think about how drastically

39:46

different this conversation could have

39:49

gone if it was someone who was invested

39:51

in convincing her that adoption is

39:54

what's best.

39:56

And of course, there are some people who simply don't

39:58

want to parent, even if they have the

39:59

finances and social support to do so.

40:02

When that's the case, Susan considers it her

40:04

role to make sure that adoptions are done in a

40:06

way that's transparent, where everyone

40:09

involved

40:09

feels supported. I

40:11

guess I'm motivated to make it a more

40:13

ethical experience for pregnant

40:15

people.

40:22

In the 15 years since Susan gave birth to her

40:24

daughter, she kept sending birthday and Christmas

40:26

gifts, never getting a response. It

40:29

was depressing. But she also came to

40:32

accept that this was her reality. She

40:34

had to keep going. She fell in

40:36

love, got married, and had a son.

40:39

Then one day, Austin, the birth

40:41

father, reached out to Susan with some

40:43

big news. Apparently his

40:45

brother had been using one of those websites

40:48

like 23andMe or Ancestry.com.

40:51

Austin's brother had told Austin,

40:53

I just

40:55

got a match with your daughter and she's

40:59

tested on this website. It

41:01

felt too good to be

41:02

true. Right away, Susan got

41:04

a DNA test and submitted it to the website.

41:07

When they messaged her with the results, she had a direct

41:10

match. It read, mother

41:12

and child. Had both her photo

41:14

and her daughter's photo right next to each other.

41:18

Not even birth mother, it just was like

41:20

mother, you know, like not conditional,

41:23

just mother and child. Susan

41:26

sent her daughter a message. Saying

41:28

like, hey, it seems like you might be looking

41:31

for information about me or

41:33

your

41:33

family. You

41:36

know, if you ever want to reach out, here's my

41:38

number, here's my email. We've

41:40

always loved you and hoped that, you know,

41:43

you might want to see us someday. But whatever

41:45

you want is what we want to do.

41:49

But Susan didn't get a response.

41:54

Then about a year later, her daughter turned 18.

41:57

And so Susan reached out to her on Instagram.

41:59

told her happy birthday, that she loved her and

42:02

she was still there if she ever felt ready for contact.

42:05

A day went by, no response.

42:08

Then before falling asleep, Susan checked

42:10

her Instagram one more time. Her husband

42:12

and son were asleep in the bed with her.

42:14

And I could see, even though it was

42:16

like a day later, I could see that she was typing,

42:19

like the three dots. Oh my gosh. Oh.

42:25

And there'd be three dots and then it would stop.

42:27

And then they'd, like, then they'd. Your heart

42:29

would stop. Yes.

42:32

Oh my god, like, such suspense.

42:35

Yeah. It's happening.

42:36

What did she say?

42:38

It's so good to hear from

42:40

you. I'm sorry if

42:43

I haven't responded until now, but

42:45

I'm really glad that

42:47

we're in touch. Something

42:49

like, you know, I hope that we can

42:52

start talking or connecting.

42:55

How did it feel to get that message? Surreal,

43:01

amazing, so

43:04

exciting, healing.

43:08

Susan left the room

43:10

and went on a walk in the moonlight. There

43:12

was like a lake nearby. It

43:15

was, you know, nighttime and I just needed

43:17

to, like, I don't know,

43:20

do something that felt like ceremony

43:23

or like acknowledging,

43:25

like this is a turning point.

43:29

The moment Susan had longed for, for

43:31

nearly 20 years, it

43:33

was finally happening.

43:35

The baby she'd held in her arms, who

43:37

she cried over that day while listening to Simon

43:39

and Garfunkel, wondering who she might

43:41

one day become,

43:43

that baby was now a full grown adult

43:45

who wanted to get to know her birth mom.

43:48

For the next two years, Susan and her daughter

43:51

corresponded on Instagram. Susan's

43:53

approach through all of this, very social

43:55

worker style, was to let her daughter

43:57

take the lead, have her dictate the pace of their

43:59

relationship.

43:59

They'd trade Spotify

44:02

playlists and talk about their favorite artists. I would

44:05

keep it a little light to some degree

44:07

because I wasn't sure how much depth she

44:09

wanted.

44:10

Sometimes her daughter would go months without responding.

44:13

They'd never talked on the phone.

44:15

The thing that kind of shifted was

44:18

I actually recorded a video of

44:22

myself narrating photos

44:25

from an album that I had put together when she

44:27

was a baby. Ultrasound photos,

44:30

pictures of me pregnant up until like

44:32

the last time I had seen her.

44:35

After years of walking on eggshells, Susan

44:38

finally told her daughter

44:39

the story of her adoption, the

44:41

way she'd loved her and struggled with placing

44:43

her,

44:44

and how things had gone sideways.

44:47

Susan's daughter responded with a video of her

44:49

own. I mean, one thing she said was

44:52

something like, I

44:55

had never heard your voice and

44:58

hearing your voice

44:58

for the first time just like gave me

45:00

chills. And then

45:03

she asked Susan a question.

45:05

I know this is crazy. We're

45:07

in a pandemic,

45:08

but can I come see you guys? Obviously.

45:12

Yes. Like, absolutely. How soon

45:14

can you get here?

45:20

Susan

45:20

had been waiting for this moment for

45:22

her daughter to initiate their reunion. They

45:25

arranged to meet in the Bay Area where Susan was living.

45:27

When Susan

45:29

was around the same age as her daughter, she'd

45:32

met her birth mom back at that agency office.

45:35

Now Susan was standing at the airport waiting

45:37

for her daughter. Susan felt the

45:39

same way she did before. All she

45:41

wanted to do was see her, to hold her.

45:44

When her daughter landed, Susan got a text with

45:47

an update. I got off the plane. I'm

45:49

on my way. Susan

45:51

was at the bottom of an escalator watching people

45:53

come down. In a few moments, she'd

45:55

be in the same room with her daughter

45:57

for the first time since she was a baby.

46:00

And

46:03

she comes down the escalator and

46:05

we give each other huge hugs

46:08

and I

46:10

am crying and she's like, are you okay?

46:14

And we just

46:16

looked at each other for a little bit. It sucked

46:18

because it was the pandemic so we had to wear a mask.

46:21

But I'm like, can I take, I'm

46:23

like, let's just take our masks off for a second.

46:26

Like, I just want to see you. I mean,

46:28

she's just, she's so beautiful and,

46:30

you know, she's so sweet and like,

46:33

I don't know how she felt, but for me it was like,

46:37

it just felt very natural.

46:40

And the big conversations started before

46:42

they'd even left the airport.

46:44

We haven't even gotten the car yet, I don't think. She's

46:47

like, do you

46:49

work in adoption because of me? How

46:52

did you respond to that? I was

46:54

like, yes, sort

46:56

of. You know, I'm also adopted,

46:59

so that's part of it. But yeah, there's

47:02

a big part of me that,

47:05

you know, wanted to do the work I do so

47:08

that people could have a different

47:10

experience than the one that I had.

47:13

They got to know each other. Susan soaked

47:15

in her daughter's mannerisms, her laugh,

47:17

how good she was with her little brothers. By

47:20

that point, Susan had two sons. She

47:22

noticed the similarities between her and her daughter,

47:24

how from the nose up they look almost

47:27

identical. Susan gave her

47:29

daughter the binder she'd made with all the evidence

47:31

of ways she tried to stay in touch during their separation.

47:33

It

47:34

was a lot for her daughter to take in.

47:37

Lately, Susan and her daughter have been trying

47:39

to make up for lost time. They

47:42

took a road trip from California to Washington

47:44

and

47:44

Susan's daughter finally reunited with her

47:46

birth father and his family.

47:52

When Susan was making the decision to place

47:54

her daughter for adoption, it was because

47:56

she wanted her daughter to have a better, more secure

47:59

life than the one that

47:59

that she, as a 21-year-old, would

48:02

be able to provide. This

48:04

phrase, a better life, is

48:06

used all the time in the adoption world. As

48:09

Susan came out of the fog and learned more about

48:12

adoption, she began to think about it differently.

48:15

That adoption doesn't mean trading a bad

48:17

life for a good one, but that

48:19

the two possible paths are just

48:21

different. That felt especially

48:24

true when Susan learned more about her daughter's

48:26

childhood. Without going

48:28

into detail, her

48:30

family has not been picturesque.

48:33

And I do feel

48:35

like, you know, on that one aspect

48:37

of her having a more financially

48:40

stable life than I could have given her, that

48:42

happened, but there

48:45

were things about

48:46

how she was parented that

48:49

were really hard for me to learn about, and

48:51

things that I hadn't even, like, realized

48:54

would, could

48:57

happen or would happen. It

49:00

didn't matter as much as Susan thought that they

49:02

had the white picket fence and vacationed

49:04

in nice places during the summer, or

49:06

that there were two parents in the home.

49:09

Those aren't the only things that can make

49:11

a childhood good.

49:14

Sometimes Susan thinks about what life

49:17

would have been like had she

49:18

made a different decision. I

49:20

know that I would have loved her and

49:22

would have done my best, and I

49:25

just don't know what it would have looked like

49:27

for me to have parented her, you know?

49:29

So it would have been different, and

49:31

I think some things would have been better

49:35

than what she had, and some things would have been harder

49:37

than what she had.

49:39

But she knows 20-year-old Susan made

49:41

the best decision she could with the information

49:44

she had.

49:45

She tells me she doesn't dwell on what ifs. It's

49:48

a pointless exercise.

49:50

She accepts how everything unfolded.

49:52

Talking to her, I was struck by just how

49:55

seamlessly she was able to move forward in life

49:57

despite all the grief and anger she

49:59

felt.

50:00

how instead of it paralyzing her,

50:02

in a way it propelled her.

50:04

She's always been focused on the things she

50:06

can control.

50:07

And these days, that

50:09

involves organizing big family visits with

50:11

her daughter, trading playlists with her, and

50:14

advocating for a system where adoption

50:16

is

50:16

focused on children,

50:18

not money. All

50:30

right, that is all for our show this week.

50:33

While researching for this episode, we came across a lot of

50:35

great resources about adoption. That

50:38

includes memoirs, articles, other

50:41

podcast episodes. We've included

50:43

those recommendations in our newsletter, which you

50:45

can sign up for at marketplace.org. And

50:48

if you're interested in learning more about adoption,

50:51

we've got a lot of great resources for you. So,

50:54

if you're interested in learning more about adoption, which

50:57

you can sign up for at marketplace.org.

51:01

And I should say that this is the last episode

51:04

of our season. We'll be back in your feeds later

51:06

this year. But in the meantime, if

51:08

you want to stay posted on our whereabouts, definitely

51:11

be sure to sign up for the newsletter. We'll also have

51:13

a link for that in the show notes. You

51:15

can also find me on social media, or

51:17

you can shoot me and the team a note at uncomfortable

51:20

at marketplace.org. We're

51:22

going to be looking for some new stories, so definitely

51:24

reach out if there's something you'd like to hear on the show, or

51:27

if you have a personal story you want to share. And

51:30

lastly, if you like what we do, please

51:33

consider rating and reviewing the show. That

51:35

stuff actually really helps us out. It makes it

51:37

easier for other people to discover our podcast.

51:40

And, you know, it also makes us happy to know that you're

51:42

liking the show.

51:45

This episode was lead produced by me, Alice

51:47

Wilder, and hosted by Rima Krais. We

51:50

wrote the script together. The episode

51:52

got additional support from Hannah Harris Green, Yvonne

51:54

Marquez, and Markay Green. Zoe

51:57

Saunders is our senior producer. Our

51:59

editor is... Jasmine Romero. Our

52:01

intern is H. Conley. Sound

52:03

design and audio engineering by Drew Jostad.

52:07

Bridget Bodner is Marketplace's director

52:09

of podcasts. Francesca

52:11

Levy is the executive director of Digital.

52:13

Neil Scarborough is vice president and general

52:16

manager of Marketplace. And our

52:18

theme music is by Wonderly. Special

52:20

thanks to Mark Anfinsen, Benjamin Lundberg-Torres

52:23

Sanchez, Skylar Swenson, and

52:26

Mars Wood.

52:28

All right. We'll catch y'all later this

52:30

year.

52:46

Hey, everyone. I'm Rima Reiss, host

52:48

of This is Uncomfortable, a podcast from Marketplace.

52:51

This season, we explore how

52:53

secrets can shape our financial lives.

52:56

We've got stories about the creative lengths people

52:58

go to pay off student debt, what

53:00

it's like to become addicted to financial

53:02

submission, and how easy it can be to

53:04

get stuck in a vicious cycle. We

53:07

take a look at how secrets take a toll on

53:09

our lives and what price some are willing

53:11

to pay for the truth. Listen

53:13

to This is Uncomfortable wherever you get

53:15

your podcasts.