0:00-->0:47 Silence, displaying intro slide "Navigating the Adoption Experience as a Chameleon" ::Attendees visible:: [Carlie Van Woerkom] I want to welcome everybody today to our lunch and learn. This Lunch and Learn is being brought to you by a collaboration between Oklahoma Human Services, University of Oklahoma and, and Henry Zorrow School of Social Work, excuse me, and the Adopt and the Center for Adoption and Family Wellbeing. We appreciate everyone joining during our, your lunch or noon hour. We want to get started so we can make sure to respect everyone's time and the great information being discussed today. First, let's go over a few housekeeping things for our time together this afternoon. First, we are recording this meeting. By participating, you are giving your consent to be recorded. Second, help us reduce distractions so we can all focus and participate. We have muted everyone to make it possible for everyone to hear the speakers. We want you to express your thoughts and questions. Please utilize the chat for this purpose. We will monitor the monitor the chat and questions will be touched upon during our Q&A time during the last 15 minutes of the webinar. We want to see you. So if you are willing, and you can please turn on your video if you are unable, that is fine also. To receive information about other post-adoption events, please list your name and email. We will make sure to add you to your our contact list. Third, remember, confidentiality. It is vital that we protect confidential information, so we will not share specifics about foster or adoptive cases in this meeting. All materials from this presentation will be available to you. After the presentation, you will receive an email including a link to the resource database. Now, I'm going to hand everything off to Lorah Gerald, who is today's host. Thank you so much and thank you all for taking the time out of your lunch to be here today. [Lorah Gerald] I hope everyone can hear me okay. So everything good? All right, awesome. As they said, my name is, is Lorah Gerald, I write as the Adopt Chameleon on social media. And I am a domestic same race adoptee from the Baby Scoop era. And today I wanna start off with a little bit of the history of the baby scoop era. A lot of people don't understand or know what it is, so let me go to a share screen here. ::Slide - What is the Baby Scoop Era?:: Can you see that? There we go. So, the baby scoop era was a period after World War II until about the mid seventies when there was an increased rate of premarital pregnancies and this higher rate of newborns created. Um, the adoption industry booming, and a lot of millions, about 4 million mothers and children were separated during that time, approximately 2 million just during the 1960s alone. This time was considered a crime against humanity that a lot of people don't know about. Um, a lot of people thought it was a really good idea. Um, have you ever seen the movie Narnia? A lot of y'all probably seen that in the beginning of the movie. They show the bombing of London and the kids are sent off on a train to go stay with people because of the war that's going on. During this time, it seemed logical, you know, to send children away so that they would be safe, right? I mean, we're trying to take care of the children. So sending 'em away. What happened though was after that, 'cause that actually in that movie, they were showing, uh, what was called Operation Pied Piper. You can actually look this up. They discovered that the children that came back after the war, they were more traumatized than the children that had stayed and saw the ravages of war. They discovered that it was the separation that was what was more traumatic. But then after that, the war, the influx of babies adoption was booming. This is where people started more. I mean, this, it came before then, but this was the time when people saw babies as blank slates not having any trauma, closed adoptions were the norm. Uh, it was just, you know, there was shame for the mothers. And, um, some mothers' children were, were actually just stolen outright stolen from them. But, uh, women couldn't, uh, get credit cards, often, buy homes. Uh, the shame of the community and people around them led them to the relinquishment. And a lot of people nowadays still see adoption as an all good in infants as blank slates. Uh, hopefully we all know that it is a, a trauma, but that's why I wanted to speak about this period, because a lot of people don't know this, and they're still using this old narrative as how to go forward now, when there are better ways to do this. ::Slide - Australia:: As a matter of fact, it has come to, in 2013, Australia actually apologized for their forced adoptions. 'cause it wasn't just in the United States. This was worldwide. They believed that there was about 250,000 mothers and children affected. In 2015, Canada came along and apologized. Uh, they established a fund for reparations. For some people that is still going on. Ireland 2021. Recently, they per, they apologized for the profound and generational wrong done to survivors, and the states had failed them. Then last year, there was a sincere and heartfelt, unresolved apology from Scotland, and they said, what happened to these women is almost impossible to comprehend. ::Slide - What is the Baby Scoop Era?:: So, being a baby scoop era adoptee, I had a closed adoption. My adoptive parents loved me. They just never talked about it. It was never talked about. And that's why I wanted to go back to this slide. 'cause I want you all to look at my eyes here in this slide. Look at the baby. I'm having a completely different experience than my adopted parents. This picture was taken on my first birthday. The date on the back is my birthday, and I'm one years old. I look very disassociated. I am not engaged. It looks like I've pretty much given up. And my adoptive mother, she used to say proudly how I never, ever cried. And we know that now, that that's, that's an issue when children don't cry, right? ::Attendees visible:: There's, there's a problem there. But at the time, and unfortunately because this was so prominent, this, you know, millions of people around the world were affected. This narrative has come into modern day, even til today, when I'm talking about my life, people will fight me and say that babies don't, don't have any issues being separated from their mother. They actually have more issue as an infant because the mother is the, actually works as the parasympathetic nervous system for the baby. That's why skin to skin is so important. They've done the test where they can put breast milk on the pad, and the baby knows where the mother is. Everyone else to the baby is a stranger. You might love that baby. You may be wanting the best for that baby, but they don't recognize you. They only recognize the mother. So it comes to, I'm gonna go back to sharing. I've got some facts about preverbal trauma. Yeah. ::Slide - Preverbal Trauma:: So that leads to preverbal trauma. I'm gonna go through this slide with you. This one was sourced from multiple sources that I just combined together. So there wasn't one single source for this, but for this is, you can easily look these facts up. Pre-verbal trauma is a disturbing experience that occurs in early childhood before a child can speak and it can have lasting effects, which a lot of adult adoptees and closed adoptions we speak about now. uh, you can have attachment issues. Infants are have disturbed attachments, sleeping and eating disorders. Um, I know I did as a child. Uh, uncomfortable sensations, physical sensations, flashing images. Uh, their symptoms are anger, uh, behavioral issues, depression, anxiety, hyper vigilance, um, and disas disassociation. It's, uh, a loss of identity and it impacts parts of the brain leading to memory loss. I can definitely vouch for that one too, unfortunately. And it's difficult to treat because, well, we're preverbal and we know that people, children, especially, have a really hard time talking to their adoptive parents about these difficult conversations. As adults, we can barely have these conversations. So expecting a child to want to sit down and go, you know, I understand you love me, and we have this relationship, but I miss my other family. That's a big conversation, um, for a child. As a matter of fact, a lot of people won't come out of the fog as, um, Betty Jean Lipton termed, uh, termed it. Um, until we're older adults, we need to be in safe spaces so that our nervous system can start relaxing and we can start questioning our who authentically we are are, that I identity piece that may have been missing because we were wanting to fit in or not had any genetic mirroring or been removed from our culture. Um, children, um, because we are at the mercy of our parents, we know that we have to fall in line basically, to not get outed and adoptees already having that abandonment issue, even in safe loving homes, it's difficult because then we have, um, we feel like if we say anything, it could hurt their feelings. And we're beholden, we're beholden to our adoptive parents. So later in life, things start happening. ::Slide - According to Dr. Lynn Roche Zubiou's research:: Like, uh, September is suicide, uh, awareness month and adoptees. There is a new preliminary exploration. And in a surv, it wasn't a survey, it was research, but it still needs to be peer reviewed. This is the newest one. They used to say, um, about four ti. Adoptees are about four times more likely to attempt suicide. In this new research, that still needs to be peer reviewed but I do have a source for it, they're saying it's 36.7 times more likely, adoptees are to attempt suicide than people that were raised with biological family members. There's also, um, adoptees are twice as likely to have substance abuse disorders, addictions and adoption adopted children are disproportionately represented in residential treatments programs. They can, uh, there were only 2% to 3% of the population, but they're saying that we're about 16.5% of the population in residential care. We know that we're way overrepresented in therapy and in prisons. So the statistics of the preverbal trauma are there and sourced, and we will get those to you. ::Attendees visible:: So we know that it has a long lasting effect. Right? This is something that goes with us into adulthood. And as children, again, we we're trying our best to help them. But there are things that might, they may only tell someone else, like another adoptee, someone that has been through the experience so that they don't have to explain their own feelings to, and that's how we have to try to, to get them to come out. And there are groups. Um, most of these are for adults, though 18 and above. Uh, like my adopted Adoptees Connect Tulsa group. Um, I talk to people that are adults about this. I, I don't necessarily work with children, but I'm always listening to the adults of how we can listen to children. And I know how I would feel as a kid when people would talk to me about what it was like to be adopted. And they talked to me, not with me. I was told adoption was great. I was told that God chose me. I was told that my adopting mother prayed every night that my other mother wouldn't change her mind. These were things that I was told. Can you hear how that's not child centered? That's all about the adoptive parents and the people trying to reconcile that someone had to lose a child for another person to get a child. So it's not exactly child-centered. And that's adoption. That's adoption. It's not technically child-centered. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of human rights violations. I'm gonna go back to sharing screen one more time before we start going back and forth with some questions. ::Slide - THE OBC: MAPS. (slide shows a map of the USA, color-coded - accessibility inserted into dialog):: This is the United States. When adoptees say that we don't have the same rights as kept people, this is what we're talking about. The green states are the unrestricted. There are, um, I can't remember. Uh, this is all that's unrestricted. These are the only states that allow adoptees complete access to their original birth certificate, any health history, and to know who their biological family is. That's it. ::Green/unrestricted states - Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont:: Then you can see Oklahoma in there, we're compromised. There are restrictions. ::Yellow/compromised states - Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Washington:: And then the red are restricted. ::Red/restricted states - California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming:: This is what we're talking about. This is, this is just flat, simple, A human rights violation. There is no such thing as a closed adoption anymore. And adoption agencies, uh, still offer them, especially in the restricted states. But with d uh, commercial, DNA, social media, people talk. Um, there's no actual closed adoptions anymore. And people shouldn't be kept from their heritage, their culture, their biology. That's what leads to the loss of identity and all of the things that I just went through the statistics and like myself, I'm a statistic in every one of those that I showed. So we need to do better. This just needs to be all green all the way through this adoptees. It, it, that shouldn't matter which state I was born in or adopted in or whatever. I should be able to get my records that are mine in any state possible. ::Attendees visible:: The state of Tennessee, where I was adopted from, I'll share a little bit of my story here. Um, when in 1995, they allowed me to have my non-identifying information. I was in my mid twenties. So I wrote to the State of Tennessee and I said, can I have my information? They said, sure. Send us $150 and 10 cents for each piece of paper, and you're gonna have to get, uh, it verified that you are who you are. And I was in college. I, 'cause I didn't go to college right out of high school. I was in college. And I said, well, I don't have money. I was waiting tables trying to pay my way through college, because that's another misconception. My adoptive parents were poor. My biological parents had the more means and opportunity. They were college students. And yeah, I happened 'cause they were college students. So Tennessee, I had to tell 'em I didn't have the money. And they were like, well, you're gonna have to prove to us that you can't afford it. So I had to humiliate myself, send them my financial records, just so that I could have non-identifying information that belonged to me. So they reduced it to 50 bucks. So kind of them, they still wanted that 10 cents for each piece of paper though. I sent off my, um, I, um, my id, uh, it had to be, um, certified. I sent off all the paperwork. I sent off the money. And then months later, I get what is known as on non-identifying information. This said that my, uh, mother was 20, my father was 21. She had brown hair, hazel eyes, he had blonde hair, blue eyes. They were college students at the time. They didn't have any known health history. Again, why we need the unrestricted 'cause health history changes in time, right? So important to know throughout your life. Um, they told me, uh, what religion they were and, uh, ethnicity that they knew of. That was it. Here's my mom and dad, blonde hair, blue eyed, 21-year-old. So as a child, and, and after I got this non-identifying information, I'm still searching crowds, looking through crowds for anybody with brown hair and hazel eyes and blonde hair and blue eyes. So looking, searching for someone that belonged to me, that looked like me. Well, that didn't work. I was depressed. I attempted suicide. I had addictions. I had all the things that I just listed, even though I didn't know anything about these statistics. 'cause adoption was great. Adoption wasn't the problem. I was the problem. And when I went to therapy, that's exactly what they told me. I had an anger issue. They never once told me that I had abandonment trauma. That anger was a normal part of that. And if I learned to listen to my anger, it was protecting me. Yeah. They didn't tell me any of that. So I never wanted to go back to therapy. I, I realized it was my fault. So I just wasn't gonna tell anybody anything else ever again until I was in my fifties. Now, in my fifties, I was searching again because there was a social worker. I'm gonna add this in here. There was a social worker in that non-identifying information. That was an angel. Yeah, she was a true angel. 'cause guess what? She slipped in that packet. My original birth certificate I wasn't supposed to have. Yep. I have my mom's name. I did. But this was way before social media and things like this. So it wasn't that easy to just go look somebody up like it is now. I had to, uh, hire people to do, uh, searches and things. And just by a sheer coincidence, you know, it wasn't a coincidence. My adoptive cousin happened to find her and she discovered that she owned her own business. Uh, she was very, um, active in social groups. She was an upstanding member of society. Yeah, she just hid a kid because of the shame. She talked to her. And guess what she said? She said, if she even tries to find me, I'll get a restraining order because I don't want my fa my husband or my daughters to know. Well, at that time, her husband had been dead for four years. So she lied about that. She was only keeping me from my sisters, even though my sisters, um, even though my sisters would've loved her no matter what. And she was the one that hadn't dealt with the shame. I had to deal with the shame. And in my mind, trauma does what trauma does. I erase that. I erase that whole memory. Didn't remember it at all. Not a single word of it until in my fifties when I found my biological sisters. I found my birth mother's obituary. And in the obituary, she died in 2016. Their, their names were there. This was 2019 at this time. By the time that I found everybody, I had to keep paying ancestry and all these places to find things. So I kept forking money in there. And the more money I put in there and the more information I got, finally got the obituary and did contacted them through social media. Month later, they hadn't contacted me. I'm in one of the adult adoptee groups, boohooing, asking for help and support. 'cause I'm with people that understand. And then that afternoon, I got a message saying, Hey, we didn't know, we didn't get your message. 'cause if you're not friends, sometimes messenger doesn't send the message. Right? So that's what had happened. That was the disconnect. They flew out here. Within a week, we met, I found my people for the first time in my life. I was 53 years old, and I finally saw someone look like me. Be careful what you asked for. That same person that looked like me, rejected me because I had some issues with what our mother had done because I called my cousin and I said, what'd my mother say again? And she told me. Yeah, I came outta the fog hard. I landed on a rock, the bottom of the barrel. I was spiraling outta control. And I was in my fifties searching for my identity. We don't want people going through this, especially not, we don't want people in their fifties. I know people in their sixties and seventies because they were late discovery adoptees. Nobody ever told 'em. My cousin's one of those, she found out when she was 50, she was adopted. These cause spirals, this is when the suicidal ideation really hits home, is when we're older and we're searching for our identity after thinking we were somebody, and then discovering we were someone else. So what did I do? I, uh, started writing about it in 2019 as the Adopted Chameleon. I started telling my story because telling my story removed the shame, the guilt, I could be who I wanted to be, now. My adopted parents were deceased. My adopted mother was deceased. I didn't know where my biological father was at this time. So I started writing and releasing the anger and telling the story of the shame because I wasn't a dirty little secret anymore. And I never agreed to being a dirty little secret. And I took my power back. And in that time, I became a Kundalini yoga instructor. And then I went back and took trauma-informed yoga therapy. I became a reiki master. I started studying everything you could on adoption. I created the Adopted Chameleons, plural, Facebook group for adoptees in all MPEs, which is Misattributed Parental Event. That's like donor conception, surrogate former foster youth. Anybody that wasn't raised by a bi biological parent. So I gave other people a safe space to speak. And the more trauma informed I became, the better that I could help others. And when I teach yoga, or just in my consultation, consultations and coaching, and speaking from being there, from being in that rock bottom place that I was digging myself out. I knew what other people needed and how to speak to them. Before I go on, I'm just gonna ask, does anybody need to take a breath? Let's just take a breath. Let's just in, in through our nose, out through our mouth. Let's take a breath for a second because that's a lot, right? And, uh, it still goes on today. Where the adoption industries, especially the private adoption industries, will use coercive tactics because there are approximately 40 hopeful adoptive parents for every infant relinquished. And I'm using infants specifically because people will wait years for an infant and they pay more for white, healthy children than they do other children. Because children are commodified in the private adoption industry. And we know that in the adoptee community because we've seen it. And we've also witnessed rehoming. There is rehoming on social media. It's usually after a child is hit 10 and they're not that blank slate anymore. The child's starting to struggle with identity and issues. So adoptive parents can rehome their children. The adoptee is in a lifelong contract that they never consented to and can't get out of, but yet they can be rehomed. That goes back to the, the human rights violations that I'm speaking of, when adoptees are talking about this. We're not talking about love or how well our adoptive parents did or didn't do. This isn't a good, bad situation. This is just a basic human rights violation that needs to end. We have better options and hopefully we can make options better, like guardianship and kinship. Maybe we can do that. And when the child decides, I want to permanently sever and understands that they are permanently and legally severed from their family, like have no rights to them whatsoever, that they can decide to be with a different family, allowing them the power to choose this is giving the child power back. This is giving that adult the power back. Because we're only babies a short period of time. Our foster, um, parents and adoptive parents are gonna spend more time with us as adults than children. So we need to remember that children need power too. I mean, obviously we're not gonna let 'em run wild. They need guidance, but we're putting them in contracts and treating them like products instead of human beings with rights. So I just wanted to take this moment and let you all ask some questions now. Uh, a positive experience? Um, as children, it, that one's a good question because as a kid I knew something was wrong, but I didn't have the capacity to question authority, even though I did ask a lot of questions. And I was told to be quiet a lot too. 'cause I, I did, I asked more questions than I probably should. But typically, um, I would just sit with it like the picture of me at 1-year-old every year on my birthday. I was sad. I didn't know why I got gifts in a birthday party. I thought it was me. So I wouldn't tell anybody else because obviously I should be thankful for that. That's fantastic. You know, Christmas, yay gifts. Why am I sad? I thought I was broken and I was the problem. So as a child, mm-Hmm. I didn't say anything to anybody. I just stuck that thing right down until I was an adult and started coming out of it more like in my mid twenties. I would, when I would, I would drink to excess and I would talk about it. That's when I could talk about it with people. And, but I was using that as a numbing agent, an unhealthy coping mechanism, which I learned later that that's why I was doing that. So yes, it's usually when we're not using the unhealthy coping mechanisms and we're into a, um, you know, our own home, we're in our safe space, that's when we're more willing and able, literally able to start discussing the things inside us that we know just aren't right. Like the anger and rage that comes up that's protecting us. [B. Smith] I have a question about if um, children come from adopted, uh, adopted identity, are they, um, most likely to adopt as parents as well? Or? [Lorah Gerald] That would be a good one to, for someone to do research on? Because the, the US adoption industry is worth $25 billion a year. It's unregulated and it's, and as I showed you, each state it's different. So there haven't been a lot of studies done, but I can tell you I do know a lot of adoptees that became birth mothers and some that actually became adoptive parents also. Now they will talk about things differently. They will literally have to switch back and forth in their mind. But it's, it's out there. There are books, as a matter of fact, oh, I have a book right in front of me. This one, um, "Practically Still a Virgin' by Monica Hall. She is an adoptee that, um, is also a birth mother. And they do have groups where they talk about that, that the, the, because they were in the fog, they became birth mothers or adoptive parents, and then they all come out later. And luckily if you've been through it, you kind of know it, but then you may have two traumas or more than, well it's, it's layers of trauma anyway. But you have more trauma. [Jackie Turner] I have something kind of go with that question. [Lorah Gerald] Yes. [Jackie Turner] Um, as an adopting myself, I have found myself wanting to adopt, but at the same time wanting my own so I can finally have a family that looks like me. So it really just depends. I mean, on the person, obviously, but [Lorah Gerald] Yes. Uh, yeah, Jacqueline, that, um, is something that's really interesting about adoptees. I know a lot of adoptees like myself that chose never to have children. I, I didn't know who I was, so I thought something was wrong with me. And the last thing I wanted to do was pass it on. But then there's a lot of adoptees the other way. They want to have that biological connection 'cause they don't have a biological connection. So it's, it's really the dynamic is really interesting. Again, I would love to have studies done on this. [Dale McKay] Uh, I have a concern, uh, yeah, Laura, uh, that, um, what I'm hearing is that your story as the Adoption Chameleon is being presented as all inclusive. And I feel that that's a risk for those listening to you because then perhaps if they're mental health professionals, then in their minds, oh, everyone who is adopted has trauma and I don't believe that's true. [Lorah Gerald] Hmm. Um, I can say all adoption starts with trauma. Now, how the trauma is going to affect the individual is each individual, but all adoption does start with trauma. For anyone to be adopted, they have to be separated from their family, which is a trauma. Now, if they need, so [Dale McKay] You're talking as an infant, when they're separated from the birth mother, they experience that trauma, [Lorah Gerald] Pre-verbal trauma. Yes. [Dale McKay] Yes. [Lorah Gerald] That is an actual ro. [Dale McKay] Yes, of course. I, I, yes, I've heard about that and, and read about it. Uh, but still, uh, as far as my concern, um, beyond that trauma, do you believe there are adult adoptees who don't feel that their adoptive experience was traumatic and they, and they don't have that, or that is very obvious as you present yourself, you needed to stop and take a breath because as you said, um, this is a lot, right? Um, I don't, it wasn't a lot for me. I was simply listening to you, but it was obvious that you needed to take a breath because in telling your story, it's a lot for you. And I, I know that my manner of speaking and my, my concerns that I'm expressing appear as if I'm attacking you. I'm not. I simply want to know if you feel this is all inclusive, that there's never a, a positive experience for, uh, a adult adoptees as they look back on being adopted or, or a adopted children. Is it ever a positive experience? [Lorah Gerald] Thank you, Dale. Um, this is exactly what I deal with almost every day on social media. So what I will say again, is all adoption does start with trauma. [Dale McKay] Yes. [Lorah Gerald] You can't remove the baby without it being traumatic. And then I mention the fog, which is a real state. I think all human beings have some sort of a fog that someday they either will or won't come out of because we deal with traumatic experiences as individuals. So yes, someone can say they've had a positive experience and they had a positive experience, that's great. But are they saying that they had a positive experience because they never explored any differently? Are they still in the fog? These are questions that only individuals can answer. I'm not answering that for them. I'm just showing that it is a developmental trauma. It's a pre-verbal trauma. [Dale McKay] Mm-Hmm. [Lorah Gerald] And that there are human rights violations actually being committed to this day because of profit and commodification of infants. That's what I'm saying. Can it be a positive experience? Absolutely. Some children need to be put into a safe environment, but infants typically are not that. The mother usually, and there are statistics on this, uh, something like 96% of women that relinquished had they had support would've kept their children. So there's only a tiny fraction of infants that would actually be relinquished because the mother wants to relinquish. [Dale McKay] And, and, and, and read that in your bio. Um, or I believe I read it in an Instagram post that, that, um, [Sierra McClendon] Dale, in efforts to allow everyone to kind of ask some, some questions, if there are some further discussions, we'll be happy to, to kind of have some, some conversations. This is a, a lunch and learn for Lorah to share her story and her experiences. Um, if there is more of a one-on-one conversation, that's something that maybe we can definitely do. Um, just an effort for. We had a lot of questions in the chat and I wanna make sure that, um, everyone's questions get answered as well. Um, Lorah is, is speaking to her experiences, which is definitely not all inclusive. Um, there are multiple experiences across the board. We have had a couple of others chime in as well who are, who are also on the call, who are adoptees. Um, and I encourage you to check out some of their responses in the chat as well. Um, and please email me. I'll include my email at the end and we can set up a call to discuss a couple things further. I'm a clinician myself. We put some of these on. If you have a couple of things, some concerns or things that you'd like to discuss some more, I'm happy to do that. But, um, we do have a few more questions that I've kind of gotten, gotten thrown around, um, just in the chat and I don't wanna lose those. [Dale McKay] Um, thank you. I can't, I apologize. I apologize Sierra, and I apologize, Laura. I didn't. Um, uh, obviously I was taking up, uh, far too much time and I apologize for that. I will now mute my mic. [Lorah Gerald] Thank you for the question, Dale. [Sierra McClendon] Thank you. [Lorah Gerald] Thank you, Dale. [Sierra McClendon] Thank you. Um, so, uh, just to kind of circle back Lorah a couple of questions ago, um, we had one that says, "As an involved professional, how can we best support both the adoptive parents and the child in that they both have an extremely unique and vastly different journeys and perspectives?" And I think I would also maybe tie in there some birth parents as well. Um, so just to kind of add on to Tabitha's Tabitha's question. So how can we kind of be involved as professionals with everyone in that adoption, um, realm? [Lorah Gerald] Well, um, I would focus more on the child. There. Uh, when people adopt, often it's their last resort. They've tried fertility and things and it's led them to adoption. I'm not saying all but many, especially when they want an infant, they're wanting the baby experience. It's more and, uh, it's egocentric thinking instead of child-centered thinking, this is what I want. This is the experience I need because I have infertility trauma or X, Y, Z. I need this to help me. And the baby becomes a bandaid for something that they can't fix anyway. Like in my experience, both of my adoptive parents were traumatized horribly. My father was a, a Korean war vet, and my adoptive mother had a forced hysterectomy. So she didn't have choice. And my birth mother didn't have choice. She only wanted to be a mother. She was a lovely woman. I don't want anybody to sit here and think that I'm talking bad about my adoptive parents. I'm talking about just facts and statistics. They loved me, but I still had all of these things. Love wasn't enough. And they sell love as the fix to trauma. But we know love can't fix trauma. If your child goes to school and they're in a school shooting, you love them. But they had a trauma, didn't they? Right. The baby only knew the mother and was ripped away from the mother and handed to strangers. And now that child is growing up with a lot of questions. Even open adoption, which is what adoption agencies typically promote nowadays, they close within three to five years because the adoptive parents have all of the control. And the birth mother and biological family don't have any control. My biological father never knew I existed till I was 55 years old. I had three years with him before he died. And that is still legal not to even check with the biological father before the child is relinquished. And most birth mothers, they only need $5,000 or less just to get them through for the things that, that the necessities that they're gonna need to support their child. And these are things that adoptive parents need to know because they're spending $40,000 plus on fees for the adoption agency to get a baby when maybe that mother only needed $500 to $5,000 to keep it. So these power dynamics decide who gets to parent. This is something that needs to be more, it needs to be talked about. It's an uncomfortable conversation. I get that. But we need to be comfortable with the uncomfortable so that we can grow. And if we don't listen to the facts, the statistics, the history, the lived experience, how are we ever gonna do better? [Carlie Van Woerkom] Lorah, this isn't my question, but it was in the chat and I really liked it because you talked about, um, you know, as they get older, um, do you feel it makes a difference when adoptive parents are opening with the child open, excuse me, with the child from the beginning, telling the story of them in age appropriate ways as they grow? [Lorah Gerald] Absolutely. Children should. Late discovery adoptees, there's an acronym, LDA late discovery Adoptees should not exist. Everyone should know from the beginning. Tell 'em from the beginning, just start talking it in, letting them understand with stories, with books, there's a lot of adoptee written kids books now that can help with this. Um, like I don't even remember when they told me, I don't have that moment where they sat me down because it, they just always told me. So they did that, right. That was good. They always knew that I was adopted. Now my parents didn't really help me find my biological family, which is something that the adoptive parents, this is one where adoptees kind of go, oh, I don't want my adoptive parents helping me find my biological family. The adoptive family can't take offense in that because this is a private journey. Now, being open and accepting of this journey and supportive going, what can I do to help you actively search instead of just words? 'cause that's what my parents did. They said, oh, we support you, blah, blah, blah. But they didn't actively help me search. It was words without action. So actively do the things if your adopted child or an adopted person, you know, if they need support in a certain way and they tell you, actively do it. If they say, Hey, will you go with me, you know, to go buy a DNA kit or whatever, you know, or to do the DNA kit. If they need support, just say, sure, I'll just sit there. Because really that's what they need. They just need to know that someone is supporting them, that they have a safe space. Their nervous system is dysregulated. It needs to be regulated back so that the cognitive It needs to be, you're safe. You're heard your seeing. So speak your truth and let me know what I can do to help you. [B.Smith] I just had another comment, um, to add to everything that was shared today. Um, I'm speaking from an indigenous, uh, tribal standpoint of how historical trauma and colonization opens up the heart and mind of the people that are involved in, uh, Indian Child Welfare or the state or the, um, or the, the country as a whole. And so I just wanted to share, um, this book, it's called "Lost Bird" [Lorah] MM-Hmm. [B.Smith] And it's about a Navajo woman that was, um, stolen when she was born in the Indian health hospital. And, um, they also have a documentary of it. It's called "Daughter of a Lost Bird". But I wanted to share that with you all so that it kind of expands outwardly on how this meso system, macro system, um, has all those, um, influences. [Lorah Gerald] Thank you so much for sharing that. Yes. Um, the cultural loss and colonization, I mean, adoption is rooted in racism and colonization. So yeah, there is a, there is a deep, dark history that unfortunately a lot of people don't know about because it's not discussed. Uh, as a matter of fact, um, Georgia Tan, you can look her up. She, um, was a child trafficker. Uh, she had the Tennessee Children's Home and she was going to trial and died right before that. But there were thousands of children that she sold to the rich and famous. Uh, you all might know Rick Flair, the, the, the old wrestler from long ago. He was one that Georgia Tan sold. Um, she used to run ads in the paper saying, this is, uh, you know, a gift. A child is a gift, buy, you know, get a baby for Christmas. She'd show him sitting underneath Christmas trees. Uh, children died in her care. She literally kidnapped children to sell to other people. And the reason why I bring this up is not to just, you know, poopoo on adoption again, but unfortunately the modern day adoption industry took most of her, um, policies and put 'em into place like the blank slate and the closed adoption. It was all from Georgia Tan. [Sierra McClendon] Wow. So much great historical kind of context and things to really, really think about, um, and look at Lorah. So thank you so much for, for all of that thus far. Thank you for some of the recommendations. I hope, um, in sharing some of your story that, um, you know, everyone is able to take some of some of that to, to think further. What does this mean for you? What does this mean in your work? Whether that be you are an adoptee, you are an adoptive parent, you are thinking of this a foster parent, you are a clinician. We can all kind of take something into our work as we kind of wrap up Lorah, what, what do you want to leave us with? What are your, your kind of final thoughts? We have a mix of some adoptees here on the call, um, or on our zoom here. Um, we have, um, some, I think some birth family members. We have adoptive parents, foster parents and clinicians. So what do you, what words of wisdom do you have to leave us with today? [Lorah Gerald] We heal in community. So let's have those conversations. Let's keep talking. We can make things better. Uh, love is important. There's gotta be love. There's gotta be open communication. Let's, let's do better for future generations. Let's help our nervous system. All of us, you know, whether we've been affected by it or not. Let's just have that empathy for each other that hopefully we're all trying to do the best that we can and just see each other as humans instead of feeling defensive. if we get triggered by something that I or anyone else says, you know, look inside, why are you being triggered? Maybe it's something inside yourself that needs to be resolved. Uh, I know when I get triggered, that's something that I always do. Why am I feeling this? Is this me or is it something else? But let's just make sure we keep having those uncomfortable conversations so that we can be, learn to be more comfortable with it and grow. [Sierra McClendon] Thank you so much, so much Lorah. And I know that you have mentioned your, um, adult, um, your Adoptees Connect in Tulsa and your a couple of other things. I know that you are very connected with some groups. If you wouldn't mind sharing that for some of us here on the call that might not know about those things. [Lorah Gerald] Yes. Uh, Adopted Chameleons is for those that have been affected, uh, that weren't raised in their biological family, uh, Adoptees Connect Tulsa, I have those meeting meetups once a month for adult adoptees, former foster youth. Again, anyone that didn't, wasn't raised in their biological family can come to those meetings. I teach on Zoom, uh, every Wednesday and Sunday. Trauma-informed Kundalini yoga. This is on my website, Lorahgerald.com. I'm also a reiki master. And, um, I'm on the steering and implementation committee here in, uh, Oklahoma, helping hopefully we can help everyone get better mental health care. And I'm always open to consultations and coaching. All of this information, again, is on my website. I, I hope that I can help you all or talk with you all some more. If you have any questions, please reach out. I am we'll talk about the uncomfortable things. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for being here and taking the time. [Sierra McClendon] Thank you so much for joining us today, Lorah. Um, you can find a recording of this. I believe Carlie just posted into the chat our OK Fosters link. You'll also be able to find this on our Center for Adoption Family Wellbeing YouTube channel, where you can also check out Lorah who did a panel with us and a couple of other adult adoptees last week, I wanna say. But it was the week before. And you can check that out as well if you'd like to hear a little bit more from Lorah. And we hope to see you all next time that we have a lunch and learn. We have one scheduled for October 8th, so we hope to see you all then. Enjoy the rest of your day. And if you're looking for CEUs foster care credits or an attendance certification, please make sure to fill out the, um, evaluation that is attached into the chat. If you have any questions, please send me an email. Um, and we'll get those things worked out for you. Have a great rest of your day. Thank [Lorah Gerald] You all again. Bye-Bye. ::Silence as attendees log off::