231 One Million
/Haley: This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You're listening to Adoptees On I'm your host, Haley Radkey. Nope, that's not what I say. You're listening to Adoptees On the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host Haley Radkey, and with me today is Carrie Kayhill Mulligan. Hi Carrie.
Carrie: Hi Haley.
Haley: Welcome to this very special episode of Adoptees On. Usually Carrie and I chat and record together on Adoptees Off Script for Patreon supporters of the show. But today, Carrie is with me because we are going to celebrate something very exciting.
Carrie: Do-do-do! Guys, I don't know how to act. I'm normally behind the paywall and I feel like I ought to have like, you know, scrubbed my nails and spruced myself up to be out here.
Haley: I know. I should have put makeup on today. Right, right. Like, yeah. Yeah. Mm. Okay.
Carrie: Imagine us being very fancy, very formal. Because the good news is exciting news is...
Haley: It feels like, it feels like fake news actually
Carrie: Now! No, no, no, no. Yeah. Really?
Haley: Yeah, it does. Uhhuh.
Carrie: Well, let's get to it.
Haley: Okay.
Carrie: Drum roll.
Haley: Um, Adoptees On, the podcast has been downloaded over 1 million times.
Carrie: Boop-ba-doo! Are we gonna have like a crowd sound like edited in? I gotta make a lot of noise right now.
Haley: Yeah. Applause.[ Cheering crowd sound effect.]
Carrie: Yeah. Imagine confetti you guys. Yes. This is amazing. Hailey. What, how did this happen?
Haley: I don't know. I remember getting really excited when one episode got a hundred downloads, and I mean, truly 80% of all podcasts out there, the median number of downloads per episode is like 150 ish. And so to know Adoptees On is pretty consistently in the top 10% of all podcasts, and, you know, you were the guest on the very first episode of Adoptees On .
Carrie: Amazing.
Haley: And your, your episode has the most downloads and we're, um, over 8,000.
Carrie: What!
Haley: On your episode now. Mm-hmm.
Carrie: Wow. Shout out. Hi, you guys. Whoever listened. Hello. . .
Haley: I know, right? Isn't that funny? Okay. So before we talk more about that kind of stuff, let's do a little update. Because that was in 2016.
Carrie: Oh my gosh.
Haley: So I think we should just do a little updates on our adoption stories, I guess.
Carrie: Sure. Because you also gave, um, so my story, you interviewed me for the first one that launched in July 4th, 2016. And then at the end of,
Haley: Wait. Don't say July 4th. Say July 1st. Yo. Canada. You were born here, so
Carrie: I know. And you know what? I put it in my head. It was on the Independence day of our country and it just came out wrong.
Haley: It's from Canada.
Carrie: Ugh.
Haley: Uhhuh . Uhhuh July 1st.
Carrie: See how adoption we're gonna get into that identity stuff. Woo.
Haley: Anyway, anyway, sorry to interrupt you, but go on, go on.
Carrie: No, I just went off of a deep thought there. I I just, um, where was I headed?
Haley: Tell us your story and any updates you have since we recorded in 2016,
Carrie: Since I last told you my story in 2016. Oh, I was gonna say, because we told, I got to tell my story and then at the end of season one you got to tell yours. I interviewed you.
Haley: Right.
Carrie: So, um, I'm sure those episodes, I mean, what is your episode number?
Haley: 13.
Carrie: 13. Okay. So episodes one and 13, then we'll do updates from there. Um, I have, in the time that you last heard from me on the front of the show here, you guys, I have continued to maintain a very healthy relationship, ongoing reunion with my birth father and with extended family on that side.
I got to, uh, travel back to where he was born, where all my ancestors were born, to attend a family wedding of my sister. Actually, that was our first off-script episode. I think that story, if you're at all interested, you can look back.
Haley: oh my word really? . Wow.
Carrie: Yeah, it was Carrie's trip to Labrador I think was the first.
Haley: Okay. Uhhuh.
Carrie: And I have actually had some ongoing and um, beginning contact with my maternal side through a cousin, through D N A testing and am slowly building in that side of my identity. I think those are the two main big things that have changed for me. What about you?
Haley: Well, I shared that I had a brief four month reunion with my biological mother. Way, way, way back. I think I was 22 and since then I have had no contact with her. She's not, um, responded to anything. Um, I've sent her some information here and there some medical changes for me and reached out occasionally, but I've never heard anything back. And then my maternal grandfather, who I was in contact with longer, I found out via Google search that he had passed away last year in 2021.
And nobody told me. so, so it's just like the gift that keeps on giving, you know, like that's the surprise that, oh, and you, you won't be included in this either or this either. So those, there are some painful things. I have had a little bit of contact with a maternal cousin as well. And then on my paternal side, I've been in reunion with my dad for 11 years and I literally, when we're recording this, I just returned from attending my brother's wedding, in which I was in all the family pictures.
There was not one where they were like, oh. Okay. Just the OGs, you know, that did not happen.
Carrie: Amazing.
Haley: In one of, in this speech when, where my brother, um, and his wife sort of were thinking all the, um, guests and everything at the reception he mentioned without caveat, you know, my three sisters. And so those moments were so impactful for me and probably, probably no one else in the room was thinking like, oh, that's so, you know, nice that he included you
Right? Like, it, it just, for everybody else it just was normal. And for me it was like so significant. I'm still talking about it, you know.
Carrie: Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And. To shout out to you for doing the work, I guess, to maintain those relationships and to be in their lives because it's, um, in preparation for talking today, not only did I listen to our first episode, but I also also listened to the trailer. And, um, y'all, if you have four minutes, go back and check out where Haley's heart was when she launched this podcast and what she wanted. And normalizing adoption reunion stories for the real life, nitty gritty and what it takes to build a relationship with genetic intimates that are actual social strangers is, we don't hear a lot about that.
And, um, I just wanna thank you for bringing that here because it's, it's wonderful to see that that's what one of your goals was starting out. And because it, here you are this many years in and, and to have been rocked. I saw the pictures you posted of and, and the, what you were describing, the sense of being so fully included was shocking.
You could, you almost can't even enjoy it because you're surprised by it and dissecting it and thinking about it and wondering and trusting and testing and those connection parts of ourselves are not guaranteed. And so even as we build beautiful relationships, some people could look at the picture of you with all of this first family included and think, oh, wonderful. Hallmark moment. But there's so much more going on. And this show has provided a place for all of us that tune in to, to really explore what those complicated shades of feeling are. It's not just either or, there's just so many different ways we can feel about it, but there's still so many commonalities that that's really one of the things that, I mean, I guess we'll get to that next, some takeaways from listening to the first episode.
Haley: Okay. I'll be honest, I procrastinated. I put up as absolutely long as possible. I think I was messaging you several days ago saying, yeah, I'm gonna listen to episode one and give you my notes so we can prep for this episode. And I put it off as long as I possibly could because I knew it was the most downloaded episode and I also knew it was the first one I made and I did all of it myself.
And it took for- fricking ever to make that show. And was, I'm like, I feel like I'm doing a lot better now. So, but, I listened and I was like, okay, you know what? It holds up. I, I sound very timid and, I was gonna say nervous, but like, it's more this like meek energy and I thought, wow, I've like grown up on the podcast even though I was a grown up when I started it, but I'm 39 now, and so I don't know.
What were your first impressions when you re-listened?
Carrie: Yes. Um, yes, they were a hundred percent the same. And I, I think I've only listened to it two times before and I was really pleasantly surprised at how well I thought it holded up. I You must have done a really good job of editing, but also you guys, uh, if you have ever followed along to some of the stories that Hailey has saved on the Adoptees On Instagram, I think it was, or is it your personal, where we talked about, I think it was for 500,000.
No, it was for five years. And, and we talked about our story of, of how we first met and the first episode that we recorded actually, um, was not usable. So the one that you hear, is my second attempt at telling my story. So a couple things hit me and one was, one, I was really glad I had the chance to practice on the one that got thrown away because I think it helped me edit what I wanted to say.
And I know, Hailey, that you are the first person that ever asked for my adoption story in a verbal setting. Like that's the first time I put that story together in one long breath of an hour. I, what strikes me in listening to it is the amount of emotion that you can hear me still processing in some of the gaps, in some of the, you know, the laughter that is really just processing hurt emotions and trying to get them through.
There's so much of that. Mm. And, and I just feel for my baby adoptee self of like still just. In the first, I mean, it had been a couple years that I was processing adoption, but I feel also timid in some of my pronouncements and in some of my opinions. I was still, still really obviously to me grappling with the hurt, even though it's years past the, when the reunion started, it's a good eight years past when I started with Alan, and that just shows me, just because time passes doesn't mean that we grow.
We have to work with some of the things. I think I'm, I'm no therapist, but I feel like the fact that you and I have taken the time almost weekly in, in the past five years in the bonus episode we do for patrons that help make the show go on the Patreon offered off-script podcast, whether I wanted to or not, we've been talking about adoption stuff a lot, , and I can just see all the gaps in my thinking. I can see and hear some of the baby ideas that are starting to grow, but haven't had time to really get fully formed. And so, um, I I have a lot of empathy for myself in listening to that. And for you and just for how we were setting the template, because I was also like, there was no standard format for the show.
And that really delighted me to hear, oh, I know that you knew what you were doing, but I didn't know that's how it was gonna sound, you know? And. Anyway, just, um, those, those were the kind of things on an emotional level that really hit me. Was it, it still seems raw to me in hearing myself. I can hear that emotion.
Haley: Okay. Well, here's a good time. Let's hear a clip and then I want to hear you react to it and tell me if any of your thoughts on this particular thing have changed.
(Audio clip of Episode 1)
Carrie: It's weird and there's, there's hard things in every family, and adoption is a blessing in a lot of ways. I don't mean to be, you know, the ungrateful adoptee, but I was so surprised cuz I was always such a cheerleader for adoption.
I was, it felt doubly hard to, um, be upended by the re by the reunion process cuz I, I felt sort of betrayed by the whole institution. I felt like I'd really only considered the upside. And then you have to, when when you meet the people that walked away from you, you have to really confront that part of your history that you weren't always chosen.
(End clip)
Haley: Okay. So that's a pretty illuminating clip.
Carrie: Hahaha
Haley: How do you feel about adoption now? So we're six and a half years later and I personally haven't heard you say adoption is a blessing in a lot of ways for a long time.
Carrie: Wow. I've got so many thoughts that go through my head when I hear that. First and foremost is that I hear myself grappling with the lived experience of being separated from my identity and culture and mother straight from the womb, and trying to communicate that in an environment where people only at a surface level understand the gloss, the glossy story of how great adoption is.
And I see myself struggling with being taken seriously, and that I'm realizing that any critical pronouncements against adoption will be seen as and written off as ungrateful. I hear myself trying to make room and acknowledge people's understanding that adoption does show, what I think people really want to highlight when they are promoting the adoption as love and adoption is wonderful sort of narrative, is that adoption proves how full and wonderful the human heart is of the adopting parent that can take in non-genetic kin and raise them as their own.
That the idea of found family and how beautiful that is and sort of the idea that what could be better than pairing up orphans with loving families. What I hear in that, in that quote that you just played is, is that I'm bouncing up against that stereotype and trying to, what I'm realizing, I guess, is that in listening to six and a half years of other adoptee stories is that our individual stories are our own, but they're reflective of a systemic injustice, and that's what I was trying to grapple with there is, is the personal story that is mine, and no one really should be able to argue with, but the societal vision of adoption, that is in fact masking a systemic injustice, a for-profit institution. And no one really wants to look at that. And as soon as you start talking about money and adoption, people tune out and think you're a crank.
But these are real things. I, I feel like I don't talk about adoption being a good as much anymore, but I feel like I would like to circle back and try and remember where people are at and that when we say there's problems with adoption, and adoption is trauma, what they hear is that human beings aren't good and that they can't love small babies.
And what kind of monster are we to suggest that that is not good ? Uh, is that It's complicated answer, but.
Haley: It is complicated. Well, I have seen from both of us, but I'll sort of speak for myself. is, I have become more and more radicalized over the years.
Carrie: Yes. Me too.
Haley: Starting from the viewpoint of, uh, in childhood, like this is a gift you were chosen. Just imagine had you stayed in here, original family, you know, you wouldn't have anything basically to, oh, there are good and bad things. The both/ and. To wow. Just as you said, the systemic injustices. Where are the upstream problems that we could stem to stop the need for stranger adoption to stop the need for the, to use abolitionist language, to stop the family policing system.
All of those kinds of things. It's amazing to me how far my viewpoint has shifted. And I hear you saying, if we're only talking about this radicalized view that I have, we leave everyone else behind and they just can't see it. So to talk about the both and is more Mm, more of an easy way in for folks to actually listen and process alongside of us, to then see the systemic injustices and be called to act on them.
Not just sit on the sidelines, and watch adoptees do all the work to try and center family preservation and watch all the first parents who've lost children to try and save other mothers from becoming mothers of loss. You know? So, Yeah, I am surprised how far I've come in these last years when starting out I really thought, wow, I have a really nuanced view. And cuz I see some of the negative signs too.
Carrie: Absolutely. Haley. Absolutely. And I, I jokingly have said on our off-script episodes that you have radicalized me, being part of this adoptee community. And I don't put that on your feet. I think it's just knowledge and knowledge is power. And the ideas had been handed to me through such an unassailable point of view before, that, um, it's been very powerful to hear other people describe the same sorts of struggles at personal levels. This critical mass of voices joining together to talk about individual harms that come from a common collective system of injustice. I would've never guessed that would happen. I didn't imagine that could be the outcome of this podcast.
I just, you know, and this is, um, we're recording this in the middle of November, y'all, and you know, who knows what the fate of Twitter will be. I mentioned that only because I only met Hailey through Twitter, and I don't know if your other initial interviewees were also Twitter friends and follows and
Haley: Yeah, they were.
Carrie: If, if Twitter goes down, as it might, you know, if you follow the news, who knows. I'm just so grateful you have made this community here for adoptees because we were each out there in our own little silos, and you found a way for us to put our voices together and make a chorus, and we're not singing the same melody I mean the same, you know, part, but it's all the same song.
You know, there's, there's sopranos and bass and altos and people doing percussion, but it's, we're all on the same song here of what an adoption experience is like, and I, I think it's really important, as you said in the very first intro, sneak preview into the whole series. It's we're the most least the least heard from group, so
Haley: I still think that's true.
Carrie: I do too.
Haley: Yeah. I still think that's true. Even though over the last years, there has been an explosion of adoptees doing all kinds of things.
Carrie: So much.
Haley: Other podcasts, more social media accounts featuring adoptee voices and
Carrie: Writers groups.
Haley: Talking about the hard things in adoption. Yes. Writers groups, more memoirs,
Carrie: Letters to the editor,
Haley: More everything.
Carrie: Everything, everything. It's so good you guys. Mm-hmm. and, but I just feel like it only really can get this weight of collective strength because there were a few, you know, you were, you were not the very first adoption adoptee centered podcast, but you were one of the first five, I think, and, and this whole group, everyone doing it together, I feel like the time, it's like spontaneous generation where things happen.
The same thing happens in different places around the world. I feel like it was an uprising and Mm, I'm so grateful for it because if we lose our social media contacts, you've already built another place.
Haley: There's somewhere else for us to go. Yes. Okay. I want to ask you another thing about your story and processing and I don't know if you know this about how I've seen you, but from the first times we connected and you told me about your history, I have always seen you as an indigenous person and you don't ever lead with that. From what I've seen, and I'm curious over the last few years and hearing from other transracial adoptees and reading their memoirs and listening to the interviews, I'm curious how you've grappled with your indigenous identity since processing those things.
Carrie: That's one. Thank you for giving me that feedback. You've never shared that with me before. And what are our friends, if not the mirros that we need in our lives to show us things that we can't see about ourselves? So, thank you, my friend. I have struggled mightily with my indigenous identity. I, lemme just back up and say Reunion had me struggling with my identity, period.
I have never had such an upheaval in who I thought I was since my teenage years and I, I know a lot of us would never wanna go back to that. I think the majority reason for that was layering in if, if y'all haven't listened to my story in episode one, the Catholic adoption agency knew that my father was an indigenous man from Labrador.
A Metis man, white explorers came to Labrador and met and married indigenous women. And that's what my father's history is. The Catholic Charities adoption Agency knew that, and literally, so I, I have paperwork that shows they know his heritage and then I have the paperwork that they told me about myself, which is that I also have his heritage.
They told me that he was only English and Scottish and they left out his indigenous background. And to know that that was kept from me is a, a real pain that I've had a hard time probing. It feels very numb inside me. I, I cannot overstate how important knowing my actual ethnic heritage has made for myself just looking in the mirror every day, because now I see him, I see my birth father in my face.
I see his ancestors in my face, in my body, in my hands, in a way that I, I only had ghosts before. Really nothing. But I don't have the lived experience of being indigenous and I pass as white. I'm white passing. I've had white privilege my whole life and uh, because my mother is white, so that makes me I guess a quarter indigenous or whatever.
I have the option to pass as white. And also the, I guess the curse of having passed as white so that I didn't question sooner. I was not forced to go and find this out and at, you know, 40 to try and figure out who am I all over again. It's been really hard and there are the other layers of the harms that have been done to indigenous people in this country.
In the colonization that's happened, people faking indigenous ancestry to try and get benefits that aren't theirs. I don't wanna walk in that space. For me, it really just points out adoptees are not, you know, it's not nature or nurture, but family is meant to be both. And, and we don't get, we get both pieces if we're lucky in reunion, but they're still not joined together.
And so my experience of being indigenous, the way that Alan experiences it and all his family experience, it is sort of limited to my time with him through proxy with him. I can absorb his consciousness of what he lived through. I can absorb it in pictures, but it is not my lived experience except for in these past little times.
So it's, I, I feel like an imposter in my own skin. I feel like I'm appropriating my own culture still. And I, I'm looking forward to, I think you mentioned there might be some more, you had one episode that talked about, um, cultural identity just last week I think, and I don't know if there's another coming up.
Was there someone else?
Haley: Yeah, we're talking with a therapist about it very soon. So yeah,
Carrie: Teasing that.
Haley: I'm looking forward to that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate you sharing that. And I know it's even awkward. It was so awkward for me to say that to you because, I also don't wanna put an identity on you that is not, I don't know,
Carrie: No, no.
Haley: How do you say this?
Carrie: It, it's, it's, it's someone's own personal identity. You can't, uh, assign it to someone, but if you know my story and then you can see that in my face and in my body, then you are able to help me see that back.
Haley: But also over the years of our friendship, and when you talk, including in our first interview, you talk about your body type. You talk about being in Alaska and your connection to making your stunning winter hats and dog mushing and all of these things that you go ahead and you, you literally attribute to your ancestors. You say it, right? So you are saying those words, but then you didn't, you don't connect it one step further Where I have done that, for better or worse, not sure.
Carrie: No, I like it. I like it very much. But it's true. I think that it's a numb spot in my identity still and I'm trying to live into it without appropriating it. Like it's, it doesn't feel authentic cuz it's not my lived experience, even though it's my inherited experience. And you know, some of the things we've, you and I have looked at a lot of papers and studies and news in the past five and a half, six years in Off Script, and we've learned about epigenetic memory. We've learned the way that, um, memories are stored and handed down through generations. We've learned about mother cells being passed on through generations. There's science about belonging in a biological sense that I feel like, um, my brain gets, but my heart doesn't still, I'm still like jet lagged in my own life and identity.
Haley: Mm. Well, I I appreciate you sharing that. I'm sure there's a lot of folks that will identify with you in that. I was surprised when I listened back to some of the things we mentioned in the first episode and the things we recommended also holds up. How about that ?
Carrie: Absolutely. You guys really good recommendations, I thought right out the gate.
Haley: Yeah. So, and now I have a change in her title, but Dr. Deanna Rhodes, we recommended, um, a couple of her books and I was, you know, telling you in that episode like, Yeah. And her mother didn't tell her who her birth father was, and she was on the show in the mid hundreds, I, I thought I had written her episode down, but I'll have to put it in the show notes for everybody.
And to that point, she was still searching for her father, and this year in 2022, she finally found her father. And that story is really, really remarkable. So you can check on her Facebook, um, if you wanna hear what's up. And she, she's about to be featured in some very large media platforms.
Carrie: Ooh.
Haley: Sharing that story.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. . Wow.
Haley: Yeah, it's really tremendous. So, um, she's continued to, right to and support the adoptee community, um, over the years, which is really amazing. And the other blog we were talking about was Lost Daughters, which they haven't been as prolific in the last few years, but there's still so many good pieces over there.
You and I talked through the stages of Reunion that were listed on the Origins Canada website at the time and I just, I went through and clicked through and they've updated their list and they have a few more stages. And it's interesting to me, over all the hundreds of conversations I've had with adoptees, you know, either on or off air, how I'm like, wow, we really are in like the stages of grief.
Meaning it's not one step after the other. There's cyclical, sometimes you hit some, sometimes you don't hit, you know, many of them, like all of those kinds of things. So, I just thought, wow, like we really hit on these things that are, still have value and the conversation has been added to so, so much over the last years as well.
Carrie: I absolutely agree. It was very fun to see and I was talking about some books that I was recommending and those books still stick with me, so that's really fun as well.
Haley: Absolutely. Okay, so we've talked a little bit about Off Script here and there, and just to clarify, that is the Patreon podcast that folks get if you're supporting the show on Patreon. It's every week as well, . So there's, you know, two episodes a week and when adoptee's on is on a break, Off Script is still going. So, if you ever wanted more, to hear more from me and Carrie, there's your chance. But as you mentioned, we first connected on Twitter and then I asked you if you wanted to, you know, help me with Patreon and start recording together. And we literally built our friendship through recording Adoptees Off Script off-script episodes, and this is gonna sound very weird, and I think we also talked about it on our Instagram live; those were some of the only conversations that we were having at the time.
It wasn't like we were texting each other in between or messaging each other. We were just like building friendship recording on audio.
Carrie: Yeah, it's wild, y'all. I . The other thing that I kind of noticed from our first, um, episode was like, we had good rapport already though. And maybe that's just because you're such a good listener, but I was surprised, like, because we'd only talked one other time before it was for the first failed one.
It wasn't like we had any, and I just because you asked, I told you everything and I've been doing it ever since. You're just such a good listener, Haley. It's. It's a funny thing to have all of you in on this friendship because it's, it's, again, it's more mirrors. Like when you posted this picture of us today asking for mailbag questions, so many other people were like, it's wonderful to see you together.
Like they, they're enjoying our friendship, growing in real time with us.
Haley: That's right. Yeah. It's like a community friendship, right? A communal friendship. Cuz when folks listen to us, like they literally feel like they're sitting down at the table with us having coffee or whatever. Um, or we're out on a run with you, which I wish that counted towards our heart health together.
But I am curious what your feelings are about the friendship we've built and the benefits to having adoptee friends, and I'll just go first. This summer was the first time we were ever in person together. And that was so amazing and it took me forever to post about it or share any pictures because I wanted to like hoard it to my....
Carrie: oh, I was gonna say, it's almost worse because now like I know what I'm missing. Like I just wish we lived closer. But how wild. How wild to know you for six years before we actually meet. And not just a friend that you, you know, someone you pass at work or something, but someone you tell all the hardest things that you're thinking about and dealing with and going through and tears have been shared.
And I'm not even a big crier.
Haley: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. ,
Carrie: Is there anything else that you feel about having a recorded friendship out for the world, for the patrons to be part of?
Haley: Well, I haven't listened back to most of off script and. It just feels, feels like I'm eavesdropping on past Haley. And sometimes be because I have children and I have this weird job where I know I have, you know, I'm gonna have thousands of hours of audio that when I die my kids can listen to and you know, discover more about their mother.
Sometimes that's the lens I'm hearing it from. Like, oh my gosh, what if they listen to this someday? And it's more about like this legacy piece for me, which is, I don't know. I know it's a strange thing to say, but as we're living out in real time, these friendships and conversations like nobody else is recording their conversations and listening back to them if you're. You know, a sound mind like, it, it's not right.
Carrie: You're not a creeper. Right. .
Haley: Yeah. So it's weird, you know, cuz I can go be, I like, no, Carrie, actually you said this, remember here, let me play it back for you. Right, like, I literally did that today. Um, no one else can do that. So it also feels, feels weird,
Carrie: Yeah. But it is, uh, I find it interesting because I do go back and listen because there's often things that I'll say like, oh right, I gotta do that. And I never remember to do it unless I go back and listen. Oh. And so there are, it's, it's wild because I'll be like, oh, she did see that cool thing. Oh, I was gonna check that setting.
Oh, I've gotta remember to look up that show. And so, um, it, it amazes me like how much can go in and outta my head, even though in the moment I'm like, with you totally gonna follow up. And then it's like, oh yeah, yeah. . So that, it's kind of nice. I just have an audio reminder of what we talked about and what I said. I was gonna follow through on .
Haley: Okay, is there anything you have said on the record that you regret?
Carrie: No. No. Although I will say that, um, it's just a little embarrassing to be learning in public, I guess, or on Patreon because I know that early on, you and I both had limited ideas or understanding of how much better say open adoption would be.
And now I think we would, you and I current selves would debunk past selves ideas and disabuse ourselves of, why that's not necessarily better, and maybe it's just a panacea to make more adoptions happen.
Haley: I'm with you. Those are the things I regret. Yeah, and I think sometimes about people taking quotes from past Haley and being like, well, no. See, this is why Haley believes, you know? Mm-hmm. like, well, not anymore.
Carrie: I mean, in that way it's kind of interesting to me because we have a real record of our own thinking and growing on this subject that's intimate and important, and I think socially applicable to lots of people.
One other thing that I've really come away with through listening to so many stories and being community with adoptees is, is realizing that we should be building bridges with other people who are searching for social justice and other causes, and that I think those are the easiest bridges. Those might be the easiest in roads we can make.
Haley: Yeah, I've definitely struggled on that front. I will be completely candid about that because from the inception of this podcast, I have always led with adoptees, our number one.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. . .
Haley: And so I try to make every decision about who I have on the show and what topics we cover and what I say publicly or, and who I interact with publicly to always center adoptee voices. And I think I've done really good job of that. I don't think anyone could point to something I've done or said to be like, oh no. Well, Haley was really highlighting adoptive parents there or something.
Carrie: No, no. Agreed. A hundred percent. You have been such an advocate for adoptees, Haley.
Haley: So that's why when folks talk about allyship with other groups, I absolutely see there is a place for that. And especially for those involved in, um, political activism and trying to have more support from officials for opening records or adoption annulment, or any of those kinds of like actual political issues that won't get changed unless government changes, I'm not really in that space. I am really more focused on changing the societal narrative and not necessarily doing actual political on the ground activism. And so I just keep adoptee voices centered.
Carrie: Absolutely. Well, and I think it's super important because I, I know that something we've talked about before is that in many ways adoptees are still trying to struggle to claim an oppressed status, most people just think we're lucky. So we're still trying to carve out a space where people need to understand why this is a, a civil rights issue, so, um, I think that's really important. But I, I just mentioned more as, um, even just in conversations with friends, understanding ways that adoptee struggles mirror other struggles and that those are maybe inroads into conversations and ways that I can get people to circumvent the knee-jerk reaction that they have, the conditioning, that adoption is great.
Haley: Right. That totally makes sense. Excellent. Well, what I was gonna share is my most embarrassing moment is literally screwing up that interview with you. My very first one. Um, which I've said before.
Carrie: And it's not front facing.
Haley: It's not front facing. Yeah. No one will ever hear it. I don't even know if I have it anymore, frankly.
Carrie: You might have some more questions, but I, I'm getting curious about our numbers. Like Lady, what are you talking about for numbers here?
Haley: Oh my gosh. So, okay. My official numbers are at a million now, but because of my podcast host, I'm probably more around 1.2.
Carrie: What!
Haley: I know, the stats report differently depending on the platform. So I'm probably more around that, um, at this time. But I want the screenshot that's got the mil right on the one site, not counting all the other places like YouTube and Facebook and Google Podcasts and those spots. But there's over 150 countries.
Carrie: What?
Haley: Yeah. Which is really amazing. And some of them just have like, you know, one or 10 downloads. But that's a lot of countries like for sure.
Carrie: Yeah.
Haley: Um, which is really, really fun.
Carrie: I'm like googling how many countries in the world? like 300.
Haley: I know this is a thing, like I don't think I'm ever gonna be like, oh, it's over 400 countries. Right? Like, cuz there, I don't think there are over 400 countries . I think we're closer to, you know, 190 something.
So, yeah. Yeah. And your episode is the number one episode downloaded. Then Dr. Liz DeBetta and the third one, this really surprised me, is, A recent episode from this year where I did my DNA testing.
Carrie: Wow.
Haley: I know. Isn't that funny, Hailey? Wait, how many, how many countries do you say are, have downloaded? Over 150.
Carrie: So this says 195 countries in the world. Yeah, that's three quarters of
Haley: Three quarters of countries.
Carrie: More than.
Haley: Look at us.
Carrie: Yeah. Whoa. That's pretty good. Reach, girl.
Haley: Good reach. Yep. Pretty fun.
Carrie: And do you know where left, which countries we haven't reached into? Who do we need to pass on the
Haley: I have no idea. I have no idea.
Carrie: It doesn't break down that way.
Haley: No, it's just a list of countries and I've, I mean on here there's over 160, but some of them, are duplicates. So it's like a weird, okay. It's a weird thing to try and break those out. So.
Carrie: Fascinating though.
Haley: Internet stats, it's, uh, strange.
Carrie: And, uh, one of the other questions I had had for a long time was like, how, how much momentum do we have? Like how long did it take you to get to 500,000 versus how many from 500 to one mil.
Haley: Okay. I started working on the show in March of 2016. My official launch date, as we talked about earlier, was July 1st. Even though there's a couple episodes, if you look back in your feed, I think they say June, but July 1st, 2016 was like officially public and I hit 500,000 downloads in September of 2020.
Carrie: Okay.
Haley: And so it's taken me just over two years to go from the 500 k to a million.
Carrie: So it's doubling. ,
Haley: Well kind of. Okay.
Carrie: Right? right. You got, you got the same amount in half as much time.
Haley: Well, I mean that's true, but people download like the whole back catalog. Right. Okay. I cannot believe the folks that have said, oh yeah, I just binged all the episodes, I'm like, wow.
Carrie: And how many total episodes are you at now?
Haley: This is, this is going to be episode 231 and on Off Script we're at 193 or 194. So , so for talking all podcasts of all time, we're at like 400 or something.
Carrie: But you're not counting the downloads for off-script in this 1 million? Correct. This is just for the main show, right?
Haley: Just the main show. I have no idea. Off-script downloads. It is a mystery.
Carrie: That's why I can't, I'm just keep looking. So if there's 300 episodes, you said almost
Haley: No, we have 231 episodes on the main feed.
Carrie: Yep. So 1 million divided by 231. Yep. That's still 4,300 unique listeners. If everyone listen, were completists, which they're not, so.
Haley: Right. Yes, I know.
Carrie: Amazing.
Haley: I was trying to talk to my kids about how many people, a million people were, if it was a million individual people. Right. If everybody only listened once, then I would have a terrible show, I guess. But, um, . Anyway, it's kind of bonkers to think about that.
Carrie: Well, and I'm looking at my episode if 8,000 people, a party with me and 8,000 people look like, like would that fill the stadium at the Dartmouth arena? Like what ? What would that look like? Wow.
Haley: I know. Isn't that funny?
Carrie: Yeah.
Haley: I need to think about, okay, so you mentioned, we have asked for some questions from listeners and so let's do those questions.
Carrie: Okay. We had a couple get turned in.
Haley: We had a, we have a couple. Okay. Yep. From Susan, who is very active in our adoptees on Patreon and is one of our Facebook group moderators. She asked, do we have a favorite book club we read in book club? Cuz we have a book club on Adoptees On Patreon. Um, and why is it your fave, so Carrie, as the main host for book club, how does it feel to try and choose your favorite book child.
Carrie: That felt really painful. That was, I was like, no, we're not gonna answer that question. How am I supposed to answer that? But I loved that Susan asked it, and I, what I landed on is that, for me personally, my favorite book was Susan Devon Harness's book, Bitter Root. Um, I think that was the first book of the book club. Is that right? That we did together? Or was it just the first book in the year that we did it? It wasn't, we never did it really as the book club you guys. It was the first. Oh, we did?
Haley: Yeah, we did. Okay. We did. Susan came,
Carrie: yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. . I know that I had read it earlier as um, when we were just doing sort of a book reading challenge before we developed the book club, but for me, that one has had the most personal impact because as we were talking about, to develop, helped me develop my own indigenous identity. Seeing someone else struggle with that on the page was monumentally helpful.
It, it was the mirror I didn't know I needed, I didn't, I still felt like I was, um, creeping in over someone's shoulder. That wasn't a story that I really had a right to hear, but, um, that was for me the most important selfishly. What about you?
Haley: That's amazing. Okay. Well, just as I feel it's unfair to ask you this as most of our book, ,
Carrie: it's impossible. Right.
Haley: It also feels unfair to me because a lot of the authors of these books are my friends ready.
Carrie: Right, right.
Haley: And so , I can't just pick when I'm, this is gonna be a full cop out. Okay. I for YA I really loved reading for black girls like me. Yes, by Mariama Lockton. It is tremendous. Love it. I enjoyed the reading experience, I enjoyed the book club experience, all of it.
And I was so thankful the book was in the world.
Carrie: Like same.
Haley: As far as literary memoir, , I'm going to say Dr. Jenny Yin Wills' Older Sister, Not Necessarily Related, is such a beautifully written memoir and hauntingly. So she is just a tremendous writer, loved. And then for also literary memoir plus adoptee activism, uh, Tree of Strangers by Barbara Sumner.
Carrie: Hmm.
Haley: I really enjoyed that. I love Barbara. She is so freaking feisty and just says it like it is . She's who I wanna be when I grow up. And . My last one, I'm gonna say, um, because this style of memoir is so cutting edge, in my opinion with essays and photos and art, um, it is The Guilt of an Infant Savior by our friend Megan, Megan Culhane Galbraith. Um, for those of you who aren't on a first name basis, um,
Carrie: wasn't sure if you were gonna leave it there.
Haley: No, I know. An adopted child's memory book. And her Oh my. She's just amazing. Amazing. And if you've ever been to her, one of her writing workshops, like yeah, she's amazing. So, yeah, those are my, those are my picks cuz I just, I just couldn't do this one.
So it's a total cop out. Sorry Susan, but, uh, you know, I think I need to start writing some blog posts where it's like the top 10 from 2022. Or, you know.
Carrie: Ooh, yeah. Mm-hmm. just to, to give more shout out to all of these one. It has been so wonderful you guys. If you are not yet part of our Adoptees Off Script Book Club, adoptees only book club.
Haley: Mm-hmm.
Carrie: Even if you're not a big reader on the page, you can get a lot of these books through audio books. And even if you don't think you would wanna get through a whole book, even just coming to the book club discussions, I have found discussing adoptees stories with other adoptees to be the added bonus for this whole podcast that I didn't know I needed.
It has, um, enriched my life beyond measure and the chance to think deeply about these books and come up with questions has afforded me the chance to be a life, a lifelong learner in a way that I didn't know I needed. Also such a bookworm bonus that I've been allowed to help facilitate in this group. I just can't thank you enough for that chance.
Haley: Best, best. It's so good. we have so many good book club recordings, um, on Patreon for sure. Okay, I think we're gonna, we're gonna a couple questions left and then we're gonna wrap up. Um, this question is from Kelly. What do you think are some big needs or areas of adoptee activism that are lacking leadership or workers?
Carrie: For me, I feel unqualified to answer this because I don't, honestly, there's so much going on out there and I don't know really what the holes are. I feel like you and I are, we're good at trying to process the news and share the news, but we are often focused on our own stories and how to change the narrative.
So in that vein, since that's sort of where my heart is, trying to change the narrative, I feel like the biggest thing that we could each do is gonna say, you're gonna hate me for this, you guys is, I think we gotta all go to therapy. we have to start with therapy, not even choking. We've gotta work on this stuff that's really hard. And then I think we have to have the conversations with our people in our lives, like start with the closest conversations. And then if we're brave, I think we can take our opinions and our experience just louder and letters to the editor and blog posts and sharing in all the ways that people are getting brave to do, because I feel like we just need to, I, I feel like we're making progress on cracking this narrative.
And I feel like the faucet has gone from a trickle to sort of mostly open to, like, we, I feel a flood could be coming and the time is right. And, and so that's where I'm hoping that the activism will go. What about you? What do you feel? Do you have any thoughts?
Haley: Well, i, I think you're in absolutely in the right order because I just see when people serve out of the brokenness mm, it really takes a toll on them. And especially when you're talking to your in real life people.
Carrie: Mm-hmm.
Haley: because you're going, you're going against the things. They've always believed that adoption is beautiful and it was the best gift. And when you are challenging that in any way. And seem ungrateful. It is, um, it's so subversive. It can be very painful...
Carrie: Mm-hmm.
Haley: to hear the people you love say you're wrong. You're just bitter. Who are those people you're hanging out with online? Like, it's so painful because you've summoned something up in yourself to share like this very true part of your soul, deep down in sharing your hurt and grief and pain, and for your trauma to be invalidated.
It can be so, so deeply painful. So, I love that you said therapy first, so we can work from a place of strength. Truly. Yes. Um, I, I too agree that most of the impact we can have is with our in real life folks.
Carrie: Mm-hmm.
Haley: because you know, as much arguing on Twitter as people wanna do, I just, it's tough. Mm-hmm. it's tough out there.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Haley: Yeah. And I can't really, I don't also really see, uh, big gaps anywhere except for the upstream problem solving. You know, we talk about why is there ever a quote unquote need for adoption? And really a lot of the issues are, as you like to say, maternal supports because you don't even have paid maternity leave down there.
Carrie: Mm-hmm.
Haley: um, healthcare access, just a, um, living wage, you know, all of those things.
Carrie: Affordable childcare. Right.
Haley: Exactly. So thinking about the upstream work, whereas you might not see that as adoptee activism, but I see it as adoption prevention.
Carrie: Mm-hmm.
Haley: and so, . You know, I, in my opinion, that's a great place to uh, serve in.
Okay. The last two questions I'm gonna combine. These are both from Mothers of Loss, and I suppose they're asking for hearing adoptee advice.
Carrie: Okay.
Haley: My daughter tells me she loves me so much. I believe she truly does. What I don't understand is why is she not actively participating in a relationship? I initiate most communication. She'll respond in due time and the other, again, from a mother of loss. Would you want your biomother to keep reaching out to you if you ghosted her a few years back, or would you want her to respect your silence and leave you alone? Oh, these are so heavy and I have a few thoughts on them. My first one, is that I really believe adoptees are entitled to know their information, but no one is entitled to relationship.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. ,
Haley: Right?
Carrie: Mm-hmm.
Haley: And we've heard that from multiple guests. And so for folks who have unprocessed trauma to come back into relationship can be extremely challenging, triggering even, and so painful on all sides. That relationship can quickly become untenable. And so this also may sound like a cop out. Carrie, I'm gonna borrow from what you just said. We need to all come into this having done our own work. And so the more you want from your, you know, child that you relinquished, The more you need to go to your do your own work in therapy, we would say the same thing. If it was an adoptive parent asking the question, do your own work first and hope for the best.
Yeah. Carrie do you have thoughts?
Carrie: Well, I just, I know as the person in a reunion relationship now on my maternal side, I've been the super flaky person and there's nothing, there's no malice behind it. It's not unprocessed emotion as far as I can tell. It's, it's just that it's hard to add intimate relationships later in life.
It's hard, and I'm sure that there are unprocessed things that are weighing into that. I know that I developed a hot and cold attachment style early on, and I think that plays out. Anytime there's new big, exciting relationships for me. Like I go towards and I run away and I go towards and I run away and I, I don't want a blanket statement for all adoptees, but I think that is not uncommon in trauma for lots of people.
And so I think that both can be true. Child can love you and also not initiate, and it, it particularly, I mean, I don't know this person, either person, but if, if there's stuff that's not been processed, it's harder. You're gonna get more of that and it's gonna be more intense towards, in a way, I would think, because that process is running unexamined.
Haley: Yeah. The other thing I would say about estrangement or ghosting, so I have been on the receiving end of my mother's ghosting, which was extremely painful because you just kind of wait and wait and wait and there's no like end point where they say, don't ever contact me again or something. Right. There's just nothing.
Carrie: Mm-hmm. .
Haley: and I have also been the person who estranged. And so when the people I am estranged from reach out to me, it is unwelcome. I feel that my silence is pretty, is communicating that I do not want contact. And so I find myself in this very strange place of mm, I have reached out to my, um, biological mother, as I said earlier in our call today, um, a few times to either do medical advice or do a check-in and say, I'm here.
I'm still open. And the silence I get back is communicating to me. I don't want contact, I don't want. And so it's painful. And then to be on the receiving end of what unwelcome contact is also painful, and I hope it stops. So it's weird. It's weird to be in this place of limbo and it's hard. And these are things I have to work out with my psychologist in the therapy room. So, and it's no one else's responsibility to fix that for me, but me, cuz that's, um, my reactions to those situations are mine. It's, it's no one else's. So.
Carrie: Thank you for sharing that. That is such an interesting predicament I hadn't ever considered that you're in. And I, I do think that the episode with, to Tony Corsentino, where he talks about the differences between secrecy and privacy apply here a little bit.
I feel like parents owe their children an explanation, a history, a genealogy if they're not able to raise them. I don't think that those same relinquished children owe ongoing contact to the people that didn't raise them. I, I think that they, hmm i, I just think it's a different, there's a different set of responsibilities for parents towards children and vice versa, whether you're adults or not.
I will also say that when I was estranged from Alan, birth father, he did not reach out to me. And that was really important to me. I needed to feel like I was in control of that situation. I didn't, um, part of the estrangement was because I didn't feel like I was being taken seriously, and I didn't feel like I was being heard.
And I think that had he tried to reach out to me, I would've felt less and less heard the more that he kept trying. I think that he, maybe he's dealt with other stubborn people, but he let me cool down for two solid years. He let my sisters know that I was, that he was open if I was, roundabout way, but didn't come knocking.
And that made all the difference for me personally because I was able to cool way down and not feel, um, I, I felt like I had the agency I was gonna invite this relationship. I didn't owe it to him, but I came around to wanting it for my own sake, and that made all the difference for me.
Haley: Thank you. I hope some of those thoughts are helpful to folks. I wanted do recommended resources, but I wanna do something a little different. Okay. And it's going to be self promotional.
Carrie: Okay. You first .
Haley: Yeah. We'll both do it together. You're in on this. Um, the reason the show continues is because of our supporters. And it allows me to, like I said, pay my editor, pay Carrie, to host book club, pay our book club author guests when they come and speak with us, and all the other facets of fronting the podcast, all the hosting and website. And oh my gosh, you guys just, there's so much behind the scenes. This is no shade. I love, it's so funny, so many people start podcasts and then it's just like there's a few episodes and then they're gone that's why, cuz there's so much work behind the scenes.
So I really appreciate Carrie and Tiffany and Jen and Charlotte and the folks that work on the show behind the scenes and we're just so, so grateful. And if you join us on Patreon, our resources for you are the Adoptees Off-Script podcast. So you can hear me and Carrie. Mostly it's us. I have a few of my other friends on here and there. You can join us for book club that Carrie was mentioning. So adoptees only book club. We only read books that are authored by fellow adoptees. Often the author will join us and we'll have a live Zoom and we get to ask them whatever questions.
And often the author is like, this is the first time I've read my book with other adoptees and it's a gift to them as well. So those are so special. And the other really fun thing that we do are called Adoptees Off Script Parties, which I call friendship matchmaking, where Pam Cordano and I host a party, a zoom party, and we make up fun questions, , and then we break out into little groups and you get to meet and connect with other adopted people.
So all of those things. We also have a Facebook group that's for adoptees only and people can come in there and ask questions or ask for supports, um, when they're kind of going through something and get peer advice or just to be heard. And so all of those things are what make this mean show possible.
So we would invite you to come and join our community there. Um, it's AdopteesOn.com/Community. And for those of you who were finances are a barrier. No worries. This show. is a resource. I want it to always be free and no paywall content. I have literally told my husband, if I die, you are not allowed to put this behind a paywall. You have to keep it free and keep paying the Libsyn bill so it stays up for folks.
Carrie: Oh, haley.
Haley: So there you go. How about that? So, yeah, I, and I, I'm gonna just brag about Carrie just for a minute. She and I work to put Club selections together, and Carrie has found so many amazing adoptee books that are back list, um, that we wouldn't even found without her.
She writes the most thoughtful questions to interview authors. She curates these questions to help our community really learn at a deeper level about the adoptee experience. And she is, An expert at adoptee books now, um, which is so amazing. So it's been a pleasure to see you grow into that role as well in our community and to learn with you through the last several years, especially as we've both worked on being anti-racist and teaching our community to be more inclusive and really active in calling out, um, systemic racism and other injustice injustices.
And so I feel like I've grown up with you. So those are all the things I wanted to highlight, and I'm just really proud of what we've built here, um, for our community. And we can't do it without our community. So thank you. And a million is, is so wild. I can't, I just can't even believe it. It just means so much to me that people are listening to adoptee voices and, um, I'm honored I get to be like a conduit for that.
Carrie: What a wonderful, beautiful conduit you are. Haley. Thank you. And thank you for inviting me along.
Haley: Happy 1 million . I feel like we need a cheers.
Carrie: Cheers. Thank you all for being here with us. Thank you.
Haley: Yes. So thank you so much for listening and let's talk again next Friday.
(upbeat music)
