15 Kelley - A Social Media Search
/Transcript
Full shownotes:https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/15
Haley Radke: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season Two, episode 1, Kelley. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and I am so happy to be back with you for season two. I have several exciting announcements for you today. So let's start with the first one. We are going to get to talk every single Friday.
I have a new series called Adoptees On Healing, where I chat with different adoptee therapists and they give us practical tips and strategies to work on different aspects of healing in our lives. And I have learned so much already from recording just a couple of these. So make sure you subscribe to the show, and next Friday you can expect an Adoptees On Healing episode in your podcast feed because we will be alternating back and forth, one with an interview with an adoptee and then to the healing episodes.
Also, we are starting a secret Facebook group for partners of the show, and I will tell you how you can access that after our interview with Kelley. Kelley is a fellow adoptee whose picture you may have seen pop up in your own Facebook feed. We talk about what a public social media search looks like and the toll it can take on your relationships.
And today we have a giveaway in our Recommended Resources segment which is a little bit unconventional. So you can listen for that later in the show. As always, links to everything we're going to talk about today are on our website, adopteeson.com.
Okay, that's enough with the chit chat. Let's listen in.
I am pleased to welcome as our first guest of season two, Kelley Baumgartner. Welcome to Adoptees On, Kelley.
Kelley Baumgartner: Thank you for having me.
Haley Radke:I just want to dive right in. Why don't you share your story with us?
Kelley Baumgartner: Okay. Well, I am 29 years old and I live in Jacksonville, Florida, and I met my birth mother two years ago. And I'm just trying to find the way through it right now. I did a social media poster on Facebook and it went viral with over 200,000 shares within 15 days.
Haley Radke: Oh my gosh.
Kelley Baumgartner: Yeah. It was a whirlwind.
Haley Radke: Two hundred thousand.
Kelley Baumgartner: Over 200,000 shares. My search lasted only 44 days. The poster is still circulating and I still get emails to this day about it.
Haley Radke: I'm kind of in shock. I didn't realize it was, like, that viral.
Kelley Baumgartner: Yeah, I wasn't expecting it whatsoever, to be honest. My mom and I, when we did the poster, we just thought it would just be family and friends. We're kind of scattered through Ohio and Indiana, a few in Colorado, one in Hawaii, and we really just thought that was going to be it. We didn't go in with a lot of high hopes.
Haley Radke: What do you think made it go viral? I've seen lots of these posts before.
Kelley Baumgartner: I couldn't tell you. I've seen them a lot too. I even share them myself. Never in a million years have I ever thought. Yahoo Parenting reached out to me. Associated Press. There was one journalist, Danielle, she was amazing. She was the first person to write my story, and her story got picked up by the Associated Press and everyone else.
We were invited onto the Steve Harvey Show, which we eventually declined to do just for personal reasons. But just the way that [Danielle] wrote the story, I give her a lot of credit because she really took the time and captured everything that needed to be said to this woman that I didn't know at the time. And from there it kind of just took off.
Haley Radke: So what did your poster say?
Kelley Baumgartner: It says my name is Kelley and I was born in Goshen/Elkhart, Indiana, in 1987. I gave a lot of information but I did keep two secrets back. When we're adopted, we're only given that one sheet of paper, and I have held onto that my entire life.
And I looked at it every single year as if something else was going to change on it. And so I wrote, you know, the information that I had about her: She was a hairdresser and she was in her early twenties and she lived in Goshen. I was relinquished at birth. I didn't let anybody know that I had extra information regarding my adoption that I wasn't going to share publicly, and that kind of weeded out the good and the bad.
Haley Radke: What were some of the responses you got?
Kelley Baumgartner: It was a lot of good, but with the good comes the bad, too. There were a lot of negative responses. I got some very nasty emails even from birth mothers saying how could I do that? They couldn't believe it. People were upset because my story was picked up by so many news outlets and theirs wasn't. They had failed attempts.
But the good responses, I mean, there were so many people that were willing to help me, thousands of people in these emails that my mom and I had gone through. It was just an amazing outpour of love. Not just from the adoption community, I mean, from total strangers. I am actually still friends with several of them that helped me through it.
Haley Radke: That's really cool. I'm sorry, I'm kind of dumbfounded. I mean, I knew this is how you found your birth mother. Do you know anything about this phenomenon of making a poster and posting it? Do you know when that kind of started?
Kelley Baumgartner: Years ago, one of my nursing friends told me that, locally here in Jacksonville, Florida, one of her good friends had made a poster and posted it on Facebook. Granted, she had a lot more information that most of us do not have, and it just circulated when Facebook first came about. And it was a very quick search. I think it took her two or three weeks to find her birth mother. And we joked about it years ago, and I just thought, okay, well what the heck? What's it gonna hurt this time?
I did it and I wasn't expecting it to actually work. We were sitting at brunch two days before my birthday, and I just told my mom, I said, this is what I want to do. I'm ready to move on. I needed to move on, and this was how I was going to do it. She was either going to come forward, I was going to find her, or I was going to just let it go.
Haley Radke: And so your adoptive mom helped you do the poster and stuff?
Kelley Baumgartner: She did. And my dad, we all three did. My parents are my best friends. I couldn't have done it without them. They've always been supportive of me and my search. And my older brother is also adopted. We're five years apart. He was the first adoptee and we have two very different stories. He doesn't want to know any information. He's completely content. And I have always been the curious cat in my family. So they knew that one of us was going to do it, and my mom knew at a very young age that I was going to be the one to do it. They've never ever held me back.
Haley Radke: Did they encourage you to search?
Kelley Baumgartner: I think she did encourage me in a way. And when we started it, I even called her every single day. I said, are you okay? I mean, I can stop now. We can delete it. Let's take it down. Like I was more nervous of how she would feel because, like I said, my mom is my absolute best friend in life. She says, no, let's do it. Let's keep going. In every interview, she was there with me. She interviewed, and it was just something that we did together.
Haley Radke: I feel like it's really common for adoptees to be very concerned about the feelings of adoptive parents. You've probably heard us talk about that on the show before.
Kelley Baumgartner: Yes, I have.
Haley Radke: So I'm hearing that a little bit, but she sounds so positive about it. That's really wonderful.
Kelley Baumgartner: My mom is amazing.
Haley Radke: That's awesome. So you have really good support there.
Kelley Baumgartner: Yeah, my dad is the quiet one in the family, so I was pretty nervous about how he was going to react. He kind of keeps his feelings to himself most of the time. But with this he was overly encouraging. Like they were just as excited with me.
Haley Radke: I'm so glad. Search and reunion brings up a lot of things often for adoptive parents, so I'm really glad for you. Okay, so let's move on and talk about how your birth mother saw the post and connected with you. How did that happen?
Kelley Baumgartner: About 30 days after I posted it had gone through most of the news sites in Indiana and the surrounding states. When she did reach out to me, she said that I saw your post a few weeks ago and I had to sit on it. She just kind of had to gather herself, I'm assuming. But she said she was scrolling through Facebook one day and she never reads this stuff. She said, I saw a woman's face and it was your face, and I knew it. She said, I didn't even have to read the poster. I saw your face and I knew what this was. And that was one of the first sentences that she emailed me.
Haley Radke: Well, that's pretty special.
Kelley Baumgartner: Yeah. Looking back now through the emails, it's a lot to take in and it's still a lot to think about today.
Haley Radke: And what about that waiting period for her? How does that make you feel?
Kelley Baumgartner: When I first got the email I was actually driving and I heard my phone go off. I was at a red light and I looked down at the notification, and I had the banner at the time, and I got this email and it says, I'm 99.9% sure I'm your birth mother. And I had to pull over on the side of the road. I had to pull over and I had to just gather myself. And I say, no, I'm not going to open this. I'm going to get home.
And I got home and I read it and I called my mom immediately. I said, you're not going to believe this. I went through at least 20 different emotions at one time. But one of the most outstanding emotions was anger because in that first email she told me that absolutely no one knew about me, that her husband didn't even know about me. And as the emails started flowing in, I got a little bit more information and she had to wait to email me so she could tell her husband about me. So that's how that began.
Haley Radke: I don't know if I've shared this before, but I found my birth father on Facebook. Not by holding up a poster, but I was fortunate enough to have his name when I got my identifying information. I wonder about that time period where it's like are you deciding again if you want to keep me? Those are the thoughts and feelings that come up for me in that.
Kelley Baumgartner: That was exactly how I felt. And then she emailed me while she was in Mexico on vacation with her family. So I'm still not understanding that part. I've heard a few different stories of timelines and how she told people, so I'm still trying to gather all of that. But from what she told me in the beginning, she found out before they went to Mexico, and then she told her husband before, and then she decided to email me while she was on vacation because she had been following my story. She saw that I had petitioned the court and she didn't want me to find out that way. So that was that.
Haley Radke: And have you met her in person?
Kelley Baumgartner: I did. We met about six months later. We met on Mother's Day weekend that year and she flew to Florida with my brother that I met. I have a younger brother. I also have a sister and we're less than a year apart. And so that was a lot to handle at one time.
My mom went with me to the airport. We did it that way and it was more comfortable. I was very nervous. I felt like this was a first date. And, you know, what if I say something to screw it up? We had been talking essentially every single day, so I was very nervous if I was gonna screw it up, if she was not gonna like me. And I was still getting to know the fact that I had a brother and sister. They had just found out about me a few months prior. She and I had corresponded for a good few months before she ever told the rest of the family.
Haley Radke: And your brother and sister, they would've been in their twenties?
Kelley Baumgartner: Yes.
Haley Radke: So they were adults?
Kelley Baumgartner: They both are, yeah. Yes. And from what I understand, they were really upset with her for a while.
Haley Radke: How do you tell your kids that?
Kelley Baumgartner: In her shoes? I can't imagine being in them. And having a sister that's less than a year apart from me. I think it took a huge toll on my sister, so I sympathize with them with that, you know, and her, you know, how do you keep such a big secret? That's 28 years of buried secrets there.
Haley Radke: How is your reunion going now?
Kelley Baumgartner: It's going. After the first time we met, it was really hard. It was only for three days and we had a lot packed into one weekend. I felt at that instant a part of someone, like I could look at her and I could see the similarities. I look at my brother and I see my son. I look at my daughter and I see my sister. They all look so much alike. That was amazing to me and it was a really awesome weekend. We all had a great time.
After that communication kind of fell apart. She is busy in the RV company and it's very big up north. So she's always working, which I understand. I was still trying to maneuver through the relationship I wanted and to see what she wanted. And having the social media put a little bit of a burden on us and our relationship and her telling friends and other family about me.
So it was a six-month rollercoaster and then we went back up there in the spring. Well, it was more in the summer. I went for my uncle’s (who I had never met) wedding up there. We stayed two weeks with her and it was probably 12 days too long. It was really hard, that time up there was really hard.
Haley Radke: What made things difficult?
Kelley Baumgartner: We went to a wedding. I met all of my cousins, all six of my aunts. And my aunt and uncles were there and they didn't know. We have a feeling that one aunt knew about me but she had passed away a few years before me finding my birth mother. But meeting all of those people at one time was so overwhelming and I don't feel that she understood that it might have been a little too much.
So she didn't understand I was having anxiety. I had a lot of panic attacks. I kind of took it out on my husband because he said, oh, it's okay. I'm like, no, you don't understand what's going on. You don't understand how I feel. And he was really trying to sympathize with me, but it was just too much all at one time. All of those people asking about my family and how I grew up. I had people saying, oh, if we would've known, this would've never happened, we would've kept you, you would've been ours. You know? I'm like, well, no I like my family. And so all of that conversation made it very difficult.
Haley Radke: It's really hard to explain those things and there's never a good time. So were you staying at her house?
Kelley Baumgartner: Yes, we stayed at her house.
Haley Radke: Okay. So you don't have any space. And are you an introvert or an extrovert?
Kelley Baumgartner: I can be at times. It depends on the situation. If I'm at home and I'm comfortable, I'm fine. And I had my husband. Our son went with us, our littlest one. My oldest two were with their dad so that was hard on me, too. But yeah. It was just so overcrowded.
Haley Radke: Too much, too soon kind of thing.
Kelley Baumgartner: Yes.
Haley Radke: So you said at the beginning you guys were talking every day. How has that settled out now? How much do you communicate?
Kelley Baumgartner: Honestly, we talk maybe once a month. I haven't talked to my sister since June. My husband actually talks to my brother often. They talk a lot. They have a lot in common. I don't have a lot in common with either of them, but he seems to and he's like, oh yeah, I talked to your brother today. I'm just like, oh, okay, that's nice. I don't really know what to say.
I still have a lot of back-and-forth feelings with the whole situation because I found out some more stuff by talking to other family members. And so I was reopening all these wounds again. I don't really make an effort and she doesn't really make an effort either. A lot of times I don't know where I stand with her. I've backed off for the most part because I just don't want to get in her way. I don't know that she was ever ready to open this closet full of skeletons. There’s no easy way to put it, but that's what it is.
*Haley Radke: And you said earlier there's the social media aspect to it, your public search and all the media coverage.
Kelley Baumgartner: She was not a fan of that at all. She didn't want her name released and I respect that. She didn't want any family members to know. My family, some of them had shared the post. Some of them had actually seen it and they had no idea, so I'm not sure if that made it a little harder. She just wanted to tell people on her terms. And I got that. I completely understood that. And that was fine with me.
But it being so public and people asking so many questions of us doing these news outlets, and these journalists writing, and radio shows. Then I didn't realize it was such a big issue until I mentioned the Steve Harvey Show. We had gotten invited onto it and we had gotten onto another talk show. I had mentioned it in passing to her and she completely lost it. At that point it was either continue on doing these shows or salvage what could be.
Haley Radke: Were you doing some interviews just kind of on your own and then she got invited on?
Kelley Baumgartner: Well, for the Steve Harvey Show, they wanted us all on. At first, it was just going to be my mom and I. We were going to fly out to Chicago, and after a few days my birth mother said, okay, well I'm not going to go on the show with you, but I'll meet you in Chicago because it's only a three-hour drive from Michigan. We said, okay. And I got to thinking about it and they really pressured me. They're like, oh, can't you just share her information? Let's get in touch with her. Let's try to talk to her. And I said, no. There were some personal boundaries they just weren't willing to work with.
Haley Radke: Oh, well, sure. Producers of the show, they want the drama.
Kelley Baumgartner: Oh yeah.
Haley Radke: That's the thing, right? People love the reunion, the certain reunion. It's like this fairytale kind of thing. It has a huge effect on everyone's lives. And for her, I mean, oh my goodness. She had to tell everyone that she knew about you. And then to go public even. Oh my goodness. What are your feelings about the media coverage that you received?
Kelley Baumgartner: Honestly, I was thankful for it because I couldn't have ever done this without that coverage. I don't think that I would have had the heart to complete it. And as far as the negative comments that I received in the negative emails, there were some really bitter people, but, you know, I wasn't gonna let them knock me down.
It fueled me a little more and it helped me go a little longer. And then in 44 days, we were able to complete it. Complete strangers, like I said, I'm so thankful for those people that helped me because without those people and without that encouragement, I mean, some days I woke up and I said, why am I doing this? I don't have the energy to do this. Like it could have taken years for her to ever see that. And by then I would've moved on. I was ready to move on at that point, too. But I've made great friends out of it and I've helped other adoptees. I have a friend who actually did the same exact thing after me, and he was able to find his birth mother, too.
Haley Radke: Really?
Kelley Baumgartner: Yeah. I think that had I not done it, he wouldn't have had the courage to do it either.
Haley Radke: I see those posts almost every day, and I always think, really? How is this going to find anyone? I don't understand, but it's amazing to hear that it actually did. But also how unfair is it that you have to broadcast your personal information just to find someone that you're biologically connected to? I think it's disturbing.
Kelley Baumgartner: It’s absolutely ridiculous. No legislator, no judge should ever sign a piece of paper to keep me from my own health history. And having three kids of my own, I have a daughter and I didn't know if breast cancer runs in my family. I would hate to find out when it's too late. My son has a skin condition and we found out that it runs through my mother's side of the family. My brother has it, my mother has it, her father had it. And she was able to give us tips. And, I mean, you have these people that don't know you from Adam filing your papers and stamping them goodbye pretty much. I don't agree with it and it's not right. And I will advocate to the end of the day to unseal those records, at least for health.
Haley Radke: Absolutely, I can't agree with you more. It's archaic. I don't get it, anyway, preaching to the choir. Did you ever think about doing DNA testing or searching in any other way?
Kelley Baumgartner: I had an attorney that I paid in Indiana to unseal all my records, actually. That Friday morning she emailed me and said, I have your records, I'm going to open them and call you on Monday. And that Sunday is when I got the email from my birth mother. So they really know its way around. She called me, and I gave her the news on Monday and she asked me if I was going to do DNA testing. She seemed very confident that this was her, just she couldn't legally tell me. But in so many words, she told me that it's okay to move on now. You have your information. But after seeing my mother and just looking at her, I don't need DNA. It was one of those things.
Haley Radke: Yeah, I totally get that. What I meant was prior to doing your public search. It's a lot more accessible and affordable now, a few years ago really wasn't.
Kelley Baumgartner: Yeah, I hadn't heard about it until I started doing my search. And, you know, I didn't have a lot of information. I had a total of, I think, five facts. So when I had put my information out there, a lot of people emailed me about doing DNA. And had this failed, that was my next step.
Haley Radke: Have you ever considered looking for your bio father, or have you?
Kelley Baumgartner: I have thought about it for a long time, even more after meeting my birth mother. And I got pretty close to someone. The idea of him being this person. I did research it this year, or lately I've been researching. I've been given some information by another aunt that there was a man in high school that my birth mother dated after high school. After their relationship, she quickly moved to another state and dropped everything, and that was the time that she had me.
I was given a name and I researched this name through Google. I didn't find anything, so I recently took to Facebook and just typed in the name. A woman's name popped up, and so did a young man's name. And I was looking, and I did know that he passed away recently from cancer. I waited about three months to email this woman and I had a feeling it was his wife. I wasn't one hundred percent sure and we got to talking. I didn't want to disrupt her life and I made that very clear. I was just looking for information.
And that's when I found out that he passed so recently, and she knows my family name and she knew everyone in my family except my birth mother. She hadn't heard about her yet. My birth name is very big in the town. It's a very small town. But she had offered to do DNA testing. And over the past month or two, I've decided I just needed to back off because I didn't want to tarnish any memory they had of him. And that's such a hard time for them still, even a year after that happens. It's still hard.
And she has a son and they said that if and when I was ever ready that they would do DNA testing with the son. But at this point, I've kind of backed off of it just to let them have their memories. You know, maybe I could find a little bit more information, but my birth mother is not willing to share any at this time.
Haley Radke: Did you actually ask her?
Kelley Baumgartner: I have asked her.
Haley Radke: Whoa, you're brave. Lots of us just don't even get the courage up to do that.
Kelley Baumgartner: We were sitting on my couch the weekend we met and I said, who is my birth father? And she looked like a deer in headlights, but I wasn't going to hold back. You kept me a secret for 28 years. I think that I just got some encouragement that day. I was ready for some answers and her response was, I don't know. And I do know that she does know, and she claims that it's just a deep, buried secret.
I just think that it's someone that she doesn't want to hurt, or it may have been someone that may have been married. That is my thought, and my aunt and I have lots of thoughts about it. There is the one aunt that I talked to about everything and we've grown pretty close. She helps me try and hint around to my birth mother, but we've kind of gotten nowhere yet. But, yeah, I was more than willing to ask her all the dirty questions.
Haley Radke: Good for you. It’s your right to know, I think.
Kelley Baumgartner: I agree. I think a really hard thing in our reunion is that she does have information that she's not willing to share, and it's something that I either have to deal with and move on from or push a little harder. But I fear that the harder I push, the more tangled our relationship will become. And so that's something that I'm not sure what I want to do with yet.
Haley Radke: What's the idealized picture of a reunion for you with your birth mom and with your siblings? What would that look like?
Kelley Baumgartner: When I was growing up, my brother and I always talked about this. I had this figment in my head that it was going to be this wonderful woman. And she was going to still be married to my birth father. And, you know, we were just going to have this amazing relationship. And my brother always growing up was like, no, Kelley, you really need to have a real feeling that this might not happen to you.
And when I was searching, I searched off and on for eight years and I hit brick wall after brick wall. And each time I just built this figment of an amazing woman in my head and how awesome she is, and I just didn't wanna be let down. And I definitely over-fantasized. I still fantasized about it, what if I didn't do this? Was the figment in my head better than what I have now?
So my ideal relationship would be just to be close with this person and have all my answers out in the open. But as adoptees, we know that's most probably not going to happen. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Haley Radke: And your adoptive parents and her, did they have a relationship at all?
Kelley Baumgartner: They're friends on Facebook. One of the things my mom said to her when she first met my birth mother is thank you. And it's the one thing that we set out to say in the very beginning. If we got nothing else out of this search, we wanted to say thank you.
My parents couldn't conceive. My mother had several miscarriages due to endometriosis later being diagnosed, so it was a really rough time for them. They waited, I think, seven years for my brother and five years for me, and my mom is very grateful for this woman. And so I think that they have an unspoken bond with each other. I don't think they really talk other than in passing on Facebook.
Haley Radke: So how have you come to balance this? You have this wonderful relationship with your adoptive parents. You always wanted to know your bio mother, and it's not exactly how you pictured it. How have you balanced these two things in your mind?
Kelley Baumgartner: With a lot of prayer and petition, a lot of patience. Being such a big secret, my mom always reminds me that I need to be patient with her and that in time she can come around and that this is all still so fresh. You go from 28 years of burying this entire life behind you, and you think you're in the clear. And then here it comes creeping out.
With my birth mom, I know that I need to be patient with her, and my adoptive mom has always reminded me of that. She kind of keeps me sane. That is what keeps me sane, my relationship with my adoptive mother. And we talk every single day, two to three times a day. And, you know, she's just been encouraging. No matter what situation, I can talk to her about it. So that's how I balanced it. With a lot of faith and even if it doesn't work out and one day her or I are ready to split ways, at least we know we tried. And at the end of the day, I will always have my adoptive parents there.
Haley Radke: Is there anything that your adoptive parents did differently? I don't want to answer my own question here, but I feel like they let you feel those feelings and encouraged you to reconnect and not suppress the grief that a lot of us have from that loss.
Kelley Baumgartner: You're a hundred percent right. Through my journey I've met a lot of other adoptees that are terrified of their adoptive parents, and that they didn't find out they were adopted until they were teenagers and 18 and even older. To me personally, that's shocking because having my own children, I can't imagine looking them in the face every day and lying to them. I mean, it's essentially what you're doing.
I grew up in a Christian-based home, and even before my brother and I were brought home, or shortly after, my parents had a book made of adoption. It's always been laid out on the table. It is what it is. This is what you have. Never be afraid to ask a question. We will always try and help you. And that's how it's been. And that's how I was raised.
Adoption is an amazing thing in my family with what my mother went through. You know, it's a glorified situation. So I think I might have had it easier than a lot of adoptees that I understand, and I'm so beyond thankful for that because I've just heard the heartbreaking realities of what adoption can look like and then what I got.
Haley Radke: How has your faith impacted your adoption journey?
Kelley Baumgartner: That too has been a little bit of a rollercoaster with eight years of searching off and on. You kind of get in these ruts and you're like, is it meant to be or is it not? And I would pray so hard for something to happen, one of these doors to open.
We used the company Omnitrace when I was 18 years old and it was a nightmare. And after that I said, I'm giving up, this isn't what God wants. And I was angry for a long time. I was given this life, but I'm only being told part of it. I struggled a lot with using prayer and using my relationship with God to move forward through things.
But now as I'm older and I've met my birth mother, I think the timing and fate is all wrapped into one. I wasn't ready. I wasn't mature enough for that reality to happen. You know, it's just all in the right timing.
Haley Radke: I really struggle with this. How do you balance a positive upbringing, you love your adoptive parents, but there's this great loss of your biology and your genetic history and people who look like you and behave like you and all of those things. How do you reconcile that? Can you?
Kelley Baumgartner: I don't think at any given point that you can. I think it's all a big wound and it just needs time to heal. I think it got a little harder when I was able to look these people in the face and I see the similarities and, like I said, I look at my son and I look at my daughter and they look identical to that family. That's probably the hardest part for me: when or if she ever walks away from me, I have the two constant reminders that's what it is. The biology, you're right. I don't think anyone would ever move on from it a hundred percent. And I don't think that it's good to push it away either. I think that's something that we all need to accept. It just takes time to accept.
Haley Radke: So what are some of the wounds that you would've felt from being an adoptee, even though you had amazing adoptive parents
Kelley Baumgartner: In high school we all do that history project of yourself and your nationality and where you came from and stuff. And you go to the doctor and you fill that paperwork out. And I still can't fill it out because I still don't know because the woman I know that holds all this information isn't ready to talk yet. And if she ever will be, who knows? All I get is, oh no, there's no major things, or I don't know or I'll have to look that up. And six months go by. I think that's still hard for me to do.
Haley Radke: Have you done anything, any therapy, any healing things to heal the losses or the grief of losing your first family?
Kelley Baumgartner: I have. I actually started therapy about a year ago. I was okay for the first year that we met. I felt like I was good until I realized things were falling apart right in front of my face. My marriage was dissolving after I met my birth mother. I had a lot of anxiety. A lot of feelings were being brought up, and I didn't feel like my husband understood.
After we would talk on the phone, I would just feel a lot of anxiety and I couldn't understand where it was stemming from. After our two visits it was really hard on my marriage too. Having spent all this time with these people and just getting to know them, and here we go again, across country. That was really hard and I didn't feel like he understood, even though he did, and he was trying. He brought up that maybe you need to talk to someone. And so I did.
I saw a therapist for a year, and I just quit this January. I just decided that I'm good now. Whatever happens happens; my marriage has never been healthier. My family is happy and I don't think a therapist will fix me. Not that I mean we're broken. We're adoptees. We're missing pieces of our lives and we don't know that we'll ever get them back. But I can't have someone glue me back together either. I need to find outlets that work for me.
Running is one of those outlets, and I've ran for years and I stopped after I met my birth mother. I don't know really what it was. I really don't know why I stopped. I just thought I was okay because I met her and that everything was going to be one big happy fairy tale and it wasn't. So I just started running again a couple days ago, and that's been the best therapy for me. That's where I can just think about everything and then just keep going.
Haley Radke: You look so happy when you're talking about that. Is there anything that we haven't covered yet, Kelley, that you want to touch on?
Kelley Baumgartner: I want people to know that if they're thinking about searching, they should, don't hold back. Just keep going. If it's something that they want to do, I think that they should do it. And if they don't have the support in their life, then hopefully they can find the support in themselves to push themselves to the point where they want to be because they're never going to be happy sitting on a sideline.
Haley Radke: So many of us wait and wait until it's too late
Kelley Baumgartner: It's a comfort zone, waiting. I quit off and on searching, and I was comfortable not knowing. But by not knowing it becomes too late. And then regrets flow in. And we all say we don't regret things, but at the end of the day, I think a lot of people do regret things.
And I don't want a search to be something that someone ever regrets not doing. Because no matter the turnout, if it's ugly or if it's good, you know that you were a strong enough person to go through it. And at the end of the day you have yourself. You're strong enough to do it. You're strong enough to push past it and you were a good person to do it.
Haley Radke: Thank you. Let's do recommended resources. Okay. My recommended resource today I'm super excited about because she calls herself my number one fan. I just have to laugh about that. Anne Heffron. I don't know if you've heard of her, Kelley, she wrote the memoir, You Don't Look Adopted.
Kelley Baumgartner: Oh my gosh, I haven’t.
Haley Radke: Yeah. She actually sent it to me a few months ago after listening to the podcast. Basically, she's fallen in love with the podcast. So thank you, Anne. Love you. And I haven't actually finished the memoir because it's written in a very different style. Sometimes it's just some inner thoughts she's having and sometimes it's a memory. It's very interesting, but it's very deep, and I just can't read it quickly. I read a few pages at a time and I'm like, whoa, I got a lot of stuff to think about here.
So she's very candid about her history in the book. There's lots of ups and downs. I would say that she's brutally honest and she shares about random feelings that adoptees have sometimes. She writes this part about believing that you came from nowhere and how that can affect you sometimes. And there's this little section I want to read to you. It's called “Four in One”:
“I was four people jammed into one. I was the me that my mom wanted. I was the me I would've been if my birth mom had kept me. I was the me I would've been in if another family had adopted me. And I was the me that was just me. I couldn't commit to one. And so I was a little bit of all four. This made me unpredictable and unknowable both to those around me and to myself.”
So that's a little section of the book. You know, you read that short little thing and I'm like, whoa, I gotta think about that for a while. She also blogs regularly at anneheffron.com. I'll have links to the blog and her book and everything in the show notes for this episode. I'm super excited because Anne agreed to give away a copy of her book. I'll let you all know how you can enter for that at the end of the show.
And, sorry, I have all this stuff because she's so excited. I am too. She's lovely. I just asked her before we were recording, I messaged her and I said, so is there anything you want us to know about your book, your blog? I said, we're recording tonight. And so she sent me this little note. I want to read it for you.
She writes that “I thought being so honest about my feelings, and if I admitted the extent to which my body and mind seemed affected by adoption, I might actually die. I was that afraid; it was like facing a dragon, but I lived and I see that adoption's effects are even more long reaching than I had suspected. I write with the hope that I will better understand myself so I can come from a place of strength, and so that people touched by adoption will have a bird's eye view into the life of an adoptee and either feel not alone or educated or supported.”
Any thoughts on that? You're gonna check it out, right, Kelley?
Kelley Baumgartner: Oh my gosh. Is it on Amazon?
Haley Radke: Oh, it's totally on Amazon.
Kelley Baumgartner: I'm going to order it tomorrow morning.
Haley Radke: Good. It's wonderful. Okay. What would you like to recommend to us today?
Kelley Baumgartner: I love Adoptees in Recovery. The Facebook page is amazing. It's a spot where she accepts questions from adoptees or birth parents. It's really awesome to read some of the questions because they're questions that I think that we all have and they're kind of just surfacing. But once you read them from someone else and you read the responses, I just like to soak them in and, you know, sometimes it's a problem that I might have and I didn't even realize it. So I absolutely love going to check her webpage. Almost daily I get on her Facebook and look at the new questions and all the answers.
Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. Okay, so this is Pamela Karanova’s site that you're talking about and she was a guest in Season One and she will be so pleased to hear that. I agree, it's a wonderful place and the responses are really interesting because there's the whole gamut, right? There's people that are really happy they were adopted. There's people that see the challenges in it. And you get a wide perspective.
Kelley Baumgartner: Absolutely. That's what I love most.
Haley Radke: Okay, this is kind of different. I'm just interrupting because we are rerecording the second part of our Recommended Resources section just because there's been kind of an update. So Ask An Adoptee is a Facebook page and there's also How Does It Feel To Be Adopted. Those are kind of like sister pages.
Okay. So the update is Pamela Karanova started those Facebook pages; they go along with her website. She runs a website called Adoptees in Recovery and also How Does It Feel To Be Adopted. And she's decided to take a little break from Facebook, so I'm actually going to be running them for the next little while. I wanted to make a full disclosure. But they'll carry on to be just the same as when Pamela ran them.
So Ask An Adoptee, like you said, people can ask questions there. This one is the one that Pamela built for non-adoptees to ask adoptees questions. Adoptive parents or bio family can message the page privately and then we will post the question anonymously, but then in the comment section only adoptees are allowed to answer and give their opinions.
Secondly, the How Does It Feel To Be Adopted page, that's one where adoptees can just share their experiences and stories. And that goes along with Pamela's website where she has a giant collection of adoptees who have sent her blog posts sharing their story. Maybe it's their whole adoption story. Maybe it's just a piece of their reunion journey or their search. Have you seen that page at all, Kelley?
Kelley Baumgartner: I did. I actually wrote a blog for her.
Haley Radke: Oh, did you?
Kelley Baumgartner: Yes, I did.
Haley Radke: Oh, wonderful. Can we link to that in the show notes? Would that be okay?
Kelley Baumgartner: Oh, absolutely.
Haley Radke: Oh, awesome. That's so cool. I didn't know that. Okay, so I know you're a really big fan of these pages. Is moderating the comments maybe something that you would be interested in doing, helping out a little bit?
Kelley Baumgartner: Oh, absolutely.
Haley Radke: Oh, that would be so fun. Okay, so you're going to get Kelley and I together to steward these pages for Pamela as she's on her Facebook fast. And I'm excited. I hope we get lots of questions. So if you guys have a question and you want to send them in you can message us on either of those pages, or you can find us online. You're not on Twitter, you're on Instagram.
Kelley Baumgartner: No, I can't figure Twitter out.
Haley Radke: Okay, well, where can we find you, Kelley?
Kelley Baumgartner: You can find me on Kelley Baumgartner at Facebook. Or on Instagram as KelleyMarie87.
Haley Radke: Awesome. I will put those links in the show notes as well so people can follow you. And thank you so much for your time. It was such an honor to be able to share your story with our listeners, and I know that people are going to get great insight and value from hearing it.
Kelley Baumgartner: Yes, it was great. Thank you.
Haley Radke: Isn't Kelley great? She is such a delight. Okay, it's giveaway time. I am doing a quick listener survey to find out more about you, and that will help me tailor the show exactly towards the things that you would like to hear. So you can find us on adopteeson.com/survey and when you complete it, you will be entered to win a trio of recommended resources. Anne Heffron’s book, You Don't Look Adopted, that Kelley and I just chatted about. And then from Season One, episode 7, we interviewed Mary Anna King. She's going to give us a copy of her book, Bastards. And Season One, episode 9, Liz Story's book, A Series of Extreme Decisions: An Adoptee's Story. The only caveat is only the first 100 of you to complete the survey can enter to win these awesome books. So go right away to adopteeson.com/survey.
What about the secret Facebook group I was talking about in the intro? I want to be able to bring you more content, more ways to interact with me and the guests we hear from, but I wanted it to be in a private and safe space for you.
If you love the show and want to join me in building this adoptee community, I would be honored if you would partner with me. There's some amazing rewards in it for you like access to that secret Facebook group. Adopteeson.com/partner has all the details. And if you have questions about it, just send me a note on the adopteeson.com website. Go to adopteeson.com/partner for the details.
My very last thing for today, would you tell just one person about Adoptees On? Maybe the next person you see share an adoptee holding up a poster on social media? They might like to hear about Kelley's experience. Thank you so much and thanks for listening. Let's talk again soon. How about next Friday?
Haley Radke: Okay, Isaiah, can you say “Adopteeson.com”?
Isaiah: Adoptees on com slash survey. You can win three free books and adoptees on com slash partner. Buy my mommy a coffee.
Haley Radke: Thanks buddy.
Isaiah: Let's talk again next Friday.
