8 Diane
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/8
Haley Radke: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season One, Episode Eight: Diane. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today we'll be talking to Diane Wheaton, a fellow adoptee who is in reunion with her biological mother. We talk about letting go of the idealized picture of reunion, and some hard truths about the seemingly permanent place of unsettledness and ambivalence that Diane has come to. As always, we'll wrap up with some recommended resources.
I'd like to welcome Diane Wheaton to the show to share her story with us today.
Diane Wheaton: Hello, Haley. It's nice to be here.
Haley Radke: Thank you. I'm so glad that you were willing to come share your story with us. Would you mind starting out by just telling us a little bit about your adoptee journey?
Diane Wheaton: Yeah. I was born in 1956 in California, and I was relinquished at two weeks old and put into foster care. I was in foster care until I was cleared for adoption by the doctor. So I was adopted at two and a half months old by my parents, and formally adopted at 18 months old. So that's when my journey with my parents and being adopted happened, at two and a half months.
Haley Radke: Okay, and do you know why your adoptive family chose to adopt?
Diane Wheaton: My mother had lost six babies.
Haley Radke: Oh.
Diane Wheaton: Yes. So that was pretty traumatic and pretty tough. They wanted a family. They had been married a long time. They were married 13 years when they adopted me. They were high school sweethearts, they had been together a long time and my mother could not carry children, could not carry a baby. So they decided to adopt. And that was the beginning. I was adopted, and then five years later they adopted another baby, my brother, and he was about six months old when he was adopted. So it was the two of us, my brother and I, and both of us were adopted, and that was our little family.
Haley Radke: And do you know why you were relinquished?
Diane Wheaton: My birth mother was 23 and my birth father was a divorced man of 26. So they weren't really young. They were engaged to be married. I've been told by my birth mother that he was the love of her life. And somewhere along the line, it fell. You know, the relationship. He went to California to find a job. He was a graphic artist and she moved to California, I'm sure she followed him. That was what my state NID had said. I know from my state NID –you know, from the social worker giving me all the information from my original birth file from the state– that he knew about me, knew about my birth. My birth name includes his surname on the birth certificate, which I hear is not common. He just didn't want to marry my mother. So I don't know really what happened with that. I am in reunion with my birth mom, and the story she gave me when I met her is different than the story she gave the social worker. So, I've been told to go by what she said when she was 23, not so much, you know, many decades later. That's the story.
Haley Radke: That's odd, so do you think that she's created some new story in her mind or that she was dishonest in the beginning?
Diane Wheaton: It's hard to know, it really is. Yeah. It's just interesting that my birth father is on my birth certificate and that I have a surname. That is one clue that it's like, ‘Huh, that's really interesting.’ So, I don't know. I have even been told that it's quite possible that they were married. My birth mom does keep a lot of things secret from me. I don't really– sometimes it's a guessing game. I have to put clues together and it's a puzzle of things that she says. You know, that's a fact that I have his name, and I guess they were engaged, so that's kind of neat to know, but sad at the same time.
Haley Radke: So how did you find her?
Diane Wheaton: I grew up not knowing where I was born. I never could talk to my adoptive parents about any of this. They never knew I searched. They passed away in ‘09, so I was never able to ask them specific things, like, “Why isn't the hospital where I was born, why isn't that on my amended birth certificate?” When I started searching, I had to go first to Sacramento, because everything that my adoptive parents told me was not true. I had to go step by step by step. The first thing I had to do was find out what county I was born in, and then the hospital. So once I found out from my social worker with my NID, `she's the one that told me that I was born in a Salvation Army Booth Memorial Hospital. It was for unwed mothers. They were very prevalent at the time throughout the United States. I'm not sure if they were in Canada or not, but they were in the United States. Because of that, I think the year before I started searching in 2003, I could be wrong, but I believe that like the previous year Salvation Army made a decision that they would actually help adoptees and birth mothers reunite if you were born in one of their hospitals. So I was very fortunate once I found out, you know, months and months later in my search, that I was born in a Booth Memorial Hospital, because then I had a caseworker, and it was through that caseworker that my birth mother was found. She was found right away. However, she did not respond for five months. Meanwhile, throughout this whole timeframe, I had an online support group for adoptees born in California, and we were trying to find her ourselves.
But it was basically through the Salvation Army, because they had her information. They had her name, they had her Social Security number, they had all the information, so they were able to, you know, she popped up right away. She just didn't respond for a long time. Two letters, and then she responded. So that's how we found her.
I had hired private searchers in the state that I knew that she was born. My birth name is a common name. Her surname, her maiden name, but it was almost hopeless because when you get an NID –non-identifying information– you don't have their names, you don't have their birthdate, you don't have the city where they were born. The only thing I had was what she looked like and the state where she was born, and that was it. And with a common surname, millions. Thousands. So it was very difficult, it was very defeating. And I'm so grateful for Salvation Army that I was able to use their databases and they were able to find her. And I'm so glad that she responded.
Haley Radke: So what was that first response from her?
Diane Wheaton: Well, that was just amazing. That really was so surreal, hearing her voice for the first time. It was like I didn't breathe for an hour. It was just like a dream come true. You know, you fantasize, and I spent my whole life fantasizing about this woman, my birth mother. It was just so hard to believe that I was actually hearing her voice and that I was actually talking to her. It was wonderful. It was magical. It was a magical moment, definitely. Nothing in my life could prepare me for that, or I couldn't compare anything in my life for that. As an adoptee, I think that we all fantasize –or a lot of us– and we of course don't have anything to compare that to that time when you speak to them for the first time and hear their voice.
Haley Radke: So did she phone you?
Diane Wheaton: Yes, she did, yes. The caseworker controlled the reunion in the beginning, so she gave her my phone number and I waited for her to call. And then we were off on our own, so that was good.
Haley Radke: And what were some of the first things that you talked about on that phone call?
Diane Wheaton: She was very giving, I would say. And she immediately said all the things that you wanted to hear. You know, that she loved me and always loved me, and always thought of me, and she was so sorry that she had to relinquish me. And it was just, you know, “the times,” and she wished that she could have raised me. And so that was very cathartic and very, very healing, to hear her, the first things that she was saying to me in an apologetic tone, and it felt– it sounded very sincere. And I know that she is sincere in that particular instance. She wanted to know– I have children and so they're her grandchildren, and we spoke about my children and, you know, my life. I'm trying to think back. This was 12 years ago, and I'm trying to think back. It was surface. But it was good. It was just really good, I have really fond memories of that first hour phone call and like I said, I felt like I didn't breathe. It was just, you know, I'm high way up on the ceiling, talking to her. Yeah. Just, it was hard, you know, it was hard to come down. And we left on a very high note, I know that she was very excited to be connected with me.
I would have to say I'm not the first child that connected with her. She has relinquished other children, and I found out that I wasn't the first one to reconnect with her, so she was more savvy in how to do this than I was at the time. We met two months later. We spoke on the phone probably every week, if not once or twice a week until we met two months later.
This was such a moment for me after searching for her, being obsessed about it for over a year, searching in my mind for her practically my whole life. So I made, you know, a nice hotel, club level, Andre Bocelli playing, candles. I mean, this was a moment for me. I just was so excited. But you know, I have to say that I was so naive, also. Even though I was prepared that things may not go as I had hoped, it's still the excitement of finally meeting this woman and seeing– you know, I had my children that I could look at and see myself in, but I had never seen anyone that was my peer or older that I was related to. And that was so meaningful for me. I just couldn't imagine what that would be like in that moment, seeing someone that I was connected to, and then my mother. It was a pretty big moment and I wanted to make it very special for her and for me.
We met and it was very difficult. This is when I found out –and this is where I mean, now, where I was naive– she had a very difficult life and I had not at that point in my life. I really wasn't aware of how difficult life can be for some people, and especially someone I would be related to or really would know, and I was quite taken aback by all the sadness that I heard. We sat up there for hours and, you know, everyone's life was hard and sad, and it was not what I expected at all. It was very, very hard. I found things out that she was really trying to hide and kept secret from me, and that was difficult. Our reunion in person was not like our phone call, and that was tough. Yeah, that was a hard weekend.
Haley Radke: Have you kept in contact with her after that?
Diane Wheaton: Yes, I have. I know that I have an older sister, who has not been found, and she's a year older than I am. But I also found at that meeting that I had another sister who was relinquished, two years younger than I was. That was tough. And I also actually found out I was number two of seven children, so I have a lot of siblings. And then again, everything I found I was hoping for just wasn't going to happen. But I have kept in contact with her over the years. It took me years –I think, three or four years– to meet my siblings. She really wanted me to stay a secret because, I think, I had said that I had another sister who reunited, and she didn't really want anyone to know that she had another child that she relinquished. So that was really difficult for me. But you know, still, it was the connection with my birth mom. I didn't want to give that up. And I met my sister and we had our own little family thing going on for a few years, but I heard so much all the time about my siblings. And my other sister had been in contact with them and had really wanted me to know them too.
So I did meet them. Like I said, it took me a few years. I did meet them and eventually I met my cousins. I have ten first cousins. I would say now I am in a friendly place with my mother. It's really more on the surface level. And I would say with my siblings it's the same way with them, as well. Over the years, I think in the beginning, the first few years of reunion, it was like a honeymoon. But things change, life settles down. And I do think it's sometimes difficult to have relationships with people, even though we are blood-related, we didn't grow up together and we don't have the same experiences, we don't have the same childhood memories. We grew up very differently from each other. That makes a big difference. We're friendly and, you know, I'm happy about that. I probably have a closer relationship with my cousins than I do with my own siblings, and I'm happy and grateful for that, and I'm thrilled that I've met my family. Now I know what ethnicity I am. I've been able to see people who look like me. In that sense, you know, it certainly was wonderful and still is. It just didn't work out the way that you fantasize and hope for. It's not the Antwone Fisher welcoming dinner. Did you ever see that movie?
Haley Radke: No.
Diane Wheaton: That's really a good film about an adoptee, and there's a scene in there where he's welcomed with all his birth family and a wonderful, huge dinner, and there's aunts and uncles and cousins and brothers and sisters. And so, I think that's just an adoptee fantasy no matter how old you are. It's not realistic, but sometimes it is that way. And I have to say that some of family members of mine that it has been like that, but overall it has not. But that's okay. I'm accepting of it. I feel okay about it.
Haley Radke: It's so odd when our reality doesn't meet with our expectations and it can take us a long time to get to that place of acceptance.
Diane Wheaton: Yeah, it took me years and some of my cousins, I've been closer to others and I'm still in reunion. I'm still meeting family members. I'm still considered a secret with my birth mom outside of the immediate family circle, you know? And I guess I've learned to accept that as well, that I've decided that for some deep emotional reason, I suppose, that I still want to always have a connection with her, and that is what I've chosen to do. I have missed out on meeting an uncle because she didn't want– he's passed on just a year ago. So it can be a very, yeah, difficult walk sometimes. And joyous at the same time. I think the whole– I feel like my adoptee experience has been ambivalent, you know, with my adoptive parents, and with my birth mother, and my relationships within my own biological family. It is acceptance of just how it is. Like we were saying, that fantasy, that's what it is: a fantasy.
Haley Radke: Have you ever wanted to search for your biological father?
Diane Wheaton: I would really, really like to search for him. I have his name, and I know that he was a graphic artist, and that is all I know, and that is all she will tell me. She will not give me any information on him whatsoever. So, I thought of doing the Ancestry DNA and see what pops up. I've kind of thought about doing that, and I can work on this the rest of my life. The census– he has a very common name that's in the south as well. I can probably do what I can do. I would love to find him, especially because one of the first things my birth mother said was, “You look just like your father.” Like, ‘Oh yeah. Figures!’ Right?
Haley Radke: ‘You looked just like him, but I'm not gonna tell you anything about him besides that.’
Diane Wheaton: Right, right.
Haley Radke: Oh, sorry.
Diane Wheaton: She said I have his personality. I think that there's definitely some truth in that. Yeah, my half siblings are half Native American, so there's no resemblance with me with them. And then nine of my ten first cousins are half Samoan, so there isn't really a lot of mirroring going on. A little bit, but not much with my siblings and cousins. I would love to know about him and what is his story. But I am going to do the DNA, I am going to do that, because I can be told that he is Irish, but is he? I don't know. That would be a great thing. I would love to do that. But she won't share. She says she doesn't remember, but… yeah.
I did ask her, however, she really is into movies and television shows, and I thought, ‘Okay, well, I will ask her the one way to find out kind of what he looks like: What actor does he look the most like?’ For those adoptees that aren't getting answers either, that's a good way of asking. It's the closest thing I've got.
Haley Radke: It’s somewhat non-threatening, I guess.
Diane Wheaton: Yeah. Some actor on General Hospital, so who knows?
Haley Radke: Oh wow. So, handsome. Handsome, I’m sure..
Diane Wheaton: Yeah. He is, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, I think that's pretty funny. Yeah. Yeah. Very non-threatening. Very non-threatening, Haley. Yeah. My reunions took years and patience going through that. And it also gave me a lot of time to reflect on ‘What is it I want from this?’ But it was a long process of reunion.
Haley Radke: Do you have any advice for people that are searching or are in reunion?
Diane Wheaton: What I would say would be to have patience, especially coming into a family and especially, you know, if they don't know about you. It's hard. I think it's important to know your own boundaries and to take care of yourself during that process, and to take things slowly and try and reflect as you go through that process. And to, of course, to enjoy the moments of connectedness. You know, there's a lot of light. I mean, I've had a lot of light and a lot of happiness and lots of laughs and good feelings, even though it didn't turn out the way I had wanted it to and had hoped it to. I still have– it's wonderful.
So I think I would also suggest to really take the time that goes along with reflecting, to really see how you're feeling during the process of reunion and connect with yourself and not push them. I think be aware of what you're walking into. I think that's important.
Haley Radke: It’s really hard on everyone, right? It's really hard on everyone, and it's such a huge adjustment.
Diane Wheaton: Yes, it is. It's difficult. And I still have not met one sister. She has still refused not to meet me, you know, it's just too hard on her. I'll get a Christmas card from her but she won't– it's too hard for her to meet me for some reason. Isn't that interesting?
Haley Radke: That is very interesting.
Diane Wheaton: I know one day I will, but not going to have –there's another situation where acceptance– I'm not going to really have a relationship with her. She has her own issues and about this whole thing. So, yeah. And it's not me personally, it's just, it is what it is.
And so, as I've learned a lot along this journey and this reunion path. I've learned a lot about myself and I have learned a lot about how I feel about my adoptive parents with everything. And it's just a tough thing. But I have to say that searching is one of the best things that I've done for myself. You know, after marrying my husband and having my children, the next best thing was searching for myself, getting answers, and meeting my biological family. And knowing my roots, knowing my history, where I came from. I didn't feel like, you know, I was born under a rock somewhere anymore. I felt connected to the earth. That is so important. And I know a lot of adoptees, we just feel unrooted. Finding my birth family rooted me, with earth, with people. And I have to say –I'm so glad I remembered this– I think one of the first things I noticed after reuniting and meeting my birth mother and seeing pictures of birth family, is one of the first things, was immediate, was there was no more wondering. No more wondering. Do you know what I mean?
Haley Radke: Yes.
Diane Wheaton: Did you? Yes! It was like an immediate– there was no more wondering. I felt Haley, like I had spent all my life –and I was in my mid-40s when I found my birth mom– I felt like I had spent my whole life, no matter where I was, I would –subconsciously, you know– I’m looking, ‘Oh, do I look like that person?’ Oh! Maybe, you know, maybe I'm connected.’ People on tv, ‘Oh, do I..? Do I?’ You know, it was just a need. It was just part of my psyche, the wondering. And then, you know, you'd hear– you'd have friends or people would say to you offhandedly, “Oh my gosh, I saw this lady in the store, and she looked just like you. Are you related to so and so?” And then you think, ‘Oh! I wonder if I am related to them. Maybe I am!’ That was just a part of my psyche. And once I met my birth mother, that was the end of the wondering, the end of it. I had a connection to people here.
Haley Radke: I definitely know what you're talking about. I experienced that too.
Diane Wheaton: Strangers and– Yeah, I think that's a common thing. Even though I had my own children, it was still that peer– I hadn't seen anybody in my whole life at a peer level that resembled me. I'm grateful I have the connection with my birth family and I'm still hopeful that things will be better one day, but if they're not, I'm okay.
Haley Radke: So you had talked a little earlier about doing some self-care when you're in that first reunion process. Is there anything, specifically, any counseling or other healing things that you've done to help you through this process?
Diane Wheaton: Well, I have had lots of therapy, I highly recommend that. It's just really helped me a lot to talk about things, figure things out, because there's only so much talking, sometimes, you can do to your friends or family. A therapist can really help you see things that you might miss. Therapy’s, I think, really important.
And also I am a reader, so I couldn't get enough reading in the beginning when I was in reunion and meeting my family, and even beforehand when I was doing my search, I had read everything. I mean, there weren't as many books at that time that there are now. There's so many good books out there, and websites. I would really suggest trying to read and see that you're not alone, you know, with these other stories and other reunion stories from other adoptees. It just is comforting and therapeutic to hear other stories, and you'll find yourself in these stories. So I think websites, I think all the books that are out there today, and memoirs and stories, are really good for adoptees. And there'll be more adoptees because the states in the United States, they're finally, state by state, becoming open states and people can find families. So that's a good thing.
Haley Radke: Absolutely. Well, we're getting so far into it, we're almost out of time. Isn't that amazing? Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you really want to touch on?
Diane Wheaton: I guess I want to say that I've come to accept the ambivalence in my life. There was a time when I was trying to make it black and white, and either-or, or it had to be this way or had to feel that way, or I should feel this way, or I should feel that way, and I've just come to accept the fact that my life is and is ambivalent in many factions of my life when it comes to the adoption. There isn't anything I can do about my feelings. I'm grateful that I was adopted by people who loved me and who did the best that they could, but there were issues, and we haven't had an ambivalent relationship with that. And my birth mom and my birth family, I have ambivalent feelings about them. I love them, and yet I'm sad. I just want to say that, for those that are out there, that those feelings are okay. That is how it is, sometimes. I know that probably people have said that to you, “Oh, you must be so grateful you were adopted,” and it's like ‘Oh no! It's not like that!’ It's a yes and a no. I'm grateful I was adopted, but I'm not grateful to be an adoptee. I guess that's kind of how it is.
Haley Radke: I have those same feelings. It's very hard to explain, right? Because if I hadn't been adopted, I wouldn't be in the life I am, and yeah, you wouldn't have those experiences. Such a weird thing to think about.
Diane Wheaton: It is. It is. Yeah. Because I'm grateful for the life I've had. Yeah, I'm happy for the life I've had, and yet I'm sad that it is this way. It's just a very ambivalent feeling, and it probably will never go away. I think it just is what it is, right?
Haley Radke: That's right. It is what it is. Oh, well thanks so much for sharing with us. I really appreciate hearing your story. I'd love to wrap up with you by doing our recommended resources segment, and if it's okay, I would love to start. I'm guessing that you have seen Karen Pickell's blog before. Alright, well she just had this article out that I read today. You know, we listened to your story today, and I'm thinking this is the perfect article to talk about. So, Karen Pickell, she's an adoptee, she's a blogger, she's on Twitter. She's an editor of some of the anthologies that you've probably seen.
Diane Wheaton: Yes, her name's familiar. Yes.
Haley Radke: Okay, yeah. So the article that I read was “What We Mean When We Say Adoption Reunion”, and she's talking about the language of using the word “reunion”. She starts out by talking about a Family Reunification Day, which is what they talk about in the foster care system when they are able to reunify a family that has had their kids put in the foster care system for whatever reason. And then she compares that to adoption reunion. There's just a couple of great lines that I'm going to read here: “I'm talking about adoptee reunion. We go into it hoping for reunification. Then we're disappointed when all we get is reunion.” And later on she says, “Perhaps a better word to use than reunion is reconnection.” So I won't spoil the whole thing for you, but it's very, very fascinating to just think about the language that we use, just talking about what the differences are. And reunion isn't always what we expect.
Diane Wheaton: Reconnection, yes, that's exactly what it is, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. I will enjoy that article. I'll look it up when I get done here.
Haley Radke: Great. So what would you like to share with us?
Diane Wheaton: I like the An-Ya project and their anthologies. They're written by adult adoptees. I think that it informs other adoptees of other adoptees’ emotional journeys, and for us to read and feel connected. There are five books that are in their anthology series. You can find the books on Amazon. The last one, I happen to have an essay in that, it’s called “Flip the Script”. They also have another book, Perpetual Child. There are five books, they’re working on their sixth book, and they're great anthologies. I would recommend them. I like them a lot.
Haley Radke: Those sound wonderful. I haven't actually had a chance to read any of them, so I'll be sure to make sure to order one. Thank you, I'll put a link to those in the show notes. I saw on your website that you're working on a project yourself.
Diane Wheaton: Yes. I am writing a memoir about my search and my reunion, and dealing with my parents who became ill while I was going through “reconnectedness” with my birth family. I hope to be done with that in about a year –I've been working on it for a few years now– and to share with other adoptees, and hopefully it'll help someone if they need that, or as we say, the “connectedness”, just seeing their own story in my story could help someone else.
Haley Radke: Oh, absolutely. Great. We look forward to seeing that when it comes out.
Diane Wheaton: Okay, alright. I'll let you know.
Haley Radke: Yeah. How can our listeners contact you if they'd like to chat with you far further about your story?
Diane Wheaton: They can find me, I have a website, easy: dianewheaton.com. I'm on Facebook, facebook.com/profile.php?id=100071861778170. I'm on Twitter, @diane_wheaton. Instagram as well, @diane_wheaton. So I'm easy to find. It'd be great. I'd love to connect with other adoptees as well and I'm happy to be here.
Haley Radke: Well, thank you again so much for our time, Diane. I really enjoyed hearing your story and it was really great to talk with you.
Diane Wheaton: Yeah, same here, Haley, it was great. And thank you for having me. That was wonderful.
Haley Radke: If you have more questions for Diane, or to thank her for sharing with us, find her on Twitter: @diane_wheaton. To find the show notes, ask a question, or share your adoptee story, visit our website Adopteeson.com. We also love to chat with you on Twitter or Instagram: @adopteeson. We have a Facebook page: facebook.com/adopteesonpodcast.
Today, would you share our show with someone in your adoptee community? Maybe a Facebook group you're a part of, or an adoptee friend you've made on Twitter? We would truly appreciate it. Thanks for listening, let's talk again soon.
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