Ron Reigns:
Welcome. And thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption with Kelly Rourke-Scarry and me, Ron Reigns, where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad.
Speaker 2:
Do what’s best for your kid and for yourself because if you can’t take care of yourself, you’re definitely not going to be able to take care of that kid, and that’s not fair.
Speaker 3:
And I know that my daughter would be well taken care of with them.
Speaker 4:
Don’t have an abortion. Give this child a chance.
Speaker 5:
All I could think about was needing to save my son.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
My name is Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I’m the executive director, president, and co-founder of Building Arizona Families adoption agency, the Donna K. Evans Foundation and creator of the You Before Me campaign. I have a bachelor’s degree in family studies and human development and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in school counseling. I was adopted at the age of three days, born to a teen birth, mother, raised in a closed adoption, and reunited with my birth mother in 2007. I have worked in the adoption field for over 15 years.
Ron Reigns:
And I’m Ron Reigns. I’ve worked in radio since 1999. I was the co-host of two successful morning shows in Prescott, Arizona. Now, I work for my wife who’s an adoption attorney, and I’m able to combine these two great passions and share them on this podcast.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Today, we’re going to talk about finding peace and uncharted waters, researching the acceptance stage. I think right now in all of our lives across the United States, across our whole continent probably at this point, and across the world globally, we’re all surrounded by uncharted territory. And we’re learning to navigate and forge new paths, we’re having to create new lifestyles rather than the one that we’re previously used to. I don’t know about Iran. I don’t really like change, I’m a creature of habit. I like to be on autopilot most of the time because then I can accomplish what needs to be accomplished, and I’m la-la land.
Ron Reigns:
Absolutely, I’m the same. And that’s the thing we keep hearing now everywhere somebody starts talking it’s, “The new normal,” and that’s what we’re entering into.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right. I think though that the way that I fund solace in that is it may be the new normal for this week, but not a new permanent normal because this has its challenges just like life presents in other areas and in other aspects, but I don’t want to reach the level of acceptance that this is a new normal. I want to call this a season and I hope it’s a short one.
Ron Reigns:
I think it’s kind of a mixed bag. I think in some ways, it is the new normal. I believe that we will start seeing masks for instance on a normal basis. And I don’t know if shaking hands will come back the way it used to, or hugging, or many of the affectionate-
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I’m okay with that though.
Ron Reigns:
… things we’re used to. I think it’ll change forever.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I’m okay with the lack of physical contact with strangers. I mean family and close friends, absolutely. But with the hand shaking, like I said, as a woman, I’ve never really got that. You have to have a firm handshake and so I’m always thinking, “Okay, well, is that firm enough? Should I have shook his hand harder?” Yeah.
Ron Reigns:
Right. Well, as men, we practice that.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Do you really?
Ron Reigns:
Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
With your other hand?
Ron Reigns:
Yeah, or just you practice holding your hand firmly, you know what I mean? And getting that grip ready, so you practice it and then you go dead fish when you shake somebody’s hand actually.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That’s funny.
Ron Reigns:
But we were at a funeral just the other day and it was very strange because Lisa and I, we showed up and we had the masks on, and we had the gloves, and everybody was almost six feet apart. The chairs were a little closer than that, but close enough, I guess. And halfway through, we were both kind of crying, it’s going down into the mask and I just gave up on it. And then afterwards, everybody’s hugging still, so it was very strange. It was like, “How do we approach this?” Because we’re trying to be careful. I mean, this was somebody very close to us and it was kind of a hard deal, very emotional for us, and we want to hug everybody, but it was just a strange new thing for us.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That would be. I can’t imagine being in that situation because that would be really tough. At what point do you put aside the mask and… Yeah, I don’t know.
Ron Reigns:
And say, “You know what? I love these people, I’m going to just throw caution to the wind.” What do you do?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah, I get that. I totally get that. That’s something to really ponder because you would have to kind of weigh everything out and that’s not something that you can ever go back and experience again.
Ron Reigns:
Right. Exactly. And you kind [crosstalk 00:05:24] of don’t want to look back on it and go, “I remember that funeral, me having a mask on the whole time and gloves and staying…”
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
“And I owe you a hug, so come here.” Yeah.
Ron Reigns:
Exactly.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Absolutely. I get it. And I think that COVID-19 has brought us almost nothing but change, fear, and grief. I think that this can, in some instances, parallel some situations in the adoption process for both the birth mother and, or the adoptive family. We’ve talked before about the Kubler-Ross model of grief that teaches us the five stages of grief. First one being denial, the second one being anger, the third one being bargaining, the fourth one being depression, and the fifth one being acceptance. And today, we’re going to talk about reaching the acceptance stage, which is the final stage.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
At some point in the future, I’d really like to go back and dedicate a podcast to each one of these stages because I think that although there is so much joy, and happiness, and solidarity, and love in the adoption process, we can’t ignore the grief because that comes along with it. The happiest day of one person’s life is the saddest day for another. And to ignore that, that wouldn’t be fair.
Ron Reigns:
Right. It would do a disservice.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
It would be. That’s a good term, a disservice, because we have to acknowledge that in an adoption process, in that journey, both the birth mother or the adoptive family can grieve. And I thought we would talk a little bit about that and then what it looks like when they reach the final acceptance stage. So for a birth mother, she may encounter grief when she feels like her family and friends don’t support her adoption choice. I have been working with birth moms for almost 16 years, and I’m also the daughter of a birth mother.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And I will tell you that back when my mother placed me for adoption, she wasn’t given any aftercare services and was never given an outlet to express her grief. And so her grief stayed with her because she had no way to learn coping skills, and have counseling, and be able to process what had happened. I mean, she was 16 years old and found out three weeks before she was pregnant. It was like a whirlwind for her. She wasn’t able to even really comprehend that she had a baby because as I had mentioned before, it was the knock them out, drag them out. She was asleep when I was born, so it was almost hard for her to even conceptualize what really happened.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Another instance would be if a birth mother struggles with her adoption choice after placing a baby for adoption. I do see this sometimes. That is why we developed the Aftercare Program. This is not uncommon. It’s something that we work with our birth mothers through and try to prepare them for, and assist them with coping skills, and really try to emphasize that this is possibly the biggest decision you’re ever going to make and we want to equip you with as much education and prepare you, so that you are able to make the best choice for you, for your child. And to make sure that afterwards, you have the support structure that you do need. And when you struggle, you know how to handle it and where to go for help.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When a birth mother feels the adoptive family she chose is not following through with their agreed upon post-adoption communication agreement, this is a big deal because when you have a post-adoption communication agreement and we call them PACAs, that is something that a birth mother holds onto. It’s like an olive branch that she then clings to because that is her link to her baby. And although she has recognized and accepted that she can’t parent her baby, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t still want to be involved in her child’s life, she doesn’t still want to watch her child grow up and have the child know her, even if it’s not in a mother figure role. So those are some things that can cause grief.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Other things that can cause grief are if a birth father is not in agreement with her adoption choice and that is causing problems in their relationship. I’ve seen other situations where a family has disowned a birth mother because of her adoption choice. When I see the opposite, I can’t tell you the joy that it brings me when I see a woman come in with her mother and her mother is right there supporting her daughter. I commend her in front of her daughter because I see it so rarely that when I do, I always think that that’s the mom I want to be. And hopefully, I am, but that’s the mom I want to be because no matter what happens, whether you agree with a choice that your adult child is making or not, supporting them and being there for them, I think is really important.
Ron Reigns:
I believe that you would be that type of mother had you been put in that circumstance.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Thank you.
Ron Reigns:
Yes. You’re fantastic with your kids. It’s neat watching.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Thank you. When an adoptive family is going through the adoption process, they may also be going through a grieving process as well. Sometimes it starts even before they come into our adoption program. They may have tried infertility treatments and those may not have been successful. And when they come into an adoption program, if they haven’t resolved the infertility issues and they have grief regarding that, it can be very hard for an adoptive mom to go into a doctor’s appointment with a birth mother, and see the baby, and watch the ultrasound, and watch her going through the very process that she herself was unable to do. I’ve had a lot of adoptive moms that really struggle with that.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And one thing that I recommend is that if you’ve had infertility issues and that route didn’t work out, it’s important to work through your grief before coming into an adoption situation. Not only for your sake so that you can enjoy it, but for the sake of the birth mother because nobody wants to be somebody’s second choice. And so if you look at adoption as, “Well, IVF failed, so I guess adoptions are only route.” Then it’s like a second choice, and I think a birth mother deserves to be somebody’s first choice. And the only way that you can get there is if you have reached the acceptance stage and you can learn to become excited about the journey that you’re about to embark on.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Also, adoptive families can grieve if they are in the stack of choices for a birth mother and they were really excited, they felt a connection when they read about her and they’re not chosen. That’s really hard. Obviously, when a birth mother changes her mind and this causes a disruption with an adoptive match between her and the adoptive family, it’s devastating. I’ve talked before that it’s not only devastating for the adoptive family, but it’s devastating for us as an agency as well, because we’re in this to build families and help women that have unplanned pregnancies and can’t parent. And it’s very hard when an adoptive family feels like a birth mother is not following through with their agreed upon post communication agreement. Some adoptive families get very attached and they love the birth mother. And they’re looking at the adoption as they’re adopting this baby, but the birth mother is still a part of their lives too. And if she drifts away or kind of falls off the radar, it’s hard for them because they’re feeling a loss.
Ron Reigns:
Right. And we’ve talked about this before, the mother’s kind of drifting away and the adoptive parents feeling betrayed. But the thing is, we all go through things in lives, sometimes good, sometimes bad, and you got to trust that it’s not about them or the child. She just needs to come back around and get back in that place.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
She may need to heal. She may need to heal. She may need to find herself again and distance herself from the adoption process.
Ron Reigns:
Right.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yes, absolutely. She may need to learn how to live again. I think that that is possibly challenging if you are still… It’s like trying to move on with your life. Like if you’re a mermaid, I’ll use a mermaid. You’re a mermaid and you’ve been in the water your whole life and you are done being a mermaid, but you can’t get your tail out of the water, so that may be a little bit of a stretch, but that is how a birth mother may feel. You know what I mean? If she needs some space. It’s mermaid in the water.
Ron Reigns:
That was a fantastic analogy. I loved it.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Not one of my finest, but…
Ron Reigns:
I hope everybody at home is listening and going, “A mermaid, I like it.”
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
In my head, I’m thinking The Little Mermaid. I’m thinking how she grew feet. That’s what I was thinking.
Ron Reigns:
Very good.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Remember how would she came out and she was able to.
Ron Reigns:
No, that was smart.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. All right. With these five stages of grief, not everybody goes through each of the stages in the same order. And these stages can be repeated, cycled through, and triggered again even after you’ve gone through them. So it’s not like you’re, “Okay, I’m on stage three.” It’s like, “I’m heading for home.” It’s not like that.
Ron Reigns:
And it’s not even like, “Okay, I’ve reached acceptance. I’m done with that.”
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
No, it’s like, “Why are you back here”
Ron Reigns:
It could very well be like, “Okay, I’m back at the beginning again. What happened?”
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
As we experience grief that is brought on by anything from COVID-19 to an unfortunate occurrence in your adoption journey, it’s important to be reminded that we all want need and desire to reach the acceptance stage anytime somebody is faced with grief. Whether it’s you experiencing grief or somebody you love, we all want that person to be in the acceptance stage, but grieving hurts and people can and they do grieve differently. You can’t rush somebody through the grief process because it’s too painful to watch them.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I had a very close friend who she and her significant other were in a car accident. And he had to take some time away from the relationship afterwards because of the guilt that was felt over the accident and seeing her in pain, and so he was unable to watch her grieve and watch her struggle through this. And it is hard when you love somebody to watch that. Feelings of loss or anxiety may never completely or totally go away, but when you reach the acceptance stage, you are taking ownership of your life again, and you’re taking positive actions, and you’re beginning to find your joy. You’re not having to remind yourself, “Okay, today, I need to get up and I need to get out bed and I have to move a little bit, so I’m going to try to take a shower.” When you’re really grieving, those things feel like climbing up Mount Everest. And as you reach acceptance stage, there may be a morning where you wake up and you’re in the shower and then you realize, “Oh my gosh, wow. I’m here.” You know what I mean?
Ron Reigns:
“I made it.”
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Like, “I’m doing this. I’m open again.”
Ron Reigns:
“I didn’t have to think about the hurdle it was to get out of bed and get in the shower, I’m just in the shower. Look at that.” Yeah.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Right. I think one of the things in society is that we’re such a fast paced society. We like fast food and we want to do things as quickly as possible, and I’m one of them. I mean, I’m all about speed through. I mean, now that you can do virtual doctor’s offices, I’m all about it. You don’t have to go anywhere. Let’s do this, get it done. I don’t have to wait in waiting room. Let’s go. But grief, you can’t rush. It comes in ways and people don’t allow themselves, or sometimes their loved ones, enough time to really process what the loss is. And reaching the acceptance stage is important and it’s vital, and it’s the best for your mental health, but at the same time, cut yourself some slack.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And if you have a day that you have to stay in bed all day, it’s one day. Don’t beat yourself up over it. Know that this is the time that you’re taking for you, and who knows where your mind’s going to go in that day and who knows what you’re going to learn about yourself, or how you’re going to change and become the person that you’ve always wanted to be by just taking that time out? Acceptance, I think, is really learning to live again and finding joy in the things that you have found joy in before.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When people are not able to stay in the acceptance stage, they’re not finding joy in the things that used to make them so happy and they used to look forward to, that adds to your grief. Before, if you loved watching your favorite TV show with a big bag of chips and a Dr Pepper, and you’re sitting there and you’re watching your show, and the Dr Pepper’s flat and the chips don’t taste very good and it’s like, “What happened? What happened? I loved this. This was my thing.” And that’s where you can start to think, “Okay, I need to get back to good.”
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
There are coping strategies that can help somebody struggling with grief or somebody who’s watching a loved one struggle with grief. And when you do reach the acceptance stage, just know that that doesn’t mean that you’re good with the loss, you’re okay with it. It just means that you have come to the place where you can acknowledge it and you can learn how to live your life with the grief that you will carry. When I lost my birth mother in 2016, I will say that the pain of the grief isn’t any less today than it was in 2016, but I’ve learned how to live with the grief. Even with that, have I reached the acceptance stage? I personally don’t know that I have. I have tried to reach it, but I think that I still go through the stages myself at times with triggers. Sometimes I used to always call my mom on the way to work and going into the office. And so I will still, years later, find myself reaching for the phone as I get in the car to call her and that will trigger, you know what I mean? Like, “Oh, awesome.”
Ron Reigns:
I absolutely do and in a weird way. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because of the death that we just recently had, the family friend that passed away, and I’ve been thinking about… I never even noticed it happening really. But with my own mom, when she passed away, the one thing that was hardest for me was I would see something on TV, whether it was the news or a movie that was something she enjoyed or whatever, and my immediate thought was, “I want to call mom and I’m going to call mom. I’m going to talk to her about this. She’s going to love this.”
Ron Reigns:
And I always got that little, just for a split second, thinking, “Okay, I can call her anytime.” And I don’t know when it happened, but at some point in my life now, I have gotten to the point where instead of thinking, “Mom’s going to love this.” I think, “Mom would’ve loved this.” And I smile. I think maybe I’ve reached finally that point of acceptance. I don’t know when it happened or how. I just got to the point where I just have the good memories and not as much of the pain.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah, but it doesn’t take away your loss though.
Ron Reigns:
No, absolutely. And it is still stuff that I wish I could share with her.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Of course.
Ron Reigns:
But I don’t feel like that split second of, “Oh, I can share this.” It’s that gone.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The gut punch. Yeah, when you realize. Yeah. I call it the gut punch, that moment where you realize…
Ron Reigns:
There is no more talking to her or whatever it is, right?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Oh, that’s not… I still talk to her. She just doesn’t talk back.
Ron Reigns:
Right, right. At least not out loud.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
If you had to force her. In my head, yeah. Yeah. No, but I get it. And I think that it does sound like you’ve reached the acceptance stage. Some people can get there quicker and some people, it can take longer. And I think there’s lots of mitigating circumstances, that impact, how long it can take. The loss of my birth mother was also the first death that I had really experienced of somebody very close to me. And so I had lost other people, but nobody that was that close, so it was just a new experience on top of this. And I had only had 10 years with her, and so I think I was grieving over last time as well.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Whether we’re grieving over the coronavirus pandemic, or an unfortunate adoption experience, or death of a loved one, grief is still grief. The stages of grief are vital to learning how to live again and finding a joy in life. When you’re going about your day and you are thinking about something that you’ve been pondering a lot in your head, and you are struggling with something, give yourself some time. Sometimes people say, “Well, just don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.” I would actually encourage you to think about because I have found that the best ways to deal with grief is to ride those waves like a surfer would. They’re going to come in waves. There’s times where it’s going to hit you really hard, and then there’s other times where maybe not so much.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I can finally get to a place where I can tell her the jokes that she used to say and I can actually laugh along with everybody else, and so that’s a good thing. Like I said, find that because nobody can ever take away your feelings when you are grieving and nobody should rush you as well. Hopefully, as a nation and as an adoption agency, the coronavirus pandemic and the unfortunate adoption experiences that some people have to endure will listen and listen.
Ron Reigns:
Thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption. If you’re listening and you’re dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and want more information about adoption, Building Arizona Families is a local Arizona adoption agency and available 24-7 by phone or text at (623) 695-4112. That’s (623) 695-4112. We can make an immediate appointment with you to get started on creating an Arizona adoption plan or just get you more information.
Ron Reigns:
You can also find out more information about Building Arizona Families on their website at azpregnancyhelp.com. Thanks also go out to Grapes for allowing us to use their song, I Don’t Know, as our theme song. Birth Mother Matters in Adoption was written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry and edited by me. Please rate and review this podcast wherever you’re listening to us. We’d really appreciate it. We also now have a website at birthmothermatterspodcast.com. Tune in next time on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption for Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I’m Ron Reigns.