From Control to Acceptance: Parenting Through Grief with Jessica Fein - Ep 177

Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional space to delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm Beth Syverson. I'm an adoptive mom of an engaging and bright 20-year-old son, Joey. I'm walking beside him while working on my own personal growth and healing. I'm also a certified coach helping seekers who want to move forward in their life.

Joey and I are committed to helping anyone impacted by adoption, and we want to help the general public understand adoption's complexities better too. I don't often have other adoptive parents on as guests, but this episode's guest, Jessica Fine, has a very unusual story to share with us. Jessica Fine's memoir is called Breathtaking, and it is certainly that.

Her memoir and her story is breathtaking. And in it, she writes eloquently about the love of her family that was formed by adoption and the loss of her middle child, Dahlia, to a rare genetic disorder when she was 17. So welcome to Unraveling Adoption, Jessica. I'm so glad you're here.

Yes. And first, oh my god, I'm so sorry about Dahlia's death. And your family's story is just gut-wrenching. And I just want to acknowledge that right at the front. Like, ugh. Ugh, yes. And we are all, all of us listening, all of us at Unraveling Adoption are just holding you and your family in our hearts. And we appreciate you sharing your story so we can learn from your experiences and understand, you know, like we say, the complexities of adoption. And your life is complex and

then you add adoption onto it as well. So you've got like many complexities happening. Many, many ways. You got the hard version of this game of life. Yeah. Well, why don't you just tell us about your family's adoption story before Dahlia, before you knew she was ill. Just tell us how you all became a family in the first

Okay, great. I'd love to. Thank you again for having me. Well, first of all, we dated for 10 years before we got married. So we met in college and we, I guess, really wanted to be sure, but we waited 10 years and we got married in our late 20s. thought we would become parents the quote unquote conventional way. And we started down that path and our efforts became increasingly creative as, you know, the entire Boston scientific medical community became involved with us as

we went through our fertility journey. And we spent five years on that journey. And boy, there were a lot of twists and Yes, absolutely. In fact, there was a lot that was in this current book that didn't end up making it in, but yeah, that's for sure a book in and of itself. And so what happened was around year four and a half or something of that journey, we decided to pursue adoption

simultaneously. And during that time, so we were in our kind of final throws, our last attempts with the gestational carrier and the whole thing, but we were also beginning to research adoption. And we started to really fall in love with the idea of adoption. And the more we learned about it, the more we felt that that was the path for us. So even though we were still doing the fertility stuff, it became so much less weighted, so much less gruesome, because it was like

this thing we were doing on the side. And we loved the idea. At the time, what we thought of was adoption is a certainty. We know we will end with a child. And I remember it felt so freeing to me to say, OK, whatever happens, I know for sure by 35 I'll be a mom. Because all these years before, it was like, is this going to work? Is that going to work? Oh, it's working. No, wait, we lost. You know what I mean? And so this idea that,

OK, something is in our control. And it's so funny to me because really nothing, of course, was in our control. But all of a sudden, it felt like we were taking control because we were making this decision that was going to end with a child. We knew I can really relate to that because we also struggle with infertility and it's such a numbers game statistics and how many follicles and oh lord, it's so terrible. It's just, if no one's gotten through

infertility, it's brutal. It's really brutal. And then no one in the infertility community helps you with your grief if you decide to stop that path. They're not saying, oh, well, let me help you with that. They're like, no, please come And all the grief along the way, I mean, it is the ultimate roller coaster. You have to believe every time is going to work, otherwise you can't do it. So you believe that every time and

then you're disappointed every time. And then, you know, for those people who achieve pregnancy, but then they lose the pregnancy. I mean, for us again, you know, we just kept getting more and more complex with what we were trying and it Yeah. One of my future books is going to be about that whole thing and how it's not serving parents. And especially it, it really harms our adopted kids too, I

think, because we didn't, I don't know about you. I didn't deal with my infertility grief until like now, 20 years later, and it really affects our kids. And so anyway, that is one of my soap boxes I want to get on soon. But I get it, and I get how, wow, adoption. There are so many kids out there that need families. OK, this is going to work. And there's a sense of control, of certainty. And I can totally understand that as an adoptive parent. Like, whew,

this will work. This will work. OK, so go on with your story.

So we felt like, you know, and what I say in the book is, you know, never mind that we were planning on intertwining ourselves with the family across the world that we didn't know. And, you know, we were like, we've got this, we're in control. Because once we decided to adopt, first of all, we became so enthusiastic about it, as I mentioned. And we also decided right away that we were going to do international adoption. That was something my husband and I really just both felt in

our gut. And it's interesting when the two players involved agree so dramatically or so powerfully, you don't really need to examine why, right? It didn't matter. We both agreed. We knew that's what we wanted to do. We were doing it. And we weren't really wed to any one country over another. We explored them all. I had the huge spreadsheet, you know, all the different characteristics in each different

country. And ultimately, we landed on Guatemala because on the spreadsheet that I had made, there were the most checks in the columns that we were looking at, right? And we wanted children who had been in foster care and we wanted younger children and so on and so forth. And again, any little, little seed of perceived control is something we were raising our hand for at that point. So we chose Guatemala. And of course, then

there was a lot happening politically. And we were matched with the child who became our eldest. And we found out about that child at nine months old. Now, I had this whole thing in my mind that we were going to have an infant because there were a lot of infants available. And then everything shut down. So we're now committed to this child in our heads and our hearts, you know, but it was not happening. I mean, time was going on and on and on. So we ultimately brought our

That was a long night. Yeah. Between nine months and 15 months. So yes, that was a long time when we were sending presents and we were writing letters and the whole thing. And at the time, you were not really meant to go see the child ahead of time because especially at that age, you know, you'd want to form an attachment and then you'd leave. So it just didn't make sense. So we brought our first home at 50 months and then we were on a roll. We were like, OK, we've got

this. So we did another two years and then another two years. So we ended up adopting three children. Our final one was in 2007, right before the Guatemala adoptions shut down. I mean, like he came in right at the very end and we had our three babies. And I came from three. My husband came from three. We always wanted three. So we thought, okay,

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. So we had a few blissful years of, you know, baths, bottles, and bedtimes. And, you know, the chaos that we had sought for so long of having a bunch of little ones at home. And then when our middle daughter, our middle child, Dahlia, pretty early on, we brought her home at six months and pretty early on, we started to suspect, or I started to suspect, I should say, that

something wasn't right developmentally. She was having trouble with language and she was a little wobbly and just some different things. And, you know, the mama instinct kicks in and I called an early intervention. And they came to the house and they played all the games with her and did all the things and ended up saying, she's fine. She's on the lower end of average. She'll catch up. Doctors are saying she's going to catch up. Right. Exactly. We don't know what happened in prenatal. We

don't know what happened before you got there. Give her time, give her time. Okay. But

things didn't improve and I felt they were getting more pronounced. So again, brought early intervention into the home. Same thing. Although they were a little less psyched to be at the house time number two, you know. And then I brought them out a third time. That time I had to kind of beg them to come out. And the third time they said, everything's fine. And so this is what I was hearing from doctors and this is what I was hearing from early intervention.

And, you know, I think so many parents can relate to this, no matter how you came to be parents, when you feel there's something that's wrong, and you also are kind of self-conscious. And my being that overly anxious parent, and for sure I had waited so long to become a parent, I felt I could have easily been just overly anxious. But ultimately, by age four, the doctor agreed that we could do a hearing test. Of all things, because our issues had to do with speech and balance, it

was reasonable to think maybe it's something hearing related. So that was our first diagnosis. Dahlia was diagnosed with mild to moderate hearing loss. And this was a condition that would be fixed with hearing aids. Great.

Except that I will say, it's funny now with everything we've been through at the time, I was like, oh my God, hearing aids, you know, and I just, I look back at that version of me now and think about how naive I was, you know, because I thought this was such a big deal that she was going to need hearing aids. But in any event, she got her purple sparkly hearing aids. She was over the moon. She could hear. But there was this big question. Why does she have the hearing loss?

Right. Was there a virus early on? Did something happen early on? Is there something genetic they didn't know? And because she was adopted, we got sent very early on in this journey Yes. And I will say, I know so many families who fight for years to get the genetic testing and have a diagnostic odyssey that takes years and years and years. But because of

the adoption, we got that genetic testing very early on. Very quickly at that point, Dahlia was diagnosed with myoclonic epilepsy ragged red fibers, which is an ultra rare Yeah. In the book, you're like, I remember mitochondria, powerhouse of the cells from eighth grade, and that's about it. And I'm like, where I

That was it. I was like, mitochondria? Do we really need them? How important are they? I was like, can we do a transplant? What does this mean? And the thing about a rare disease is there's not much data to go on. So we couldn't get definitives that I wanted. I wanted to know, what do you mean? What's going to happen? And all we heard was, it's degenerative. I

didn't even really understand what that meant. It's degenerative, but they couldn't tell us what was going to happen other than she will likely be in a wheelchair because she was so wobbly. They knew that the areas where she was having symptoms would most certainly get worse. But even at that, I wanted more certainty. When will she be in a wheelchair? And they couldn't tell us. And they said her hearing will get worse. When, when, when? How worse? And

they just didn't know. They just didn't know. And I will say that later on in Dalia's life, she got a secondary mitochondrial diagnosis. It's very rare to have the two specific ones that she had and that she was only one of six in the world who had been identified with that

Oh, and I know in the book that you had to teach a bunch of medical people about MRF because they had never heard of it and it's so rare and it must be so frustrating to know more about something than the doctors that are supposed to be taking care of your kid. I can't imagine how Yes. And that is really something that's very, very common in the rare disease world. We, as the parent, know nothing when we get the diagnosis and very quickly you

become the expert. Now, as parents, we all know where you're the expert in our children, but we really became the experts in her disease. And because it's so rare and so many medical people knew nothing about it, we would often find ourselves educating even people in the medical field. And that made me so uncomfortable. I was like, oh my God, if I'm the expert, we are all in trouble because I don't even remember. I was the one who didn't know what mitochondria were,

Oh gosh, so frustrating. So frustrating. So how quickly did it, you know, escalate for Dahlia?

So, you know, what happened was really the next four years or so, our lives changed, but they didn't change completely. What I mean by that is she was still in mainstream school. She had an aid, and yes, she ended up with a walker, and then she ended up in a stroller when we were going long distances, and then she did, in fact, end up in that wheelchair. And we did have to keep turning the hearing aids up. And she did take many medications every day, and we

did have PT and OT and all the other things. So yes, it was complicated, but We were mainstream. And, you know, she had what Yeah. But you know what the thing is with degenerative, you're watching. We were trying to like cram as much knowledge and learning into her because we knew things were going to slip away as well. So then when she turned nine, right before her ninth birthday, we went on a family vacation. I mean, even that, the idea that we were able

to go on a family vacation to Florida. And there she caught a cold. All three of our kids had a cold. And the thing with a mitochondrial disease and with so many other diseases, obviously, is that you can turn on and die. We have been told that, but we didn't really know what it meant. And then here she was. We were in Florida with a cold. And I called the doctor at home because she really sounded like, you know, really gunky and, you know, something was going on. I

said, go go to the ER, just see what's going on and whatever. Which I did. And very quickly she developed pneumonia and she was intubated. And things escalated very, very quickly. We got sent to another hospital by ambulance. And I was like, wait a second, what is happening? You know, it was like so fast. Oh, man. Yeah. So she was put in the pediatric intensive care unit. And I will say to our earlier conversation a few moments ago, nobody in that hospital knew what

her disease was. They were Googling. I mean, literally they were like, okay, so I Googled it in and I'm like, oh my God, oh my God, we got to get back to Boston. By the way, my two other kids were still there and now we're admitted in the hospital. My sister came and picked up the others and brought them home, but here we are in the hospital and we just want to get back to Boston. But it's not so easy because when you're intubated, you can't just like get on JetBlue and fly home, right?

We needed a medical jet. Whole big thing trying to fight that That was a fascinating story. Oh, I can't imagine how frustrating that

So frustrating, you know, and then we finally did get back to Boston. And I remember it was a week before her ninth birthday. And the day she was admitted, I remember saying to the doctor, just promise me we'll be home for her birthday. He said, I can't promise you that, but I promise you'll be out of the intensive care unit. Well, we stayed in that intensive care unit for three months. He

was quite wrong. We celebrated her ninth birthday in the hospital. We lived in that pediatric intensive care unit for the next three months and tried so hard to get any kind of improvement. You know, we would get extubated and she'd have to be re-intubated, extubated, re-intubated because her lungs just were losing the ability to function. And ultimately, it became clear to us because the doctors told us, she's not going home without

a tracheostomy. And so for people who don't know, that's when you have a little tube, you have a hole in your neck that's like the size of a dime or something and maybe a quarter and a little tube that goes in and your breathing happens through that tube that bypasses the normal breathing function. So when we left the hospital three months later, Dahlia had a trache which in her case meant, and I'll be clear, it doesn't always, but it often means you can't speak and

you can't eat orally. And that's what it meant for her. She was not able to walk at all anymore. She lost all functionality in that respect. And she needed to be attached to a ventilator to breathe. She couldn't generate enough of that mechanism on her own. So that is when things changed dramatically. That's intense. Now, how much was Dahlia aware

You know, she was very aware at that point. And what's interesting is the trach gave her some immediate relief because she had been working so hard. to try to breathe and her body couldn't do that. So the trach gave her some relief. The other thing is she had lost the ability to swallow. So she needed to be suctioned constantly. And without the trach, that needed to happen in a very painful way where they go up through your nose and down through your throat. The

trach made suctioning very easy. But she was very upset about the feeding tube. She now had a G-tube and all of her meals came through that. And that was the thing for her that was most upsetting.

So at that point, there were a lot of ways. First of all, she could mouth very clearly and she could point. very emphatically, and she could nod her head yes and shake her head no. So we felt we were really able to communicate with her quite well at that point. At points along the way, she also had different devices that helped her communicate. For us, it was always the mouthing that was best. Over time, all of the things I just mentioned faded away. She could not

move at all. At the end, for two years, she couldn't move at all. So there was no pointing or shaking her head or mouthing or anything like that. And that became much, much more challenging, as you can imagine. And so from age 9 to 17, she was what's called an eyes-on patient, meaning myself or my husband or a nurse trained specifically So she didn't aspirate. She just, in case the trach popped out. Also, by the way, P.S., my husband and I were working full-time jobs this whole time out

of the house. And we had two other kids, you know, so it was complicated. It was very, very, very complicated. And the insidious part about it is it was a degenerative disease. So slowly, even that functionality that she had, we watched that

Yeah, that must have been just so hard for everybody involved in your family. And I think about your other kids and just you guys trying to juggle everything, trying to keep everything going and give her the best life possible because you knew it was coming to an end and just all the limitations and struggles. Gosh, my heart just goes out to you. It sounds so, so, so hard. What tools did

Well, first of all, I will say that it was, as you point out, obviously, unbearably hard. There was also a ton of beauty and I don't say that in a Pollyanna way. I say that because Dahlia was kind of orchestrating, conducting this show. And she wanted to be a kid and she wanted to have fun and she wanted to be silly and she wanted to wrestle with her brothers and she wanted to,

you know, and so we followed her lead. And so there was a lot of laughter and there was a lot of, there was a lot of beauty and a lot of joy. And yes, there was also grief and sorrow and anger and frustration and fear and all that other stuff. And they all kind of blended together. It was like a constant blender, you know, and all of that existed,

all of it existed. So that was one thing. Another tool that we used, something really practical and silly, and it sounds silly because it's so easy, was that my husband and I gave each other a night off each week. That was a really important thing for us to have one night during the week when we could each kind of just do whatever we wanted and not be on.

And we actually got that advice from a couple that we were friends with who had one healthy child, but they did that. And we were like, oh my God, Why aren't we doing that? You know, so that was great. And I think we got a lot of strength, the five of us from each other. I mean, it became kind of insular to a certain extent, though, again, going to work was also a survival strategy for me getting out of the house and being able to be the me I had been before.

That was important. And I think also ultimately made me a better caregiver. I faced some judgment for that decision. there were definitely people who felt like, how could you possibly do that? And I felt like it allowed me to be more present when I was home, you know, because I did have that time away as well. And also P.S. Dolly was in school during this. So it made no sense for me to sit home while she was in school.

Yeah, what are you going to do? Yeah, she went to school with a private nurse and then she went to a terrific school. I actually was just there giving a talk yesterday called the Kennedy Day School, which is on the grounds of Franciscan Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass. And so There, they were very accustomed to very serious medical conditions, and

she had a beautiful experience there. And she was there really, I mean, the last two years of her life were COVID, but even still, even during those years, she was dialing in from home and doing that Okay. Now, I thought you said the last two years she couldn't move at all. Right. So how did she go to school? How

Well, so those last two years and, you know, even before that when she was going, but during COVID, we were all home, obviously. I mean, that was an interesting time because all of a sudden the whole world kind of understood what our life had been like in terms of, you know, fears about catching things and hypervigilance. But when she couldn't move at all, we became very physical for the rest of us in terms of moving her and positioning her, et cetera. And it was

really awful. I mean, she couldn't blink. So we had to tape her eyes shut when she was sleeping so that her corneas wouldn't dry out. And we had to just really position her and just feel what she wanted and communicate with her in a way that was very different from how I've ever communicated with anybody else. And you know, it was interesting because the doctors to their credit really did at that point start taking our lead. It was hard to know what was inside at that point because

literally she could not move any piece of her body. And we sensed her, we really felt her there for a long time and So it was as if her body were comatose but her mind Yes, you know, there was absolutely a big impact on her brain, 100%. The thing is, we never knew how much of an impact and therefore we operated as though she could understand us and what we said to the kids and what we believed was, if Well, when your grandmother or somebody is dying, they say the last thing

to go is their hearing. I think that's true. And to

Dahlia came to our dinner table every single night until the night before she died. I mean, she was part of everything. And there were a lot of snuggles. There was always music, even though when she had her hearing aids out, you know, who knows what she could have heard. But I do believe she could feel, I really do. And again, for sure, she wasn't like fully cognitive

and then just couldn't move because there are diseases like that. That wasn't, I mean, she definitely was, it was quite pronounced in her brain as well for some time. The last test we were able to do on her brain, they had already seen a lot of impact. And then those tests became not feasible for her anymore because of all of her machinery, et cetera. But Yeah. Well, I think that you opted for

the right direction of things. You want to assume that she can hear you or feel you and present to her what you want to put forward, right? I think a lot of times that people in kind of those kind of places where people with severe disabilities get warehoused, they kind of get treated just like a shell of a person. They're still there, even if it's just their spirit or whatever. Let's opt for assuming that they're there and fully aware of whatever you're

Yeah, and you know, it's interesting that you say that because as I mentioned yesterday, I was speaking at the school she went to and it was their back to school day for faculty and I was addressing the group and that was something we were speaking about was that very idea that if you cannot tell, always assume that the child, in this case the student, can understand. You know, they may not be able to show that through facial movements, through

vocalization, et cetera. But let's err on the side of Yeah, that's brilliant. I think that can go a long way for lots of different situations. Yeah. So, gosh, your journey has been so tough. What did you learn about certainty and control? You know, you started this journey as a certain path toward family and you did get, you have a family, you will continue to have a family, but it's certainly not what you originally signed up for. How have you reconciled that within yourself? What have you

Yeah. You know, I thought that I could control the situation. Even when she got the diagnosis, I thought, OK, well, then I will fix it. Yeah. Right. Like, OK, I'll go figure it out. I will figure it out. Yeah, we'll cure mitochondrial disease, even though like an hour ago, I didn't know what mitochondria were. You know, I really took it up myself to try to, you know, find those clinical trials and figure things out. And obviously that

was a fantasy. And what I learned was I can't control the trajectory here. I can control the next hour of what we're going to do. I can control whether we're going to make the next hour full of joy. I can control how we are going to approach the situation, right? So You know, and I wonder, in retrospect, I don't know that this was a

like, OK, Jesse, you know, self-talk. I can't control this, but I can't control this. I think it just kind of is what happened. And my emphasis really shifted from trying to control the ultimate outcome, which was, like I said, fantasy, and instead trying to create as much of a childhood for all three of the kids as I could. because there's so much heaviness, even aside from the underlying or overlying, you

know, both grief and sadness and all the other stuff. There's so much heaviness in terms of just the minute by minute living on the precipice, the intense medical care, the doctor's appointments. It's so heavy. And here, you know, Diane is a kid. She just wants to be like an 11 year old or whatever. Right. And the same with the siblings. And so how do we do that? How do we fuse that kind of joy and levity and light into

Ah, such a challenge. But it sounds like you realized what you have control over, which is kind of shaping the ethos of your family. I mean, you can't control the other members of your family to go along with it, but you can at least set an example or set the tone as the parent of what our family is going to be like this. Yes. And within yourself, you can present yourself. You're in your own control of what you present in Right. Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, it

was all during this time that I wrote my book. I will say, you know, the book was actually complete. before Dahlia died. This is in no way, shape or form, as you know, since you read it, it's not a book about Dahlia's death. It was a book about our journey with her. And I think, you know, also when we write what's happening in our lives, it gives us an opportunity to have a bit of control, since we're talking about control right now, control of the narrative, right? Because

it is so out of your control. So if I'm going to write it, this is my experience of

Yeah, writing is a great tool. People use that in therapy all the time, journaling or Specific writing prompts writing is extremely helpful. Yeah, I was also just You know, I feel so much compassion toward you and empathy because I see myself in you a lot. And my son struggles with different things, but I've also had to learn that I can't control him. I can't control the progression of his disease of addiction, mental health issues. All I can control is how I show up

for him and what resources I provide for him. I can't control if he's going to take them or if he'll follow through with any of it or anything like that. So I feel like this It's so hard. And the mental health stuff is so challenging. And in many respects, it can feel more challenging than the medical because you feel like the person who's going through it, well, come on, just come on. And

it's so unpredictable. And I remember a friend of mine was in a class in the The professor said, listen, your kid is about to go on a roller coaster. There's going to be ups and downs and highs and lows and this and that and the other thing, and your kid's going to be screaming. And your job as the parent is not to get on the ride. You can stay down below. You could be cheering them on. You could be sending your support, doing whatever, but

don't get on the ride. And I have felt, because I've dealt with a lot, it's not only the medical stuff, there's been a whole host of other things in the family. And I have felt like, oh no, I want to be strapped right in next to my kid. I want to be holding my kid's hand. I want to be You know, and that doesn't serve us. And it ultimately It's super hard. It's a similar metaphor. But like my kid is out in outer space spinning around, like in that gravity movie

Yeah, like that. Yeah. Terrifying. And if I don't stay tethered as a parent to something's holding me still, I'm going to be out there floating around too. And then neither of us are helping anybody and we're bumping into each other and getting lost further. One of us has to stay tethered and calm, as calm as possible. But God, it's so hard. It's like the journey of a lifetime to figure this stuff out. Yeah. And you got two others that

Yeah. And who saw things that most people just don't ever, like I was saying, watching your sibling's eyes get taped shut, you know? I mean, things that just Yeah. I'm sure they're going to have to work through a lot of stuff. It's not their fault or anybody's fault. Just that's what happened in that lifetime. Did you ever find out Yes, such a good question. So, you know, it's really interesting because of the three children, the only birth mother we met was

Dahlia's. Okay. And we met her twice. And we met the birth grandmother. And I say that because MIRF syndrome is almost always maternally passed out. Okay. So the chances are that both her birth mother and birth grandmother had it. and the chances are overwhelming that they didn't know. It's so rare and it is unlikely that it was diagnosed in Guatemala. So what happened was we met them when we first brought Dahlia home and we had a lovely, lovely time

with them. And it was such a gift to be able to meet them. And they were just so lovely and vivacious. And it was it was really such a special memory. And then when we went back to Guatemala, we went five times to Guatemala. The next trip, we saw them again. And what happened was the birth mother was visibly ill. She had lost a tremendous amount of weight. She had been slim to begin with, and she needed a lot of support from her mother, from Dahlia's birth grandmother, to walk. And

we asked what's going on, and they said, we don't know. We think it's her stomach or something. They didn't know. And of course, all of this is through a translator. We really didn't think much of it. We didn't know that what we were witnessing at that point was really going to dictate every single thing about the Yeah. And so then, of course, you know, one of the first things as soon as Dahlia was diagnosed was to try to get in touch with them. But that did not end up happening. It

did not end up being possible. We were never able to locate them. So we don't know what what happened, but it's pretty certain that they had MIRF syndrome. And again, I

I'm sure. Yeah. Well, and it's so tricky, you know, when you have a biological kid, no one knows what's going to happen. This idea of certainty in any context of parenting is kind of wishful thinking. But especially with adoptive parenting, you really don't know, especially adopting from another country where the services and prenatal care may not have been great or, you know, we have no idea. We have no idea. What advice do you have for adoptive parents or hopeful adoptive parents,

people that maybe wish to adopt someday? I don't know. From what you've learned, how would you have set yourself up differently if I love the question because I feel like, you know, people might hear my story and say, oh, my God, I'm not going to adopt because who knows and blah, blah, blah. So I want to say a few things about it. Number one, I am very involved in the rare disease community now, and I know many, many, many families. And

I don't think I know any. I have to check with my internal Rolodex, but they're all biological family. And most of the time, the parents weren't aware that they were either carrying something or whatever, you know, so. this can happen. People end up having conditions, diseases, whatever, no matter how they come. And I will tell you, it was very interesting because when we were adopting, as I'm sure you know, many of the listeners, we had to go to

some kind of like group session ahead of time. And there was one guy there and I remember he said, well, what happens if something's wrong with the kid? Can we, essentially he was asking like, is there a return policy? And my husband and I were like, what? But I will say that my sister, who was 100% biologically related to me, died when she was 30. She had a cardiac event. She had something that she had been born with that people didn't know about. And she was 100% biologically

connected. So I guess I feel like we never know. No matter how these babies come to us, we do not know. Parenthood is a leap of faith. And so there is no guarantee if we adopt, there is no guarantee if we have our kids biologically, period. And I also understand when people say, but I don't want to take a risk. I didn't want to sign up. I never would have signed up for it. And in fact, I didn't because as you know, you have to do a checklist. Like I'm

okay with this. I'm okay with that. And I was like, I don't want any of it. I didn't sign up for any of it. And yet I never, ever thought why me or I wish I had known. In fact, I thought, thank God I didn't know. Because by five years old, when Dahlia was diagnosed, she was my baby. I was her mom. Thank God we hadn't known because we were meant to be together. It was so clear that we were, without sounding too woo-woo or whatever, we absolutely belong together. And that's

what happened. But I just feel like there are no guarantees. I cannot even tell you how many families I know where the kids end up having some really, really tricky

We deal with whatever comes up. Yeah. And even, you know, I mean, here's one of the things, right? We find out that we can deal with it. I didn't think I could deal with this so much so that I didn't check it off on those forms. Yeah. And then you deal with it and you realize we're capable of so much more The universe says here, two on this. Figure this out. Oh, man. So painful and so beautiful. Like you said, there's so much beauty and light within this very dark and sad situation. And

I can hear that and read it in your book and see it in your face. And I'm so glad you are sharing your story. I think we all can learn from your story of releasing control, loving what is in front of us, accepting whatever is in Oh, thank you so much for having me. And, you know, I do share a lot of stories. So please, listeners, I'd love for you to check out the book Breathtaking. And on my website, I do a lot of writing now. A lot of it obviously is about grief, but

I just define stories dot com. And then, you know, I have a podcast where I talk to people whose lives seem unimaginable. And a lot of those are families that are struggling with things that from the outside look really unbearable. I I don't know how you do it. All of us who hear that all the time, right? When people say, I don't know how you do it. I'm like, well, what choice do I have? You know, but here we get into it and we talk about

Yeah. Well, you're doing a lot of great work in the world. What's the best way for people to get a hold of you? Is that your blog page? Yes. Well, first of all, I love connecting with people on social media, Instagram. So my last name is F like Frank E-I-N. That's the first thing that people might get messed up about. But it's jessicafinestories.com is my website. And that's kind of the

hub of everything that's going on. And then again, Instagram is Okay, I'll put all those links and connections in the show notes. So everyone go look that up. Thank you so much, Jessica. I'm so glad we connected. I really feel a heart connection with you. And I am with you as you continue this journey, this tough, tough journey of parenting and humaning. So And listeners, thank you for listening and for engaging

with us here at Unraveling Adoption. Find us at unravelingadoption.com. You'll find a list of calendar events and there's many resources such as the Healing the Adoption Constellation database on there. All of our podcast episodes can be found there and just a plethora of information. If any of you would like to support what we're doing here at Unraveling Adoption and enable us to continue having these commercial free episodes and other free resources, please support us at

Patreon. You can do so by signing up for as little as $5 a month at patreon.com slash unraveling adoption. Thank you to all the wonderful Patreon supporters who help us out each month. Thank you all for listening. Jessica