WEBVTT - Can We Just Go Get Her? 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:08.479 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. The 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:13.840 landscape of my childhood really began with my parents childhood. 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.880 My parents met when they were my mom was fifteen 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:22.079 or sixteen. They married when she was seventeen, and my 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.759 dad was I think, maybe a sophomore in college or 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:30.320 maybe a junior in college. And my parents came from 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:37.320 a predominant African American family in Nashville, Tennessee. My grandfather 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:43.600 was a biomedical professor at Fisk University, and my parents 0:00:43.680 --> 0:00:46.280 grew up in the Civil rights movement time, of course, 0:00:46.520 --> 0:00:50.480 and this this idea of who you're supposed to be, 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:55.440 especially as an African American, and this predominant society, I 0:00:55.480 --> 0:00:57.120 guess is the best way that I can kind of 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:01.120 explain it. Your reputation mattered, what you looked like mattered, 0:01:01.160 --> 0:01:04.600 Everything on the outside mattered so much for being able 0:01:04.640 --> 0:01:13.080 to get along in society. That's Zoe Shaw, psychotherapist, life coach, 0:01:13.319 --> 0:01:18.280 motivational speaker, podcast host, and writer whose work is focused 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:37.280 on empowering women. I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is Family Secrets. 0:01:37.680 --> 0:01:39.959 The secrets that are kept from us, the secrets we 0:01:40.040 --> 0:01:43.320 keep from others, and the secrets we keep from ourselves. 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:53.440 My mother, she was one of the first, I believe, 0:01:53.440 --> 0:01:56.600 the first African American to go through this predominantly white 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:00.600 Catholic school after Brown versus Board of Education in and 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:05.160 so she was taught very much that who you are, 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:07.520 what you do, what is scene is still very important. 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:10.440 So I was born in Nashville, Tennessee. My dad was 0:02:10.560 --> 0:02:13.160 in medical school at the time that I was. I 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:17.040 was born, and I'm a second child. My mom was 0:02:17.200 --> 0:02:21.200 in college. My father utilized the Air Force to pay 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.200 for his medical school, so after he graduated from medical school, 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:28.400 they were stationed in Washington, d c. At Andrew's Air 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:30.760 Force Base, and so that is where I went when 0:02:30.800 --> 0:02:32.840 I was one year old and lived there until I 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:37.280 was about eight or nine. And I had a very sheltered, um, 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.239 really just wonderful early childhood. And when my father got 0:02:41.280 --> 0:02:43.880 out of the Air Force, my parents decided to move 0:02:43.960 --> 0:02:48.920 to rural Maryland, a place called Smithsburg, Maryland, which is 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:53.120 a really really tiny spot next to a slightly bigger 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.800 the town Hagerstown. My father got a job at the 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.680 hospital there, so he was an ear physician. What I 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.919 didn't notice when I was young was that my parents 0:03:04.040 --> 0:03:07.360 had this idea. I think after the Civil Rights movement 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:10.679 and things had quote changed so much in our society 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.640 that they wanted to raise us without this concept of race. 0:03:14.000 --> 0:03:16.920 And they never spoke about color of skin or race. 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.880 And even more important, my mother went out of her 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.800 way to not speak about it. What do you think 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:24.880 that was about for your mother? Was it the whole 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.320 idea of it? Just it shouldn't matter, it doesn't matter. 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.400 I think it was more of were past, that we 0:03:32.800 --> 0:03:37.360 have gotten behind that, and I want my children to 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:42.040 not have race be a part of their idea about 0:03:42.040 --> 0:03:44.800 how the way the world works, which sounds good on 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:49.360 the level, right. It sounds good that they had this 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.920 idea that that we are past that and that doesn't 0:03:52.000 --> 0:03:54.440 matter and shouldn't be a factor in our lives anymore. 0:03:55.240 --> 0:03:57.600 And like I said, had we continued to grow up 0:03:57.600 --> 0:03:59.920 in Washington, d C. I think that it might have 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:02.680 been fine because it never occurred to me. I was 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.160 around other people with different colors and diversity, and I 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.120 didn't feel different. I think that a lot of our 0:04:08.160 --> 0:04:14.320 previous generation was steeped in is also that white is better, 0:04:15.000 --> 0:04:17.520 and so we want better opportunities for our kids. So 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:20.320 we want to send our children to the better schools, 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:22.640 to the white school I don't think it's still much now, 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:28.520 especially in cities anymore, because just because our you know, 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:30.800 we are a melting pot now, but things are different 0:04:30.839 --> 0:04:33.200 back then, and my parents brought that with them. It 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.279 was really about, I think, wanting the best for us, 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:38.920 which would have been good had they not been decided 0:04:38.960 --> 0:04:42.640 to move to this place, a very rural, farming community. 0:04:42.720 --> 0:04:45.720 It was all white. There were also a number of Mennonite. 0:04:46.320 --> 0:04:49.880 My parents sent me to a Christian school, and all 0:04:49.920 --> 0:04:52.160 of a sudden, I'm this little black girl showing up 0:04:52.200 --> 0:04:56.400 from Washington, d c. And the school of all white people, 0:04:56.839 --> 0:04:59.000 many of whom have never really interacted with with a 0:04:59.000 --> 0:05:03.960 black person. And so that was a really big you know, 0:05:03.960 --> 0:05:06.279 it was life changing and I learned a lot of 0:05:06.320 --> 0:05:08.440 things about how other people perceived me, and I learned 0:05:08.440 --> 0:05:10.800 a lot of things about blackness, and I learned a 0:05:10.880 --> 0:05:15.160 lot um that affected my self esteem, you know, as 0:05:15.200 --> 0:05:18.719 a child. That dawning realization, or maybe it wasn't dawning, 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.200 maybe it was sudden, Like what did that feel like? Yeah, 0:05:22.240 --> 0:05:24.200 I think it was dawning because I didn't go and 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.200 expecting that, and you know, me going into a sea 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:31.200 of white people wasn't really an issue necessarily until the 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.719 things started being said and the questions started being asked. 0:05:35.240 --> 0:05:38.920 The best way I can describe it as shame, I realized, 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:42.480 or I began to feel a sense of Oh, these 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.880 people think that I am not as good as they are. 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.080 These people think that I am less than Oh, this 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:50.880 is how they see me. So I think I think 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:54.000 the best way to say it is shame, which in 0:05:54.120 --> 0:06:00.160 a healthy family of color or family of difference, parents 0:06:00.400 --> 0:06:04.600 are there and able to kind of reinforce some sense 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:08.279 of good and pride and who you are. And that 0:06:08.480 --> 0:06:10.760 is something that my parents did not do because they 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:14.200 did not want to talk about color or race. And 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:17.320 so we, meaning my brother and my sister, knew very 0:06:17.320 --> 0:06:19.279 clearly that these were things we couldn't talk about with 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:22.080 our parents, and there was nothing in our environment that 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:25.560 allowed us to kind of work it out. We had 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:27.440 to work it out within ourselves, and it wasn't even 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:32.240 anything we talked about with each other either. Kids who 0:06:32.279 --> 0:06:35.200 grow up in families in which certain subjects are simply 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:38.279 off limits quickly learn that they have to send for 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:43.400 themselves to make matters more complicated. After a fairly garden 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:48.159 variety church going Episcopalian upbringing. When the family moves to Maryland, 0:06:48.520 --> 0:06:52.680 Zoe's mom converts to an evangelical church, adding fuel to 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:58.719 the fire. We started going to church where a pastor, 0:07:00.440 --> 0:07:02.880 you know, with a red face would shake his head 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:07.039 and speak in tongues and people would uh, you know, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:12.480 raise their hands. And so I'm learning about who I am, 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.280 you know, and what this means about the color of 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:16.640 my skin. And then I'm in this environment where I'm 0:07:16.720 --> 0:07:19.120 learning about God in a very different way than I 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:21.600 learned about him back when we were in Washington, d C. 0:07:22.440 --> 0:07:25.080 And I later also learned that the pastor didn't believe 0:07:25.120 --> 0:07:27.960 in the mixing of races. And so then the message 0:07:28.000 --> 0:07:30.800 I got was God loves you, but not as much 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:36.360 as he loves the white people. And so all of that, 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:38.880 you know, that's a landscape that I grew up in, 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:43.960 and it explains a lot about just my self esteem 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:48.280 and you know, my family history going into my adolescence 0:07:48.840 --> 0:07:53.360 as things begin to unfold because you internalize that shame. 0:07:54.160 --> 0:07:57.040 The shape of the shame is not just they think 0:07:57.080 --> 0:08:00.640 I'm not as good as they are, but if they 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:03.440 all think I'm not as good as they are. Maybe 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:06.920 I'm not as good as they are, then maybe I'm not. Yes, 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:10.680 I think that was always a question. There was always 0:08:10.720 --> 0:08:14.600 this seed of this little fire, the seed of indignation 0:08:15.800 --> 0:08:19.040 that knew better, but it was overshadowed for the most 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.200 part and most of my you know, growing up years 0:08:22.240 --> 0:08:26.080 from nine until you know, twenty and so, yes, that 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.560 question is always there. Am I not? Am I not 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:31.960 as good? Well? Yeah, I mean I think when you're 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:36.040 a child, you don't have any defenses against that. And 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.360 as you said, if your parents are into place that 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:43.200 you can go to unpack some of this stuff, then 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.760 you're left, you know, we are left to contend with 0:08:45.800 --> 0:08:49.000 it on our own, and we don't have the tools 0:08:49.040 --> 0:08:52.760 for it. We don't. And you know, my parents, because 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:55.040 I know, you know, like most parents do, is they 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:56.760 do what they think is right, They do what they 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:59.760 think is the best they felt. I think that they 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:03.000 were going into this kind of environment and society to 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.680 prove them wrong, that they were going to somehow teach 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:09.200 our pastor that black people are just as good. But 0:09:09.280 --> 0:09:11.880 my parents had tools that we didn't have, and they 0:09:11.920 --> 0:09:15.360 didn't even give us any. And so I think what 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:18.520 they did in some ways it could be respected. It's 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:21.760 just the way they went about it that wasn't productive. 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:27.880 Zoe attends a private school that's all white. Then she 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:30.680 goes to a public junior high school where some black 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.319 kids are busted in from other neighborhoods and come from 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:36.800 backgrounds and environments that are very different from Zoe's. She 0:09:36.880 --> 0:09:39.199 doesn't quite know what to make of them, and they 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:42.240 definitely don't know what to make of her, so they're 0:09:42.280 --> 0:09:47.360 mean to her and call her names. They called me Oreo, 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:50.600 black on the outside, white on the inside. And I 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.360 was in this place of desperately wanting them to um 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.360 accept me and then also not understanding anything about who 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.000 they were at the same time, and so I just 0:10:02.720 --> 0:10:05.800 kind of pushed myself away from them, and I felt 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.960 like they were the mama bird who sniffs the bay, 0:10:08.960 --> 0:10:11.360 you know, the babies, and figures out there's something wrong 0:10:11.360 --> 0:10:12.840 with them and pushes them out of the nest. So 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:15.200 it's kind of both of them pushing me away and 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:18.680 me pushing them away, and then me grappling again with 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:23.080 who am I right? I don't belong either place because 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.679 I don't really understand them, and they don't really understand me, 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:28.120 but then I'm not white and just really trying to 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.640 struggle and find my place. And how do you metabolize 0:10:31.640 --> 0:10:36.839 that during that time? Does it make you retreat? Does 0:10:36.840 --> 0:10:40.560 it make you work harder and want to excel? It 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:43.960 made me push myself away from them and attempt themhow 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.080 to not identify with them? And I think the way 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.280 that I dealt with it was to push them away 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:54.360 and to attempt to assimilate and be accepted as much 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:56.680 as I can. I think one of the benefits was 0:10:56.679 --> 0:11:00.240 that I was also a very excellent athlete. I fell 0:11:00.520 --> 0:11:04.600 tremendously and I poured a lot of myself into my athletics, 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:08.199 and I put a lot of myself into my academics 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:12.440 and found acceptance that way. I think that that helped, 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.839 because you know, obviously I have succeeded um and got 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:21.360 a lot of accolades from that, and that attention may 0:11:21.400 --> 0:11:25.120 be helped. But I think it also the way that 0:11:25.200 --> 0:11:27.520 it didn't help is that it didn't allow me to 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:30.760 value and honor myself as a person who I was. 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:32.560 It was for what I could do and what I 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:37.719 could provide. When Zoe's fourteen, she meets a boy, an 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:41.520 older boy named Finny at her brother's wrestling match. Z 0:11:41.679 --> 0:11:44.400 We had been interested in boys before, but many were white, 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:47.839 and they said things like, if you weren't black, I'd 0:11:47.920 --> 0:11:52.959 date you. For Zoe, this creates uncertainty and secretiveness around 0:11:53.000 --> 0:11:57.360 who she's attracted to and who's attracted to her. Things 0:11:57.440 --> 0:11:59.839 were changing a little bit when I was in high school, 0:12:00.040 --> 0:12:03.400 such that a white girl would date a black guy, 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:05.720 and that was a little more accepted, but white guys 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:08.880 were not interested in dating black girls. I didn't ever 0:12:08.960 --> 0:12:12.720 see that happen, and so I understood that my skin 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:18.720 color made me off limits, unattractive, and maybe not unattractive, 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:20.680 but it had to be secret. If I was going 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:23.079 to be in relationship with someone, it had to be secret. 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.520 So fast forward to meeting Vinny. And this is a 0:12:27.600 --> 0:12:32.600 black guy. He's in college, he's attractive, and he took 0:12:32.600 --> 0:12:35.240 an interest in me. We just started talking and he 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:37.120 asked me my phone number, and I tried to be 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:41.000 coy and I told him my last name and that 0:12:41.040 --> 0:12:42.800 he could find me in the phone book, never thinking 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:45.840 that he actually would. Um and we set our good guys, 0:12:45.880 --> 0:12:49.720 and a few days later he called me. We began 0:12:50.480 --> 0:12:53.840 a m We begin a relationship. It's interesting because I 0:12:53.880 --> 0:12:57.280 pause because I remember, you know, when he called me, 0:12:57.320 --> 0:12:59.600 one of the first things he asked me was how 0:12:59.720 --> 0:13:03.360 was your day? And that, in a very odd way, 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.240 threw me for a loop because no man had asked me, ever, 0:13:07.400 --> 0:13:11.679 how my day was. Just think about that for a 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:16.120 sec such a simple question, right, how was your day? 0:13:16.640 --> 0:13:19.600 And Yet for Zoe, this is something new, something she's 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:22.520 not used to being asked, not even when she was 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:27.880 growing up by her own father. My father was a brilliant, 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:31.120 brilliant man, but he had a lot of pain, and 0:13:31.160 --> 0:13:35.599 he came from a very difficult um family situation, a 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:39.920 narcissistic mother, and my father adored my mother, and he 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:44.000 really didn't have any space in his life to love 0:13:44.040 --> 0:13:46.720 anyone else. And I say love in terms of an 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:48.680 action bird. My father loved me, and I know he 0:13:48.760 --> 0:13:51.280 loved me, but we didn't really have a relationship, and 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:53.240 he didn't really have much of a relationship with any 0:13:53.280 --> 0:13:57.040 of us, my brother and my sister. He was a workaholic, 0:13:57.640 --> 0:13:59.880 and so I also grew up with what I called 0:14:00.000 --> 0:14:03.080 baddie lust, which I didn't really discover until I was 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.560 twelve and I visited a friend and we spent the 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:08.720 night and got up in the morning, and her dad 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:11.640 was like making us pancakes, and he knew my name, 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:13.800 and he was asking us questions like he was interested 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:18.319 in us, And I was fascinated. I had never seen 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.120 that where a father was that interested in their child. 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.760 You know. My father would often ask me how old 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:27.400 I was, and he didn't know the names of my friends, 0:14:27.480 --> 0:14:30.440 you know, and he definitely didn't ask you how your 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:33.920 day had been. No, no, he didn't. So you know, 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:37.280 I had this combo of self esteem issues, identity issues, 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:40.080 daddy lust and it was just the perfect storm for 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:45.240 meeting Vinny. And then he was black, but he didn't 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:49.120 know that I wasn't, you know, like the other people. 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:52.040 And eventually, as he got to know me, he just 0:14:52.080 --> 0:14:55.600 accepted me, and he would joke about the things. He 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:57.280 would say, you know, you grew up in a bubble, 0:14:57.440 --> 0:15:00.320 or he somehow accepted the fact that I us been 0:15:00.440 --> 0:15:02.840 I didn't know my culture like I should, and I didn't. 0:15:03.400 --> 0:15:26.120 I wasn't like everybody else. We'll be right back. Zoe 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.240 and Vinnie have both grown up in religious homes. Where 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:33.480 shall we say, sex before marriage is frowned upon a 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:37.880 great deal of emphasis is placed on purity, especially purity 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:43.240 for women. I knew very clearly that my mother was 0:15:43.280 --> 0:15:46.040 a virgin when she married my mother. My parents were 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:48.440 sure to let me know. It's funny because I don't 0:15:48.440 --> 0:15:51.240 know if my dad was. Nobody ever talked about that is, 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:53.440 the fact didn't seem to matter as much. But my 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:56.000 mother was a virgin when she married my father, and 0:15:56.040 --> 0:15:58.640 of course I was expected to do the same. But 0:15:58.720 --> 0:16:02.040 that didn't happen. Me and I, you know, developed a 0:16:02.120 --> 0:16:10.120 sexual relationship, and within a year of dating, I became pregnant. 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:15.320 And you were how old I was fifteen when I 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.200 became pregnant. You know. When I met Benny, I actually 0:16:18.200 --> 0:16:20.480 lied to him about my age then he was must 0:16:20.520 --> 0:16:22.520 have been eighteen. I told him I was fifteen, even 0:16:22.560 --> 0:16:25.600 though I wasn't really yet. I was probably, I don't 0:16:25.600 --> 0:16:28.200 know a few months from that. And we started dating 0:16:28.200 --> 0:16:33.640 when I was fourteen. So you can't fathom telling your parents. 0:16:34.240 --> 0:16:37.080 I mean, that's just that's just not something that you're 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.840 going to do initially, right. I was actually very much 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:46.080 praised for being the easy, good girl, and I always was. 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.520 I got good grades, I didn't give my parents any trouble. 0:16:48.680 --> 0:16:54.080 I obeyed them, and so this for me too, now 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:58.120 become pregnant, you have disobeyed them, and probably the worst way, 0:16:58.200 --> 0:17:02.040 in my opinion at that time, UM was really devastating 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:04.240 for me. On top of just the shame of what 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:08.560 I had done. So I could not figure out how 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:13.520 to form those words to tell my parents. Back then, 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:15.800 there were not you know, pregnancy test you could just 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:18.399 pick up at the drug store. And so I I 0:17:18.520 --> 0:17:23.200 skipped school and I went to a pregnancy clinic, Crisis 0:17:23.200 --> 0:17:26.480 pregnancy clinic, where they confirmed that I was pregnant. I 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:32.160 told Benny and we planned to get an abortion. Now 0:17:32.520 --> 0:17:35.600 I was also the child who had walked in anti 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:41.040 abortion marches, and um, remember we're an evangelical Christian, we 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:45.119 don't believe in abortion. My mom and dad donated to 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:49.000 Jerry Fallwell. They were like a premier, silver gold whatever, 0:17:49.160 --> 0:17:54.840 donators to Jerry Fallwell's pregnancy home and his mission to 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.520 save babies. So I also came out of that that 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:04.200 culture her. And so here I was at fifteen now 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:06.760 deciding I'm willing to get an abortion because I can't 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:08.720 do this. I can't tell my parents, I can't ruin 0:18:08.800 --> 0:18:11.720 my my life. You know, I've done the simple thing, 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.159 and I have to hide it. And so we planned 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:16.000 to do that, and then he saved up his money 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:19.600 and um I he picked me up from the school 0:18:19.920 --> 0:18:22.880 on the day that we had scheduled the appointment and 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.040 he drove me to the clinic. Then he stayed in 0:18:26.080 --> 0:18:30.159 the in the waiting room and I went inside. And 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:32.560 when you go in, there was you know, a group 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:34.359 of other girls, and we had to do this little 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:39.560 group where they quote counsel you before you get the abortion. 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:43.359 And in the beginning, the nurse passed out these little 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:46.760 pills to everyone and said to take this medication. I 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:48.760 guess it was going to relax you or something prior 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.800 to the procedure. And the first thing I did was 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:53.960 I looked at her and I said, well, this pill 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.360 hurt the baby. And I remember she looked at me 0:18:58.280 --> 0:19:00.439 with this expression of do you know you're just kid 0:19:00.560 --> 0:19:02.080 what you're getting ready to do, and you're asking me 0:19:02.119 --> 0:19:04.240 if this skill is going to hurt the baby. And 0:19:04.280 --> 0:19:08.080 it was also the first inkling for me that I 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:11.360 was a mother who was already kind of thinking about 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:17.679 this fetus as my child already concerned. So here I 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.439 am carrying these two you know, the echonomy is walking 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:26.639 myself into the abortion room. And I got on the 0:19:26.680 --> 0:19:30.160 table and the doctor came in, and um, they began 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.040 to set up and need his ultrasound, and and he 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:37.560 did make a mention that I was really far along, 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:39.920 but that he could still do it because the baby 0:19:40.000 --> 0:19:44.920 was small. And before I could, even before I could 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:48.359 process my thoughts, my words just tumbled out and I 0:19:48.400 --> 0:19:50.640 sat up and I just said I can't do this. 0:19:51.640 --> 0:19:54.720 I've changed my mind. And the doctor was very irritable, 0:19:54.720 --> 0:19:56.680 and he looked at me and he, you know, just said, 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:59.960 you know, you've wasted my time and you're too far along, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:01.480 and if you come back here, I'm not treating you, 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.960 and good luck, although I felt like he was wishing 0:20:04.960 --> 0:20:07.840 me something other than luck. And I literally jumped off 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.840 the table, grabbed my socks and shoes and ran out 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.399 of there into the lobby. And then he's looking at me, 0:20:13.520 --> 0:20:17.679 why do I like, is it over already? And I 0:20:17.840 --> 0:20:20.720 told him I'm not doing it. I changed my mind, 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.760 and he, you know, he was really just wonderful and 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:26.400 he was like, okay, Um. He put his arm around 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:28.760 me and we walked out of the place, trying to 0:20:28.760 --> 0:20:31.000 figure out what to do from there. And you know, 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:36.600 as I tell that story, I'm always cognizant of the 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:41.240 woman who has gotten the abortion, because in that moment, 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:46.399 I know because of the history of me and my parents, 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:48.920 and my family and and and my religion, and all 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:51.800 of those things led me to be in a place 0:20:51.800 --> 0:20:54.920 where I couldn't do it. But I just want to say, 0:20:55.160 --> 0:20:57.560 because so many of us have our own shame and 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:02.439 secrets around um things with sex and abortions and and 0:21:02.560 --> 0:21:05.000 things like that, that there's just no judgment because we 0:21:05.040 --> 0:21:09.320 all we all make our choices largely because of our 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:12.239 influences that were not even fully aware of, And so 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:14.640 I just have no judgment for any woman who who 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:17.639 would and has and will make a choice like that. 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:24.959 When Zoe and Vinnie leaves a clinic, his arm protectively 0:21:25.040 --> 0:21:28.520 around her, z he has a fantasy she and Vinnie 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:31.000 will run away and find a castle with all live 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:36.119 happily ever after. But as with most fantasies, reality comes 0:21:36.160 --> 0:21:40.160 crashing through, and the reality is that Zoe has volleyball 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.760 practice and school. The reality is that she has parents 0:21:43.760 --> 0:21:46.960 at home who have no idea what's going on. The 0:21:47.040 --> 0:21:52.280 reality is that Zoe is still pregnant. I don't think 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.000 that I had any idea what I was going to do. 0:21:55.080 --> 0:21:58.280 I think I just went straight into a sense of denial, 0:21:59.080 --> 0:22:02.960 and so I literally said nothing, and I continued on, 0:22:03.000 --> 0:22:06.399 and I finished my volleyball season. I remember, you know, 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:09.280 reaching to get a ball and landing flat on my 0:22:09.359 --> 0:22:13.000 stomach and feeling the baby pressed into me so strongly, 0:22:13.000 --> 0:22:17.840 and remembering, oh, okay, there's someone there. It was in 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:21.560 December when I started track practice, and by then I 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.560 was able to wear sweatshirts, was getting cold on in Maryland, 0:22:25.760 --> 0:22:28.879 and I was almost discovered once at track practice because 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.720 my coach was gonna put this device around my stomach 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.840 to do these lifting things, and I remember slowly taking 0:22:35.840 --> 0:22:38.880 off my sweatshirt and looking at him to see if 0:22:38.920 --> 0:22:45.520 he noticed. Over time, my mom figured it out. She 0:22:46.520 --> 0:22:50.439 asked me one day, Zoe, are you pregnant? She literally 0:22:50.480 --> 0:22:53.240 just said those words, and I'm sure there were plenty 0:22:53.240 --> 0:22:57.280 of signs um and even still I couldn't tell her yes. 0:22:58.080 --> 0:23:00.760 So I allowed my poor mom to me to another 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:05.000 pregnancy center, where another kind lady told us that I 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:07.400 was pregnant. How far along were you when your mother 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.960 asked you that question? I must have been four or 0:23:10.960 --> 0:23:15.040 five months those around December, and I was doing may 0:23:15.240 --> 0:23:17.240 so and there at the clinic. I had this idea 0:23:17.320 --> 0:23:19.360 that somehow my mom being there would make this all 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:22.119 go away, that maybe I wasn't really pregnant and she 0:23:22.160 --> 0:23:25.240 would tell us that. But of course that didn't happen. 0:23:25.520 --> 0:23:28.280 I sat there and she told me what I already knew, 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:34.320 and my mom was quiet. I thought about what happened 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:37.320 in the abortion clinic, because in the abortion clinic, because 0:23:37.359 --> 0:23:40.640 I was under age, the woman asked. The woman said, 0:23:40.680 --> 0:23:45.160 you can't get an abortion at fourteen without your parents consent. 0:23:45.880 --> 0:23:48.000 And I remember thinking, oh, okay, well great, well I'm 0:23:48.000 --> 0:23:50.399 going home. That's solved. And then she said, well, wait, 0:23:50.800 --> 0:23:53.040 if you sign this paper and it says that you 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:58.359 know you fear that if you disclose your pregnancy to 0:23:58.400 --> 0:24:00.440 your parents that you will be hurt in some way 0:24:00.520 --> 0:24:03.480 or abused or something, then you can sign that and 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:06.840 it's fine that the law allows that. And I remember 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:10.399 feeling so horrible and guilty for signing that paperwork, but 0:24:10.440 --> 0:24:12.680 I kind of rationalized it in my mind. I was like, well, 0:24:12.920 --> 0:24:15.960 if I tell my parents, you know, Bill drop dead 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:18.359 and we won't have any parents to take care of us, 0:24:18.400 --> 0:24:20.520 and somehow that will be dangerous. So okay, I'm going 0:24:20.560 --> 0:24:25.840 to sign it. But the contrast of my mom's actual 0:24:26.000 --> 0:24:35.000 response and the pregnancy clinic was quiet, sad and disappointed, um, 0:24:35.000 --> 0:24:39.119 which is is typical for my mom. And so you know, 0:24:39.240 --> 0:24:43.919 I just sat there with shame and sadness, and I 0:24:44.119 --> 0:24:52.080 felt very much a burden in that moment. On the 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:54.640 way home from the clinic, Zoe and her mom make 0:24:54.720 --> 0:24:58.080 a stop. They go to Dairy Queen, which used to 0:24:58.160 --> 0:25:00.240 be a wonderful treat when Zoe was a child old, 0:25:00.800 --> 0:25:04.679 but now all that childlike wonder is gone. Over ice cream. 0:25:05.080 --> 0:25:08.439 Zoe apologizes to her mom and tells her she wishes 0:25:08.440 --> 0:25:10.680 she could go away just so her parents won't have 0:25:10.720 --> 0:25:14.359 to deal with her predicament. Zoey's mom tells her that 0:25:14.400 --> 0:25:17.040 she and her father will talk about it. Her mom 0:25:17.160 --> 0:25:23.199 doesn't say much else, she remains quiet disappointed. In the 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:26.240 coming weeks, her parents tell Zoe that they will in 0:25:26.320 --> 0:25:29.840 fact be sending her away, having had pre marital sex 0:25:29.920 --> 0:25:33.320 and becoming pregnant. They see Zoe as a bad influence 0:25:33.359 --> 0:25:37.159 on her younger sister, so plans are made off she 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:41.320 will go to a pregnancy home, and so I had 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:45.800 to go. And you know, in my mind at that time, 0:25:45.840 --> 0:25:49.679 I understood, because I understood that I was tainted. I 0:25:49.760 --> 0:25:53.600 understood that, you know, I had done this sinful thing, 0:25:53.880 --> 0:25:56.880 and that I deserved this. Was Bennie still in your 0:25:56.880 --> 0:25:59.880 life at that point? He was, Yes, Benny was still 0:25:59.880 --> 0:26:04.359 in my life. Um. And I remember feeling disappointed because 0:26:04.400 --> 0:26:06.960 remember my fantasy about us running away to a cast 0:26:07.000 --> 0:26:11.920 bowl together, and I wanted him to somehow swoop in 0:26:12.080 --> 0:26:15.240 and and say, you know, no, this is my child 0:26:15.359 --> 0:26:18.040 and I want to marry you. And I were not 0:26:18.040 --> 0:26:19.600 I'm not going to let this happen. And none of 0:26:19.600 --> 0:26:23.119 that happened. He was very much an agreement. I later 0:26:23.359 --> 0:26:28.040 found out, maybe seven ten years later, that my father 0:26:28.200 --> 0:26:32.400 had gone to Vinnie in private and said, if you 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:37.159 contest any of this, I will accuse you of statutory 0:26:37.240 --> 0:26:40.959 rate and you know, basically I will destroy you if 0:26:41.000 --> 0:26:43.280 you can test any of this. We are doing this 0:26:43.800 --> 0:26:46.560 because he was he was over He was nineteen at 0:26:46.560 --> 0:26:49.399 that time and I was fifteen. He said, we are 0:26:49.440 --> 0:26:53.120 doing this in Zoey's best interest, and so he agreed. 0:26:54.520 --> 0:26:56.640 And of course I didn't know that at that time, 0:26:56.640 --> 0:26:59.520 and I just felt like he didn't care. But yes, 0:26:59.600 --> 0:27:03.720 we were still together. And I started preparing to leave, 0:27:03.760 --> 0:27:06.639 and my parents told me that they were going to 0:27:06.640 --> 0:27:09.439 tell everyone that I was going to boarding school. I 0:27:09.480 --> 0:27:12.440 remember hearing stories from my mom about girls who got 0:27:12.440 --> 0:27:15.560 in trouble and what happened to them. And from my 0:27:15.600 --> 0:27:19.119 mom's experience, if a girl got pregnant as a teenager 0:27:20.080 --> 0:27:23.320 and her society at least she disappeared. You didn't see 0:27:23.320 --> 0:27:26.840 her anymore. And so I think that on some level, 0:27:26.920 --> 0:27:29.720 my mom was just continuing what she understood to be 0:27:29.840 --> 0:27:32.879 the way that you deal with these things. And so 0:27:33.200 --> 0:27:37.159 my parents um packed me up and they took me 0:27:38.000 --> 0:27:43.400 for five hours away to Lynchburg, Virginia to Jerry Fallwells 0:27:44.000 --> 0:27:48.560 Liberty god Parent Home for pregnant women, and um that's 0:27:48.560 --> 0:27:54.919 where I spent the duration of my pregnancy. So my coach, UM, 0:27:55.040 --> 0:27:59.200 my teachers, the school, our church, family, everyone was told 0:27:59.280 --> 0:28:03.199 that I went to reading school. Now I was told 0:28:03.280 --> 0:28:05.760 that my siblings are also told that I went to 0:28:05.800 --> 0:28:09.320 boarding school. I later found out maybe three years ago, 0:28:09.920 --> 0:28:12.520 I found out that my parents had actually told my 0:28:12.640 --> 0:28:15.439 siblings that I had a psychiatric breakdown and I had 0:28:15.480 --> 0:28:18.639 to go to a psychiatric hospital. In some ways, this 0:28:18.720 --> 0:28:24.080 is understandable because number one, my parents probably wouldn't necessarily 0:28:24.080 --> 0:28:26.720 have sent me to a boarding school for no reason. 0:28:27.280 --> 0:28:29.760 But probably the most important is that they couldn't visit me, 0:28:30.720 --> 0:28:32.240 And so my parents had to come up with a 0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:35.320 reason why they couldn't visit me, and their reason was 0:28:35.359 --> 0:28:39.400 because I was in a psychiatric hospital. So your siblings then, 0:28:39.520 --> 0:28:43.280 for all of those years following, had their own secret 0:28:43.360 --> 0:28:48.400 that they kept. Correct. Yeah, I mean secrets, create secrets, 0:28:48.480 --> 0:28:57.400 create secrets. It's really something they do. They do. We'll 0:28:57.400 --> 0:29:16.680 be back in a moment with more family secrets. Zoe 0:29:16.960 --> 0:29:20.280 is terrified when she arrives at the pregnancy home, but 0:29:20.360 --> 0:29:24.560 she also feels deserving of this as her punishment. She 0:29:24.640 --> 0:29:28.080 understands why she's been banished. Most of the other girls 0:29:28.080 --> 0:29:33.200 there are from low socioeconomic backgrounds. It's very institutional, and 0:29:33.320 --> 0:29:38.320 yet again Zoe feels out of place. Despite this, there's 0:29:38.440 --> 0:29:42.920 a camaraderie among the girls, though the air circumstances may vary. 0:29:43.000 --> 0:29:46.720 They're all kind to one another, but still, there's more 0:29:46.800 --> 0:29:49.600 going on at the pregnancy home than meets the eye. 0:29:50.560 --> 0:29:52.880 I felt like we were all taking time bombs in 0:29:52.920 --> 0:29:57.200 a way, because there was this other layer of secrecy 0:29:57.280 --> 0:30:01.800 within the Liberty god Parent Home because it was also 0:30:02.000 --> 0:30:05.000 directly attached I mean all of it housed together with 0:30:05.080 --> 0:30:07.840 an adoption agency. So the goal, of course was for 0:30:07.880 --> 0:30:11.200 you to come in, have your baby, place your baby 0:30:11.200 --> 0:30:14.920 for adoption through their adoption agency, and leave. And we 0:30:14.960 --> 0:30:17.440 are we weren't allowed to communicate with the girls who 0:30:17.440 --> 0:30:21.160 had left um and so you know, you would make 0:30:21.200 --> 0:30:24.920 friends with somebody, and when they got close to do date, 0:30:25.080 --> 0:30:26.640 you know, you'd wake up in the morning to check 0:30:26.680 --> 0:30:30.440 and see is your friend gone? Did they disappear? Are 0:30:30.480 --> 0:30:34.400 they still here? And there wasn't communication afterwards, and they 0:30:34.400 --> 0:30:37.320 didn't want us to because you know, to some extent, 0:30:37.360 --> 0:30:39.160 they didn't really want us to be able to hear 0:30:39.200 --> 0:30:41.840 about what's it like on the other side once you've 0:30:41.880 --> 0:30:45.640 given your child away. Why was it called the Liberty 0:30:45.960 --> 0:30:49.160 god Parent Home? What was the god parents part of it? 0:30:50.160 --> 0:30:52.600 The god parent home? The idea was that they are 0:30:53.000 --> 0:30:56.560 saving babies and essentially kind of becoming their god parents 0:30:56.680 --> 0:31:00.640 and taking care of babies. You know, I have a 0:31:00.720 --> 0:31:03.280 number of mixed failings about all of that part, partly 0:31:03.360 --> 0:31:06.600 because I was a part of that Liberty Godparent Home 0:31:06.680 --> 0:31:12.600 didn't save any babies. Although I understand the drive with 0:31:12.680 --> 0:31:17.440 people who are anti abortion to want to save babies. 0:31:17.560 --> 0:31:20.640 I understand that. But Liberty Guard god parent Home didn't 0:31:20.640 --> 0:31:23.480 even accept you in the home until you were past 0:31:23.560 --> 0:31:26.240 the period where you could even have an abortion. And 0:31:26.280 --> 0:31:28.640 then there's of course the other whole idea of that, 0:31:28.800 --> 0:31:31.040 of the fact that you know, a baby raised by 0:31:31.040 --> 0:31:34.480 a single mom. Isn't you know, that's not okay that 0:31:34.520 --> 0:31:36.680 we should take these babies and put them in home, 0:31:37.200 --> 0:31:40.160 you know, with two parents. But you know, it was 0:31:40.200 --> 0:31:44.320 the nineteen well, early nineties at that point. It's so 0:31:44.400 --> 0:31:47.960 interesting because you just said it was the early nineties. 0:31:48.880 --> 0:31:51.360 You could have said it was the early nineteen fifties. 0:31:52.280 --> 0:31:55.520 You're right, because it was. Actually it wasn't you know, 0:31:55.760 --> 0:31:58.520 it wasn't the nineteen fifties. It was it was that 0:31:58.560 --> 0:32:02.120 time period. But yeah, and I very much felt like 0:32:02.160 --> 0:32:05.680 I was caught up in that now looking back, you know, 0:32:05.920 --> 0:32:10.480 kind of after we moved to to Higgerstown, so that 0:32:10.640 --> 0:32:14.080 was the culture, you know, and the understanding is that 0:32:14.280 --> 0:32:17.200 I'm going to place my baby for adoption, and you 0:32:17.280 --> 0:32:21.239 had some agency, so to speak, in the choice of 0:32:21.320 --> 0:32:25.520 adoptive parents. So you know, when you say agency, it's 0:32:25.560 --> 0:32:28.800 an interesting word because never once did anybody say you 0:32:28.840 --> 0:32:30.880 have to do this and you have no no choice. 0:32:31.480 --> 0:32:33.840 It was always we're going to help you make your decision. 0:32:34.560 --> 0:32:38.440 And there was no help with how could you bring 0:32:38.440 --> 0:32:42.680 a baby home? How could you not place your baby 0:32:42.680 --> 0:32:47.200 for adoption? But there was this idea that you were 0:32:47.200 --> 0:32:48.960 making this choice and they were going to help you 0:32:49.000 --> 0:32:51.600 make this choice. Now, my mom did send me a 0:32:51.680 --> 0:32:54.440 letter that was very clear when I was in the 0:32:54.520 --> 0:32:59.200 home that if I were to try or want to 0:32:59.240 --> 0:33:02.800 bring this baby home, that our relationship as mother and 0:33:02.880 --> 0:33:06.600 daughter would forever be changed. Um And ultimately, I think 0:33:06.600 --> 0:33:08.720 a lot of the guilt and shame that I took 0:33:08.800 --> 0:33:13.440 with me after this whole process was a feeling like 0:33:13.560 --> 0:33:17.400 I had somehow chosen my mother over my child. And 0:33:17.480 --> 0:33:20.400 for me, that didn't feel okay. But I felt that 0:33:21.320 --> 0:33:25.960 I had to choose her over my child because I 0:33:26.000 --> 0:33:28.440 didn't know how to do anything differently. I didn't know 0:33:28.480 --> 0:33:30.719 how I could leave and run off to the castle 0:33:30.760 --> 0:33:34.720 and take care of, you know, my baby. So you know, 0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:39.160 we had therapy and we had a process of making 0:33:39.160 --> 0:33:43.920 your decision, and then you know, when I said what 0:33:44.440 --> 0:33:46.360 what I was supposed to say? Which is our place 0:33:46.440 --> 0:33:48.720 my baby? Then they presented me with a book with 0:33:48.760 --> 0:33:52.760 pictures of really kind looking couples, and I remember thinking 0:33:52.760 --> 0:33:56.240 of that time. My parents would never pick a babysitter 0:33:56.520 --> 0:33:58.880 for me by looking at a bunch of pictures of girls, 0:33:59.560 --> 0:34:03.520 And yeah, I'm picking parents from my child by looking 0:34:03.520 --> 0:34:07.480 at a bunch of pictures. And maybe it's a paragraph 0:34:07.640 --> 0:34:10.600 about who they are. And so I picked the nice 0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:15.279 looking couple and waited for my baby to be born. 0:34:18.120 --> 0:34:21.040 When Zoe goes into labor, she's in a therapy session 0:34:21.040 --> 0:34:24.520 at the home. Her therapist, Jamie, is the one who 0:34:24.520 --> 0:34:28.560 takes her to the hospital. No one else is available. Jamie, 0:34:28.920 --> 0:34:31.960 a young social worker in her twenties, shuffles Zoe into 0:34:32.000 --> 0:34:34.600 her cool little sports car, but first she puts a 0:34:34.640 --> 0:34:37.520 plastic bag on the car seat, just in case Zoe's 0:34:37.560 --> 0:34:42.439 water brakes. And so I'm getting in this you know car, 0:34:43.080 --> 0:34:46.759 sitting on this plastic bag. I'm, you know, sixteen, and 0:34:46.840 --> 0:34:49.520 I have no idea what I'm in store for. But Jamie, 0:34:50.120 --> 0:34:53.520 bless her heart, sat with me through probably at least 0:34:53.560 --> 0:34:56.680 half of my labor, at least four hours, until my 0:34:56.719 --> 0:34:59.360 mom could drive to get there. Now, prior to my 0:34:59.440 --> 0:35:03.279 mom getting there, a nurse had given me some um 0:35:03.560 --> 0:35:07.400 pain medication. It was just a pill. Nobody offered me 0:35:07.440 --> 0:35:10.319 an epidural. Nobody offered me anything else that They did 0:35:10.400 --> 0:35:12.239 offer me some pill, and I took the pill and 0:35:12.280 --> 0:35:14.560 it did seem to help a little bit. By the 0:35:14.560 --> 0:35:16.000 time my mom got there, I was really in the 0:35:16.040 --> 0:35:20.000 throes of labor and Jamie took off, and I had 0:35:20.080 --> 0:35:25.160 asked for something for the pain, and my mom just 0:35:25.320 --> 0:35:28.600 shook her head, just just shook her head. Now what 0:35:28.680 --> 0:35:30.759 did you make of that shake of your mother's head. 0:35:31.160 --> 0:35:33.960 I just internalized it as I deserved this, I needed 0:35:34.000 --> 0:35:37.400 to feel it. I needed to experience all of the 0:35:37.440 --> 0:35:39.600 pain of what I had. You know, this was my 0:35:39.640 --> 0:35:44.920 punishment that I shouldn't be relieved of this experience. And 0:35:44.960 --> 0:35:48.839 I think, probably to some extent, that is true. My mother, 0:35:48.920 --> 0:35:51.560 though in her defense, she had all three of her 0:35:51.640 --> 0:35:57.800 children without pain medication, But in that moment, I perceived 0:35:57.840 --> 0:36:00.360 it as no, you don't get to have at And 0:36:00.400 --> 0:36:03.520 I just remember the deep shame I felt in that 0:36:03.600 --> 0:36:06.200 moment when my mom shook her head no, And I 0:36:06.239 --> 0:36:09.000 went through the rest of my labor. You know, without 0:36:09.040 --> 0:36:14.360 any pain medication, and so my daughter was born, and 0:36:14.880 --> 0:36:18.680 you know, it was just such a sober, just a sober, 0:36:19.000 --> 0:36:22.640 such a sober experience. You know, there was no excitement, 0:36:22.719 --> 0:36:26.640 there was no congratulations. You know, they weren't smiled. I think, 0:36:26.680 --> 0:36:28.600 no matter how old you are, when you have a child, 0:36:28.640 --> 0:36:34.160 you're not prepared for the aftermath, you know, the war 0:36:34.280 --> 0:36:37.440 zone that your body is. But I think there was 0:36:37.480 --> 0:36:40.600 a level of trauma that was probably increased after that 0:36:40.760 --> 0:36:45.160 experience because I was so young, and um. I just 0:36:45.239 --> 0:36:49.200 remember seeing my body, you know, the day after and 0:36:49.280 --> 0:36:54.399 just thinking what what have I done? And the thing 0:36:54.480 --> 0:36:56.440 with the home is once you have the baby, they 0:36:56.440 --> 0:36:59.319 want you to leave as soon as possible. They don't 0:36:59.360 --> 0:37:01.839 want you to stay for obvious reasons. They don't want 0:37:01.880 --> 0:37:03.400 you to connect with the baby, they don't want you 0:37:03.440 --> 0:37:05.759 to change your mind. And my mom was totally on 0:37:05.800 --> 0:37:08.760 board for all of that. The social worker from the 0:37:08.800 --> 0:37:10.799 agency came and said, it's better if you just leave 0:37:10.840 --> 0:37:15.400 as soon as possible. I remember there was this doctor, 0:37:15.520 --> 0:37:19.879 that's young doctor. Um. I was in the room and 0:37:19.960 --> 0:37:22.799 my daughter, I named her Kaya. Her name is different now, 0:37:22.880 --> 0:37:25.040 but I don't know if I was holding her, if 0:37:25.040 --> 0:37:27.080 she was in the bassinet that he just kind of 0:37:27.120 --> 0:37:29.040 flew into the room and he was like a breath 0:37:29.080 --> 0:37:31.520 of fresh air, and he was all smiled, and he 0:37:31.600 --> 0:37:34.880 congratulated me, and he said, what a beautiful baby I have, 0:37:35.400 --> 0:37:37.200 what a wonderful mom I'm going to be. He did 0:37:37.239 --> 0:37:39.960 all of her vitals and just wished me the best 0:37:40.200 --> 0:37:43.400 and left the room. And I remember thinking he didn't 0:37:43.480 --> 0:37:46.839 see in the file, he didn't see that I'm placing her. 0:37:47.760 --> 0:37:50.640 And I remember just thinking, I hope that he never 0:37:50.719 --> 0:37:54.960 reads that. I hope that that stays a reality somewhere 0:37:55.239 --> 0:37:58.680 in his mind forever, because he was the only brightness. 0:37:58.760 --> 0:38:00.760 You know, everybody else was just bar all the nurses 0:38:00.800 --> 0:38:03.239 and everybody that came in because they knew that I 0:38:03.320 --> 0:38:08.280 was placing her. So we packed up really quickly, and 0:38:09.280 --> 0:38:11.160 I did that walk. I don't know, I don't know 0:38:11.200 --> 0:38:14.120 how better to explain. It was just like a walk 0:38:14.320 --> 0:38:18.560 towards death, almost, you know, I was conscious of every 0:38:18.600 --> 0:38:21.400 single step as I was left the hospital that I 0:38:21.480 --> 0:38:30.360 was putting distance between myself and my baby. Zoe and 0:38:30.400 --> 0:38:33.440 her mother head downstairs to leave the hospital. So we 0:38:33.520 --> 0:38:35.839 waits by the exit while her mother goes to get 0:38:35.880 --> 0:38:39.680 the car. And then suddenly her mom zips around the 0:38:39.719 --> 0:38:43.760 corner in a brand new vehicle, a shiny red Pontiac Fiero, 0:38:44.440 --> 0:38:49.800 a push present for her daughter, and I remember thinking, 0:38:51.440 --> 0:38:53.600 of course, it's a two seater. I couldn't bring a 0:38:53.640 --> 0:38:57.719 baby home if I wanted to. And she presented me 0:38:57.800 --> 0:39:00.759 with my present, which I suppose was supposed to be 0:39:00.800 --> 0:39:04.360 for my sixteenth birthday, and I remember thanking her and 0:39:04.440 --> 0:39:07.200 hugging her and crying. Although I wasn't crying because I 0:39:07.239 --> 0:39:09.560 got a new sports car. I was crying, of course, 0:39:09.640 --> 0:39:13.640 because of all of what was transpiring in that moment. 0:39:14.400 --> 0:39:16.680 And we got in my new sports car and we 0:39:16.760 --> 0:39:20.759 drove away. Before we got home, we stopped at a 0:39:20.840 --> 0:39:23.320 hotel and we had to stay there for a few days, 0:39:23.400 --> 0:39:27.120 and my mom bought girdles to put around me so that, 0:39:27.440 --> 0:39:29.839 you know, nobody could tell that I was pregnant when 0:39:29.880 --> 0:39:33.359 I got back home. And I went back home, and yes, 0:39:33.800 --> 0:39:38.680 I did my very best to try to pretend like 0:39:38.760 --> 0:39:42.200 everything was normal. And a couple of months later, my 0:39:42.239 --> 0:39:46.120 mom took me to a restaurant um and sat down 0:39:46.520 --> 0:39:49.880 and told me that the home that I had picked 0:39:49.920 --> 0:39:53.040 for my daughter, that the parents had changed their minds, 0:39:53.680 --> 0:39:56.319 and all this time I thought she was with them. 0:39:56.360 --> 0:39:59.279 And I found out that she and fact left the 0:39:59.320 --> 0:40:03.560 hospital to go to foster home because that was the 0:40:03.719 --> 0:40:06.319 way they did it. Then that the baby doesn't go 0:40:06.440 --> 0:40:08.440 directly into the foster home. I don't know what it 0:40:08.440 --> 0:40:11.160 has to do with paperwork or whatever, so she left 0:40:11.840 --> 0:40:15.680 or I'm also not clear if maybe there wasn't actually 0:40:15.680 --> 0:40:20.960 a family, you know, I don't know that information. But ultimately, 0:40:21.600 --> 0:40:23.759 my daughter was a few months old and had been 0:40:23.800 --> 0:40:27.360 raised by strangers who were never going to keep her. Meanwhile, 0:40:27.400 --> 0:40:30.759 I'm living in this three story, you know, home with 0:40:30.840 --> 0:40:35.120 this family, and my daughter's in foster care. So my 0:40:35.200 --> 0:40:40.560 mom told me that the parents changed their mind and 0:40:40.600 --> 0:40:43.239 that they had another set of parents, and I had 0:40:43.280 --> 0:40:48.600 to sign some paperwork two agree that this next set 0:40:48.600 --> 0:40:54.640 of parents could have her instead. And I remember looking 0:40:54.680 --> 0:41:00.319 at my mom and I remember saying, can we just 0:41:00.440 --> 0:41:03.799 go get her? Please? Can we just go get her? 0:41:05.400 --> 0:41:08.520 And my mom said nothing, She just shook her head 0:41:09.800 --> 0:41:11.880 and I didn't say anything else, and I you know, 0:41:11.920 --> 0:41:14.120 I kicked myself for a while after that because I thought, 0:41:14.160 --> 0:41:16.200 you know, when I was little, I would beg my 0:41:16.239 --> 0:41:18.439 mom if I wanted to go stay at a friend's house. Mom, 0:41:18.520 --> 0:41:21.319 Please please please. I learned how to say, you know, please, please, please, 0:41:21.400 --> 0:41:25.239 until sometimes she'd give it, and I kind of I 0:41:25.320 --> 0:41:27.360 kind of kicked myself because I feel like I didn't 0:41:27.400 --> 0:41:30.920 fight hard enough. I said it, but I know that 0:41:30.920 --> 0:41:32.840 that there was so much shame in that it was 0:41:32.880 --> 0:41:37.680 hard for me to even ask her please. And you know, 0:41:37.760 --> 0:41:41.520 when she denied me, I guess there just wasn't enough 0:41:41.760 --> 0:41:44.880 fight in me to try to push more. Do you 0:41:44.920 --> 0:41:47.680 think it would have made any difference. I don't know. 0:41:48.120 --> 0:41:55.000 I doubt it. Time marches inexorably forward. Zoe goes to 0:41:55.080 --> 0:41:58.440 college and eventually marries a man twenty years for senior. 0:41:59.000 --> 0:42:02.120 Her daddy lust, the kind women so often feel when 0:42:02.160 --> 0:42:06.319 their own fathers have been withholding dictating her choices. She 0:42:06.440 --> 0:42:09.480 does tell her husband about her secret history, but his 0:42:09.560 --> 0:42:13.600 response isn't exactly freeing. He basically just wants to pretend 0:42:13.719 --> 0:42:19.080 that it never happened. Sound familiar. Now, As a therapist, 0:42:19.160 --> 0:42:22.040 Zoe understands so much more about the choices we make. 0:42:22.560 --> 0:42:25.600 They tend to underscore the feelings we already have about ourselves. 0:42:26.200 --> 0:42:29.840 In this case, his reaction just deepens the red in 0:42:29.880 --> 0:42:33.480 her scarlet letter. They move forward, leaving the past in 0:42:33.520 --> 0:42:37.320 the past and start their family life, having two sons 0:42:37.760 --> 0:42:41.240 and then a daughter. And of course, you know, after 0:42:41.760 --> 0:42:44.799 giving up my daughter, there's always a part of me 0:42:44.920 --> 0:42:48.879 that wanted to have a daughter um of my own 0:42:48.920 --> 0:42:50.400 that I could keep, and so we were all so 0:42:50.600 --> 0:42:53.440 very excited. I feel like, both my mom and I 0:42:53.640 --> 0:42:55.279 and everyone in the family this was going to be 0:42:55.320 --> 0:42:58.440 the only daughter, because my brother had three sons and 0:42:58.480 --> 0:43:01.080 I had had two sons, and I think there was 0:43:01.120 --> 0:43:03.640 a sense of exoneration when we found out I was 0:43:03.640 --> 0:43:06.880 having a girl. But unfortunately, when my daughter was born, 0:43:07.239 --> 0:43:09.000 we didn't know at the time, but she was born 0:43:09.040 --> 0:43:12.319 with the severe genetic disorder called crowd Willy syndrome, and 0:43:12.360 --> 0:43:15.440 she was in the nicke and barely surviving for many weeks. 0:43:15.480 --> 0:43:21.160 And I felt this crushing sense of I am being punished, 0:43:21.160 --> 0:43:23.839 and now my daughter is being punished. Of course, God 0:43:23.840 --> 0:43:26.000 wouldn't give me a healthy baby girl. Of course, it's 0:43:26.080 --> 0:43:27.680 kind of a trick. And I sat with that for 0:43:27.719 --> 0:43:31.880 many years, and so yes, then you know, I dove 0:43:32.000 --> 0:43:35.920 into being a mom of a special needs child and 0:43:35.960 --> 0:43:38.040 trying to grapple with that in all of my shame 0:43:38.080 --> 0:43:40.720 and my guilt surrounding that for a number of years. 0:43:42.680 --> 0:43:46.600 Here Zoe is again faced with intense shame and the 0:43:46.640 --> 0:43:51.360 sense that she's being punished, as well as a profound loneliness, 0:43:51.400 --> 0:43:54.480 the isolation that comes from raising a child with special needs, 0:43:55.360 --> 0:43:57.719 and to this the heavy guilt she still carries from 0:43:57.719 --> 0:44:00.759 her secret child, the healthy daughter she had given birth 0:44:00.760 --> 0:44:05.040 to years ago. All moms, you know, we have our 0:44:05.080 --> 0:44:07.400 own built about all things with our parenting. If I 0:44:07.440 --> 0:44:09.680 had not eaten this, if I had done this differently, 0:44:09.920 --> 0:44:12.520 you know, if if if with any issues that our 0:44:12.560 --> 0:44:16.399 kids might have, but and special needs moms, I think 0:44:16.480 --> 0:44:20.000 have another layer of that. And then I additionally had 0:44:20.040 --> 0:44:24.759 another layer on top of that that wasn't healthy for me. 0:44:24.760 --> 0:44:27.200 And it certainly wasn't healthy I think for for my 0:44:27.280 --> 0:44:31.640 daughter for an number of years because I just parented 0:44:31.800 --> 0:44:35.600 her with just so much guilt. But yeah, that those 0:44:35.680 --> 0:44:38.160 layers were definitely there, and they were in silence because 0:44:38.200 --> 0:44:41.759 none of my friends knew. My very best friends, she 0:44:41.840 --> 0:44:44.240 and I went through both of our early pregnancies together, 0:44:44.320 --> 0:44:46.200 and she thought that we both went through our very 0:44:46.200 --> 0:44:49.880 first pregnancy together. So yes, nobody knew, and so a 0:44:49.880 --> 0:44:54.120 lot of that was very much kept in secret, but 0:44:54.200 --> 0:44:58.840 so we manages. She's strong, stronger than her secrets. She 0:44:58.960 --> 0:45:02.120 built her very busy family life and is thriving in 0:45:02.120 --> 0:45:06.800 her career as a psychotherapist as well. And one day, well, 0:45:07.719 --> 0:45:11.399 one day, her birth daughter finds her and reaches out. 0:45:12.440 --> 0:45:19.400 Her name is Sarah. She found me through Facebook. Um, 0:45:19.520 --> 0:45:23.000 she actually found her father first because I was private 0:45:23.040 --> 0:45:26.440 on Facebook. I don't remember how she found out his 0:45:26.640 --> 0:45:31.000 name because it was a closed adoption. There were letters 0:45:31.000 --> 0:45:34.560 that went back and forth for the first year too, 0:45:35.040 --> 0:45:40.040 and identifying information was blacked out, but sometimes they went 0:45:40.120 --> 0:45:42.040 felt great about blacking out some of the things. I mean, 0:45:42.120 --> 0:45:44.160 someone in the agency would just go through with the 0:45:44.200 --> 0:45:46.040 marker and just black things out and then they'd spend 0:45:46.080 --> 0:45:50.480 it off, you know. Um, so maybe that's how she 0:45:50.560 --> 0:45:55.040 was doing some detective work. Clearly correct. Yes, And she 0:45:55.160 --> 0:45:58.880 found him. And I was homeschooling my kids in the 0:45:58.880 --> 0:46:01.360 middle of a normal homeschool day and I get a 0:46:01.360 --> 0:46:05.680 call from Denny, who I rarely ever heard from, um, 0:46:05.800 --> 0:46:09.680 and he said, I have our daughter on the line. 0:46:09.960 --> 0:46:12.920 And I remember I just just my feet just left 0:46:12.960 --> 0:46:14.600 from under man. Before I knew it, I was just 0:46:14.640 --> 0:46:18.439 plopped straight down on the ground, um, and I heard 0:46:18.440 --> 0:46:23.160 her voice and she said Hi, as simple as that 0:46:23.320 --> 0:46:28.080 eighteen years later, you know. And so we started a conversation. 0:46:28.120 --> 0:46:30.440 And I remember I went into my closet and I 0:46:30.480 --> 0:46:32.280 shut the door, and I thanked down on the closet 0:46:32.360 --> 0:46:34.839 floor and I was talking to her and whispers because 0:46:34.880 --> 0:46:38.680 remember nobody, my kids don't know, um, that they have 0:46:38.760 --> 0:46:41.959 a sibling out there. Um. But Sarah and I began 0:46:42.040 --> 0:46:45.040 to get to know each other, and eventually we met 0:46:45.160 --> 0:46:49.560 for the first time. I told my husband and he was, 0:46:49.680 --> 0:46:53.000 you know, not very interested in any of it, and 0:46:53.239 --> 0:46:56.960 certainly didn't want us to tell the kids. UM. So 0:46:57.239 --> 0:46:58.719 we told the kids that I was going on a 0:46:58.719 --> 0:47:02.080 business trip, and I went on my business trip and 0:47:02.160 --> 0:47:05.600 that my daughter for the first time. What was it 0:47:05.640 --> 0:47:10.520 like to meet her? Oh, you know, I was at 0:47:10.520 --> 0:47:14.120 the airport and I was downstairs and she was coming 0:47:14.160 --> 0:47:16.360 from upstairs. I was waiting for her, and I was 0:47:16.400 --> 0:47:20.080 looking at the escalator, kind of waiting, and it almost 0:47:20.600 --> 0:47:22.279 it's kind of crazy, but I don't felt like she 0:47:22.360 --> 0:47:25.360 was descending from heaven. I could see her just coming 0:47:25.400 --> 0:47:30.680 slowly down on the escalator. It was just I can 0:47:30.719 --> 0:47:33.879 only say, maybe it was like coming home. I saw 0:47:34.040 --> 0:47:38.000 parts of her in parts of a vinny. And the 0:47:38.120 --> 0:47:42.320 interesting thing though, is that I was so shut down. 0:47:43.480 --> 0:47:48.280 I think from so many years that I wasn't able 0:47:48.480 --> 0:47:52.080 to emote. I wasn't able to cry. I saw her 0:47:52.239 --> 0:47:55.600 and we hugged and I smiled, and she was crying, 0:47:56.280 --> 0:47:59.560 and I just felt this damn like this wall. And 0:47:59.600 --> 0:48:02.600 I remember, are feeling Zoe, why can't you cry? Why 0:48:02.600 --> 0:48:05.600 can't you feel anything? Um? And I mean I know 0:48:05.680 --> 0:48:09.360 now and I understand the process, but um, in that moment, 0:48:09.400 --> 0:48:12.200 I couldn't. Later, when we were talking in the restaurant, 0:48:12.560 --> 0:48:15.200 I you know, as we begin to talk about things, 0:48:15.200 --> 0:48:17.680 I was able to kind of attach to some emotion, 0:48:17.719 --> 0:48:20.279 but in that moment I just felt so closed up. 0:48:21.120 --> 0:48:24.279 Well it's it's understandable because you had been taught that 0:48:24.360 --> 0:48:27.040 again and again and again. The only way to survive 0:48:27.239 --> 0:48:31.080 is to close it off and shut it down exactly. 0:48:34.239 --> 0:48:37.200 Zoe tells her mother that Sarah has found her. She 0:48:37.360 --> 0:48:39.520 lets her know she plans to meet her birth daughter. 0:48:40.160 --> 0:48:44.080 She isn't exactly asking for permission, but Zoe and her 0:48:44.120 --> 0:48:47.000 mother seemed to reach a tacit agreement that the secret 0:48:47.080 --> 0:48:51.560 needs to remain secret. That Zoe won't tell her kids. Later, 0:48:51.760 --> 0:48:54.719 Sarah also reaches out to Zoe's parents. They are her 0:48:54.719 --> 0:48:58.200 grandparents after all, and they begin to develop a relationship 0:48:58.239 --> 0:49:02.920 of sorts, not exactly like family, more like family adjacent. 0:49:04.880 --> 0:49:09.160 How did they receive her? My parents are very polite. 0:49:10.320 --> 0:49:12.360 I don't know that i'd say they were overly welcoming, 0:49:12.360 --> 0:49:15.319 But there wasn't any negativity. There wasn't I don't think 0:49:15.320 --> 0:49:17.680 that there was any desire to push her away. My 0:49:17.800 --> 0:49:22.359 parents are very well mannered, polite people, and so they 0:49:22.440 --> 0:49:26.680 met her, and they welcomed her. When I say welcome, 0:49:26.680 --> 0:49:29.160 I don't really like that word, because they didn't welcome 0:49:29.239 --> 0:49:31.040 it her into our family. They weren't going to tell 0:49:31.080 --> 0:49:33.839 anybody about her, but they were willing to meet her. 0:49:34.600 --> 0:49:39.279 So they still intended to absolutely keep this a secret. Yes, 0:49:41.080 --> 0:49:43.839 For a few years, Zoe continues to get to know Sarah, 0:49:44.040 --> 0:49:47.759 meeting her clandestinely, sneaking away telling her kids she's going 0:49:47.800 --> 0:49:52.239 to visit a friend. But then Zoe's father dies suddenly 0:49:52.360 --> 0:49:55.760 of a heart attack, and now, as happens with secrets, 0:49:56.239 --> 0:50:00.239 another layer emerges. Because Sarah is going to go to 0:50:00.280 --> 0:50:04.160 her grandfather's funeral. Of course, she is she's now twenty 0:50:04.160 --> 0:50:07.120 one years old, and there's a very good chance that's 0:50:07.120 --> 0:50:12.360 always children will cross paths with her, you know, in 0:50:12.400 --> 0:50:15.600 the midst of my dad dying so suddenly and me, 0:50:16.040 --> 0:50:19.000 you know, needing to fly to the East coast, and 0:50:19.640 --> 0:50:21.040 you know, my husband didn't want me to bring the 0:50:21.120 --> 0:50:24.239 kids because one of the first things he said was, 0:50:24.400 --> 0:50:27.520 is Sarah going to be there? So, you know, I 0:50:27.560 --> 0:50:30.239 called Sara and let her know that my father had passed, 0:50:30.440 --> 0:50:32.840 and of course she expected to be at the funeral. 0:50:33.719 --> 0:50:36.759 You know, my mother was in shock. Um she was 0:50:36.800 --> 0:50:39.520 not obviously in a good place at all. And I 0:50:39.560 --> 0:50:42.440 get home to Maryland and it's the day before the funeral, 0:50:42.880 --> 0:50:47.960 and my mind is racing, and I remember saying to 0:50:48.040 --> 0:50:54.239 my mom, I'm going to tell my children about Sarah 0:50:54.280 --> 0:50:58.080 and my mother. She looked at me, but she didn't 0:50:58.120 --> 0:51:00.480 look at me. She looked through me. And remember her 0:51:00.480 --> 0:51:03.480 eyes were just dead, and she just turned around and 0:51:03.480 --> 0:51:07.920 walked upstairs. And I remember that's the first time I 0:51:08.000 --> 0:51:10.080 felt I felt like a child, because I felt like 0:51:10.080 --> 0:51:12.239 I was making this decision all by myself. And it 0:51:12.320 --> 0:51:15.560 was the first decision an opposition that I was making 0:51:15.880 --> 0:51:18.959 all by myself, and I did. I gathered my kids 0:51:19.040 --> 0:51:22.480 up and I brought them upstairs and I told them, 0:51:22.520 --> 0:51:25.360 I have something to tell you. You have an older sister. 0:51:26.640 --> 0:51:29.920 Remember those words, you know you have an older sister. 0:51:30.000 --> 0:51:34.120 There are five simple words, and they escaped my lips, 0:51:34.120 --> 0:51:35.759 and I remember just feeling like I wanted to grab 0:51:35.800 --> 0:51:38.200 them and pull them back. And I watched, you know, 0:51:38.239 --> 0:51:40.719 the effect of them on my kids, and you know, 0:51:40.800 --> 0:51:43.120 initially they were just like what and they were excited, 0:51:43.160 --> 0:51:45.760 and I asked me tens and times of questions. Over time, 0:51:45.800 --> 0:51:48.680 I saw a donning in my thirteen year old eyes 0:51:48.840 --> 0:51:52.600 that was like, oh, my mother's alied to me. But 0:51:52.680 --> 0:51:54.879 that took some time, and that took some working through 0:51:54.920 --> 0:51:58.680 with him. So I told them, and I remember feeling like, 0:51:59.160 --> 0:52:01.319 on some level, like this way have been lifted off 0:52:01.320 --> 0:52:06.200 and I am becoming a adult for the very first time. 0:52:06.239 --> 0:52:09.080 I knew my husband would be horribly upset, and I 0:52:09.160 --> 0:52:12.319 chose not to ask him before I told him afterwards, 0:52:12.320 --> 0:52:15.319 and that started a whole another cascade of of of 0:52:15.480 --> 0:52:22.480 problems in our marriage. Um but I felt so reborn, 0:52:23.520 --> 0:52:26.680 and then the next day I had to tell my family. 0:52:27.480 --> 0:52:31.480 So we had the actual funeral at the church so 0:52:31.520 --> 0:52:33.479 we showed up at the church and Sarah was there, 0:52:33.880 --> 0:52:37.960 and um, she sat in front of us with my kids, 0:52:37.960 --> 0:52:40.320 and for the first time I had all of my children, 0:52:40.360 --> 0:52:44.680 all five of them with me sitting there at my 0:52:44.760 --> 0:52:48.400 dad's funeral. Nobody knew who she was. I didn't introduce 0:52:48.440 --> 0:52:50.759 her to anyone. There's just a lot of you know, 0:52:51.160 --> 0:52:54.279 just a lot of sadness and and and all the 0:52:54.320 --> 0:52:56.600 things that happened at a funeral. Well, after the funeral, 0:52:56.640 --> 0:52:59.520 we went to my sister's home and that's where our 0:52:59.560 --> 0:53:04.359 family was, so my extended family, my aunts and uncle 0:53:04.480 --> 0:53:09.719 is my everybody. And Sarah came and I took a 0:53:09.760 --> 0:53:12.440 deep breath, and in the middle of everybody standing there 0:53:12.440 --> 0:53:15.960 in the living room, I said, I have somebody I 0:53:15.960 --> 0:53:18.560 want to introduce you to. My mother just kind of 0:53:18.560 --> 0:53:22.640 snuck away and I told them, you know, this is 0:53:22.680 --> 0:53:25.759 my daughter, Sarah. I gave birth to her when I 0:53:25.800 --> 0:53:28.120 was sixteen years old, and I placed her for adoption, 0:53:28.760 --> 0:53:32.960 and I want you guys to meet her. Even as 0:53:33.000 --> 0:53:34.520 I say it, it just makes me feel kind of 0:53:34.520 --> 0:53:39.120 breathy because it was such a huge monumental thing for 0:53:39.160 --> 0:53:42.080 me to do. And I know that my mother never 0:53:42.120 --> 0:53:43.719 would have done it. She would have been fine to 0:53:43.800 --> 0:53:46.719 just pretend like Sarah was a friend. And the very 0:53:46.800 --> 0:53:50.080 last thing I could or would do would be allow 0:53:50.239 --> 0:53:53.759 my daughter to participate in this secret. She knew she 0:53:53.840 --> 0:53:57.279 was a secret, but I wasn't going to ask her 0:53:59.040 --> 0:54:03.480 to participate. Hate and holding the secret. And somehow, for 0:54:03.560 --> 0:54:05.560 some reason, I don't know if it's a combination of 0:54:05.600 --> 0:54:11.279 my father dying or just the reality of what I 0:54:11.360 --> 0:54:14.000 was going to be continuing in my life and perpetrating 0:54:14.040 --> 0:54:18.239 with my children if I didn't tell the truth and 0:54:18.320 --> 0:54:23.560 speak the truth. And so I did it so powerful 0:54:24.480 --> 0:54:28.200 in the period ongoing, you know, from then, you know 0:54:28.280 --> 0:54:32.680 that that sense of having put down a burden that 0:54:33.280 --> 0:54:38.800 maybe assumed a kind of greater and greater and greater weight, 0:54:39.920 --> 0:54:44.120 because I think somehow secrets just get heavier and denser, 0:54:45.200 --> 0:54:49.440 they take more maintenance, and they extend and and create 0:54:49.560 --> 0:54:53.120 more need for more kinds of secrets. It's like it's 0:54:53.120 --> 0:54:55.800 like cracks in the ice just getting you know, going, 0:54:56.520 --> 0:55:00.439 you know, sort of fanning outward. And I'm wonder how 0:55:00.480 --> 0:55:05.680 it's felt once you were able to put down that burden, 0:55:06.160 --> 0:55:10.360 both you know, with your family, with your extended family, 0:55:10.840 --> 0:55:14.960 and most of all, with yourself. Two have lived so 0:55:15.080 --> 0:55:20.759 long with something so profoundly secretive and and not be 0:55:20.840 --> 0:55:24.760 doing that anymore. I know people have said this before, 0:55:24.800 --> 0:55:27.040 and in some ways it's so cliche, but you don't 0:55:27.120 --> 0:55:30.680 really understand the weight of the burden until the burden 0:55:30.760 --> 0:55:33.759 is taken off. It's two things that happened. I think 0:55:33.800 --> 0:55:37.880 it's like those five words. I felt, you know, my 0:55:37.960 --> 0:55:41.239 whole license. I was fifteen years old. If I had 0:55:41.239 --> 0:55:43.880 spoken those words, that somehow the world was going to 0:55:43.960 --> 0:55:47.799 fall apart, but everything would you know, would be destroyed, 0:55:47.840 --> 0:55:50.080 That I destroyed people, I destroyed my family, that all 0:55:50.120 --> 0:55:52.520 these horrible things would happen, and that I said those 0:55:52.560 --> 0:55:56.640 five things and nothing happened. And so part of it 0:55:56.680 --> 0:56:03.239 was like a realization that I was holding the secret unnecessarily. 0:56:03.320 --> 0:56:05.920 I was holding the secret and an attempt to honor 0:56:06.000 --> 0:56:09.799 my parents, an attempt to honor my husband, and it 0:56:09.880 --> 0:56:13.799 was all for nothing, and the secret of itself had 0:56:13.840 --> 0:56:18.160 created damage. And so I think that in addition to 0:56:18.560 --> 0:56:24.160 the beautiful weight being lifted, it was that realization that 0:56:24.320 --> 0:56:29.759 ultimately nobody cares. You know, people, you know, we hold 0:56:29.760 --> 0:56:32.880 these secrets for for years and years, and we we 0:56:33.000 --> 0:56:34.960 build them up to be something so much more than 0:56:35.000 --> 0:56:37.879 they are. And yeah, people hear them and they might 0:56:37.920 --> 0:56:40.160 go wow, and maybe they'll murmur for a few minutes. 0:56:40.200 --> 0:56:43.160 But I've been holding that secret for decades, and someone's 0:56:43.160 --> 0:56:45.840 going to talk about me for a minute. And so 0:56:46.600 --> 0:56:50.640 I think it was that realization of the futility of 0:56:50.640 --> 0:56:52.640 of keeping it, and yet I had done it for 0:56:52.680 --> 0:56:55.880 so many years, and that just became, I think, a 0:56:56.000 --> 0:57:01.120 driving passion for me to just continue in my authenticity, 0:57:01.640 --> 0:57:05.640 continue on this path and and help other women as well. 0:57:22.000 --> 0:57:25.400 Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. Molly 0:57:25.480 --> 0:57:28.200 z Achor is the story editor and Dylan Fagan is 0:57:28.200 --> 0:57:31.960 the executive producer. If you have a family secret you'd 0:57:31.960 --> 0:57:34.440 like to share, please leave us a voicemail and your 0:57:34.480 --> 0:57:37.880 story could appear on an upcoming episode. Our number is 0:57:37.960 --> 0:57:42.520 one eight eight Secret zero. That's the number zero. You 0:57:42.520 --> 0:57:47.240 can also find me on Instagram at Danny writer. And 0:57:47.560 --> 0:57:49.120 if you'd like to know more about the story that 0:57:49.200 --> 0:58:13.520 inspired this podcast, check out my memoir Inheritance. For more 0:58:13.560 --> 0:58:16.439 podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, 0:58:16.480 --> 0:58:19.520 Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.