The Making of Us: Adoption Stories that Connect and Heal with Sarah Reinhardt and Louise Browne, Hosts of Adoption: The Making of Me

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In this episode of 'Art Heals All Wounds', my guests Sarah Reinhardt and Louise Browne explore the impact of stories in addressing the complex issues of adoption. As an adoptee myself, listening to their podcast, ‘Adoption: The Making of Me’ has been a healing experience. Sarah and Louise, adoptees and former business partners, have created a community through sharing their experiences and those of other adoptees. We delve into the emotional complexities of being adopted, challenging traditional narratives and discussing the systemic issues within adoption processes. This episode emphasizes the power of storytelling and community in understanding and healing from the trauma of adoption, making a compelling case for the need to reform how adoptions are handled and viewed societally.

00:00 Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds: The Power of Art and Storytelling

01:07 Discovering a Podcast That Resonates: Adoption: The Making of Me

01:28 The Complexities of Adoption: Personal Journeys and Insights

04:40 Introducing Sarah and Louise: Voices Behind 'Adoption, The Making of Me'

06:07 The Genesis of a Podcast: Connecting Through Shared Experiences

09:55 Exploring Adoption Narratives: The Impact of Sharing and Listening

21:00 The Role of Oral Histories in Challenging the Adoption Narrative

26:56 Reflecting on Adoption and Personal Growth

27:26 The Complex Journey of Adoption and Identity

28:48 Adoptee Perspectives: From Media Representation to Personal Realizations

30:27 Navigating Relationships and Self-Perception as an Adoptee

30:57 The Evolution of Understanding Through Storytelling

31:52 Adoption Narratives: The Impact of Literature and Community

39:18 Embracing Self-Acceptance and Connection

48:18 Adoption: The Making of Me Podcast and Community Engagement

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Pam Uzzell: Do you believe art can change the world? So do I! On this show, we meet artists whose work is doing just that. Welcome to Art Heals All Wounds. I'm your host, Pam Uzzell.

[00:00:36] Some of you may know that I've made some documentary films. There are different types of documentary films, and I would say that what I did was take oral histories and try to craft them into a story where the subjects being represented felt like I had gotten it right. The best feeling when you're collecting oral histories is finding a story about something that really challenges the conventional history and just flips the narrative on that topic on its head.

[00:01:07] I would say, about a year or so ago, I found a podcast that, to me, is really this same idea. Collecting oral histories that challenge a widespread and accepted story. When I listened to this show, I thought, Oh my God! They're telling my story, and they're getting it right. Sarah Reinhardt and Louise Browne are two friends and former business partners who both happened to be adopted.

[00:01:36] After many conversations about being adopted, they started their podcast, Adoption, The Making of Me. They began with similar stories to what many adoptees say about how much their adoptive families loved them, that they were told that they were chosen children. . How lucky they supposedly were.

[00:01:57] While none of that is necessarily untrue, it's also not nearly as straightforward as it sounds. In the era that Louise, Sarah, and I were adopted, babies were considered to be blank slates, ready to be molded to seamlessly fit into the adoptive family. Some of us were never held by our birth mothers and lived for months with a foster family. Then one day, suddenly placed in a different family. That's essentially my story, but I never thought about how traumatic that would be to an infant until I had my own children. My oldest daughter, for the first many months of her life, screamed if anyone other than me or her father held her. She knew us from day one, and she understood that we were the ones to keep her safe and fed and secure.

[00:02:54] Louise and Sarah began sharing on their show their own and other adoptees stories about those nagging parts of our emotional lives. Why do we have so little in common with our adoptive families? Why does it feel like we're always a little bit on the outside looking in? Trust issues. And why didn't my birth parents want me? What's wrong with me? Why don't I, a fully grown adult, have a right to my own birth records? Sarah and Louise have created a safe place to talk about those experiences, and the trauma at the root of it. 

[00:03:34] Every time I do a story about adoption, I think about wonderful friends I have who've adopted children. And my own adoptive parents, how would they have felt? Am I being hurtful? Ungrateful? What I've learned from Sarah and Louise on Adoption, The Making of Me, is that we are all in this together. Adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents. What I do feel grateful for is that Louise and Sarah are challenging a system that in the end serves no one, and are asking all of us affected by it to demand better. Their work is changing the way that we understand and talk about adoption.

[00:04:25] You want to know how you can really help me keep this show going? Follow me on your favorite listening app. So easy, right? And if you really want to give the show a boost, leave me a five star rating or review. 

[00:04:40] Hi Sarah and Louise. Thank you so much for being on Art Heals All Wounds. I feel like I'm here with friends as opposed to a guest.

[00:04:50] So can you both introduce yourselves, who you are, what you do, just a little bit? Sarah, do you want to go first? 

[00:04:58] Sarah Reinhardt: Sure. I'm [00:05:00] Sarah Reinhardt. I am a co host with Louise of the podcast Adoption, The Making of Me. You were on our podcast. Each week we discuss a chapter of a book we're reading to do with adoption, and then we bring on a fellow adoptee to tell their story.

[00:05:15] I'm in Kansas City, Missouri, where I've been for three and a half years. It was a pandemic move. 

[00:05:22] Pam Uzzell: And Louise. 

[00:05:23] Louise Browne: I'm Louise Brownee, also co host with Sarah. How lucky am I? We are with friends. You were recently on our podcast and I do feel like, Oh, we're friends now. It's neat. I'm coming to you from the central coast of California.

[00:05:37] Also a pandemic move. And Sarah and I used to live together in Los Angeles. That's how we know each other. We had a business together. Now we have a podcast together. 

[00:05:45] Pam Uzzell: Okay. Well, the other reason I feel like you're friends is because I listen to your podcast kind of religiously every week. And yeah, and, 

[00:05:56] Louise Browne: and you're a patreon.

[00:05:57] Pam Uzzell: Yes. I just became a patreon member, which is really so cool. I feel very, very good. That's money well spent. 

[00:06:06] Louise Browne: Thank you. 

[00:06:07] Pam Uzzell: I want to go back to your meeting and connecting as adoptees, because this season is about connection and I've heard it on your show a little bit way back in the early days, but can you just tell again how you guys met, how you made this connection that you were both adoptees and decided to do this show?

[00:06:34] So, Sarah?

[00:06:35] Sarah Reinhardt: Yeah, it's kind of a three fold thing, probably. We met, our kids were both in third grade, I believe. We both have sons. 

[00:06:46] Louise Browne: Yes. 

[00:06:47] Sarah Reinhardt: And we had a mutual friend who we were both friends with, and she one night said, let's go out. So we went out to dinner and then we went to play pool.

[00:06:56] And it came out that Louise and I were both adopted and just immediately had that connection that you really only have with a fellow adoptee who, you know, it's like, you're part of a small percentage of people, right? So you immediately connect and it's understanding the weirdness of it. Although I say that, but I didn't think of it as weird until many years later when we started this podcast.

[00:07:23] So we just became good friends. Our sons were good friends through those elementary school years and into middle school. And then we were both kind of going through changes in our life and started this ice cream truck. And we spent hours on the ice cream truck talking about, you know, we paid a lot of lip service to being adopted, but.

[00:07:45] I had kind of, as a younger child, my adoption was one thing, but then my parents got divorced when I was seven, and my mom left. So I've conflated a lot of my, my stuff with which is which, you know, which wound goes to which trauma. So we would talk about adoption on the, on the ice cream truck, and it wasn't really making jokes about, I push people away, I'm adopted, but not necessarily really connecting to it.

[00:08:14] And then we sold the truck and then we both did other things and then left Los Angeles. And it was just kind of a perfect storm of Louise had called me and said, Oh, we should do a podcast talking to women about careers in their fifties. I'm like, maybe we should do something like about adoption. I had been marinating in my head for years about doing a documentary about meeting all of my family and which never really happened, but this happened.

[00:08:41] So it just, once we decided to do that, it just kind of all fell into place and happened pretty quickly and easily. Yeah. 

[00:08:50] Louise Browne: Organically. I have one thing to add. When we went out to play pool, we did have our mutual friend who we're still both close to, and she always says, I didn't even need to be there after you met.

[00:09:00] Like, okay, I guess I'm not here anymore. Cause we were both like, Oh, cause we did, we did have those weird adoptee connections, like push you away and all that and issues, you know, but we didn't delve into them, but you connect with an adoptee immediately. 

[00:09:16] Pam Uzzell: Well, one thing you said, Sarah, really struck me is that when you grow up, especially kind of the age that we are, and you have issues, you do conflate them with other things.

[00:09:27] Louise Browne: Yeah. 

[00:09:28] Sarah Reinhardt: Well, and especially when you're told adoption is a wonderful thing. 

[00:09:34] Louise Browne: I was defensive about my adoption issues because I actually had a therapist bring it up in marriage counseling once. I was like, that's not why this is happening. 

[00:09:43] Pam Uzzell: It's him. 

[00:09:44] Louise Browne: Yes, it is. It's 100 percent him. Oh boy. It is. Half me. Maybe more.

[00:09:51] Sarah Reinhardt: Yeah. 

[00:09:52] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. It's so interesting. It's so interesting. And one thing I came to the realization of, cause I, I [00:10:00] think a lot about, well, Why do I love this podcast so much? We all tell the same stories and we all tell unique stories, but I have sometimes asked myself Well, how long can I listen to adoption stories?

[00:10:13] It's like well forever I can listen to them and I have some thoughts about well, why is that but I'm wondering what you two would say about why do we? Why do we need to hear these stories? That's what I think. It's not just that we like to hear them. Why do we need to hear these stories? 

[00:10:33] Louise Browne: Well, you talked about connection, that was your theme right now in your podcast series.

[00:10:37] And for me, I feel like all of a sudden I have a connection that my whole life I've been searching for, not just because of Sarah and I's podcast, but because of the community and what our podcast has brought us to; communities of people that we would never have spoken to or gotten to know all over the country and the world, really, we've had people from all over the world.

[00:10:58] And I mean, I honestly feel like I could land in Amsterdam and call up David Anker and have a coffee more comfortably than calling like an old friend from work maybe. There's just this connection and we have a Patreon Zoom, Sarah and I, for Saturdays most months if you want to join our Patreon $10 level.

[00:11:19] A little plug there. I feel like it's just so nice and I can't explain it to my husband. I can't explain it to outside friends. We have an adoptee group up here where I live. Just getting together with them is different than any other thing I do. And Sarah has her own experiences with it. It's a connection, right?

[00:11:38] Sarah Reinhardt: Yeah, and then I think also for me, hearing the stories, it just continues to remind me of just how profound it is to be taken from your mother. It can be 50 years later. It can be 30 years later. It can be 70 years later. The sense of depth to that and the meaning to how intense that is 

[00:12:06] Louise Browne: yes.

[00:12:06] Sarah Reinhardt: never goes away. It's just, it shapes you. And I didn't think about those things until I started hearing these stories. And if I ever get off track and think, Oh, it's, it's not a big deal. I'm reminded always of what a big deal that is and how. It shapes you and it really I had this moment the other night of just thinking about certain choices or in life and you know that when you out the gate you start with some and you're you're left and then you're told that at least in our era of what a wonderful lucky thing it is you were loved so much that that you were left that imprinted every relationship that I have had from that point on.

[00:12:51] I just kind of, I had that, that moment the other night when I connected that, Oh my gosh, that's why I have chosen unavailable people my whole life. And I would think it was, well my parents got divorced and no, it really starts with that early wound and the messaging around that abandonment that, you know, you were lucky to be abandoned.

[00:13:12] Louise Browne: Yeah, she's right. 

[00:13:14] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. Well, one thing that I've really thought about a lot, thanks to your show. is this idea that was really sold to both birth parents and adoptive parents. that babies are like a blank slate, like an Etch a Sketch, like, Oh, this baby, nothing is going on up here in the brain. And there are no real memories before three -ish anyway.

[00:13:46] So for all they'll know you have always been their parent and so much not just in adoption but so much about the brain and babies and things have advanced in terms of the knowledge going on there that when I think about that, it's so sad and horrifying to me. I know that you both have kids once you have kids I think that's when the illusion disappears my oldest daughter No one could hold her for the first year of her life except for my, her father and myself.

[00:14:19] And it's like, she's not a blank slate. 

[00:14:21] 

[00:14:21] Louise Browne: I had a realization with a friend recently who was looking at pictures with me. I recently found out my. biological mother had me for six days back and forth. And I thought it was just originally, I thought it was no time.

[00:14:33] Then when I got to know things, I thought it was three days. Now I have a letter that it was six days because she wasn't sure. She was just trying her hardest to figure this out. And I have some pictures with her that I've seen. And my friend noticed, she said, look at you in these pictures. You're very serene looking at her.

[00:14:49] You're a newborn, but I mean, you're very, and then just three weeks later, I'm in pictures getting baptized. And also some others with my family where I am looking happy, but [00:15:00] like vacant- looking like, who are these? I'm literally looking. And I was such a good baby and I didn't cry, of course, cause I'm traumatized.

[00:15:08] We know that now I was silent and self soothed, but I hadn't noticed that. She said, look at these pictures. You're not the same baby. And I'm like, wow, it's almost, it's weird when someone else sees it, cause you almost can't see your life sometimes. I don't know. Well, it takes an outsider sometimes who's not even adopted to say,

[00:15:28] look at that. And Sarah's right. This is a thing that all adoptees have, no matter the circumstance of their relinquishment. Right? 

[00:15:36] Pam Uzzell: Right. 

[00:15:36] Louise Browne: You're not with your mother. That's why you're an adoptee. So you start life with-- what do they say when, when I was learning to be a teacher, I taught in the inner city and we talked about how kids come to school, say, in a nice area where my son grew up, fed and ready for school and blah, blah, blah.

[00:15:54] Maybe they had a good night's sleep. They're supposed to. In the inner city. A lot of kids are coming hungry, haven't had a good night's sleep, maybe had trauma, they haven't had breakfast, maybe dinner. So they're coming to school under the sand, like already at a deficit. 

[00:16:07] Pam Uzzell: Right. 

[00:16:07] Louise Browne: And I think about that sometimes with adoptees, you're coming into life with a deficit that you're always trying to build up to be on the level playing field

[00:16:16] so you were good at mimicking and pretending and I don't know, it's interesting 

[00:16:21] Pam Uzzell: It is. It really is. Also going back, Sarah, to what you're talking about, the issues that just follow you your whole life, particularly around relationships, I had the same MO. If someone was unavailable, that was who I was attracted to.

[00:16:40] And if they left or rejected me, it was devastating. I mean, just devastating. And, it also triggered the people that I had long term relationships because I would find people who it was just clear. Oh, they'll never leave me. Which you know, they might not have been the right partner for me. We might not have had the same interests or anything that would have made us a good couple, but it was like at least this person will not leave me. It's a long, long tail to this thing.

[00:17:15] Sarah Reinhardt: I also feel like having started the podcast coming up on three years and having these kind of things blown wide open that I'd never thought about, reading all the books and you know, I just bought into the narrative and again, I would pay lip service in therapy. Yeah. I was adopted and blah, blah, blah, blah.

[00:17:32] I have abandonment issues, never, again, not connecting. So now it's only been three years of connecting to it. And it's, there's still so much that sometimes it feels overwhelming. Like, can I heal? Can I get through this? I don't know. I don't know. 

[00:17:48] Louise Browne: I don't know that we ever heal. Right. I had a marriage counselor once tell me that my ex husband and I married each other because we weren't available.

[00:17:56] Like she said, Oh, well, you both married each other-- to her it was so obvious because neither of you are available, but yet you're so loyal. We're both loyal and unavailable. I was like, she's crazy. Now I'm like, geez. And I'm still this person, you know, I work on it. We work on it. That's the thing. We, like Sarah said, it's daunting a little bit.

[00:18:16] Pam Uzzell: It is daunting. And the other thing I'm grateful to you for in your podcast is that I had gotten The Primal Wound and I think I read a few chapters, but I couldn't deal with the name of the book. 

[00:18:28] Louise Browne: Me neither. 

[00:18:29] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. I was just like, so I'm just fundamentally forever damaged.

[00:18:35] That's how I interpreted that title, which is actually me projecting a lot of my feelings onto the title. Cause that's not what the title is saying, but that's how I. interpreted that, that just fundamentally from the get go, I was damaged. And that was already my self perception, you know, is that there is something fundamentally wrong with you.

[00:18:59] And the book is a great eyeopening book in terms of explaining things like chronic stomach issues as a child, the compliant versus the what's the one who's not compliant. The, is it like a defiant 

[00:19:13] Louise Browne: rebellious 

[00:19:13] Pam Uzzell: the rebellious. It did explain a lot, but I think one thing your show helps me to do is to not feel like I am so incredibly damaged.

[00:19:28] And so different because there are so many other people who've experienced the same thing. And lots of people have trauma from so many other reasons. And I think what you've done with this show is that you have brought this trauma to light. And it doesn't have to be this sort of secretive-- I mean, I had so much shame around feeling damaged.

[00:19:52] Sarah Reinhardt: You know, it's interesting what popped into my head was thinking there's something wrong with you. Well, there's something very [00:20:00] wrong, but it's not with us. It's with the way the system is that made it so that we were forced to be given up or whatever the circumstances may be. So, there is something wrong.

[00:20:13] It's just not us. How could we not react the way that we did? We had no voice. Even up into teenage years or whatever, like, we had no voice to, no safe place to express these feelings we were feeling. No understanding of these feelings, just, at least in my case. 

[00:20:34] Louise Browne: There was nowhere to talk about it and you'd feel I'd feel completely guilty if I talked to anybody about it at all. You know just because I had a great family.

[00:20:43] What's wrong with you? What's wrong with you? You know what? I mean? So you're like something's just wrong with me. I had no idea that something was wrong with so many people out there and yet we're not the problem like Sarah said But we've the problem has affected us, you know? 

[00:20:59] Pam Uzzell: Right. The other thing that I think about a lot that you're doing is you're creating this amazing collection of oral histories.

[00:21:08] And just thinking about 

[00:21:09] Sarah Reinhardt: Good way of putting it. 

[00:21:10] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. How oral histories in the past have often been used, they've been kind of a counter narrative to the dominant narrative, and I'm wondering if you've ever thought about that, if what you're doing is creating and normalizing this perspective that has been missing.

[00:21:33] Sarah Reinhardt: Hadn't thought about that, but yeah, kind of like what StoryCorps does on NPR, you know, that's a great way of putting it. 

[00:21:43] Louise Browne: It is. I was thinking about after the Holocaust, the filmmaker, why am I blanking on his name, but 

[00:21:49] Pam Uzzell: Steven Spielberg. 

[00:21:50] Louise Browne: Thank you. How he collected for the project for the people who are still alive to tell their narratives.

[00:21:57] That's interesting because we do have a huge collection now of hundred plus adoptees, maybe almost a hundred of their stories. 

[00:22:06] Sarah Reinhardt: The first season, you know, we were kind of all over the place and invited invited anybody on that, you know, 

[00:22:12] Louise Browne: That's true I mean, we're in season six now and all of us that are doing podcasts you included have an oral history that's not the norm for sure.

[00:22:23] The norm of adoption is not the adoptee voice. 

[00:22:25] Pam Uzzell: Yeah I think what's interesting about this idea of your oral history in particular is where it might lead because I think people who are adopted and who've ever had contact with your show are probably very loyal listeners. And whoever we're in contact with, we spread that.

[00:22:48] I mean, my partner knows that I listen to your show and I share little tidbits that I'm learning from your show. And I'm wondering if you've ever thought about where all of these stories and also your own evolution from hearing these stories, where it could possibly lead. 

[00:23:08] Louise Browne: You're like blowing our minds because I, that's big.

[00:23:13] Sarah Reinhardt: You know, it would be nice if out in the real world, the mainstream world, that people would actually listen. You know, there's an important book, and that is American Baby. It was written by a non adopted person, nobody who even had any connection to the triad, but, you know, stumbled upon adoption and wrote this book, which is history, and,

[00:23:37] one of those books that I feel should be required reading if you are an American, but people are resistant to it. They want to keep their thought that there's nothing but positivity around adoption. It's a lucky, wonderful, beautiful thing and anybody that, that tries to say otherwise is biased or has their own issues or any of that.

[00:23:58] So we really, it's, it's hard to get our voices out there when people don't want to hear it. We had one guest say that he didn't think things would really change until class action lawsuits were starting to be filed. Um, and now there's a whole other set of stuff with surrogacy, which is going to be a whole other.

[00:24:18] Louise Browne: It's just going right into a whole other thing. 

[00:24:20] Pam Uzzell: Right. Right. I think about that a lot. 

[00:24:23] Louise Browne: And these are money making businesses. Yes. 

[00:24:25] Pam Uzzell: Right. Right. I feel like once the scales sort of fall from your eyes, which is what I'm hoping will happen with things like your podcast you see things that just hit so wrong 

[00:24:42] and what I'm hoping is that if these stories become more normalized and break into mainstream, I'm not anti adoption because I know sometimes that has to happen, but there is a completely different way [00:25:00] of thinking about that baby than just having a baby. 

[00:25:04] Sarah Reinhardt: And there's no reason to change their entire identity and their name, and 

[00:25:09] Pam Uzzell: Right.

[00:25:10] Sarah Reinhardt: Yes. And for sure, sometimes the natural parents cannot care for their children, or they've died, or whatever that might be and there is a necessary action to be taken that they need caregivers. Why does that then entitle those caregivers to erase their history, change their name, call them mine, sever all contact with their former families?

[00:25:33] Like none of that's okay in my mind. 

[00:25:35] Louise Browne: None of it's healthy for the child. I was just on Twitter recently, X, sorry, Twitter. And I won't say X. And there was a story about Barbara Walters daughter, right? And it was a very, it was People Magazine. So you're getting a People Magazine fluff thing, but I read it so differently than I would have years ago.

[00:25:57] Okay. I was like, isn't this interesting? It was about Barbara Walters adopting, about her daughter who's very shy and out of the public spotlight, how great of a mother she was. They got through so much. Her daughter is now the inheritor of all her things. And she sounds like a wonderful person, this adoptee.

[00:26:13] But there was this little section in there. Well, she went through this stuff in high school where she had to be sent away because of all these behavioral things. They don't know why. You know, it was like. You don't know why really she was having behavioral issues and it was such the sub story that had nothing to do with the story and it just I'm sure everybody else reading the story is Like oh how wonderful and I'm reading it going gross Like are they gonna ask this poor young woman why she was sent away in high school for-- it

[00:26:40] just hits you the narrative like you watch a TV show And they have the certain narrative of adoption. It just ruins the movie or the show for me now too. I can't. 

[00:26:51] Pam Uzzell: Right. 

[00:26:51] Louise Browne: It doesn't have to be negative. Like we're not saying like you. Okay, every adoptee. I had actually a really nice childhood. Not every adoptee has a

[00:26:59] it has to be a horrible thing and show the world. It's not about them, it's about the parents and the other community and their background isn't that important and. Even in modern TV. 

[00:27:12] Sarah Reinhardt: I was going to say when you asked where it would, I would like to see even in scripted, in feature films and scripted TV, like let's have an adoptee perspective, an unfogged adoptee perspective.

[00:27:26] And you know, reunion, as we say, often is not the ending. It's usually the beginning of something else, good or bad. But you know, it isn't just neatly wrapped up with a bow. And when you were talking about Barbara Walters and the daughter going off, you know, I took a walk last night and I was thinking, because all this stuff about connecting the relationship choices and all that stuff, I, it also, I also thought back to something that I learned since I moved here near my family like three and a half years ago.

[00:28:00] I learned, because I went through a really tough time as a teenager, ran away, and I learned recently that my father and stepmother considered putting me in foster care. And I just thought about What a difference, where would I have ended up had that actually been the case? 

[00:28:20] Pam Uzzell: Mm. 

[00:28:21] Sarah Reinhardt: And would that have been done to a natural born child?

[00:28:24] Probably not. You wouldn't give birth to a child and then say, they're giving you problems, they're unhappy, therefore I'm going to put them in foster care. That would only be considered for a child that had been adopted, that you don't, maybe, feel super connected to. So anyway, all these that I know that's kind of I ran off with that and didn't have a conclusion to it just in response to what you were saying.

[00:28:48] Pam Uzzell: Well, I think that I also struggled with Well, two things, one, teenagerhood and early adulthood, I definitely stopped being the compliant adoptee because so much of, of my interactions with my mom especially did not make sense to me. And I really questioned her judgment versus mine. And I also really though questioned my security

[00:29:16] in the family. I was told point blank that there were two things that if I did them, I would be disowned. And I try to think, well, is there anything that either of my children could do that would cause me to disown them? I can't think of anything. You know, and I have also heard horror stories of people who adopted children and then it just didn't work out for them the way they thought it would.

[00:29:42] And they, like the child did move on to another family. And I just think, 

[00:29:46] Louise Browne: yeah, I have a friend up here in the central coast that was unadopted. Given back. Like let's test drive. I saw a dateline recently where a kid was given back because he wasn't behaving properly. Um, and it wasn't even about that. That was like a side story too.[00:30:00] 

[00:30:00] They didn't even talk about how messed up that was. 

[00:30:03] Sarah Reinhardt: I knew a woman who gave back two sisters who she'd adopted from Ethiopia who, um, within eight months or something, she was like, Oh, this isn't working. And so she relinquished, but there was no guarantee that they would stay together. They were seven and nine and she still, even with that knowledge, still gave them back.

[00:30:26] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. I mean, for me, when I hear those stories, I think, well, no wonder you never really feel super secure in whatever relationship you're going into. Like it takes a really long time to get behind a certain wall to build up trust. So it's it's so interesting and I feel like we are talking about connection in a roundabout way I feel like your show helped me connect parts of myself.

[00:30:54] Louise Browne: I'm so glad to hear that really 

[00:30:57] Pam Uzzell: Yeah, but I'm wondering about the two of you because I did notice an evolution in the show the first the first part 

[00:31:04] Louise Browne: I'm sure you did. 

[00:31:05] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. The first part was definitely much more where I was at that same time too, like, oh, I had a great family but You know, there were some issues or some this or that... but it was still kind of in that narrative of, I don't know how I, you know, you guys use the term the fog.

[00:31:25] And so I think it's a good one. You're still sort of in that fog of like hearing that mainstream narrative. And then over time you really change. So I'm, again, I'm wondering, was it the stories you're hearing from other people? Was it the reading you were doing or how did you start evolving in that way?

[00:31:44] Louise Browne: Sarah and I went through our own little mental depressions too and stuff. Why we're also trying to do this podcast. 

[00:31:50] Yeah, I still do. Primal Wound was big, it was like you and we didn't want to read, you know, it's got the thing that was very enlightening and opening up.

[00:31:59] That's when we decided we're just adoptees. We know adoptee stories. Let's stick there. But The Journey of the Adopted Self is the one that kind of, for adoptees out there who may be listening, Journey of the Adopted Self by Betty Jean Lifton. That was the one for me that was extremely hard. It would be hard now to go back and read it three years into this It'd be hard to look at each chapter, but we had to which is maybe good.

[00:32:23] It's a challenge. We're together We're going over each chapter in detail And it would mess with me at night. I was going through a little bit of my own trauma with an abandonment with a friend and I had a move and I think my husband thought what's happened here, right? Cause I, it was Sarah too. We were dark some days.

[00:32:42] It was hard. It's still hard. I think the reading and then having people, when we started to just be adoptee focused and being in groups and reading more on social media with other adoptees, was at the same time hearing these other stories going wait a second, That's- I mean there would be these aha moments Sarah and I once said that we have to stop saying Wow on the episode because we're both like Wow, I think it was Wow For us, you know what I mean?

[00:33:10] Because we're like newbies or something. Go ahead Sarah 

[00:33:13] Sarah Reinhardt: Well, I was just going to, someone, someone said, another guest who used a great term, you know, that adoptees fall into two camps, in the matrix or out of the matrix. And I really think that that's true. And the past couple of days, just a lot of stuff has been going on.

[00:33:30] One thing is my son's dog has, was diagnosed with something and it's been really heavy on the heart. And so I've been really emotional, but. Yesterday, I was thinking, it was so much easier being in the fog, you know? Now, I, everything is so highlighted of where I, I see all the things that, I saw, you know, that maybe I pushed aside, that I didn't belong or I didn't feel like a family member.

[00:33:57] Any of those things are now, oh, it's true, you know. Those things are actually true. All the things that I suspected, you know, once the veil was lifted are actually true. 

[00:34:09] Pam Uzzell: Right. Right. 

[00:34:11] Sarah Reinhardt: And that can be very, very painful. 

[00:34:13] Louise Browne: And scary. It's like seeing the little puppets, you know, the puppeteer behind that. It's not magic anymore.

[00:34:20] And you can't really go back. Right. So that's the thing when you have knowledge and you have it, there's only, so you asked about us going forward. I think it will continue to be an evolution. And I think our goal is to let, I mean, on our podcasts, everybody has their own thing on a podcast, our podcast. We really just want any adoptee to tell their story because Every adoptee should be able to tell their story.

[00:34:44] And so if you get out there to tell their story, so sometimes there is a little pushback with this adoptee or that adoptee is more in the fog or not in the fog, but at the same time, they're telling their story. 

[00:34:53] Pam Uzzell: Right. 

[00:34:54] Louise Browne: And they may revisit that three years later and go, well, that my story has changed. Our stories morph through this.[00:35:00] 

[00:35:00] Pam Uzzell: That's so interesting. And I'm thinking about this pain that you're talking about. I feel that as well, but I also feel a sense of lightness as well that I put down some of the self blame that I was carrying for such a long time. You know that it's like, okay, there is a reason why I felt these things. It wasn't just, you know, low self esteem.

[00:35:27] It wasn't just whatever reason I could come up with, which there were many of them. It was going back to an issue that had been prevalent in my family. And I think I said on your show that I could list a long list of things that looking back, I think that my parents did, that I thought, wow, that was really not cool, but it just was more lonely, lonely and feeling like, how do I get into this group?

[00:35:59] Oh, I don't think I can. And that carried over into a lot of different groups, friendships, relationships for me. So in a way, it's not, I don't want to say I'm happy. But I'm relieved to have an answer. 

[00:36:17] Louise Browne: There is some relief. Yes. For sure. Mm hmm. 

[00:36:20] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. I didn't read the journey. Is it the adoptive journey? Yeah.

[00:36:24] I didn't read that. I let you guys read that for me as well. 

[00:36:28] Louise Browne: That's what people say on our podcast. You read it for me. We do dissect them pretty well. . 

[00:36:33] Pam Uzzell: I know. I know. And sometimes if, if they sound hard for you guys, I avoid them, but I'm so curious to know. 

[00:36:40] Sarah Reinhardt: Oh, like the Georgia tan book. 

[00:36:41] Pam Uzzell: Oh, that one. I didn't even pick up that one,

[00:36:43] you guys. 

[00:36:44] Louise Browne: Yeah. My friend up here offered to give me hers cause she wasn't going to read it. 

[00:36:48] Pam Uzzell: Like, no, no, thank you. Why was that particular one hard for you? It's just so harsh. No, not, not Georgia tan, but the, uh, is it 

[00:36:58] Louise Browne: Oh, journey of the adopted self. Yeah. Journey of the adopted self was hard for me because it highlighted where you just said, I was thinking about when you were speaking is that I thought I was just sort of crazy inside and that everyone saw me as not crazy, as this functional human being, but they didn't really know I have this stuff going on in my head and I just must You know, certain people who know you very well know some stuff about your head, right?

[00:37:23] But I was like, Oh, hello. Had I known this, I would have done this. I would have parented different. I would have been more open. There's so many things. 

[00:37:35] Pam Uzzell: Oh yeah. 

[00:37:36] Louise Browne: And no kidding why I was lonely as a kid. I used to hide and cry a lot. You know, I was sensitive at my house. 

[00:37:43] Pam Uzzell: Yes. Yes. 

[00:37:43] Louise Browne: And everyone was very kind to me about it, it was just kind of, you know, I was the little sister and I was sensitive, but I am sensitive and it was a big deal. Now I can say, yeah, I was and yeah, that kind of sucked and it's nice to have a voice for me to say, like, I don't, maybe it's the age too. I mean, we're in our fifties.

[00:38:02] I don't really, if someone doesn't like what I'm saying or they have a problem with it, I don't care now. You know, sometimes you care if someone's really, Not really I'm kind of like, oh, well, that's I went a long time pleasing everybody. A really long time. 

[00:38:18] Sarah Reinhardt: That's a you problem not a me problem 

[00:38:22] Louise Browne: Yeah, which is hard to hear right it's hard to switch that because I was a pleaser for so long and I have a sticky right here on my desk that says no is a complete sentence Okay, so if I can't do something right I can say no now. 

[00:38:38] Pam Uzzell: Right.

[00:38:39] Louise Browne: And it's still hard for me not to put an explanation around no or pleasing and that I know a lot of people that aren't adopted are also pleasers. Okay. 

[00:38:46] Sarah Reinhardt: Well, I think by nature of being a woman, by nature of being a woman, we, you know, 

[00:38:53] Louise Browne: we do that, but I had a lot, you know, I was raised to be really strong and my voice and everything.

[00:38:57] And I was, I went off and did things, but inside it was such like, I better please unless they won't like me. I can't fit this group. There was a lot of that group not fitting. Even in my friend groups now, I think, do I fit, do they really like me in good friend groups that I know. And, you know, 

[00:39:13] Pam Uzzell: yeah, no, I know that.

[00:39:15] I know that feeling so, so well. I would have loved to have done some things, definitely parenting is a big one for me because I understand now how my parenting was affected by being adopted as well.

[00:39:31] But other than that, I feel like this is a great time to sort of start thinking and working on these things. More digesting them I'm not sure there are things that really need to be worked on anymore They need to be digested and become a part of who you are 

[00:39:48] Louise Browne: It's acceptance of who we are to just accepting ourselves and going,

[00:39:51] okay. Sarah and I have a better relationship you know you talked about our relationship because we I think see each other with some grace in a different [00:40:00] way because you're working together every week. That's even if you're in a job, you have stuff, right? You're working, working, working. And we just have grace different.

[00:40:08] I try to see people with more grace like that and myself like, okay, I'm an asshole sometimes. 

[00:40:13] Pam Uzzell: And Sarah, you've been nodding your head a lot. What would you add? Well, first of all, that is, um, I found out that is a, a funny genetic thing. When I met my birth mother, my son's father was like, Oh my God, you both do that nodding thing.

[00:40:26] So I think that's just a, it's just a tick, a genetic tick passed down. 

[00:40:33] Louise Browne: She's engaged. Yes. Yes. She's engaged. 

[00:40:36] Sarah Reinhardt: I'm engaged and in agreement. I mean, it is kind of an interesting time. I hearkened back to one of our guests. who tells the story of when she found out that she was adopted. She was like six or seven.

[00:40:49] She's New Zealand. She was shocked. And she said, you're not my mother and knew at like a six, seven years old. Um, like. You're not, I don't belong here. What am I doing here? And, and it just amazing to me, the different stages that this happens to people, it took me till I was, you know, in my fifties and it took Annie till she was at six, seven years old, you know, and then everybody has their own process.

[00:41:18] Some people never, and in some ways that's fine, you know, just always think again in the matrix or not in the matrix. All those things were kind of going through my head. 

[00:41:29] Louise Browne: Yeah. We're reading a book now by a Susan Kiyo Ito. She was doing this at 17, this brave stuff, 19, 18, and I'm like, she was so brave.

[00:41:38] Cause when I'm reading it, I'm like, gosh, I probably would have been, I probably would have left. Someone said something like cry and leave. I used to run away from anything controversial. Right? So. She was so brave. That's what Sarah was saying about Annie. Everybody should listen to Annie, that episode, because she's funny, but right on about things.

[00:41:57] Pam Uzzell: For me, my twenties was when I really started fantasizing that I had a perfect birth family out there. And that's another thing that's been great with your show too, is that to hear that whatever you're imagining about your birth family. You don't know how it's going to go. This is the one thing that does make me a little bit sad about adoption is that finding your birth family is not going to heal that wound that you're feeling.

[00:42:27] I know that I definitely felt actually more grateful for my adoptive family in a certain way because I tried to think about what would this have been like, you know, and I'm wondering if either of you felt that too. 

[00:42:41] Sarah Reinhardt: I have pushback about that because not always, but I feel, certainly for my birth mother and that the trauma of giving up a child like being given up, giving up a child shapes you.

[00:42:57] And I, I would imagine would maybe cause some mental illness, because how do you reckon with that? How do you go through your life, even if you think it was the best thing or how do you reckon with that? So when I hear adoptees come on the show and they say, Oh my God, you know, I, we had one in particular, it was like, you know, said his dad was like white trash or something.

[00:43:23] And I just, dads are different. But I think that the trauma of giving up a child. Maybe shapes you and that later when you meet that person you think good thing But is it because you know chicken or egg, you know, it's I don't know so we don't know that we that we we we are living in alternate universes our adoptions as Moses Farrow says is an alternate universe.

[00:43:51] Pam Uzzell: That is a really good point. 

[00:43:52] Louise Browne: My biological mother had a really interesting life after she gave me up. Okay. I mean, very interesting and jet setty and kind of wild and really neat woman. Then she died very young. So I, a person in my life recently said to me, well, I mean, she would have been amazing. And probably if she had aged, she'd be welcoming.

[00:44:10] Cause she always wrote about me and wore a necklace with my picture. So she loved me. But she said, you would have had this like chaotic, crazy. And I said, well, we don't know that she would have done that. I mean, because she was this really not doing that before. She was working and took care of me during pregnancy and wanted to keep, we don't know that she wouldn't have been mother of the year.

[00:44:30] So, I mean, You can't say, but she probably did go a little bit more wild and a little bit more, she changed her name several times to start over as a new identity. I know a boyfriend of hers who said, she said to him, Oh, you don't want to marry me. I've done some things, you know, she's 27, 

[00:44:49] that does mess with you what Sarah said. Look at us we've all had children and you said you can't imagine for anything why you wouldn't stand by him like no matter what our kids do we're [00:45:00] gonna stand by them. 

[00:45:00] Pam Uzzell: Right right. 

[00:45:02] Louise Browne: No matter what good bad or the ugly so that's a big thing. It does cause people to change so you so I hate that argument because a lot of people think, well, you have this great family, you would have had a bad one.

[00:45:15] You don't know that. And people can also be raised poor and be wonderful families too, by the way, because a lot of it was about wealth back in the day. Right. Still maybe is. I shouldn't say back in the day, you know, speaking of the Georgia tan times, just wealth doesn't make you a better parent. Right. And give you more love.

[00:45:34] Love is love. Right. So. Right. Right. Right. 

[00:45:36] 

[00:45:36] Pam Uzzell: Those are all really good points. Yeah, and it's true. It's a, it's a completely alternate universe and you have no idea. 

[00:45:46] Louise Browne: You don't know. 

[00:45:46] I'm just thinking as we wrap up here, if the idea of connection resonates with either of you. Your show resonates with this theme of connection for me but I'm wondering if it does for you? 

[00:45:58] Sarah Reinhardt: I mean connection is really the the most important thing in the world, isn't it?

[00:46:06] yeah, and you need to find the people that you can connect with and I think for one thing for me is I I mean i'm out of the fog but reckoning with coming out of the fog is just understanding that The people I need to have in my life are people I need to connect with on a deeper level where I feel safe.

[00:46:27] Um, to me, connection is feeling safe, 

[00:46:34] Louise Browne: And I feel safe in our, our podcast and our space with adoptees and here with you, like I speak more openly with you than I probably do half the people in my life on a weekly basis. So it is a safe connection. And there was a point Sarah made earlier. I just feel that we have so much

[00:46:55] more connection to give and to get like I feel like we get from our podcast as much as we you're you're telling us How much you got from us and listening. We get every time we have an interview filled up or touched or new thoughts that go in our heads. And so the connecting is going to continue, I guess it's a continued connection and here's the thought too, just for non adoptees that may listen to your podcast, I think it's interesting when people, I think family is a right to know your family, you have a right to know where you're from.

[00:47:26] Because if you ever watch, like, watch families talk, they brag about things in their families. Even if they don't know about it. Oh, my uncle in Italy did this, and it's all And people love to talk about it, but if you bring it up, it's like, oh, you know, it's that strange. But it's like, I'm sorry, I'm from people too.

[00:47:45] We're all from people, and I think that's a human, from the beginning of time, adoption wasn't always a secret as we know. That's a modern way of financial transactions and things that have gone on. People need to know who their people are. That's how you feel grounded to the earth and to life, right? 

[00:48:05] Pam Uzzell: Yeah.

[00:48:06] Thank you both so much. Can you tell people where they can find your podcast? And the name of it again, I'll put it on the show notes, but still. 

[00:48:18] Sarah Reinhardt: It's Adoption: The Making of Me. We are on every podcast platform, wherever you listen to your podcasts. We are on YouTube. We are on Facebook, Instagram. TikTok, Twitter, we're, we're everywhere.

[00:48:34] And our website is adoptionthemakingofme. com. 

[00:48:37] Pam Uzzell: And if you are an adoptee listening to this and you are looking for community, I will plug both their podcast and the Patreon group that you are starting for adoptees just to check in once a month and hang out and chat. 

[00:48:54] Louise Browne: Yeah, it's not like led by us. It's a coffee with other adoptees.

[00:48:58] Pam Uzzell: Yeah. Yeah. I really like that. 

[00:49:00] Louise Browne: We do too. And also people should listen to your episode on our podcast, which came out in January. Of 2024 and it's, it was a really good one. 

[00:49:09] Sarah Reinhardt: Yep, it got a lot of good feedback. Yeah, lots of good. 

[00:49:12] Pam Uzzell: I want to thank you guys how you wrapped up at the end. It made me feel very good about that experience. Thank you both. And please continue to do this amazing work.

[00:49:25] It really is so beneficial. 

[00:49:28] Louise Browne: Thank you. 

[00:49:28] Sarah Reinhardt: Thank you, Pam.

[00:49:33] Pam Uzzell: You're listening to Art Heals All Wounds.

[00:49:59] [00:50:00] Thank you so much to Sarah Reinhardt and Louise Browne for being guests on the show today. I admire the work that they do so much. I really feel that they're agents of change for how adoption is approached, how we can do more to support families who want to keep their children, and how we can help support adoptive families, and mostly,

[00:50:22] how do we center children in all of this? Thanks, Sarah and Louise, for creating Adoption the Making of Me that opens up this space to share and connect. 

[00:50:34] Does creativity play a role in your life? I'd love to hear about it and share it on the show. Did you know that every time you share your story, you help someone else?

[00:50:45] It's absolutely true. I'd love to share your voicemail to the show. Just go to arthealsallwoundspodcast. com and click on the big button that says leave a message for Pam at Art Heals All Wounds. I'll share it on the show. If you want to support this podcast, you can also leave me a small tip through the buy me a coffee link on my website.

[00:51:07] This podcast is completely independent, so every little bit you give means a lot. Thanks for listening. 

[00:51:15] The music you've heard in this podcast is by Ketsa and Lobo Loco. 

[00:51:20] This podcast was edited by Iva Hristova. .