Hey there, it's Melissa Brunetti and welcome to the Mind Your Own Karma podcast. Hey there karma crew. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Mind Your Own Karma, The Adoption Chronicles. Today I have David on the show. He is a 62 year old retired Teamster, but has been married for 37 years. He has three children and one grandson. David was a Baby Scoop era adoptee, born in 19, 61 and placed with his adopted parents
when he was one month old. Talking about his adoption was totally off limits and this created a lot of confusion about his roots. He began searching when he was 34 years old. It turned out his biological parents did end up getting married and we're still together. They seemed less than thrilled when David contacted them because David had been kept a secret from everyone in his biological family.
It wasn't until his biological father died in 2017 that the secret was finally revealed and he was able to have relationships with his full biological siblings and extended family. Here is my interview with David Lang. So we are welcoming David Lang to the show today. Welcome David. How? You doing, Melissa? It's an honor to be with you. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Yeah, no worries. So I don't get a lot of men coming on the show.
So I'm just, I just kind of wanted to know what prompted you to tell your story. Actually, it was about listening to yours and other podcasts. It it dawned on me that the male voice is kind of, you know, under represented. And I think there's aspects of my story that are kind of unique. So I thought it might be, you know, interesting to get it out there. Yeah. So why do you think it's that we don't get a lot of men coming on?
I think it might partially be to the fact that men are told to, you know, cover up their feelings, don't show their hurt, things like that. I think another part of it might be that if you're initiating a search, you always look towards the birth mother. That's always the focal point. It's almost never the birth father That might not. That might have something to do with it. Yeah, I have a birth father coming on in the next couple
weeks. I'm super excited about that because it is it's it's difficult enough to find male adoptees to come on, but to find adoptive parent or or a birth parent that's male is really rare. So I really thank you guys for coming on. So what do you know about your adoption? Why were you put up for adoption? I was a pretty typical Baby Scoop era adoptee. I was adopted when I was about one month old and my adopted parents, I kind of hit the lottery and used so many times.
You hear, you know, stories of, you know, abuse or neglect or things like that. That wasn't the case with me. I always felt loved. I always felt, you know, wanted things of that nature. I was told I was adopted when I was 9 and that was pretty much the last time it was ever spoken of. It was it was completely taboo. After I was told, I remember I told somebody else at my school. One of my friends and I came home and I very casually mentioned it to my mother and she just hit the roof.
And she was, she was a pretty calm lady too. So that kind of gave me the signal that, you know, OK, we're we're we're never just we're never going to bring this up ever again. I think this kind of put me in a state of the lack of a better turn, alternate consciousness, where on the surface, I really did think that my adopted family was my biological family. Deep down I, you know, I kind of knew I was different and I never fit in and things like that.
But if there was a family tree project at school, I would. I would just do it for my adopted family. Yeah. Why do you think they told you at nine years old? What prompted them to tell you in the 1st place? Was there something? Apparently my mother had told me before that, but it never really registered. I I remember asking my mother something about pregnancy. I don't remember exactly what.
And that's when she said, well, you know, you're adopted and it just it it kind of hit me from there. Yeah, so when they told you and when you remember that it a later age, how did you feel about it? I always. I never really thought about it too much. I knew something was off. I knew I didn't fit in. I knew nobody looked like me. I always got jealous at the kids at school when they knew their ethnicity, and I really didn't have any kind of a background
like that. But on the surface, everything was OK. Something would have to trigger me to have any kind of thoughts about adoption. So did you have any siblings growing up? I had an adopted sister who's two years younger. She was, she's very outgoing, gregarious and attractive also, whereas I was kind of introverted. And I, you know, I like my books and things like that. So I she had considerably less difficulty adjusting to it.
OK. And was she told like at the same time that she was adopted, that you were told or? Yeah, she was. She was pretty much told in that 789 year old range. She never showed any problem with it and we never talked about it until we were in our mid 30s. Yeah, wow. And so. Just goes to show you how taboo it actually was. Right, right.
So growing up, did you how did you see adoption shaping you like as a child and even as a teenager were you able to like have friends and form relationships and. I was, but I I never really. I always felt like I never fit in with whatever group of friends I had, and I never really thought about adoption too much. Something would have to trigger it.
If I could tell you a story about my senior year in high school, I was on the soccer team and the season came down to a championship game and we happened to win the game. So, you know, we were all elated and, you know, all thrilled and it's kind of AI was the goalie. And it's kind of a thing that you, the two goalies, kind of congratulate each other, go out of their way to shake hands. But I couldn't find the
opponent's goalie. I was, he must have, you know, wandered off, understandably dejected. So I was the last one to get all my gear and head back to the bus. And as I'm walking all alone, I thought to myself, I might get my picture in the paper. My biological family might see that picture. Maybe they know me and the dam just broke. You know, why did they get, why did they give me up? Maybe they're here. Where do they live? And I kept thinking these things all the way to the bus.
And I remember the last thing I thought was nobody else is thinking this kind of stuff. Right, right. So from from that point on, were you thinking about searching then at that point or I mean, what was going through your brain after that? Damn broke? Didn't I? Kind of went back to, you know, life. Didn't really think too much about searching. Wouldn't even at that point know where to start. Went to college again. Felt like I didn't fit in, didn't tell anybody.
And it was here that I met my wife. And as we were dating, I told her pretty much right off. And I guess that was a harbinger of things to come, but yeah. Interesting. That. Interesting that you wanted to tell her right off when, like it was taboo for you to talk about, you know, forever, and then you felt like that was something important that you needed to tell her, like, right away. Right, right.
Exactly. So how did not being able to discuss your adoption when you were growing up and how did that affect the aspects of your life and and that what other adoptees find common, How was it, was it different? I I always knew something was different. I knew it was off, but I felt like I couldn't connect the dots. There really wasn't any resources at that time where you can, you know, like now we have podcasts like yours, we have memoirs, we even have, you know,
adoptee therapists. At that time there was nothing. So I knew that something was off. I knew I didn't fit in. I knew nobody looked, looked like me. But it was very difficult to connect the dots. And we. Realized that, right. The adoption did have something to do with it, but there was nothing I could do about it, basically. Right.
Did you looking back, do you see adoption shaping you even as an adult now like or can you do you see any personality traits or or ways that you react in relationships, maybe even with your wife, that you can kind of attribute back to being adopted? I'm really sensitive. I still have feelings of not being able to fit in mostly things of that nature.
Yeah, I think adoptees. You know, when you walk into a room, a lot of times you're already waiting for or you're oversensitive to how people like maybe look at you or react to you or talk to you and you're automatic that, you know you are automatically have that feeling that you don't belong. And so you walk into a room already thinking that.
And then you're always picking out all the little things that you know that kind of reinforce that it seems like overly sensitive, you know, kind of tendencies. So did you start? When did you start searching for biological parents? Or did you? I first got the inkling of an urge when my first child was born. She was, she was a very content newborn, so you could hold her and think. And I remember thinking I have a blood relative that I can see
and that kind of stirred things. Maybe I would say six or seven years later, my wife and I went on a trip and as we were coming back home, we were going through the the town where I was born. And she said, well, show me where you think you were born. I only knew three things about my birth the day, the municipality and the agency, which was Catholic services. So I drove up to the only Catholic Church that I knew in town. And almost on cue, a guy came
out of the church. So we went up to him and, you know, asked if this church had anything to do with adoptions or anything. He said no, but he remembered seeing something like that in town. So to make a Long story short, we kind of took a tour of the town, stopping, you know, asking people where something might be
or anything related to adoption. We ended up at a an old folks home for for nuns and it turned out that this building was next to the build the home for Unwed mothers, which I was born at. So we went up on a Sunday afternoon. We went up and asked the nuns at the front door, you know, we're looking for information, anything you could help us out with. And just about at that time, another nun came out and she was going to mail some letters, and one of the other nuns got all excited.
Oh, she was a nurse. She was a nurse there. And she was nice enough to meet with us for about an hour to tell us all about the happenings at the home for Unwed Mothers. You know what it was like, what the atmosphere was like, what the women were like, and so on and so forth. And we got out of that meeting and I'm driving home and my head is spinning. I'm on the verge of tears. I finally have some kind of information about my origin.
Yeah. So she couldn't tell you anything specific, just kind of. Nothing specific. And it's funny because we didn't really come right out and ask her she she just said, you know, I I can't help you with any information on the search. I can only help you, you know with the the building and the facilities and things of that nature. And we kind of took that as a sign. That's when we got the the search in motion. Yeah. So then what did you do next? My wife.
This is all before Google, all before DNA, all before cell phones. My wife the next day basically made a bunch of phone calls, various agencies. There was still a chapter of the home for Unwed Mothers that still existed called All Kinds of Other Places, and it turned out that the agency that placed me for adoption could do a search for your parents. So we we kind of went with that. We got the non, we got the non identifying information first,
which was very interesting. At the time of my birth, my biological mother was 22, which all the stuff that I've read seemed to indicate that all the moms were teenagers. So that was a surprise. My biological father was in college at the time, and I was also thrilled at at being a lifelong fan of the National Hockey League, that my biological father was born in Canada. I you know, I'm thinking, oh, who's my father? Gordie Howe. Rocket.
Richard. But. So, searching and you got your unidentifying information. Then what happened? Couple months later we scheduled a meeting with the woman who was doing the search. We we just thought it was sort of an informational thing, you know, see how it's going. So we sit down, we get in her office and she looks at me and says, David, I've located your birth parents. Oh my gosh. It it was, it was like a sock in the gut that that did not go
away for the rest of the day. She requested that we write them a letter, send it to her, not not my parents, and and she she was able to give us some notes about the time that between when I was born and when I was placed for adoption. I guess I was a foster child for a couple weeks, and interestingly enough, the home for Unwed mothers had its own delivery room. Oh, wow.
I I I don't know if you've read the girls that went away, but all of their stories have them fully being dropped off at the hospital. Yeah. And and this I was, I was there for a couple of weeks at this particular home for Unwed mothers, so it must have been huge. Yeah, I wonder. Well, you maybe know this question if you did talk to your birth mother, but did I wonder if she got to hold you or or did she get to see you at all? She did not.
She did not. Yeah, so you gave the letter to the search person and then she was going to pass it on or? She passed it on. Maybe about two weeks later, we got a response back. It turned out that my biological mother and father ended up getting married. Oh. Wow. Which is highly unusual, but it's good from the standpoint that no further searching will have to be done to find the father. Right. So. So they sent us some
correspondence. They weren't overly thrilled that we got in contact, but they weren't. They didn't give a straight out veto either. They were the the best word I could think to describe. It would be cordial. And we later found out that at the time my biological father got fired, he was a teacher at a private school and I guess he he, he really got the screws turned to him. So it was sort of a bad time for them to, you know? Oh, this all happened at the
same time. Have this life changing event right So. Oh wow. So did you get to meet them or what? What happened? Did they come around finally? We we corresponded for about 3 months. Then my wife and I went up to their house. They lived in upstate New York and it it it wasn't anything heavy. It was, you know, a lot of casual conversations about sports and things of that nature. The the adoption did come up, but it it it seemed, again, very typical for the Baby Scoop era.
They weren't married. We did find out that they didn't tell anybody in their extended family either, so I was a secret and lie in two families. Did you see any family resemblance when you met them? With my father, yes, he had a very long he had a very long beard and and I was also thrilled to know that he wasn't bald. But I, I, I and through the pictures that they sent, I also saw a resemblance with my biological sister. OK, so you had did have siblings, full siblings.
Right, two full siblings. But they didn't tell them about me for a long time. Oh my gosh. So they didn't know about you growing up? Nobody knew about you growing up. That's probably why they were a little bit taken aback to have you, like, show up. Now you know, 'cause nobody knew. Sure, that played into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how did that feel though, That when you found out that nobody knew about you and then you met them, And I'm assuming that they still kept you a
secret after they met you. Wow did. That feel it was very, it was very disappointing knowing that I had relatives out there. Yeah. But it would be extremely awkward to go over their heads and try to contact them. We we kept on corresponding, I'd say for maybe a year or two. And then when my youngest child was born, he had a lot of health problems. And obviously the priority was that and we sort of just lost touch and we didn't regain touch for a good fifteen 1617 years.
Oh my goodness. Wow. And did you reach out again at that point? My wife, being the excellent Facebook stalker that she is, found out that my biological father had passed. So we decided to send my biological mother some flowers and see if, you know, she would be open to corresponding again. And you know, we got a phone call pretty much right away and she wanted, she wanted to speak to everyone, you know, my children, everything. And then she dropped the bomb.
That, well, I'm going to tell everybody. And I was like, well, that sounds great, but is it really going to happen? And a couple of days later, my wife got a Facebook friend request from my biological sister So that that opened everything up. Yeah. So obviously it was your biological father that was kind of keeping that barrier up between the family and you. And it's like didn't sound like your your birth mother wanted it that way. I I think it was more my birth mother.
Really. But to be honest, I'm not totally sure. It's just interesting that she opened the floodgates after he passed and you, you know, like came back and so almost made it sound like the dad, your father, your father was the one that was kind of keeping wanting to keep the secret. Yeah, she she had alluded to the fact that she wanted to keep keep me a secret, but she never really quite came right out and say it said it. So I I really don't know exactly what the dynamic was between
them. Yeah, so then once she told everyone what what did that? What were they thinking? I mean, were your siblings mad that they didn't know about you or? They were extremely upset. The downright angry my biological sister said that, you know, her son could have had cousins with my kid, but you know, it never did. Yeah. So what was that like, being a secret and then all of a sudden not being a secret? What's that like for you? Quite overwhelming to say the least.
But it was interesting finding out, you know chorus first. Corresponding with I, I have both a full brother and a full sister corresponding with them, seeing the ways that we're we're like things of that nature. And I also have a biological uncle who I've gone, I've grown very close to and you know, it was great to meet him and his wife and I have a cousin, not a cousin, but a niece with them also, so. And do they live close? Are you guys able to see?
Unfortunately, no. There's a lot of geographical distance, but you know, we we frequently text, exchange birthday presents, things like that, and make a lot of jokes about the the similarities between us. My biological sister and I both doused all our food with ketchup. You know, it's it's those little things. But still to us adopt these it, it means a lot. It does. Is your birth mother still alive?
She passed last year. I I got to spend some end of lifetime with her, which I really treasured. Not a lot of adoptees get that kind of opportunity. No, I'm surprised that they didn't. Tell you. I'm surprised they didn't tell you that when your your birth father passed. Of course you were still a secret back then, I guess, but nobody called to tell you. You know, your birth mom didn't tell you or anything that that he had passed. No, didn't. Didn't hear a thing.
Yeah. So how your relationship with your siblings obviously is pretty good, and you said that you were seeing some similarities. Isn't that the weirdest thing? Like when you see even just the way somebody talks or the inflections in their voice or the way they move when they talk, and it's just like you've never seen that your entire life. And then it's so weird how that stuff can be biological and you you recognize it. And it's just like, wow, I do
that too. Very. Much so. It's so crazy, 'cause, you know, you don't have that mirroring at all, ever. And then all of a sudden it's like, what? So weird. I know I laughed like my birth mother. We had a lot of the same body movements and things, so it was kind of funny. And we would, we would notice that in each other and we'd just start laughing, like, you know, we'd see it in each other and we'd just laugh. Just kind of interesting.
So you were talking about your biological uncle that you're close to, and he had kind of a strange request of you, I think, that you were telling me a little bit about. That's right. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll try to. I'm not exactly sure how to start this story, so bear with me. My paternal, My paternal grandfather was an Episcopalian priest. My paternal grandmother had issues with anxiety, depression,
things of that nature. He took a position at a church in the Finger Lakes region of New York, and it kind of pulled my grandmother away from all her friends and her support system at his old church. And it was kind of a vicious circle for her. And unfortunately, she eventually took her own life. She was buried at the cemetery near the church in that town, just just as a side note.
I actually made a pilgrimage up there a few years back and noticing her date of death, that I was the only grandchild she had at that time. Anyway, my grandfather went on, you know, with his life and eventually he died and was buried in his hometown in Clinton, Canada. My uncle desperately wants to have my grandmother's cremates exhumed, and he requested that I bring them from Geneva, NY to Clinton ON. Oh, wow.
Which is something I don't think a lot of adoptees would ever have the experience of. Exactly. Is that going to happen? Yeah, I I want to get it done quick because if something should happen to my uncle, I have absolutely no legal authority to get anything done. Yeah, so I I the project would be dead in the water. Yeah, so that's their. Son, I don't have to tell you or anybody. I'm sorry. That was their son. The the uncle.
Is that their son? OK, so he's probably the last living child or whatever that could do anything. Correct. I don't. I don't have to tell you or anybody else out there that the legal privileges that we have or adoptees are like slim and none so that. Pretty zero. Oh my gosh. So but you are going to do it sounds like. Yes, it's it. It's just a matter of when and I I hope it's more sooner than later. Yeah, wow.
That would be. I don't even know how I would feel doing that like or being asked to do that. That's kind of, I know, like an honor to be asked to do that. And you know. Right. And and I'm looking forward to going, you know, to the place of my grandfather's birth, you know, maybe taking in some of the the sites or wherever he was born to see if you know things of that nature. It's it's a very unusual thing though. Yeah. So I want to talk a little bit about the fog.
And it sounded like you came out of the fog a little bit at that high school game. It kind of started, you know, started there, and then you didn't revisit it until maybe you said you're first born, you know, was born again. Do you consider yourself out of the fog? Do you do you even use that term? I consider myself out of the fog now. I think growing up and not being able to talk about it, I was in.
Do you remember when Rudolph, Hermie and Yukon were floating on the ice and Yukon said boy fog's thick as peanut butter. I think that was me. I think I was in the fog more deeply than most people, and it took me to my adult life to completely get out of it. Yeah, and what helped you get out of it? Just the search alone and and you know, finding your biology, biology or what? What do you think? That had a lot to do with it. Reading books written by others in the adopted triad was a huge
help. Reading The Primal Wound, seeing how you know, a lot of other adoptees were feeling the same kind of feelings that I was feeling both growing up And presently Verrier makes a statement somewhere, I think in the introduction that adoptees represent 2% of the population, but 30 to 40% of the of the the population in, you know, juvenile detention centers and and things of that nature.
So it was, it was very reassuring to gain that kind of knowledge and realize, you know, I'm not alone here. The things I'm feeling are valid. So you weren't terrified to read that book, like a lot of? The topies are ignorance is bliss. I I kind of went into it with, you know, no expectations and I just couldn't put it down. That's cool. So you brought up Nancy Varier's book and you know the Primal Wound. So do you think that we can heal
from the Primal Wound? Yes. Whether or not you can do it completely, I don't know, but I think there are steps where you can definitely make it easier to heal on yourself. Yeah. And just and is there anything else that you wanted to talk about in your story that we didn't cover? I I think that's about it. One thing I'd like to mention is that my uncle, who I'm close to, was the officiant at my daughter's wedding. Oh, wow. And I don't think that comes up a lot in adoptee circles either.
Yeah. So that's cool. Well, I'm so glad that you had like a, you know, a happy reunion and that it was pretty successful, it sounds like because we don't obviously, you know, we don't hear that very often. Yeah, very true. Yeah, So in closing, what would you like struggling adoptees to know? 7 words You are not alone.
You have resources. Those are two things I didn't have when I was growing up. So I I I think it's wonderful to have, you know podcasts like this and you know books and you know adoptee based therapies, you know, go out, educate yourself, you're not alone. And one other thing I'd like to mention, I think you touched on this in one of your previous podcasts. I'd really like us adoptees not to shoot inside the tent, especially on social media.
Let's try to have a little bit of, you know, understanding and empathy, even if your situation is a little bit different than somebody else's. We all have that one big thing in common, and let's try not to forget that. Yeah, exactly. That is so huge, so huge. And you see it all the time. And I just, you know, you have to pick and choose what you say on social media because you can
quickly become the target. But but yeah, you see that a lot and it's it's really sad that we can't all just come together and accept that all our journeys are different and how we react to those journeys are different and it's OK. Like it, you know, it doesn't matter that you have a different opinion than me. It's not going to hurt me. You know, that's just, yeah, just your opinion from from the vantage point and the life that you live.
So just have some compassion for for all of us and our journeys. But yeah, that it's so important. So thank you for saying that and thank you for coming on. Mind your own karma and being a brave male and coming on it. Was wonderful to be here. Thank you so much. Wow, David Lang really did hit the lottery. I mean, he got great adoptive parents.
He finally got to have a great reunion with his full biological siblings and parts of his biological family, and those two things are pretty rare in adoptee circles. But I think the thing that hit me most about David's story is that he was kept a secret from his entire family, even after he contacted his biological mother and father who had been together all this time, and they wanted to continue that secret after
they met him. And that situation happens so often to adoptees where they're put in a position to not be able to talk to their biology, their siblings. And it brings up so many questions like, do I have a right to go around my biological parents and do it anyway? Because those are my siblings that I want to get to know, and they don't even know about me. And I see this scenario happen over and over and over again to adoptees.
So many times the adoptee has to wait for someone to pass away before we feel the freedom to be able to pursue biological relationships and to finally get our questions answered. And again, I just think it's another thing that adoptees have to deal with that people don't understand or even think about. So thank you, David, for coming on the show and telling us your adoption story. It's so important to get the
male perspective. And I hope more males come forward and want to tell their stories because there are men out there that need to hear that it's OK to have feelings about being adopted and it's OK to talk about it. And the more men come forward, the more permission you're giving for other men to come forward. So thank you again David, and if you are wanting to come on the podcast, you can send me an e-mail at Mind Your own karma@gmail.com. You can become part of the karma
crew on Mind Your Own karma.com. Also, if you are struggling with adoption trauma, go to somatichealingjourneys.com where you can learn about a new, innovative and very effective therapy that can help you recover and heal. And like David said, it is possible to heal from the primal wound. That's it for today's episode. And as always, take what you need and leave what you don't. And always remember to mind your own karma. I'll see you next time.