071 – I Would Give Anything To Hear His Voice

10/20/18 • 46 min

Amanda describes her childhood with a father she considered to be a hero and a mother whom she loves despite her physical and mental abuse while showing favoritism toward her sister. She always wanted to search for her birth parents, scouring her house for information about herself when she was a kid. Unable to endure the abuse against herself and her brother Amanda called social services, after which she was disowned. When she finally obtained her adoption records she found one birth parent was deceased, and the other didn’t want contact yet.

Read Full TranscriptAmanda: 00:02 I want him to contact me when he wants to be a part of my life. We’ll get to know me, but it still hurts because I talked to the brothers all the time and I’m like, why can’t he just pick up the phone and just call me or or even returning email. It would be wonderful to just have something. It’s just like don’t silence it. It is so, so I would just give anything to hear his voice.

Voices: 00:35 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I in mind?

Damon: 00:47 This is who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I’m Damon Davis, and on today’s show is Amanda. She called me from Mount Horeb, Wisconsin. Amanda is originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin and she says, even though she lives in the country, you still can’t get the city out of her. Amanda describes a childhood with her father. She considered to be a hero into mother whom she loves despite her physical and mental abuse, while showing favoritism toward her sister. She always wanted to search for her birth parents, scouring her house for information about herself when she was a kid. When she finally obtained her records, she found one birth parent was deceased and the other not wanting contact yet. This is Amanda’s journey. Amanda was born in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the second baby to her 23 year old birth mother, but she was placed in foster care when she was nine months old.

Amanda: 01:48 My mom actually gave me upon her own volition initially because she thought that I would be better off with someone else because she just was having a tough time with it and actually it was good that she did because apparently when they did the intake or weighed like 12 pounds, so I was severely malnourished. And so then when I went to foster care, of course, you know I bolt right up, ya know, because they were feeding me, but I remember my foster parents. Well, my foster mother, I remember her to be very loving and very attentive even though she had, I don’t even know how many other kids she had in the house, but there were quite a few. But uh, Ken and Jean Newsome were my foster parents.

Damon: 02:36 That’s interesting that you have memories of them. How long were you with them?

Amanda: 02:41 Till? I was three and a half.

New Speaker: 02:43 Oh Wow. So some of your formative years were spent with them. Were spent?

Amanda: 02:48 Yeah.

Damon: 02:49 Wow.

Amanda:

Voices: 00:35 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I in mind?

Damon: 02:36 That’s interesting that you have memories of them. How long were you with them?

Amanda: 02:41 Till? I was three and a half.

New Speaker: 02:43 Oh Wow. So some of your formative years were spent with them. Were spent?

Amanda: 02:48 Yeah.

Damon: 02:49 Wow.

Amanda:

Previous Episode

068 – I Don’t Feel Lost, I Know Where I Come From

Daniela was born in a small mining town in Chile. Adopted by a German family who moved from South America to Miami, she never felt like she belonged. While struggling as a teenager and burning to know more about her own heritage she was psychoanalyzed and medicated by doctors, and she wanted to end it all. When she found her maternal sisters online their reunion in Chile was lovely. Later when Daniela’s paternal sisters found her online, the maternal family said they never wanted to hear from her again. Daniela’s reunion with her paternal family has helped her get in touch with her roots and feel whole for the first time in her life.

Read Full TranscriptDaniela: 00:02 I was so, so happy. I was so excited, so happy. My sisters were like, Oh, well, we never did get the results. Let us know. First, let her go first. So first thing I did is I let my sister know and I shouldn’t have done that. Why is that? What happened? Anything turned from them. Everything true and it went from. It went from everything was great and framing. We were really good with each other to to them shutting the door on me and never speaking to me again.

Damon: 00:35 Who am I? Who am I? Who Am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon: 00:47 This is who am I really a podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I’m Damon Davis and today you’ll meet Daniela. She was born in Chile. Daniela was adopted by a German family who later moved to Miami. She was out of place in her family and out of place in a new country during her teen years. She was seen as a problem given psychotherapy and medicated when in reality she was just passionate in her own self expression. In her twenties, she was able to locate her biological mother and sisters back in Chile and they began a wonderful reunion, but when Daniela discovered her birth father’s true identity, her maternal side turned their backs for good. In the end, Daniela is very thankful for what she now knows about herself as a native Chilean. This is Daniela’s journey. Daniela was born in Coronel. Her mother was low income and it was common for babies to be adopted by foreigners.

Daniela: 01:53 She had a social worker come to her regularly to check up on her, on her pregnancy, uh in those times I guess adoption was big to give babies to foreigners, German families. It was common, so I was, yes, I was adopted, so at three days old I was given away to a German family, lived with them in South America for a couple years till I was seven. I was always told I was adopted. I just always thought I was... I was told I was special and everything was fine. I believe that whole special story until I started going to school and sharing the fact that I was special

Damon: 02:34 and how did that go?

Daniela: 02:36 Oh yeah, no, that wasn’t good. I was like, Oh, I’m special because I’m adopted. Their reaction and started getting from people. Wasn’t you’re special Sorry. Oh, are you okay? Are you sad? Do you know your mom? And that’s when I started thinking, hmm, when I was seven years old, I was like, I don’t know my mom. I’m... This is a sad reaction. Maybe I should be sad. I don’t know. I maybe I am sad. That’s when I started kind of exploring my own feelings into how I really felt about adoption.

Damon: 03:06 Daniela said she never felt like she belonged. Keep in mind she’s a Latina woman in a German family. All of the conversations about how her ...

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078 – I’m In Recovery, I’m In A Good Place

Megan grew up in an affluent suburb of Chicago and was comfortable with her adoption, but curious about her start in life. After pregnancy, “I struggled with mental health problems and became addicted to narcotics and anti-anxiety meds.” When she met her maternal relatives, things went well until her aunt shunned her for her addiction recovery. On her paternal side, that same news, being in recovery, was met with acceptance, because we all have our challenges. More than anything, Megan is thankful to finally have a sister, and it’s someone listeners already know. (http://www.whoamireallypodcast.com/071-i-would-give-anything-to-hear-his-voice/)

Read Full TranscriptMegan: 00:03 Am I opening up my heart to this woman who is just gonna stomp on it? Do I let myself accept the love that’s coming at me and just take it at face value and so that’s what I decided to do, but I was not going to make, you know, midnight pilgrimage to Chicago to meet them. Because I’ve been hurt. You know what I mean? I’ve been really hurt by my birth mother’s side of the family.

Voices: 00:35 Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? Who am I?

Damon: 00:47 This is Who Am I Really? A podcast about adoptees that have located and connected with their biological family members. I’m Damon Davis and on today’s show is Megan. She called me from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Megan grew up in an affluent suburb of Chicago and was comfortable with her adoption but curious about her start in life. When she met her maternal relatives, things went well until her aunt shunned her for her addiction recovery. On her paternal side, that same news was met with acceptance because we all have our challenges, but more than anything, Megan is thankful to finally have a sister and it’s someone listeners already know. This is Megan’s journey

Damon: 01:34 Megan grew up in Beverly, an affluent neighborhood on the south side of Chicago. She’s the oldest of three children in her family, all adopted, raised strict Irish Catholic. Megan says she was told she was adopted from as far back as she can remember and it was something to be proud of.

Megan: 01:50 I remember my mom, um, telling stories to my younger brothers and myself about how she had prayed to God and God blessed her with three beautiful children and it sticks in my head. The neighborhood I grew up in, there were a lot of adopted children, so we knew, we knew and initially we knew we were different because it was brought up to us. Oh, they’re not your real parents. And as we kind of figured out the other children who are adopted, we kind of realized we weren’t different we were special, you know, our parents loved us so much that they prayed for us. And, and you know, we were chosen to be in this family.

Damon: 02:37 Megan was adopted through an adoption agency called The Cradle. So was her middle brother and a lot of the children in her community. Her father was a lawyer, her mother was a stay at home mom and the children didn’t want for anything. But ultimately the longing Megan felt was for her greater understanding of herself. For example, she wanted to know things about herself, like who she got her physical features from,

Megan: 03:00 those types of questions came up in college. I was an RA in, at college in my first two years of college I went to St Louis University. And that’s a private Jesuit College Catholic. And um, one of the girls on the unit was an RA and she became pr...