Welcome to the Open Adoption Project. We're the Nelsons. I'm Shaun. And I'm Lanette. And we are excited to be back with more episodes for our celebration of National Adoption Month. Yeah, we hope that the things that we share this month, typically about three episodes a week, will help you in your observation of and recognition of National Adoption Month. Yeah, we're really grateful for the opportunity to be sharing different perspectives and opinions
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If you're interested in getting more adoption related content in your inbox. So go on over to openadoptionproject.org and click on newsletter to sign up. Hi, everyone. I'm Alicia Gallagher, Director of Communications at the Open Adoption Project. Today, I'm joined by Julie McGew, an adoptee and author of Twice a Daughter in a New Memoir Called Belonging Matters. She was adopted with her twin sister at three weeks old through a close adoption in the United States.
In her books, she chronicles her experiences as an adoptee, as well as the circumstances that initiated her journey to eventually find her birth family. Julie, thank you so much for being here with us. Thanks for having me. And did I get all those details right? It was you were adopted at three weeks old. That's correct. We were adopted at three weeks old and we were full term twins. So my mom had her hands full trying to take care of two little babies.
Yes, that's a lot. So I had the great fortune of reading your book Belonging Matters and really appreciated your insights on what it's like to be an adoptee searching for identity and belonging. And I'm wondering for listeners if you could share a brief overview of your adoption story. Sure. So my twin sister and I were the first adopted kids in our family. Then two years later, my brother was adopted also through Catholic charities.
And then as often happens, my parents had three biological kids. So I grew up in a blended family in a good sense. And it was a very loving environment, great family values. And I never I mean, I thought about searching for my birth parents. But at the same time, I knew how my adoptive parents would react to it. They they seemed very supportive. We always knew we were adopted. And then at 48, I was sent for a breast biopsy. And my husband really influenced my decision to see what I could learn.
I'm from a closed adoption, which means I was not given any information about my birth family, their health history, my background, nothing. Closed adoption in the state of Illinois was changing. The rules were changing. So in 2011, original birth records, we could have access to them. In my case, though, the original birth record was not much help. I quickly found out that my birth mother used an alias on my original birth record, which was perfectly legal.
I know that sounds surprising, but perfectly legal. And my birth father's name was not on my OBR, which meant I had to find her first and ask her for his name. So there were a lot of there were a lot of obstacles to face. My birth mom did not originally want any contact with my sister and I. And she eventually changed her mind. But a judge had to get involved. And because I had this this worry about breast cancer, I didn't actually end up getting breast cancer.
But there were a lot of other health issues I was having at the time. So the judge got involved. She got worried. We established contact. And once that happened, I learned that my adoptive mom was not happy with my search. So I had a lot of I had a lot of obstacles I had. But the support of my twin sister through the whole thing, which really, you know, I can't say enough for that growing up with a full sibling.
That's a real luxury that most adoptees don't have. And I treasure that relationship with my sister. Yeah, I want to ask a little bit about that, because you're right. Most people don't have a built in friend who experiences adoption with them, especially an infant adoption. So has her, did you and her have a similar experience in terms of what it was like growing up, because I know with my siblings some of us have different narratives of what family life was like.
Were there any differences in terms of your experience as an adoptee and her experience as an adoptee. Well, we shared a room. My family was not well off so everybody was doubled up, and there was probably nothing we didn't talk about in the secrecy of our room, where I, we, we thought we were fraternal but then we subsequently found out through DNA testing
that we're identical so we share similar mindsets, we, we look a lot alike. Our relationship is a lot, I would call it about passenger driver situation that I'm fine with giving her the lead sometimes and sometimes I take it back and often we have not a lot of conversation we we just get each other. So, the adoption search she's like yeah of course. Yeah, we need to go down this path and there were times when she was working full time and I was a full time mom so I did most of the leg work,
and I think once you are the one that's doing all the homework, you have more invested in it. And so there were times when I really took things hard, and she just say, come on. I'll take the next step, you know it was really very seamless and my husband was very supportive to so like anything you don't really know how something's going to turn out and, and then it does. There's a crazy part in my, my first book twice a daughter, where I do get the name from my birth mom for my birth father.
It's not completely correct. She didn't give me completely the right name. And so we had to do a little work around. Ultimately, the, the guy that we sent an outreach letter to, we weren't quite sure if it was him or not. And he responded. Similarly to my birth mom, like, I don't want anything to do with this. But he did give me my medical history, and his sister had died breast cancer before she was 40. So it sent up a lot of flags. Yeah, and I had to pursue it as far as I could.
And he did me a big favor. He told my half brother and sister about my twin sister and I, and my brother called me on the phone and like a lot of those conversations. First thing he wanted to know was, what do you want. Right, because that they think you want something and you just want connection.
And you certainly want people to be a little more welcoming than sometimes they are. But he, we did the, you know, who do you know thing, and it turned out that we had a startling connection, like, true God moment. And once we figured out how we were related, and that our paths had probably cost numerous times in life.
The whole world fixed itself, my issues with my mom resolved itself, he, you know, pretty much joined in on our family and I never did meet my birth father because he died suddenly but a lot of things worked out. And those are some of the conversations that I share in essays in the second book, Belonging Matters, those, those difficult conversations with my adoptive mom about the search.
There's one about my difficult conversations with my birth mom. She was not very willing to expand the circle of who knows. Yeah, like a lot of birth moms, they, she had not told anybody. She grew up in societal shame about being an unwed mother, not getting married, and also the shame of relinquishing two daughters so she had a lot of issues to work through.
And we did eventually get through a lot of those. So I'm still in relationship with her which is a good thing she's 90 years old. Wow, and considering how rough things started that's amazing what a blessing to have that still unfolding. I want to ask about a couple of those difficult conversations because I thought it was interesting the way that you described them in your book that, let's see if I can find it here. You said that when you reached out to your birth mom.
Your response was also defensive and I don't want anything to do with that woman. So, to have that secondary rejection from both of your mothers. How, what I mean did that deter you at all in continuing this pursuit like what, how did you cope with those feelings of rejection again. Yeah, those feelings were so foreign to me. I have four children and I couldn't imagine treating a child of mine in that way.
One of the things that happened though was that I got involved with a post adoption support group through Catholic charities, and those groups I still still go to them they're made up of the triad so adoptive parents birth parents and adoptees, and there were enough birth mothers in that group who shared, you know their feelings and their thoughts and we all share our stories.
And they really helped me a lot to understand where my birth mom was coming from. It wasn't about me. It was about what happened to her, and it's almost like going into a movie, and the movies half over. That's what happened in the first part of the movie so you can't really judge what's what's the part that you walk in on and, and that's so much the truth for, you know, birth relatives entering their life.
There's things that you have to learn about each other, and it took a long time for her to soften. And then finally, I think because of her age. She was pretty well set with her personality she's very secretive. Her husband, I this another essay from belonging matters, her husband had a fall, and she didn't tell my sister and I about it, and we had developed a relationship with him to.
She was my cousin. And, you know, I had a difficult conversation to have with early, you know, why didn't you tell me that he fell, he broke his neck. It didn't have a good outcome. And she said you know his family doesn't know about you and your sister. And not so I didn't want you to show up on announced, and that to your, to your question, you know, how do you deal with those kinds of their, their insulting, honestly, when people treat you that way.
And the work that I did in the support group helped me to realize, it's not me. It's not me she doesn't want in her life she just doesn't want this complication. And that's what I said to her I said, is it too complicated for you for us to get involved and she says it really is, it really is so being able to frame those questions, thankfully from work with the social worker and the support group allowed me to understand her position, and for our relationship to continue.
But there were moments where I was, I don't need anybody to treat me like this. What's this about, I mean I didn't. I hadn't ever been treated like that. I think that's the theme with adoptees, many of them, many of us walk into those situations, and you have to be prepared. I'm often grateful that I didn't try to do any of these searches. Before I was an adult, because I think life experiences, prepare you so much better.
I think I would have done well at any of what I tackled. If I was a teenager, or in my 20s. Did you have to go through something similar with your adoptive mom to understand where she was coming from, and why she responded the way that she did about not wanting to meet your birth mom. I had a lot more patience with her because I was raised by her I grew up in the atmosphere, I'd lost a sister when I was a teenager.
And I knew that the fear and her fear was that she was going to lose two more daughters. And that doesn't make any sense I was almost 50 at the time, so you would have thought that we would have lived experience but yes, I knew what I was working with and I was very patient with her.
And I just kept proving that nothing had changed. And I think over time, her realizing that nothing was going to change that this was the information I was finding was actually making me a more complete person that I needed to know, not only my medical history, but my background, and why, at some point, you know all adoptees want to know why, what, who, and what, and why. And the why is probably one of the biggest ones.
Why. And of course, when you're a twin, you sort of realize that, well, maybe two babies were just too many in my birth mom's case that wasn't the situation it was that my birth father wouldn't marry her. So, she didn't, she actually didn't even know she was pregnant with twins, such being the prenatal care for unwed mothers back in 1959.
Wow, that you share some experiences in your memoir that I want to go over that relate to this that with either with either by yourself or with your twin sister. So, it's this narrative that you're looking for, like, you're imagining these scenarios of why your birth mom might have made that decision so in the absence of a story from your adoptive family, you're creating stories of your own and, and you
you're lying awake at night and things just flood your, your thoughts, your. Yeah, I think those fantasies that we call them fantasies. I think those fantasies that my sister and I made up. In reality I wish that they would have played out because I like them a lot. My sister and I had figured that our birth father was the captain of the football team or birth mom was the hot little cheerleader and they were in love and, you know, one thing
and another and they wanted to go to college and so this is what happened. And, boy, did we get slammed when we found out through our non identifying information in our adoption file. They were 26 years old, and co workers and so they were adults when they made this choice it was, it was, it wasn't what I expected at all. Another thing that came out of that non identifying information was my natural hereditary, my birth
father was one quarter Chippewa. So he grew up outside an Indian reservation in Minnesota. Wow, and I'm still trying to work with that one, because it's, you know, to be denied. Some of your, your history is one thing, but to completely miss out on identifying with the Native American culture.
I guess we're Irish and German, and, and I do have that in my biological history but that one, you know, I was hoping I was hoping that that was going to be there because I identified with it, but the Native American I do feel cheated that I didn't know anything about that. And it's funny you get to this age, middle age and that's not something that's easily absorbed into your psyche.
Yeah, let's, let's talk a little bit about that that not many adults have this experience that recalibrate them, or that kind of forces them to tell a different story about themselves or to see themselves differently. I think it happens on smaller scales more common is as life changes but for an adoptee it's this foundational shift of my story who I am, where I came from. Can you describe a little bit more about what that feels like.
Well, my husband and I, because we have four children and they all look a little bit different. We called it the mystery gene. Right, so we made a little bit of a joke about it, and it, it turns out that my birth father was a college athlete. I have several kids that were college athletes. So some of it some of the learning about what was in my history was exciting. This made sense this athleticism that came down through my birth father through me to my kids.
That was really really interesting to me. Certainly the medical history that we found was formative and and definitely helpful for my kids. But I've had to completely rethink myself. Since I found all this information, I mean, I went from a breast biopsy to a full out search. And now I'm an author. I've become this whole other person as a result of walking down this path and I think that, you know, that's one of the wisdoms that I would pass on to people.
You really don't really know what's in front of you, you just follow your path where it goes, and sometimes it's a good thing and sometimes it's not, I think, the benefits of what happened to me. The far outweigh the D ducks, the rejections that you and I spoke about earlier. They make you a little, they make you a softer person. I like to think I was empathetic before but now I am like super empathetic to the person that's marginalized in the crowd.
There's certainly a lot of that in our culture. And then I'd like to think that other people are becoming more aware by all the conversations we have about marginalizing people.
I've heard things like that said before that when hard times or hard things happen that it can break you or it can break you open, and then you can come back together in a new way. And then, because you're different you see the world differently you see different people and you reach out to them in different ways so it's I'm glad that that's been your experience because that might not always be the case.
So, at the beginning of your memoir you also describe a story where you feel a little bit of embarrassment when you're when you overhear your parents friends mentioning your adoption Do you mind if I just read one of the verbs. Okay, we pull it up here. Beyond those check ins, you know, check ins just about like the adoption chat.
Yes, it sounded like it was sort of a, an annual thing just a sporadic well not quite annual but a little uncomfortable every time it happened because I basically I felt like my parents are asking us if we were happy. And what do you say. Right. Yes, we're happy. Okay, yeah, I feel like that conversation was something social workers told them that they should be doing. It was so full instead of it just being woven into every day. Yeah, exactly.
So, you say that beyond those check ins our adoption was rarely brought up occasionally when my folks entertained at home one of their friends would remark, you girls have gotten so tall why I remember when your folks brought you home from St. Vincent's these adoption
I had a heated flush to my cheeks I didn't like being different, or having it recognized in such a public way. I wanted to fit in to belong when my parents friends reminded me that I came from another set of parents, my face and neck flushed a flamingo pink.
I love the visual of that because I think it's embarrassment is a relatable feeling but for it to come from your story and who you are and it feels invasive, I almost, and I wonder if you could say more about that just about the trying to find comfort or trying to find a subtleness in your story while still being pulled in different directions as to like people seeing you a certain way. Yeah, I think, you know, again, that conversation was a sign of the times.
And certainly, you know, it was coming from my parents generation they were looking at it as a happy thing, you know, your parents are so happy they've adopted you remember this occasion, they're looking at it as a happy occasion, and certainly it was. But from my end. I didn't know anyone else that was adopted besides my twin sister and my brother. So I didn't have conversations with my friends about it.
Very rarely, there's a sleepover conversation that I share in the book to that was also very uncomfortable. And so, when that conversation is brought upon you and you're not the one initiating. You don't have time to react and over time I developed a narrative, you know how to react to that. But I was very comfortable hiding behind how unique I was because I was a twin. When that got stripped away. And it was my uniqueness was about being adopted. I wasn't equipped to handle it.
I didn't know other kids we never talked about, you know how do you handle this conversation whereas I feel like today with open adoption, celebrating a kids adoption day. I feel like the conversation is more open and honest, and a child develops their own idea about it their own narrative about it and I think it is a little bit easier than my day where adoption really was still a stigma for the adoptive
parents it meant that they had infertility issues. And for adoptees it meant either, you know, it was an unwed pregnancy which meant we were illegitimate which was a big label attached to adoptees back then, and it was uncomfortable, always uncomfortable. And at family reunions to you talk about feeling like I know these people but I'm not really one of you, even though it sounds like everybody was perfectly welcoming and kind and and familiar enough.
Can you say a little bit more about. Yeah, I think that that. That essay became very real to me, I mean I as a kid I don't remember why I felt uncomfortable at those reunions I certainly had my twin sister with me, a playmate but my birth mom has made a point of never inviting my twin sister and I to any family reunions,
I was always on the outside of it. And I think that realization that here I was a biological relative and I didn't get a ticket to the family reunion, whereas back as a child, I was legally part of that family, but I didn't feel the connection to them and I knew I wasn't supposed to be there. You know what I mean, I could have been in a different family at a different reunion. So the two experiences crossed over for me, and I think that that is fundamental for all adoptees this.
Where do I belong, where do I feel like I belong. I was actually I was surprised I hadn't heard it described this way that you described yourself as a holdout on your adoptive parents that you, I was. It's such a painful admission to. Yeah, so, so can you just for people who aren't familiar with the essay like that you just needed, you needed time to fully accept I really I blame close to the adoption for this completely this closed adoption
system it's, I think, a big failing on a lot of different levels, besides not having any history or information, but I think, you know, a lot of close adoptees will say, kept thinking they come back for me, or that they couldn't find me and so I had to find them again so there's all those little fantasies about that, and I think that idea or that fantasy that, you know, they'll find me someday or I'll find them someday.
I was holding out on my parents, and I feel that they got chipped and I feel that I got chipped, and it wasn't until I found all the information found all the cast of characters knew what they were all about that I kind of what.
Yeah, these are my parents I want them to be my parents and I want to shame that I kind of held back on them and that's not, I don't blame myself for that. I mean, I was a child, but I do blame the system of closed adoption for creating that tenuous issue within adoptees. So you're saying you were almost 50 before you decided before you fully embrace and recognize that you had been holding out. Yes.
Yeah, that is correct. I mean, that would that probably takes a lifetime to recognize because you don't. You might not have even known that was in there until you do have all the information and there's a little closure. Yeah, yeah and my relationship with my adoptive mom is very very strong. She's not a perfect person on neither am I. But I respect the family values and the family building that they, they worked very very hard on.
Do you share with her, your experiences with your birth with your birth mom. So, my mom was a stinker about my birth mom for a long time, and my birth mom was in my life for four years before my mom said, I would like to write her a letter. Okay, so I gave her an address she wrote her a letter. My birth mom wrote back. And it was a one and done thing. I think she felt like she checked the box. But my mom is 90 so both of my mothers are 90, and my mom's got a some memory issues, age related.
And she has forgotten some of that. So, every once in a while, I'll have her out to Panera for a cup of coffee and a sandwich and she'll say, how's your birth mom, and I go. Wow. Okay, we're going to have this conversation today at Panera, and she's doing fine. She's, you know, she's like you she's 90 and she's got some, some issues with osteoporosis but she's doing good that's really nice of you to ask mom, so go figure.
Wow, what a surprise. Yes. Well, just the way you're talking about your adoptive mom your birth mom, you have a lot of empathy and understanding for why they responded the way they did why they might have the reactions that they did. Do you think most of that came from your adoption support group or more like what do you think contributed to your openness and acceptance of their points of view. I think there's several factors I studied psychology in college.
I'm a very reflective person by nature, probably serious. I did a lot of journaling through my high school years, I still do keep a gratitude journal and try to look at the positive side of life, but I do credit that support group for giving me the 360% effective about adoption. I think the writing, not just the journaling but the writing things out and trying to determine what I think about things is very helpful.
I think that some of the essays that I write about adoption, other adoptees identify with. And that's important to me. I mean that that's my audience that's who I write for is people like me that are still struggling with this at our age. If you had, if you could go back and have a conversation with your adoptive mom about any of this if you could influence her in any direction of of how to support you how to help you build a story about who you are.
You know we had a big family and I think that there wasn't always time. My mom was short on time with six kids. And I feel that if this situation was happening now there would be childhood support groups, getting us together with other adoptees would have been very helpful. Whether there would have been a lot of conversation, I don't know, but just the idea that we were not alone in this experience would have been helpful.
And, and I, and I credit open adoption there is a lot more exposure to the conversation to other kids that are like you, then there was in my era, and I think that that is definitely a bonus for the open adoption system. Yes, I agree actually my, my six year old. I'm a foster mom and we're, we're on the path to adoption right now and my six year old just asked if I have if she has cousins you know my my from my family that are adopted.
And so are there other people who have adopted or am I the only one. And I had actually forgotten that she had mentioned that until you said this but really she's looking for this connection like, am I the only one are there other people like me. And even if there aren't in my family, there are people in our community that she could connect with just so there's not that feeling of isolation.
Yeah, I, I sit on a board for an adult small adoption agency in Chicago, and this summer we did a family get together, and so the adoptive parents brought their kids and in a bouncy house and face painting and I think that was as helpful for the adoptive parents
as it was for the kids, just to look around and see how these kids all look like me, and we're all in this same situation together and it's now it's friend building and family building all at the same time and I wish I would have had some of that in my era. But I had a twin, so I did have a twin that is such. Yeah, so unique that, especially that because siblings siblings are adopted then they have each other but that's later in life that twin dumb from the beginning what that's so great.
How about for your brother who was, you said he's also adopted. Has he been interested at all in pursuing like a search for his birth family, what's his experience. Well, he's two years younger than my sister and I and I would say we were a little pack growing up.
Naturally so because we had the adoption thing in, in common but I went through down my search, and he came with me to many Catholic charities post adoption support group meetings took him two years of going to those meetings with me before he decided to go down the search and he did find his birth mom. Unfortunately, she was ailing with Alzheimer's so he never really got to meet her buddy met his four sisters. And so it was a very good path for him to.
That's great, and they did not know about him until that reunion. They didn't know. They didn't know. And also interesting. When my younger brothers and sisters. When I told them that I was going down this path to find my birth relatives. They were so supportive, and I worried about that. And they said, you know, good for you you deserve to know where you come from and why and we totally support you and that that's a wonderful thing so I, I had a book launch party couple weeks ago in Chicago.
And the brother that I found through my adoption search came to the party, and my brother that I grew up with, who's one of my parents biological kids was also there. And, as I mentioned because I didn't want to spoil the story of twice a daughter, the two of them had already known each other before they found out I was their sister.
And so I have a picture of my two brothers standing next to each other, and you know I'm the common link, and they get such a hoop out of the fact that we are related, we're related because of Julie and Jenny so life's life's got its twist and turns doesn't it. Yes it does and you've done so well do you have advice for people who, especially adoptees that might want to journal but it's kind of overwhelming I'm sure where do we even start.
So what, you know, where do people get started with with journaling their experiences. There's two good ways that to journal first thing in the morning, and I like to journal at the end of the day, kind of a gratitude journal in the sense that I, because a lot of days are not great days but just to pick out a handful of things that happened during the day that I'm grateful for. And it's amazing how good you feel.
I read somewhere that fear and joy cannot are in the same part of the brain. So if you're experiencing one emotion, you, it sort of obliterates the other one. And if you can concentrate on the things that are joyful, you sort of forget about the other things that kind of detract from the experience so I recommend journaling at the end of the day and and free writing, I mean sometimes you don't even really know
about something and all of a sudden there it is out on the page and you're like, where did that come from. And it's a journal of a kernel of truth that yeah really is meaningful so you don't have to journal every day, but three, four times a week is for 15 minutes, that's manageable.
Yeah, I also love to journal when I was younger and I recently went through some of mine and found that I had started one on a road trip, and nothing was happening and so minute by minute, I wrote down what was going on, I must have been eight or nine,
and so I have like 914 am. We're eating breakfast 917 my baby sister is crying 918 their cows like just everything and so at the time that felt so important that now I know what it's like but now it's, it's funny but also actually does offer insight about the dynamics in the car and what was happening in my life. So yeah, nothing is too small. Nothing is too small to write about, I agree. I found some of my high school journals.
About 10 years ago when I was moving, and I had a giggle like you did just did about yourself, because I had one must have had one of those pens you know that's got like five different colors and you click color down, because the whole page was like one sentence and one other click new color for the next sentence and I thought, Oh my god I must have gotten that pen in my Christmas stocking or something.
Try out all the features. Yeah, it's fun to look back and laugh at yourself. Yes, that's awesome. Well is there anything else that you would want to talk about any stories from your book or topics that you would want to dive deeper into before we end. There's an essay in the book called the happiest moment and I'm bringing this up because my daughter just finished reading the book.
And she, she called me and she said, I able that was my favorite essays what she said, a friend of mine and I had, and I had been out to lunch, and she asked me this question what was your happiest moment and I really gave me pause. And, you know, most people say, the day I got married or the day I had children. The day, you know, I got the job I wanted or whatever those are predictable things.
And I knew that one of the happiest moments, not. It was right up there, among everything was the day that I talked to my birth mom on the phone for the very first time, because it had been 50 years in the making, wanting to hear her voice, talk to her, and it was a very, very big moment and it lived up to its anticipation so it might be a question, all the listeners can ask at Thanksgiving dinner next week.
And I'll come to the table and ask what was your happiest moment I think that will learn things about the teenagers in the room and the old people in the room and it might be more interesting conversation than what's happening in politics. I agree, and if the conversations about politics inspire fear like you were talking about let's not do that and go with something joyful, your, your happy moment I love that idea.
Well, thank you so much for sharing your story with us for writing this wonderful memoir, where can our listeners find your book. You can go to Amazon certainly a bookshop.org is where I like to steer people because it benefits the indie bookstores. Sounds good and again that's her newest memoir that came out just this month is called belonging matters. Julie Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for having me Alicia.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the open adoption project. Yeah, we're so grateful to be able to share a lot of content this month, November 2023 for national adoption month. Yeah, so we just would love to remind you to subscribe to our newsletter, if you have not done that yet. You can go to open adoption project.org and click on newsletter, and there's a subscription form right there.
Also connect with us on social media we're on Instagram and Facebook at open adoption project. Yeah, thank you so much for being here and learning with us as we just keep talking and learning about all of these different nuances of adoption. Thank you.