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 1:
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 2:
And I know that my daughter would be well taken care of with them.
Speaker 3:
Don’t have an abortion, give this child a chance.
Speaker 4:
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:
Women will come into an agency, often, be a first time phone call, asking a couple questions. And some of the main questions that we get are, “I’m on the fence about making an adoption plan. When is it too late to place my baby for adoption? What is the timeline?” I will have women that call up and say, “I’m in my last trimester, have I waited too long?” I’ve had women call me after they’ve delivered. I’ve had women who decide after they take the baby home, “You know what? I can’t do this.” And that is the hardest one because when you take the baby home, at that point family and friends know that you’ve had the baby, you’ve taken the baby home and you’re going to parent and nobody wants to be perceived or even feel like a failure.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Like they couldn’t do something. So, the goal of this podcast is to reassure everybody who’s listening that there’s not a timeline. Now, with the Safe Haven laws, with a newborn that is just been born, yes, you can take a baby and anonymously place a baby in a Safe Haven location without any repercussions. With adoption, there’s also zero repercussions. I always tell our, our clients that are coming into the program, it is always going to be easier on you. The sooner that you make the adoption choice, because that way you can start receiving more services, more support. You can decide whether and when to inform your family and friends of your choice, so that you’re not having to explain retroactively. I think, Ron, I don’t know about you, but I have always had this, the way that I, when I have a really tough decision, what I do is, I will think about it, I will educate myself on the pros and cons.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Sometimes I make lists like, this is why I should do this, or this is why I shouldn’t do this. And then I make a decision. And then when I make a decision, I will sit with it for a little bit and see in my head as if I have already proceeded with that decision and how that feels. Lastly, once I find peace in that, I move in that direction. I think when you backtrack, after you have solidly made a choice in your mind, you backtrack. I think at that point, the that’s where a lot of people get confused. So they make a choice. They gather all of their education on that choice and they sit with their choice. And then when they move forward, there’s no need to look back, because come what may, good or bad, that is your decision.
Ron Reigns:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Having worked in the social work field since I had just turned 20, I have had to make a lot of really, really, really hard life-changing decisions on behalf of people that I work with, our clients. Because of that, I have had the opportunity to really be able to grasp how to make a decision and just keep going. And sometimes that decision is really, really, really hard. And sometimes it’s not the decision I want to make, but it’s the decision I know is best. That’s not to that I don’t ever make a decision and then panic or change my mind. Sure. It happens to all of us, but 95% of the time, when you take the time to really think about something and work it out in your head, and you’ve done your research and you’ve really thought about what is best, there’s no need to beat yourself up over the choice. It’s moving forward and finding peace. How do you wrestle? What do you do when you’re really wrestling with a hard choice?
Ron Reigns:
I wish I could say the same. I wish I could say that I really weigh out the pros and cons the way I should and really sit with it and make that decision with hopefully wisdom and with everything available to you at that particular time, you’ve made the best choice you could in that circumstance. I maybe don’t do as much sitting with it. I do try to get both sides of whatever the problem is and try and weigh all the consequences but I think I make the decision itself probably more quickly than I should, and I do see myself afterward, kind of not regretting it, but second guessing myself. So I think that is a common thing. And that’s a good idea to really weigh all the factors, sit with it. The sit with it is the hard thing, because it’s almost like, okay, I’ve weighed the factors, I’m going right in. I’m going to make my choice. And I like the idea of, hey, I’m going to sleep on this and really mull it over in my brain and come back with the best choice, hopefully.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
One thing too, I think that people, whether it’s making an adoption choice or whatever, when they’re struggling with a really hard decision, some things to really consider, are- there’s two big mistakes I see people making. The first one is they will reach out to friends, colleagues, family members, but they present the facts and the information in such a way that they’re eliciting the response that they’re looking for.
Ron Reigns:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
It it’s like calling up somebody and saying, you know what, I have a low grade at temperature and I’ve been coughing a lot, and my sister’s brother’s mother was exposed to COVID, and do you think that I have it. And so it’s rather than giving all of the facts, I was never in contact with my sister’s mother’s brother’s friend. I have had the low grade fever is really not a low grade fever. You know what I mean? When you are looking for a specific answer from somebody to justify or rationalize, you will often give information that will kind of skirt them to that answer that you’re looking for.
Ron Reigns:
Right.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And also you will most likely if you’re cognizant of what you’re doing, you will pick people that you know will give you the answer you’re looking for.
Ron Reigns:
Right. You’re not going to be apt to pick somebody to talk to that might confront you a little bit and ask you some questions. You want that confirmation bias that we’ve talked about before.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Exactly, exactly. And another thing that people do when making a really hard decision that I would like people to be aware of doing this so that they can be better informed and really make decisions on a solid platform, is when you are researching something or you are looking for information to help you make a decision, don’t just look at information that is going to substantiate where you really want to go. Look at both sides. Look at the pros and the cons. You and I have talked about both of us being very pro-life. And yet we also examine the stances and the belief systems and the grounds of those that are pro-choice because in order to understand where they’re coming from and why they feel the way that they feel will only help us be stronger in our own stance.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So if you’re making a really hard decision, like let’s say, I’m going to completely use something that is not related to adoption, let’s say you are going to buy a new car and you are trying to decide between a Ford or a Nissan, and you really want the Nissan, but it’s more expensive, but that’s really the car that you want, but you don’t know whether or not you should really allocate that much money towards the Nissan. So what you’re doing is you talk to everybody who owns a Nissan, rather than anybody who owns a Ford, and you are looking at all of the safety ratings of the Nissan, and you’re looking for everything that will basically bring you justification in your mind to the Nissan, rather than truly weighing out the two options and seeing really, which is the best. And like I said, that’s kind of a far off example, but you get where I’m coming from.
Ron Reigns:
No, but it makes sense. I kind of changed the cars around, but I was thinking about it when I was a kid, we all wanted a Trans Am, because Burt Reynolds had a Trans Am, and had I been able to buy a car at that time, I probably would’ve done that. I would’ve been like, Hey, it was in Smokey and the Bandit. That was pretty cool. It was on this movie, okay, it’s a cool looking car, but this Ford Escort over here gets great gas mileage. I’m not going to think about that. I’m going to put that over here on the other side. I’m not going to think about the safety, like you say, if this car has airbags and the Trans Am, not so much. So it makes a lot of sense and people do that all the time. That’s a great analogy.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I think that when somebody comes to us and they’re having an unplanned pregnancy or a crisis pregnancy, they’re not, they weren’t planning on parenting. They really love their baby. They really, really, really want to parent. I don’t know of very many birth mothers that have come into our program that haven’t wanted to parent. They do. They’re not often in a place financially, mentally, physically, where they can, but it’s not that they don’t want to parent. So the struggle is, is that I want to parent. I want to be a mom. I want to keep my baby. I’m conflicted. I know I’m not ready. I know I’m not in a place where I can give my baby the life that I want to. So some of the suggestions that I have, and I recommend to birth moms is, is first of all, don’t make a snap decision because you’re involving an adoptive family and you’re involving yourself, your child, like this a really big decision and take some time to think about it.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Talk with your family and friends, educate yourself on the options of parenting and adoption. Take some time to think about it, especially if you’re early in your pregnancy. If you take a pregnancy test and it comes up positive, that doesn’t mean you need to call an adoption agency the next day. You have some time. Talking with an adoption agency and just getting more information doesn’t mean that you have proceed with an adoption plan. It’s just purely education. But learn more about the process. What does this look like? What kind of communication can I have? What kind of relationship will I get to have with my child long term. Also talk with a counselor that specializes in adoption and see- they are trained to really help you hone in on why parenting isn’t an option or is it an option for you?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
If it is maybe there’s resources that they can direct you to, but really get both sides of the decision. And then again, once you’ve made up your mind, let the decision sit with you for a little while. For somebody that may be a day, it may be a week. It may be the weekend. It may be a month. It’s how fast you can process and accept. But I don’t think you should enter into an adoption plan until, if you’re going through the stages of grief, until you’ve reached the acceptance stage. That doesn’t mean you won’t recycle through them, or there won’t be other stages that you revisit, but it does mean that you have found peace in your decision. And adoption choice is a really, really hard choice. It’s a beautiful choice. It’s amazing. It’s made by the bravest women, in my opinion. That’s not the decision that every woman dreams of, becoming pregnant and making an adoption plan is not, since you’re a little child, you’re not dreaming of placing a baby for adoption.
Ron Reigns:
Going back to the timeframe that you talked about, to make these decisions where it could be an hour, it could be a day, it could be a week, it could be a month. And if it is a month, don’t beat yourself up over that either. Because when you really think about it, like you had said before, this doesn’t just affect you and your near future, this affects you and your long distance future, this affects the child, this affects an adoptive family, this affects your significant other. There’s so many people around you that this decision will sit with for the rest of their lives as well is yours. So yeah, if it takes you a month, then so be it, just let that process take its time.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And that’s why I think it’s so important to start early on so that you have, as long as you need, like a month. Obviously if you’re in the hospital and you’ve delivered a month, isn’t realistic because that changes things. That doesn’t mean that you can’t do an adoption, but it means that you’re going to have the pressure, it’s going to be stronger. And if you start earlier on and you have that opportunity, you will have that time to really just resonate in your decision. So, if adoption is the right choice for you and you have come to that conclusion, sitting with it and just seeing how that feels, waking up in the morning, knowing, okay, I’ve made an adoption plan, even though you haven’t actually acted it out, meaning you haven’t with an agency and signed the paperwork.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I think that that’s a much better and safer choice for everybody involved. And I think it’s important.
Ron Reigns:
Right.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Women coming to us at all stages of their pregnancy is fine. Like I said, we, we work with women who have already even had the baby. We work with women very early in their pregnancy, if that’s the case as well. The women that come to us early in their pregnancy oftentimes are women that have had placed a child before. And so they know the process. They know that this is the route they’re going to go. And so they do come to us on the earlier side because they know that they need the support, they want the support, and they know that this is the best option for them.
Ron Reigns:
Lisa dealt with a set of birth parents. It was a lady and her husband, they had had the baby and actually they had twins, now that I think about it. It’s been a while so I’m trying to remember all the details. They had twins and they had decided that they were going to give it one month of trying to raise the twins and seeing if they were able to do it. And I think possibly had it been just one child, they might have been a little more successful. But they did, they felt over overwhelmed and literally one month to the day of the birth of the children, they contacted Lisa and got going on an adoption plan. And the babies went to a family that was able to deal with that at that time, but they gave it that month to see, hey, okay, we’re going to try and see, but they were honest with themselves. And I thought that was kind of beautiful. I
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Think it is beautiful because they will forever be able to look back and say, we did everything we could and we tried and it didn’t work, but we know for sure that we made the right choice. I agree, I think that’s beautiful. And I think that’s a really good example of how important it is to find peace in your decision. And yeah, great story. Great story. I think that regardless of whether a woman chooses adoption or whether she chooses to parent, I think education and decision making and taking time and education are all key. I think that we all want to do the best, not only by ourselves, but for our children and for others around us. I think humankind is one of my favorite words because I think humans are in nature kind. And I think that we as a society sometimes underplay and don’t give credence to the fact that people do want to do what’s right. And they do want to do what’s best. And sometimes you just need to give people time.
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 in 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 6-2-3 6-9-5-4-1-1-2. We can make an immediate appointment with you to get started on creating an Arizona adoption plan, or just get you more info information. You can also find out more information about Building Arizona Families on their website at A-Z pregnancy help dot 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 Birth Mother Matters Podcast dot com. Tune in next time on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption for Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I’m Ron Reigns.