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 Family’s adoption agency, the Donna Kay 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 Raines, 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 the what ifs in adoption, from both sides, because the adoptive family and the birth parents obviously have concerns throughout their adoption journey. And I think by addressing some of those what ifs, maybe we can show each side the opposing sides viewpoint and in doing so hopefully alleviate some of these concerns and worries.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
First and foremost, I want to point out that these are normal, normal concerns and worries across the board when you are doing an adoption. Very much parallel to, if you are going through fertility treatments, you have a different set of worries and a different set of concerns. So understand that when you’re embarking on a new adventure or a new journey that you haven’t gone through before, you are going to encounter these worries and concerns and fears, and it may create some anxiety and stress.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so hopefully, this podcast will alleviate some of that. And we can turn this around and how you really some of these, you can just push by the wayside. So that’s the goal for today. So for birth parents, you are in a good place. The adoption is primarily going to be dictated by you. You get to make the final decisions and the final calls. And so, what birth parents often worry about is, what if the adoptive family doesn’t like me when we meet in person? What if the adoptive family I choose I don’t like when I meet them in person.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
What if I deliver prematurely and my baby has to stay in the hospital longer than the normal amount of time. What if the adoptive family is only being nice to me because they want to adopt the baby? What if my baby isn’t cute. And the adoptive family changes their mind about wanting to adopt my baby. What if my baby has medical problems? And the adoptive family changes their minds about adopting my baby. And the last most common one is what if I really struggle when it’s time to let my baby go with the adoptive family?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So, what we’re going to do first, is talk about these concerns and I’m going to go back through them and contradict them and give you really what the responses and the feelings are, not only from the adoptive family, but from an adoption agency’s perspective. So, what if the adoptive family doesn’t like me when we meet in person? The adoptive family is going to be more nervous than you are. The adoptive family is so excited to meet you, so excited to form a connection with you. They want to know absolutely everything about you, but they’re also going to be very, very, very nervous.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And sometimes nervous people come across quirky or they’re not really themselves and they may ask a dumb question or they may seem scattered. They’re trying to put their best foot forward.
Ron Reigns:
They may not come across as being genuine. They may come across as being very phony on both sides.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so, sometimes when somebody is so nervous about meeting somebody else, and they’re just really struggling with getting words out, you tell them, fake it till you make it, you just got to jump in and just do it. And so I always say, if you’re worried about whether they like you or your concern is the second of, what if you don’t like them, give it a second meeting. Really try to go back to what you liked about this family, what you found in their profile that you really fell in love with them as a family.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And know that if for some reason you decide after giving them a second opportunity or a third opportunity, I’m just not clicking and there’s just nothing there, then what you would do is go back to your adoption agency and say, “Hey, I’m struggling because this family isn’t really who I thought they were, and I’m not comfortable with it.” And just see what can be done because it doesn’t happen very often. I think I’ve seen it a handful of times in 16 years, but in the event that it does, there’s always another plan that we can create. So that’s not something to stress about.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
If the baby comes early and the baby has to stay in the hospital longer, then that just means more time with you and the adoptive family and the baby. So, everyone has the common goal of wanting the baby to be as healthy as possible, to have the medical care that the baby needs. So again, that’s not really something to worry about because you and your baby are going to be surrounded by support. What if the adopter family is only being nice to you because they want to adopt your baby? Is a concern that I can see why somebody would worry about that, but understand that they want to be nice to you, and they do want to adopt your baby.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
However, they want to be nice to you because you are giving the greatest blessing that somebody can possibly give them. And when they’re with you for a couple days, or maybe even a week, they only have so much time to show you their gratitude and their appreciation for what you’re doing. So, it’s not that they’re only being nice to you because they want to adopt your baby, they’re being nice to you and maybe they’re being extra, extra nice to you because they’ve got to shove all of this into one week, know that it is not going to be as frequent of communication as it is at that time.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The next one, what if your baby isn’t as cute as you thought it would be. So this one’s funny to me because those of us that have had newborns understand that all newborns are pretty in their own way. And I’ve never in 16 years had an adoptive family look at a baby and say, “No, thank you,” and walk out the door, that has never ever happened. A baby is in the womb for nine months and they’re scrunched up and they got the fluid all around them. And then they put the drops in the baby’s eyes, so then the eyes swell and they’re all scrunched up.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so, when you’re unfolding as a newborn you get prettier as the days go by, but some people really especially, birth parents, if it’s their first baby and they look at the baby and they’re like, Ooh-
Ron Reigns:
What happened?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. Know that your baby will pretty up and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Ron Reigns:
Well, my mom is still waiting for me to pretty up, it hasn’t happened yet, but most babies do.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I find the most honest people, the funniest and I had a colleague once and when she delivered her second child, they held up the baby after the baby had been born and she looked at her daughter and she started laughing. And then she looked at her husband and said, “What did we do?” And I have to say her daughter’s beautiful now, she’s beautiful. But when she was born, one ear was flat down on her head and she looked a little distorted the way she had a big lump on her head. And she had a huge cone head on top of it. And so, those things can happen and it’s not abnormal when you first see your baby to think, oh that’s not what I had envisioned.
Ron Reigns:
This doesn’t look right.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When my son was born, they had to use a vacuum to pull him out. And so he had a really big bump on the back of his head. And when he came out, that was… I saw it immediately and I said, oh, “What’s that on his head?” And they said, “Oh, it’s going to go down.” And I remember looking at it thinking, maybe I could put a hat on him, you know what I mean?
Ron Reigns:
Or wings.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Just to hide it. I didn’t know if they meant it was going to go away completely or if it was not going to be this-
Ron Reigns:
It’ll mitigate but it…
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
But it totally went away. It was totally fine. And it was gone within I think a few hours. I mean, it was-
Ron Reigns:
Oh really that quickly. Okay.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. It went down really, really fast. But sometimes when babies are in the birth canal for an extended period of time, they get a real big cone head and that could be really alarming if you haven’t seen a lot of newborns and-
Ron Reigns:
Especially like you said, if this is your first child, it’s like, wait a minute, I didn’t do something right.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So people can be very concerned, the same with an adoptive family, we reassure everybody know the baby was just in the canal. I mean, a lot of people know that if you have a C-section and the baby hasn’t descended it all into the canal, the babies do look prettier because they’re not misfigured, you know what I mean?
Ron Reigns:
From-
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Coming out of-
Ron Reigns:
Going through the tube.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
But I have to say, in 15 years, I have seen a lot of babies and a lot of cone heads. And you see with like the birth moms, if they take a picture with the baby, you see their, kinda like, concerned look on their face. But again, it’s totally normal, the heads do go back to normal shape and it’s nothing to be concerned about. And regardless, the adoptive family and the birth parents, I want to reassure you both, you are going to love this baby cone head or not but the cone head will go.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
If the baby has a medical problem, sometimes we know this going into labor and delivery, and it’s been disclosed to the adoptive family, the birth parents know. Sometimes there’s a surprise at delivery and there’s a medical condition that the doctors didn’t discover during the pregnancy. And I’ve had that happen a few times. I would say more than a few times, or sometimes if there is a medical situation that they have or suspecting when the baby is born, it’ll either be not as bad as they thought, or I’ve had a situation where it was much worse.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And the way that we handle those is, the adoptive families we are prepared and they understand that if they were to be giving birth to this, and this was their biological child, the exact same thing could be happening. And so they understand that this is their child. I have never had an adoptive family walk away because of a medical malady with a baby. I’ve heard of it happening, it’s not very common at all, but again, with our agency, I can say that we definitely prepare families. Anything can happen, you can have a perfectly healthy pregnancy, a perfectly healthy baby during the pregnancy and then something happens during labor and delivery and the baby may go into distress and then there are issues afterwards.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So things happen. I mean, the we’re talking about the birth of a child, anything can happen, but yes, adoptive families for the most part are right there and on your side. So birth parents know that. Letting the baby go, it is very normal having a hard time, anticipating letting the baby go, the physical and emotional act of letting the baby go with the adoptive family. And our case managers and the adoption counselor are ready to help you process, see emotions. They’re going to help you prepare for that moment.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And then we also have our adoption aftercare program, the Donna Kay Evans Program, that will continue to assist you in the care support that you’re going to need after the adoption, because you are going to go through a grieving process in most situations and we’re going to be there for you and help you through that. So now switching sides, for adoptive families, you actually have less control over the adoption situation. You can choose what adoption agency you’d like to work with, what your adoption preferences are and which birth mothers you’d like to be presented to. And this is where a lot of adoptive families struggle.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So this is where we also say adoption isn’t for everybody, because you don’t have full control over what happens during the adoption journey. In a lot of ways, it is like infertility, you can go in with the best of intentions and be given percentages by your doctor, that how successful it’s going to be, what the chances are. And then it doesn’t work out. You just need to remember whether you are choosing an adoption plan or whether you’re going down the infertility route and doing fertility treatments that when you embark on a journey, you don’t always know where are going to land. And you have to find peace and reach the acceptance stage prior to even starting that journey or you’re going to be setting yourself up for failure.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
You have to know that at the end of this fertility treatment or the end of this adoption plan, we’re either going to be successful or we’re not. That’s a hard reality to accept and comprehend and find peace in. And for those that are struggling, I do recommend and counseling prior to beginning either way to start your family. So adoptive families worry about will the birth mother go through with her adoption plan. As an agency, we are working with the birth mother and we are doing everything to support her in her adoption plan. But these are human beings and human emotions, and we’re dealing with life and there’s no guarantees.
Ron Reigns:
And beyond being human emotions and a human life event, this is one of the biggest life events anybody will ever experience. So, the emotions are going to run higher than normal and the choices that are made are going to be sometimes more drastic than normal. But yeah, there’s no guarantees. We’ve said it 1000 times. There’s no guarantees in life.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And for a birth mother who is placing a baby for adoption for the very first time, she has no foreknowledge of what she’s going to feel at the moment of having the baby and when she is about to sign consent. And when the baby is about to go with the adoptive family. And so, she’s doing the best that she can to prepare and to find peace in her decision. But sometimes those feelings are overwhelming and sometimes she didn’t expect to feel a feeling that she is in turn feel. So that is very hard. And it’s very hard on both sides. It’s hard on the birth mother side, and it’s hard on the adoptive family side.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Another one that adoptive a family worry about is, what if I don’t feel a connection with the birth mom or with the baby when the baby is born. Again, this is very normal. So some adoptive mothers, more so I think than adoptive fathers have, if they have not received counseling and they have not gone through the grief stages of choosing adoption, because they’re not able to biologically have a baby on their own, sometimes it is very hard to hear about the birth mother’s pregnancy, going to her OB-GYN appointments, seeing the baby on the ultrasound, not being able to experience all of that herself. So watching somebody else go through that sometimes can be very, very difficult.
Ron Reigns:
So is there some jealousy going on from the adoptive mother then with seeing the birth mother go through all this?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Sometimes, and we find that more if an adoptive family has not received counseling or has not processed the emotions of grief of not being able to biologically have her own child. And so, sometimes when you’re feeling jealousy or resentment towards somebody that is able to do something that you are not, it is harder for them to form an emotional connection with a birth mother.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so, that’s why we really encourage adoptive families, prior to starting an adoption plan, really make sure that you are in a place mentally, that you can enjoy your adoption experience, that you can not miss out on anything. And whether that is going to require counseling or whether it’s just something that you need to process on your own and really work through those stages of grief, it’s something that we do recommend.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
If the baby’s born some adoptive moms really feel that connection immediately when they see the baby and they immediately look at this baby, like in that Twilight movie, when they say that, what was that term where they hone in on somebody and then bam, that’s their person. You know what I’m talking about?
Ron Reigns:
I never saw the Twilight movies. I know it’s a surprise, but I get you. I’ll look it up.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So, if you’re not feeling that immediate connection, it can take time. We would recommend doing kangarooing, where you do skin-to-skin contact with the baby, spending time with the baby, but don’t let that worry you. And again, as time passes, you’re still not feeling a bond with the baby, then we can have somebody, a specialist come in and help you through the adoption agency, through the counseling services that we can offer through our adoption counselors. So there are avenues to assist you with that.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
What if the baby doesn’t look like the adoptive family imagined. This is a funny one because I see this, it’s not funny for them in the moment but looking back, reflecting, I can tell you situation after situation where the baby came out a different gender or the baby came out of different race, or the baby came out looking different than they had… The baby didn’t come out looking like a Gerber baby. And the baby didn’t look like a Gerber baby when the baby was discharged from the hospital. So the couple they unfold didn’t work in the baby’s favor as much as we had hoped.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And so, I think the best advice I can give is that babies change in how they look and you are going to love your baby. You’re going to fall in love with your baby, if your baby has a different look than you were expecting. When your son was born, did he look how you thought he was going to look?
Ron Reigns:
Oh, exactly, 100%.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Really?
Ron Reigns:
Well, okay, maybe not exactly. No, like you said, they come out and they’re not quite what you expect. Again, John was my first and only but you don’t… All you see is pictures of babies and they’re also perfect. Like you say, the Gerber babies and things like that. And of course, no, he didn’t look like… As a matter of fact, so John was a big baby. He was 10 pounds, 13 and a half ounces, something like that. So almost 11 pounds, he was… And this wasn’t a C-section or anything. So it was a rough one. And the nurse at the time, when he first came out, said, “Oh my God, he’s a monster.”
Ron Reigns:
Well, my wife took that a different way. She didn’t know what we had done wrong. So obviously, she just meant he’s big. And he was, he was long, he was big, but you just get over it really quickly, and like you say, they do grow into their beauty and their… But that first couple hours, you’re a little nervous like, is this what I created?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. I have to say the biggest shock of my four biological children would’ve been my second child. I was actually induced at 37 and a half weeks back then they did it much earlier than they do now, but they were worried that she was just going to be so big based upon the ultrasound readings, that they were concerned that she was going to be too big and I wouldn’t be able to deliver her. And so, they induced me at 37 and a half weeks and when she was born, she was six pounds, nine ounces. So she was tiny and she had the cord wrapped around her neck twice. And so her face was pretty blue.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So it was one of those experiences that is scary where the nurse is pounding on the emergency button on the wall and people come flying in and they’re taking her and trying to get her to breathe and everything else. So it was when the doctor pulled her out and she had the cord wrapped her on her neck twice and she’s little, the doctor and I both just stared at her because I was expecting something like your son coming out, this big baby and I had this little peanut that came out and I thought, wow, the ultrasound was really off on this one. So, she was a tiny and she’s fine, she’s beautiful.
Ron Reigns:
And that was what? Almost 18 years ago now.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
On Sunday, yes, will be 18 years.
Ron Reigns:
Wow.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Wow. 18 years. She was also a vacuum baby. I had two that they had used a vacuum on and my babies had really big heads. And so they… But her head wasn’t like my son’s, my son had the real lump on his head. And I didn’t get to really see her that much right away because they were working on her, so it wasn’t… With him I got see him pretty much right away. And then they cleaned him up and then they brought him right back. And I have to say the hospital was amazing with my son because my ex-husband had reached out as they were bringing the baby back. And they said, “No, sorry, mom first.”
Ron Reigns:
That is hilarious, she did all the work.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. But even though labor and delivery is really not fun per se, because it’s labor and painful and it’s all kind of stuff and I have to say with my third child, I absolutely had the best experience with labor and delivery with her because I had, when she was coming out, I didn’t have to have a vacuum which was nice, when she was coming out my doctor did the most amazing thing and he used this firm voice and told me to open my eyes. And he said it in such a way that I listened. When you’re in labor delivery, you’re really in your own head and he just commanded me to open my eyes and look, and I actually got to watch her being born rather than streaming or, you know what I mean, yelling or closing my eyes and pushing. And so-
Ron Reigns:
In a weird way it takes away a lot of the pain?
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. And it was amazing to watch her be born. And so that was, yeah, third time was a charm. And over at one with my son. So if the baby doesn’t look like you had envisioned, I have to say, having had four by biological children, none of them came out in that moment and looked as if I had thought they would look. They all very much grew into how I thought they would look. But in that moment when they hold up the baby and the baby’s covered with white stuff and it’s sometimes really red or sometimes the face is purplish or blue. And then they put the gel in the eyes and then the eyes, well, I mean, you look at the baby and I can see why my colleague was like, “What did we do?”
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So just know that that moment will pass. What if the baby doesn’t love me? Well, the good news is, is that newborns don’t talk, so the baby is not going to tell you that the baby doesn’t love you. The baby will love you. You have to believe that and showering this baby and knowing that you chose this baby and that you are so blessed by this baby. This baby is going to grow and this baby is going to love you. So take that off of your mind. Your worries, just be reassured that this baby’s going to love you.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
So then I get the questions of, what if something happens? What if, what if, what if? We can what if all day, every day I do it too. I, what if I’m a “whatifer”, are you a “whatifer”?
Ron Reigns:
I am actually, I’ve gotten better because of your husband because a long time ago he told me, he said, “All too often, we worry about things that haven’t happened yet and aren’t likely to happen, but we worry about them.” And I try and put that in perspective because he had said that and I’m like, that makes a lot of sense. I’ll spend all day long with the what ifs of life, if I don’t control it and go wait, this is not even likely, why am I worried about it? If it happens that’s when you should start worrying about it. I mean, sure, you should be prepared for something, but don’t worry and stress yourself out over it.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Because and I’m saying this tongue in cheek, worrying about something, takes away your joy and it takes away your ability to be my mindful and present in the moment because you are focusing on something else. And as much as I would like to practice what I’m preaching, it is hard, it is a struggle. And I think that sometimes if you’re really stuck in the what ifs either, if you’re a birth mother or an adoptive family, try to distract yourself, try to find something really positive. Like if you’re really struggling about, is my adoption really going to happen? Is the birth mother really going to place her baby with us? Maybe watch a Hallmark movie about a positive adoption, just find positivity and try to surround yourself with that, but it can be difficult.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And that’s when maybe speaking with adoptive families, who’ve gone through the same experience as you and had a good outcome speaking with them or speaking with, if you pray, maybe pray about it. Or if you meditate, maybe meditate, or if you can walk on a beach and that’s your happy place, then walk on the beach, but really try to not let the what ifs rob you of the amazing journey that you’re going to have because it’s something that you will cherish for the rest of your life and letting worries and fear detract from what should be the most special time is just going to hurt you in the end.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
It’s going to take away from it, it’s going to Rob you of those moments that you could have just been excited and you’re right worrying about something isn’t going to change it but again, much easier said than done. My best advice on the what ifs, it goes back to again, be educated, make informed decisions when you’re doing an adoption plan, have faith in the agency that you have chosen and have faith in the birth mother that you chose as well. And if you have of confidently made these choices, whether you are an adoptive family or birth parents, then find peace and comfort in the choice that you yourself take.
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 inform 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. You can also find out more information about Building Arizona Families on their website @azpregnancyhelp.com.
Ron Reigns:
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 @birthmothermatterspodcast.com. Tune in next time on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption for Kelly Rourke-Scarry, I’m Ron Reigns.