Exceptional Parents, Extraordinary Challenges
Being a parent is challenging enough - parenting a child with extraordinary challenges (non-neuro typical kiddos) can be overwhelming, debilitating and at times, downright depressing. Angie Shockley and Dave Gold bring their combined 70 years of real world experience - Angie as the founder of young adult transition programs and Certified Shamanic Practitioner; Dave as a successful attorney, business and spiritual mentor and father - to bring you practical, powerful solutions to your biggest parenting challenges Join us each week to discover how to navigate crisis, protect your own health and well-being, and create a family unit that is filled with love, creativity and deep, mutual respect no matter what life brings your way.
Exceptional Parents, Extraordinary Challenges
Navigating Parenthood and Adoption with Courage
Imagine navigating the emotional rollercoaster of unexpected pregnancies and grandparenthood. How do families handle decisions that challenge personal limits and redefine family dynamics? Join us for a heartfelt discussion with Dave Gold and his wife Julie, as we share their intimate journey through the complex landscapes of family, love, and the courage to confront life's unforeseen events. You'll hear about their daughter's journey to grandparenthood, the intricate balance of hope and reality, and the profound growth that accompanies such life-altering decisions.
Through the lens of young motherhood, we explore Abby's transformative story as she faces the challenges of early motherhood and the decision to place her newborn for adoption. Witness the raw emotions and the tender bond that develops between Abby and her baby, Rowan Jude, and the complex dynamics that unfold within her family. We reflect on the moments of awe and growth at a baby shower, the uncharted territory of grandparenting, and the resilience required to embrace unexpected changes. This episode highlights the importance of staying present, acknowledging what you don't know, and embracing the strength found in community support.
Finally, we delve into the themes of surrendering ego and embracing impersonal love as we recount the journey of adoption from the perspective of those who help facilitate it. Experience the whirlwind of decisions and emotions that accompany finding a new family for a baby, and the unexpected joy and gratitude that arise from spending extended time with an infant. Through these poignant stories, we emphasize the power of love, the necessity of healthy boundaries, and the transformative impact of staying true to oneself amidst life's unpredictability.
At Canaan Valley Spa and Wellness Center, our mission is to provide our clients with a serene and rejuvenating experience that promotes wellness of the mind, body, and spirit. We strive to create a welcoming and peaceful environment where our guests can escape from the stresses of daily life and find relaxation and balance.
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Dave Gold dave@davegold.com
Show Engineered and Produced by: Keith Bishop bishop.keith@gmail.com
Hi everybody, welcome to Exceptional Parents Extraordinary Challenges.
Speaker 1:I'm Angie Shockley and I'm here with Dave Gold, my podcasting partner in crime, and his lovely bride, julie, is with us today, and we have taken a bit of a sabbatical from recording our podcast over the summer, and we both had pretty busy lives this summer and lots of things going on.
Speaker 1:I'm sure we can do other podcasts just about that journey, but today we're going to talk about something pretty specific, and it's a follow up on a podcast that we did I don't sometime in the last year. I don't even know what it was, dave, but sometime in the last year we did a podcast and Dave talked from the heart about his daughter, who has been in this journey with us, even though she's not present with us. She's been in this journey with us since we started. But he talked about his daughter getting pregnant and then the journey to make the decision to end that pregnancy and to hopefully make different choices going forward in her life, and so what we're here to talk about today is how his daughter actually got pregnant again and ended up giving birth to their grandchild. And so, with that, I want to welcome both of you on today as the guests on our podcast and, dave, I will kick it to you to share the story with our listeners.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about jumping in the deep end. You got a kid, you got a daughter. She gets pregnant. You're terminated, gets pregnant again. You're a grandchild, yeah, ok, so now we'll fill in some of the blanks. So just to go back to those who didn't, were not present for that or didn't hear the recording or may have heard it it's been a long time ago. It's that my experience with my daughter and Angie's experience with me as a friend and a guide and a professional and a shaman and every other thing she could be in this, has been one of the things that kicked this podcast off as a running theme. And, of course, my wife, julie, who I don't think I've ever talked about other than loving and respectful terms, and it's not just because I'm on my best behavior, it's because she's a woman that I deeply love and deeply respect, who has been with this journey as well. So having both of you here is beautiful. To roll back, my daughter got pregnant and again, I can't remember how long ago it was.
Speaker 2:no, no no I have no memory, but it's. It's been at least a year and and this is something and I think we've had. Yeah, yeah, we've had this we've had this conversation before that, and julie reminded me of it that my, my biggest fear with my daughter wasn't that she was going to join a rock and roll band or something like whatever or sex, it was that she would get pregnant. That would be the thing part of that is teen.
Speaker 2:You were specifically worried about teen pregnancy pregnancy we missed that one yeah, hit the snooze alarm on her biological clock. On that one, yeah, we got lucky. Yeah, yeah, and. And so she would have been 21 or 22 at the time, if we can backtrack in terms of how long was the first charge.
Speaker 2:And it was a shock, if not a total surprise, and a lot of soul searching, individually and collectively, in terms of what was the right thing to do here, and we concluded that she was in no way equipped to have a child, to raise a child, and that we, julie and I, were not in a position where we could have just taken that child and made it our own For so many reasons. And we yeah, you want to add something?
Speaker 4:to that. It's not even that we weren't in the position.
Speaker 2:We just weren't going to do it. I didn't want to be a kid. No, I don't want no kid. We did not. That's not how we wanted to spend our lives and that went, so it's the best interest of everyone that that we ruled that time we weren't going to rescue her that way yeah, you want to say something about that we just weren't going to rescue her that way.
Speaker 4:She doesn't get to have child baby after baby and we just take them. That's not. We take them and raise them. That's not what we're going to do.
Speaker 2:That was, and I described with a great, I think, a detail and with a great deal of emotion the challenging part of that, the challenge of that, the aftermath of that, the tremendous support that Julie provided to me in the immediate aftermath of that in terms of just being so present and giving me a safe space to grieve.
Speaker 2:And there was a lot of grief and we could probably talk more about that. It wasn't just the grief of losing a potential grandchild or my daughter, losing a daughter or son. It was just more things than I could shake a stick at or articulate. And then one of our concerns was one of the reasons that she, I think she had the reasons she would have with getting pregnant is a lot of attention. She has a cousin who had a child without a husband and that just brought their family more together and now she had generations of people all caring for her. So she had this dream in her mind that we felt hadn't died. And now it's been gosh. About a year ago, but whatever, six, seven months ago I was out to dinner with Abby and she said I have something to tell you dad.
Speaker 2:It's not bad, but I want to email it to you. And I saw that coming. I came home and told Julie and we thought it's not too many things that could be, my daughter's life isn't that big and she said, dad, I'm pregnant.
Speaker 4:And this time she waited until she was past the point where termination was a was an option, and so I'm going to speak a little bit about my reaction, and I want julie to talk because abby, yeah, but I don't know how much your audience knows, I don't know how much you've talked about these particular details, but she's very street smart and savvy, so she knows how to manipulate people, so she knew exactly how to play that one you just wait until it's too late to terminate, and then you tell mom and dad and so at this point, her mother had it had for a while, her mother put up in a really beautiful apartment I Nicer than just about any place.
Speaker 2:I lived until I was 50 years old and was pretty much supporting her. And then, at this point, we're in a situation okay, she is going to have this child. What do we do? What's our relationship to her? And we hadn't talked about this on camera or whatever on a podcast, but my one I wasn't going to shame, I wasn't going to put any negativity to it, I wasn't going to go back and say you did something wrong, you got to do this, you got to do that. At the same time, I wasn't going to be supportive. Supportive in the sense of encouraging oh, this is great, you're going to have this kid.
Speaker 4:It was a constant whatever of walking that, that line and it was very different than the first time.
Speaker 2:I think that needs to be pointed out.
Speaker 4:I talked about that a bit it the first time. Both. I may not remember all these points crystal clearly, but you can, so you can correct. But if I remember right, I know that you were not supportive, but I don't think her mother was supportive the first time either, right, and you both felt like this there was only one way that this could end, and that was termination.
Speaker 2:I think it's a bit more nuanced. I think that's what her mother thought, but I think her mother also just was happy to have me be the heavy in this one and to have me be the one.
Speaker 4:I think her mother concluded she wasn't capable of raising the child as well she was happy to have you be the heavy, but I think she was mostly aligned with you.
Speaker 4:Yes, she was mostly aligned and so they did everything that they could, had every influence that they could on abby, which is difficult, she's not easily influenced in a positive way, but and she did she ultimately agreed to terminate. The second one, all of a sudden, was very different, for reasons that I can't say that I necessarily understand, except that it just felt right. It just felt right, and so David took a very different approach. He felt very differently about I felt very differently about the second one too, for one termination wasn't an option. So that's off the table. So now it's how do we deal with the cards that we've been dealt? So anyway, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I can keep going. I think that's great.
Speaker 4:You were like. You said you didn't want to bring a lot of negativity. It's not like in the first one, you said this is bad or you screwed up. You didn't ever say anything like that. That's not your style. But you yeah, you were very. Dave was very neutral and here I guess I'll be the first one to bring this up he this never really seemed to get under dave's skin, but it was something that I kept just coming back to Her mom's on the phone with Dave in the beginning, saying she can't take care of this baby, what are we going to do? And then in the next breath she's telling him how she's planning the baby shower. And she's planning the baby shower six months out.
Speaker 4:And she's got a guest list and, abby, you go pick out all the things you want to put on your baby shower list for people to buy and I'm like shaking my head.
Speaker 4:You can't do both this is not a situation where you can be saying Abby, you need to be contacting adoption agencies and I'm going to throw you a big party celebrating the baby's arrival and outfitting your apartment. It was just crazy except I'm used to it, but still I was and all I can do is just step back and just watch how this thing unfolds.
Speaker 2:I think, to summarize, the dynamics is that you've got my daughter, who's excited. This is a big thing for her. She's the center of attention. Her life's going to be different. That you've got my daughter, who's excited. This is a big thing for her, she's the center of attention. Her life's going to be different. You've got her mother, who is knows that she can't do this but at the same time, is excited about being a grandmother. And also it plays into their codependence, the positive aspects of their connection and many of the negative aspects of their connection. She's going to be the savior and they have something they can do together and something they can talk about and plan to work.
Speaker 2:And I'm here just as neutral as I could be. The only thing that I continue to impress upon her was that she needed to have an out. And if this didn't work out, that and Julie and I talked about this a lot what's the best case scenario? She can't stay with her mom and she can't live by herself. She can't go, move in with her mom. The two of them will get shot case study of something and it's not going to necessarily be a good one. If she's raising, if he or she is raising that environment, we knew it was a he at this point, and and so then, if that child's going to end up somewhere else, how do we pave the way for that, or prepare for that as much as you can, so that there are fewer and fewer bumps in the head that everyone has to take before it becomes clear this doesn't work.
Speaker 4:Well, you go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I was going to say specifically that it's not the fourth visit by human services to the house.
Speaker 4:We were just hoping and praying that this would devolve before the baby was at a place where he would get end up being put in foster care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you guys have talked about a whole lot of stuff in just a very short period of time there. So let's unpack a little bit of that, one of the things that I think is important to mention when you were talking about the first pregnancy and Dave, you touched on it a little bit, but it was that was the moment or the event or the light bulb moment for you that you really accepted that what you thought was going to happen for your daughter and you and your life and all the things was not, and I was with you for that process. I know what that was like. And so when I was mentioning grief and this whole thing, I think that was a level of grieving that you hadn't done before around that scenario, because that was your grandchild, that was your grandchild and you made that choice and we all talked about it. I was a part of that too. What do I think? My opinion didn't matter, but I 100% agreed with what you guys were doing, because you were right about that, but that you talked about Julie giving you a safe space to grieve. After that, it wasn't just grieving the loss of that grandchild, it was grieving another layer of that, what you thought life was going to be with your child, with your adult child, and then accepting what it's not going to be.
Speaker 1:And so then you fast forward to second pregnancy, and I think about a little bit about her mom's reaction to all of this, and it does seem so. I don't even know what the right word. It's a juxtaposition, really. What you're talking about, julie, and I'm also a stepmom we have that that in common is that when you're in the stepmom role, julie and I'm also a stepmom, we have that in common is that when you're in the stepmom role, it's a little bit of a different perspective on things. You don't see things so close up because it's not your child, it's your stepchild, and so you see it in a different way, right?
Speaker 1:And I know one of the things that comes up when I'm dealing with parents who get themselves into this position I don't get themselves into it, find themselves in this position is a lot of exactly what you just talked about of this can't happen, I don't know what we're going to do, this can't happen. And then what you said, dave, of oh, this is something I can do with my kid. Maybe she'll be different this time, maybe things will be different this time, and we know that's not a healthy way to interact. But I do see parents who get into that space when it doesn't happen, just specifically when a child gets an adult child gets pregnant. But it happens also when they move out or they've had these behaviors or they've gone to treatment and they've worked on these behaviors and things are different and then they move out and things go back to the way they were and the parent will swoop in and be the rescuer because, oh, it might be different this time.
Speaker 1:And I just think that's an important point in all of this because it illustrates that what you talked about really illustrates that of it can be different this time, and the duck is a duck. Dave has said this many times abby's journey is absolutely perfect and he has surrendered to that and accepts it as such. But that doesn't mean it's a linear journey either, and so this was a big old loop for you guys yeah, go ahead, but it's also it's a I don a paradox for everyone.
Speaker 2:Whatever the hell you want to call it, it's her perfect journey and you don't surrender your authority as a parent. And that's where there's no manual for that. You're not going to get it Because, no, it's her journey and, okay, she's pregnant, that's hers. At the same time, this woman didn't marry me to raise an infant. That's just not on the table.
Speaker 4:We can just point out, in case people can't tell, we're not 45, 50, 55 years old. Yeah. There are people that raise their children's children, and many times they're younger. Where does that leave that I end up raising his daughter's children by myself at some point?
Speaker 1:And this is something Dave and I talked about on the first pregnancy podcast that we did is how.
Speaker 2:I don't want to do a third pregnancy. No, we're going to stop at this one.
Speaker 1:But there was absolutely nothing wrong with Dave saying to me I don't want to raise an infant. Julie doesn't want to raise an infant. That's not where we want to spend our lives, and I think there are a lot of parents slash grandparents who would be afraid to say that, and so I think it's really important that you guys are sitting here saying it and not only is it not how you want to spend your life, but absolutely saying it. Not only is it not how you want to spend your life, but absolutely you know someone who's 70 years old and takes on an infant. What happens when that kid is 10 years old? What happens when that kid is 12 years old? Are you there? Are you not there? Are you setting that kid up for failure?
Speaker 1:There are so many layers to this and I think that it's taboo to talk about it, and we have to talk about it because everybody feels this stuff and so it's important.
Speaker 1:So I think it's important that you guys are sitting there talking about how you felt about it and how you felt about it the second time around and what that meant for you guys, and I remember Dave calling and telling me that she was pregnant, and it was that moment of huh I wonder how this one's going to end Because I knew she couldn't terminate, I knew that wasn't an option and I also knew in my heart that she's not capable of taking care of another human life.
Speaker 1:So I didn't have any idea, I didn't have any advice, I didn't have anything. And he said to me this is hers. Like you just said, dave, this was hers, this wasn't mine, this was hers. Like you just said, dave, this was hers, this wasn't mine, this was hers. And Julie, you said Dave was very neutral in this whole thing, which I think was the right thing to do, because it was not something to celebrate, because you knew it wasn't going to have the for your family, a happy ending with a blue bow on it because of your little boy, like that's not what it was going to be and you knew that going in. So, dave, maybe go back to the timeline.
Speaker 2:And again, I want to keep moving forward, as you always do. A great job of recapitulating is that people said how do you feel about being a grandfather and this is also the ideas that we have, because we want to have a story to tell people. I'm thrilled, I'm terrified. The truth is I didn't have any relationship to it. Yeah, I'm thrilled.
Speaker 3:I'm terrified. The truth is, I didn't have any relationship to it.
Speaker 2:What are you going to do when the aliens come down and knock on your door and ask to use your bathroom? It was that foreign to me and I would bring that up just to have the freedom to not know, to not have an opinion, to not have a story. And I just want again we just talk about giving people the freedom to not let other people require us to put a story around things. That I don't know how to finish the sentence.
Speaker 1:No, but I think it's a really important point and I will just say this about it your journey to having a grandchild was not what you would have ever planned or ever expected when you were holding Abby as an infant, when you were holding Abby as an infant. And so you're in uncharted waters when you get that call with a second pregnancy. You have no way to know what you should be expecting. And it's because you did your work. It's because you did your work around the first one and you went through that grieving process, and that's what gave you the space to not have a story or some kind of box that you had to try to make it fit into, based on what somebody else was going to think or judge you on, and I think that's important for everyone to know. You don't have to. It can be foreign to you and you can not have that emotional attachment to it. That's okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think there's another kind of box too, that when you were speaking a few minutes ago, it reminded me that it would have been so easy for us, for our minds, to race ahead. Oh gosh, six months from now, she's going to be given birth. She can't take care of the baby. What's that going to look like? Oh, she's going to try. It's going to be a disaster. The house's going to be given birth. She can't take care of the baby. What's that going to look like? Oh, she's going to try. It's going to be a disaster. The house is going to be just nothing but stress and chaos and drama, and we fast the baby doesn't get his needs met, and then fast forward three years from that from them. Some neighbor reports them and then cfs like that.
Speaker 4:And there's a a thousand of those stories that we could have written. We could have written endless numbers of stories. We didn't do that. Sometimes we had very sane discussions of okay, here's what we would like to avoid with whatever teeny little bit of control that we have or influence we'd like to try to avoid, but what we did was just give it up. We just surrendered, we, and we did something that I feel I just mentioned to Dave a couple weeks ago that I'm so glad that in my like late 20s I started learning how to be comfortable in not knowing, like how to be in the space where nothing's happening, how to just sit in that space of you don't know.
Speaker 4:Because that's exactly what we did. We just sat for six months in the space of we don't know, we don't know, and we didn't rush ahead and scare ourselves with the terrible a thousand stories with catastrophic endings. We just sat in the not knowing and, oh gosh, did that serve us well. It's not necessarily an easy thing to do. I really believe it's a skill that we develop as we go through life.
Speaker 1:Yes, I agree with you, and some people are never blessed with being able to sit in the unknown and they will race to those different scenarios and they will react to them. They will plan the baby shower, they will do all the things and when there's absolutely no way to know if that's going to be what needs to happen or not. And so being in that unknown is it is as hard as it is. It's a blessing because it stops you from living in constant stress and anxiety. It stops you from being reactive and doing things that aren't going to matter down the road. It allows you to just be present. Be present with whatever's happening, and that is a gift and it is a skill. You're right.
Speaker 4:It was a gift to Rowan too. Absolutely One hundred percent. You're right, it was a gift to Rowan too, it goes that way too, absolutely 100%, 100%. For Rowan.
Speaker 2:To be a safe space, and I am going to make a point, I'm going to move forward, and that is that I, both of us. I will speak for me, for both of us, but as me, that I am secure enough in my heart and the goodness of my heart that I didn't have to think, oh, I'm, I'm. I can't relate to being a grandfather because I'm too selfish to be a grand. I didn't plan on this and I don't want it, or or that I'm terminating this pregnancy because and I'm a son of a bitch for doing that it's something that, and I think so many of our listeners, they're just good people. They wouldn't be listening if they weren't good people, and they don't. I just want them to lean into the, their inherent goodness and trusting the goodness, even if the story that's coming out might not comport with what they thought, how they thought they should act with. Okay, another story, so let's move on. So so where the hell are we?
Speaker 4:You've just gotten the news that Abby's pregnant, so things are starting to Right, so Showers are being planned yeah showers are being planned and we're spending time.
Speaker 2:You know we're spending more time with her, but we is not me and part of it was and we talked so much about setting boundaries, which you two have been you guys put the shock collar on me so that I could put the shock collar on everyone else to set boundaries. But then I realized no, that doesn't work, it's no longer true. I can't just say you can't call me, because I don't want you to just think every time you get in a mess you can call me. I had to respond differently. The rules now changed.
Speaker 4:That was really important to recognize that all these things that had served me so well. This was not that this was everything changed, but not because not rules like oh you read in some handbook that when your daughter gets pregnant at 23, like then, the rules are different. It was only different because it was different. It was only different because you and I both felt how different this situation was, not because somebody told you that you needed to act differently, respond differently that's the key word is the response.
Speaker 2:We were just, and now the world was differently so responding.
Speaker 4:We were responding differently because what was being called forth from us was different and we could put stories to why that was different, but I don't know that any of that is true at the truest, at the deepest, most truth, true level. I'm not sure that any story we put into why this was different is actually the reason. All you know you're, you feel energy. Probably a lot of listeners feel energy. The energy that was inherent in this situation was completely and utterly different than the energy that was present in the first situation. That first one called for a response that was very different than this one called for. We both felt it and we both just said, oh, we don't understand it, but we're gonna.
Speaker 2:This is where we, this is where we are and I would say that my role as a fun, actually just kidding um that I was found myself I would give advice, which I rarely do, and I didn't.
Speaker 2:I had no illusion she would take it yeah the advice was it would really be helpful for you if you told your boss yet that you're pregnant. Okay, that's simple. You want to be able to go back to this job later. Don't surprise her and call her for the maternity ward. And I encouraged her to talk to an adoption agency. I said let me call the agency that we use for you. They're great people, and I realized that one. She was going to do whatever she was going to do, and so if I gave advice, it was not with the expectation that she was going to follow it only that I could articulate it and she could hear it, because we agreed she needed to hear certain things.
Speaker 4:And she wasn't going to follow them. And we also, dave, reminded Abby periodically throughout the whole pregnancy oh, have you called that adoption agency? Yet I really want to encourage you, which felt absolutely appropriate.
Speaker 2:And it was not because just keep all your options open. All we want to do is we don't know what's. None of us know what's going to happen. We're just going to respond. Just keep all your options open.
Speaker 4:And we want this. And you have to think about the baby and what's best for the baby and we'll be smooth as a baby. What's best for the baby and we'll be smooth baby. You know, putting that idea in her head Cause. Oh she, you know, to think about someone before herself is just, it's a new skill. That's not a skill that's ever been exercised in her up to this point.
Speaker 2:So let's get rid of it All right. Yeah, and I think this is another point for our listeners is there's such a difference? It's not a question whether you're giving guidance or reflection, it's really it's where you're getting it from. Are you giving it because you're best and you want them to, you want to change their behavior, or is it just in that moment, the the truth needs to, the truth should be told, and you tell it in very energetically. It's very different and, yeah, I guess, the next.
Speaker 2:So this is pretty much the how things are going and the interactions that are happening. She and I are spending more time together, more time on the phone, more interaction, and I am still mindful that I don't want her to use this as an excuse to just constantly be able to grab me whenever she wants me and jerk me around and, at the same time, to be available. So you just find your way. There's no perfect way. I felt comfortable, though. I felt comfortable and I had you, and I haven't had both of you guys and I felt comfortable too, like the first to go oh yeah, she's the community in the coal mine.
Speaker 2:And then, I think the real significant, we were at the shower and it was. You hadn't seen Abby. Have you seen Abby before?
Speaker 4:I hadn't seen Abby in years, like literally years. She and I had not spoken or been in the same place with each other since, whatever our last visit to Utah was I don't know how long that was a long time. It was a long time to get into it.
Speaker 2:It wasn't a punisher, because it was just what was appropriate.
Speaker 3:It was still so much manipulation on her part and yeah, you want to talk about the shower.
Speaker 2:What it was like you being there and seeing her mom and Abby's family and stuff.
Speaker 4:I had before the shower. There was a couple times that I'd heard Abby's voice talking to her dad and I said, wow, she sounds different, she sounds more mature, she sounds more steady, she sounds less. Yeah, but again, I, dave and I, have become, we've become more and more skilled at not drawing conclusions about things. So that's interesting, that's interesting. So then we go to the shower and I'm there face to face with her for the first time. She definitely felt awkward. It's not completely comfortable. I was pretty comfortable. I didn't know what to expect, but as soon as I walked in there I felt very comfortable and I realized I saw her. She was.
Speaker 4:She's not comfortable with people. She wasn't comfortable even though it was a huge shower. She's not really comfortable with all those people. She likes a fuss being made over her, but she doesn't actually want to be the center of everybody's attention center of everybody's attention. So she, and then toward the end, after eating food and doing some baby shower games, she came over and sat with us and just so, it was just Dave and me and her.
Speaker 4:And then Alex came over, her partner, and so we chatted a little and I could tell she was definitely more mature. So that's the big takeaway that I got was that and she even we actually got into a fairly deep for Abby conversation and she said, just being pregnant is really I've just really grown up a lot and I've really matured a lot. And I said, yeah, you have, I can see it, I can feel it shirt a lot. And I said, yeah, you have, I can see it, I can feel it. And now I can say I've been around her enough that she has, it's real, it's not, it wasn't put on, it wasn't a game, it wasn't a mask. She has really matured Now. She's still not mature. She's still not her biological age and maturity for a girl.
Speaker 4:Girl who was gee when she got pregnant had the maturity level of probably an 11 12 year old up to maybe 17.
Speaker 2:Now, yeah, 16 or 17 it's a really good example, too, of just not staying in the not knowing I. I said it too it wasn't okay. Now everything's going to be different.
Speaker 2:She said I wonder what? And it's just this curiosity that you and I, julie and I did that in terms of public conversations with people it's like a huh pull up a lawn chair. I wonder what the hell this means, and it was absolutely a pull up a lawn chair and allowing myself to to not dismiss and say, oh, this is as soon as she, whatever, she'll go back, but at the same time not saying, okay, let's have her move in, let's raise this kid.
Speaker 4:Or doing what you were just saying a few minutes ago. Oh, everything's going to be different now, Abby's not sure. So everything's going to be different? No, we're not doing that.
Speaker 2:I think we'll fast forward to birth time. So she was. They had made the decision that she was going to be induced and we were waiting for her to get the call in to be to go in and because she got right at the very end.
Speaker 4:She got gestational diabetes. She didn't make the decision.
Speaker 2:Let's get this over with. It was like, okay, this is what was. We were responding to the medicals and everything. So she, she over with. It was like, okay, this is what was. We were responding to the medicals and everything. So she, she gave birth september 4th. Just to give people a time frame, which was a wednesday. She went in tuesday, wednesday, and I wonder, tuesday, was it mine to go and spend my spend the night at the hospital?
Speaker 2:no it wasn't mine to do, it's okay. And then wednesday she gave. We went in wednesday and and I gotta tell you, we went in Thursday we gave birth Wednesday.
Speaker 2:We went in Thursday and I gotta say when I went and saw her, in whatever the room is, whatever they call those rooms, and there was Rowan, that's what she named Rowan, and Jude is my sister's part of my sister's name. She was Judy. So there was Rowan, that's what she named Rowan, and Jude is my sister's part of my sister's name. She was Judy, and so she gave the name Judy. So Rowan, jude was there, brand new, and I saw something. I felt like something had changed and something had I don't want to say died, it's more like it was completed. I don't want to say died, it's more like it was completed. And so much of and we've talked about this that, so much of the grief that we have, that I have, I'll just give it to myself that I had as a dad was just the disappointment over and over.
Speaker 2:Oh no, people aren't going to, she's not going to have friends, she's not going to do this, she's going to be, she's going to feel abandoned. You have all these kind of everything just has a charge to it all these life events that everyone goes through has such a charge and you just it's like you're re-experiencing the grief over and over again for some reason.
Speaker 2:In that moment, seeing her with the baby, it was like I felt like the charge had gone out of so much of that. It passed into a different time where I was no longer just reliving all the thing, all the disappointments of the past. It doesn't mean they didn't went away, it's just I wasn't reliving them. So I I have no idea what that was, I'm just stating that was one way that I knew things were very different we sat around you.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they were different for you, it was different for me, that's it was giving me my experience, and then it was interesting.
Speaker 2:Just a couple of other highlights was that I could feel my daughter was a different human being as a mother than she had been as just my daughter, and again, what that meant I don't know, but there was definitely something had changed. And also was interesting her partner, boyfriend alex, is a sweet kid but very with very, a lot of limitations, not much capacity, especially no capacity for tension, and so I'm not criticizing him, it's just strictly a diagnosis. He just can't. And he was making such an effort to step up. In that moment I could see he was just saying the things he's going to do and just being just doing a lot of things that weren't, that were pushing, but it weren't forced, and I respected that. I respected, oh, this guy's really, he wants to be in it for the, and we met Alex's dad for the first time and yeah, I don't. So that's, I don't know what else to say. Those were just, I think.
Speaker 4:I'll give you a little bit of yeah, please because I have the things that we had noticed very different things. Dave is her father and raised her, as he said, and I'm a stepmother and I'm also a woman and a mother. So when one of my first impressions walking in that room was she wasn't really holding the baby, like he was on her lap but he wasn't in her arms and when he was, it wasn't like, oh, most of the newborn mothers I've known mothers of newborns they've got. They're just gazing at their baby like they don't even see anybody who's in?
Speaker 4:there. She didn't look at him, she didn't, she didn't like, oh, he wasn't. He, probably, at the moment of his birth, didn't transform her life the way you often hear stories like my. All of a sudden, my life was different. Most mothers that you know tell that story. My life, my baby was born, my life was different. In that moment, everything her life was one way. My baby was born, my life was different. In that moment, everything her life didn't change, everything didn't change. And you could feel that when you walked in the room there wasn't that attachment. She didn't have that attachment and at the same time, there was nothing. If you didn't have that sensitivity, you might go oh, look at this, like the baby's with her, know, she's holding him, the father's so attentive to go change the diapers and oh, what does he need now? He needs a new, he needs a bottle. Let me make that. There was something that was not quite, you know, wasn't quite straight up. It was a little something was a little askew no that was Thursday and she was going home on Friday.
Speaker 2:Friday night. Friday night. She had the baby circumcised and Saturday they took him in for vaccinations. So he had a rough go of it. If you're just deciding you want to come down and incarnate into this world, just poking and prodding and cutting you, that would be a headache. And then Sunday I don't remember Sunday morning walking the dogs. So Rowan again.
Speaker 4:Oh wait, you're skipping something they had planned. So Abby didn't go home to her apartment with Alex. She went to her mother's house, which we knew because we've how many times have we said it already on this podcast People don't change, people don't expect change. We knew this is not a good idea. This is going to blow up in no time. Friday night she's at her mom's Saturday all day. Sunday morning you get the call.
Speaker 2:Sunday morning I get up and I'm walking the dogs, as is my want, and I look down and there's a text. I can't do this and I called her and my first thought is I don't know if this is acute or chronic. I think, from what I understand, almost every mom at some point thinks to hell with this.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, and it's within that first 48 hours.
Speaker 2:Yes. And then when I heard her, she was at her wits end. She had the baby in a crib. He cried all night, kept screaming all night, kept him up all night. She was just completely frazzled.
Speaker 4:Her mother was frazzled.
Speaker 2:I'm just listening to this and I'm thinking I'm still. I'm a novice at this. I want to bring in the pros from Dover. I came home and I had Julie listen to see what the diagnosis was and your diagnosis was.
Speaker 4:We got to go get that baby. It's interesting is that was ours to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we came in and Julie and I, we talked about Julie and I listened to a beautiful human being called Panache Desai in the mornings, and so we, we, we had the call and then we did panache, and both of us came out saying we gotta go get that kid. We independently going into ourselves in a deep place new and surprisingly enough, I did not get. I was prepared for some kind of battle with her mom or some kind of resistance and we got in the car and it's about it but abby wanted you to come get it.
Speaker 4:That's the other thing we have to say. We didn't just say we're gonna swoop in. She said that I need you to come get him, and that's when it was so clear to me there was no, yeah, we gotta go get him. We waited till an hour later after we listened to panache and then we went. It was really clear, yeah and going.
Speaker 2:It's the first time I had been inside that's the my formal marital abode, and I think it's the first time I've been in there in a decade and and I got it was so much. What was tragic to me and tragic's the right word is how the whole house was made to be a place for a baby. There was just gifts and quilts and hangings and the crib and they had set this whole dream that they had set up.
Speaker 4:And a room for the baby. He already had his own room with a full crib and baby clothes, months and months worth of diapers.
Speaker 2:And gifts, shower gifts, things that people had made for her, quilts, whatever and that's a side thing, but it's just. You could walk in there and you could feel the dreams that were not going to and I felt I didn't think at the time, but in retrospect how lucky we are that we stayed in the unknowing and didn't dream any dreams.
Speaker 1:Yeah, those expectations, because you've talked about it a little bit. But when you set expectations you're going to be disappointed. And there's the grief that Abby's mother is or will or has experienced is, I'm sure, grief that some of our listeners can connect with, because she set those expectations, because she had those dreams that things would be different this time yeah, and so we just in the right rhythm of things, without rushing, but without, and it was great.
Speaker 2:And there was a car. We took the car seat that her, that Abby's mother, had, and there was a volunteer fire station just like a mile from the house. So Julie took the car seat to the fire station to make sure we had it.
Speaker 1:It was convenient as hell. Oh yeah, you need a degree to do that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that was elegant. And then we put Rowan in and I sat in the back with my grandson and we drove and we came home. So what was that like coming home, or being home, or what do you remember?
Speaker 4:I remember nothing specific about that first day. But we just I went into mother mode, but also a little bit of healer mode. Like this, child has been traumatized, the last 36 hours have been really difficult. The last 48 have probably been we include a circumcision.
Speaker 4:That's difficult. All those vaccines, that's difficult, difficult. So just went into. We've just got to calm his nervous system, start. We just got to calm. He's got to be held and carried and skin to skin and everything is about him. Like right now, everything is about him.
Speaker 4:And I got to give a shout out to my own kids. I, they had no, none of us had any notice. I told them in the morning after we made this decision. I'm like Dave and I are leaving, we're going to get the baby, we're bringing him back. He's going to stay with us. I need you guys to do this and this for me while we're gone, some of which was just we have four, three dogs and three cats. Like, let's get all the hair all over the floor for this little new baby. Let's have him breathing as clean of air as possible. Like, just clean the house. And they went into while we were gone. They just cleaned and cleaned, no complaints. No, I don't want to do this, they just did it. And it took a whole team. That is just. It took a family and it took a whole team. That is just it took a family.
Speaker 4:Rowan was with us for 13 days and it was absolutely a family undertaking. It wasn't just me, it wasn't just Dave, it was Dave and me and my daughter and my son and all of us. Everybody pitched in and we gave him as peaceful of an environment as we could. He was in arms 24 hours a day. He was in somebody's arms. He was never like, literally, he was never put down. I raised my own kids that way. There was no option. There was no idea that we would do it any other way he was.
Speaker 4:One of the things I remember is that not long after we got home I put him in the front wrap and we went out and walked the dogs with him down the street and there he was just heart to heart, chest to chest, just outside walking, and he fussed a little but so quickly he settled you could feel him from. He just went from agitation to just little by little. He was settling by that evening. He just never cried Mm-hmm, you know. He just settled very quickly so that for the next 13 days he barely made it peep. He would peep to let us know I'm hungry. He never had to full on cry. He never had to scream. It was.
Speaker 2:Right and what we knew. And we knew because we knew it. We knew it because it's just so obvious, in the moment he, we were feeding his soul, we were feeding, oh, the comfort, the security, the love, the propinquity, everything that he needed and that's all that was ours to do. Of course I'm lucky because I got the pro from dover over here, who just that's the great greatest mom I've been. I'm not standing because she's here, she's just a phenomenal mom, that's just.
Speaker 2:I've been humbled about what it can be mean to be a parent by that. And so I knew that she was in good hands and knew exactly what to do. Mine and so one you could just tell we were giving that child what it wanted. And I wasn't worried that I would be if I brought that home myself and said what do you do now? Yeah, just hose them off, obvious. So that was beautiful to just know that we were just responding. We knew what and I had someone who knew what needed to be done. And for me it was beautiful to see my wife just with an infant, again a newborn. So that's what she's been happiest, as happy as I'll ever make her. It'll never be as happy as she is when she's holding an infant.
Speaker 4:I don't hold that against her, not just an infant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that particularly what's the chances? Yeah the funny thing was this was during we have a three-day anniversary, because that's how long it took for our love to be revealed, for us to work back. We weren't just buddies anymore, we were forever loves. And this was like during all we were talking about what are you gonna do for our three days? And that's what we did and I thought, oh my god, this is the greatest anniversary gift anyone could ever have this experience and we recognized that this was irrespective of that baby.
Speaker 2:That just was just such a gift for us, and especially for to be able to sleep there and just get up at night, get up another night and see that them just snuggled together and in the complete security that he had and he was a good baby at night. The rhythm very quickly, before you're looking at their watch when they're supposed to feed him and he knew when he was hungry and she knew how to feed him, and so that was just really beautiful.
Speaker 2:I'll get into the logistics of what was going on behind the scenes during this time, because it wasn't halcyon, it was so much stressful, but for me I held him and I just loved him. He, I held him chest to chest. I sang to him.
Speaker 2:My father was a singer and I just knew to sing to him and he loved my voice and he loved the resonation of my chest against him and there were certain songs that I would have an affinity for and I'd sing them. I made a little playlist that I would just play for him when we sang or whatever, and that was my connection. And so for me I can't get a scalp on him, I can't unscramble the egg of how much was him being a baby and how much was him being my grandson. But in retrospect I just loved this creature and it was starting to dawn on me I guess this is my grandson, but it wasn't, primarily because you know what I'm talking about it wasn't primarily my grandson.
Speaker 4:Well, we but it wasn't primarily because I you know I'm talking about, it wasn't primarily my grandson. Well, we talked about it that first night. You, I remember you asking me when we're in bed that first night, like do you love him or how do you feel about him? And I said, yeah, I love him and it's such an impersonal love. It was just, you know, he's a human being and he's a baby and I love this human being and I love this baby. It wasn't so much like I love Abby's son Rowan, or I love your son or I love Rowan.
Speaker 4:It was just this real impersonal love which is. There's just a beauty to that. I don't know how often we experience that we love because of some relationship we have with them or something, but to just love some another being just because they're alive on the earth?
Speaker 1:there's something really that yeah it's very pure, and I also think that it's really important that in this whole process, not one time did you take any kind of resentment or anger at Abby, or any of that did not come into play, because what was most important was loving this little human being period, didn't matter where he came from or what he did or didn't do, or none of that came into play, and I think that is equal to being able to sit in the unknown, is being able to sit in the truth and not be affected or influenced by the emotions that can come with. Something like that is just to put him truly. Put him first.
Speaker 2:Love overwhelmed the pettiness, and there's one thing.
Speaker 4:The pettiness wasn't even present. It's so overwhelmed that it was like it wasn't even. Yeah, that's what I mean we just didn't.
Speaker 2:It just didn't occur to us to be paid. Yeah, it wasn't like we rose above it because we're such noble creatures no, it's just like.
Speaker 2:And there's one thing too I think I mentioned this to you and I'm glad I get a chance to articulate this to others because one of them I felt so much more present and unconflicted and unconfused holding him that I had when I held my own daughter and I thought what is this about? And I thought it's not so much that I've evolved so much and maybe I hopefully I haven't 23 years, I just gotta hope something's going on in the background. But but it was more that with my daughter this is my daughter I have all these ideas. This moment should be this. I'm supposed to have this. What is this? There's a whole story that I'm creating because it's my child and it wasn't that way. I was just free to just love this kid and the fact that he's in my arms and I'm singing to him and he's just in heaven was just an experience in itself and that was that's.
Speaker 1:It's just a great gift and people can make of that whenever. I will say this I don't think you could, either of you could have really experienced that, but especially you, dave if you hadn't done the work that you've done in the acceptance of abby is who she is, if you were still in an enmeshed relationship with her, there's no way you could have had just that pure love experience for rowan, because it would have been connected to your expectations around your daughter.
Speaker 2:So I just think that's an important point for everyone to hear insightful and profound, and it's also that we think we know why we're surrendering or cutting the cords or going through the grief or whatever it is holding space. We don't know why. The benefits of it are beyond whatever and I don't know.
Speaker 4:I could talk a little about what was going on logistically behind the scenes, or we could talk more about the experiences wherever I want to say something and this might be fast forwarding us too much, but we have this theme in this podcast of not drawing conclusions and just staying in the unknown and staying present, and the other place that I really felt that was was at the end when we were surrendering him. I remember so clearly telling Dave because by then I don't have impersonal love, only impersonal love for this- little baby.
Speaker 4:I have very personal love for this little baby. Yeah. A few days later, and I remember so clearly saying to Dave he's never going to know, like everything that we did, he's never going to know how this little group of four people just put their lives on hold for 13 days and just tended to him and took care of him and I don't mean to say that my kids didn't still go off and do all their stuff.
Speaker 4:They did of him and I don't mean to say that my kids didn't still go off and do all their stuff they did, but and that he's never gonna know that. He came to us one way and and we gave him a peaceful environment and he left here in in peace. He's never gonna know that. He just never had to cry and you know what? That's okay. That's okay. He doesn't need to ever know it here because his whole body, it's every cell of that little baby's being that he got a reset and it's there and it's okay.
Speaker 4:So it's a little bit different than the unknowing. This is more about the ego. You know that, just laying down your ego. There's just so many things that we laid down in this story Just laying down the ego of any kind of like. I want credit, or I want him to know me or I need him. We made everything better for no, no, he doesn't. He doesn't need to know that, and it's okay. We just did what was ours to do. We just love that little baby and it's okay that he's never going to know the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he doesn't need to know the story and you're right, he will carry it in every cell, in his energy field, in his soul. It will always be there and his life, more than likely we can't really predict, but more than likely his life is going to be very different because of those 13 days than his life would have been if he had stayed or you had both said no, this is your mess, you have to clean it up. You had this child, you have to take care of this child, and then the level of disconnect for him and the level of stress that he would have been in, imagine what that would have been 10 years down the road, 15 years down the road. So for now, it's almost like you gave him a path forward in his life that he wouldn't have had.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it's not about the ego, it's not about the story, it's not about any of that, it's about a contribution to society. It's really a big picture, energetic kind of thing that you guys did, and from a place of just pure love, not a place of resentment or story or any of it. It was just, and I love the way you said it was ours to do. You did it because it was yours to do and it was the right thing to do at that moment and you did it, you know, and obviously you've said, surrendered him. So, dave, I think it's important to let our listeners know where the story goes yeah.
Speaker 2:And of course I've got a point I've got to make with that. And before I go forward with it, that in fact I don't even like telling the story. I don't even it's not cause I'm ashamed, I don't even. It's like it just was. And to tell the story, I got to put a story to it. Oh, the story, it was just so much, was it? What grace that is.
Speaker 2:And I think too that just the way we swaddled him, life swaddled us. We were held. We were really held in love and I noticed it in some weird way. I was in the midst of a. I just picked up an important client and project. And I was in the midst of a. I just picked up an important client and project and I was really going full board and then baby came. I couldn't even consider writing an email For 13 days. It didn't. It's just like when someone dies and you just go to you don't think about it. That wasn't me deciding, I have something bigger to do. That was just the love we were held in saying no. It's like when Julie and I became an item. I said we got the message don't bother working, just enjoy this, have it together, you can work later and we were all held. We were all held by grace this whole process. So what's happening? So well, we're settling into this and so we bring them home sunday, and I don't know if it was that night or the next day that abby says I'm ready, I want to give them up for adoption and her boyfriend's alex would. I don't know how to characterize it, but alex's parents had were part of a church and the church had a. They had a family or they, and they also had an adoption agency. That she was ready. They're great, they'll take care of it.
Speaker 2:I went up and I looked and I thought this is not necessarily without getting into all the details. It was too restrictive and too much I did, too many ideas, too many, too many limitations on what, who you needed to be and what you needed to be and what you needed to believe. That I didn't think that was going to be healthy for this child and so I went I can only call on and called Dave Gold in the hood Monday morning and I just started working the phones. I called lawyers, I called adoption agencies, that's what I went in, and Julie.
Speaker 2:Coincidentally enough, julie had called a friend of hers who had worked through an adoption agency here in the area when she lived here. She no longer lives here and got in the name and of all the people I called, that's the agency, without even remembering that's the one that we decided on and this is on a monday, okay, on tuesday. Meanwhile, abby's in raleigh, baby's here with chaplain hill, with julian it's about a half hour away and we drove to meet she and abby goes on the website of the adoption agency and said this is the family I think should like.
Speaker 2:It's fast really fast and we drove to raleigh. The next, on tuesday, met with the adoption coordinator from the agency who had already I gotta go say goodbye, say goodbye to the boy, but was she? I can, I can say anything. She's gone. I can make up all kinds of stuff now this is all true, but anyway, short version is we went and kelly, the adoption coordinator, had talked to the family who was interested in adopting and they were circling around just in case.
Speaker 2:So sunday we pick up the baby. Monday we're making calls. Tuesday she's we're meeting the adoption coordinator and the birth and the adoptive parents. So it's all just happening so fast and meanwhile her mother is. It's just like having a live grenade. You just don't know when it's going to go off. We're working all the. I'm working abby. And I have to say again and I hope this doesn't sound self-congratulatory, I was the perfect you couldn't have scripted anyone out of central casting who was better suited for this than me Of just being Julie's husband, rowan's grandfather, and handling my daughter, just managing all the dynamics, managing legalities, managing the adoption process.
Speaker 4:What day are we up to now?
Speaker 2:Tuesday, where we meet, we met Kelly and met the family, and Thursday we go back and met the family.
Speaker 2:We weren't named and Thursday we go back and I'm still, we're still holding it together. Is Abby still going to do this? Because she's still Abby, and I think just any mother would have conflicts and some mood swings or whatever they might call it. And Thursday she signed the paperwork to relinquish Rowan to this family and you have a seven-day period where you can change your mind and we had made arrangements for that Sunday to do the handover and it was really just a beautifully orchestrated day. We put something out on our neighborhood listserv and realized that some of our best friends in the neighborhood he's an amateur photographer, so Abby was going to go down withlex to get some pictures taken and come back and we'd get some pictures and then it was just this whole, and then the new family would come and take rowan away, take rowan with them at it and then like people can't see it, but I'm doing the home alone.
Speaker 2:How could this possibly have happened? Abby rolls a grenade in sunday morning and I wish I had saved the grenade metaphor for abby and not use it up on her mom. But she rolls the grenade in and says I need to spend one more night with my. I need to spend a night with ron. And this is I found myself no longer being the the pliable. No, you don't.
Speaker 4:Now I don't know that you told it, but one of these nights was it Wednesday night she said I need to have a night with him. I need to spend the night with him. I can't give him up until I've spent a night with him. Because she thought in her, like in her Abbey, the way she looks at the world. She thought that we had fixed him.
Speaker 1:He's going to be different.
Speaker 4:A couple of days with us. He's not crying anymore, so she can just take him. And we fixed him and so he wants to spend life. We drive to raleigh again to take him and she's oh, can you stay for a while? And we're, we're like talking, we're, and I'm giving her like tips, like oh, here, do you know, do this and do that, and he likes this and he likes that. And you know, giving her some tips and she's asking me more questions because she's feeling nervous. And then she's, you know, she's just dragging it, dragging it, and then it's four hours later we're still there we went and got dinner for him.
Speaker 2:We've got dinner, a really nice evening. Was complaining about any evening?
Speaker 4:Complaining about any of this. She then just said I can't keep him, I can't do it, and Alex wasn't on board for any of this. I don't know that we've made that explicitly clear. He was very clear with Abby that he couldn't do this and that he wouldn't do it. Okay.
Speaker 4:She was in between her boyfriend and her baby. In essence, yeah, he didn't do this because he's a mean-spirited young man. He knows himself give him credit. He knew he couldn't do it and he said it, so we took him back that night, no bad feelings. So then, when she says sunday, I have to know she's sunday morning. She said, no, I have to spend the night with them. We're just like no, you know you can delude yourself, but there's other people involved here. This is starting to affect other people, so anyway, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you threw that in there and I just said, well, no, you don't. She said, yes, I do, and I could tell it was like some idea someone's put in her head. And I said because what are two things that's going to happen. Either you're going to have a really rough night and you're going to unwind so much of the peace that we've infused in this child's soul we got him vibrating at a different speed and you're going to reset him.
Speaker 2:Or you're going to have a good night, you think you can do this and then that's going to be that's crazy, but there was no. I realize there's just no talking her out of it.
Speaker 2:So she wanted us to bring him and I at first this was a point I guess I was rescuing unfortunately, juliet slapped me out of it metaphorically, not physically. Well, there's no place to sleep, there's. I said I guess I'll go and just, we can't just leave him there. I'll go and I'll sleep on the floor there and make sure. She said no, you're not, that's not yours to do. She wants to come here. So they're on their way out.
Speaker 2:There's some drama that happened on the way out. More than anything, enough to say that it just showed her boyfriend's inability to cope with any kind of tension. And they arrive and she's holding him and mothering him in a way, and we go get pictures taken and we just said to abby, and we have a guest room for her room, and I said you can stay there with him. And it's like when we were there on wednesday night, time's going and, and then she said we're going to go now and she goes. But meanwhile the adoptive family wisely said they have a two year old, and they said we can't bring Rowan in here and say here's your baby brother. And then a few days later, so what are you going to know? You know that baby that was here before.
Speaker 2:So they said we've got, we're waiting till the seven days are up because they wisely, yes, yeah.
Speaker 4:By then they see that she is not reliable and and they're just scared for what this means for, mostly for their son and yes we could not, we did not feel bad about they made the right choice and we knew that so it's funny.
Speaker 2:It's like when I was a trial lawyer and you had all this stress going up to a case and then they continue it and you felt both relief and release and disappointment yeah, all at the same time and so the idea that, oh my gosh, we get four more days with them, or five more days because we had to wait until and they said we'll come Thursday at midnight 1201.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, we get four more days with them, or five more days because we had to wait until and they said we'll come in Thursday at midnight, 12.01. Yeah, and then yeah. There were six more days.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it wasn't four, it was six. Yeah, we were looking at six more days and we had seven. A funny thing was I never felt like I was suffering. Oh my gosh is where, like I didn't feel that new parent thing that you so often feel. You hear, oh, I'm exhausted, I'm not getting sleep. It was a bit interrupted, but I was getting sleep. But the seven days we'd had him felt like two or three, like they felt like three weeks. Our life did not resemble at all what had been happening before he came to be.
Speaker 4:And then we talked about six more days. Six more days, ten, seven. We're going to do six more.
Speaker 2:This is the part of the story where I look really good. It's obviously this mixed bag of oh, we get more precious days with this infant, and then also, we had, we were ready, we were. It was just. There's a real quick story of a book I read where the soldiers are on the Russian front, these German soldiers and they get to, probably going to get a leave after a year there, and they're on a train coming back and they stopped the train halfway and they say no, you got to go back. And they walk across the tracks and they go back to the Russian front. We thought we were going back to Germany for a while, but nope, it's back to the Russian front. So I got on the phone with her and we didn't feel resentful or anything.
Speaker 4:No, we just said this is the next thing for us to do, Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, still do. Yeah, I'll watch julie and she's phenomenal. But I also know that this is taking, it's true, burning up some of the oil reserves, and so I called the adoption coordinator and I said, hey, we're happy to do this, but I'm sure that you guys have some kind of a fund to help you get your adopt a family got off really cheap. They didn't have to take care of their the mother for seven months, so they got we gotta put the bite on her for a few bucks right now, that's fine.
Speaker 2:And I said we don't need respite care, I don't need to bring it. I said what I need is someone to cook for us and to clean. That's all I want. And she said done. And it was great because our Isabella's boyfriend, who's in the restaurant business, was able to do food prep for us.
Speaker 4:And that his boyfriend, who's in the restaurant business, was able to do food prep for us, and that just took this.
Speaker 1:That took enough of the stress off of us. Oh, I wondered what I was trying to. I was racking my brain thinking what made you look so good? Yeah, yeah, yeah that did it.
Speaker 2:It was the greatest love that I could was we had food.
Speaker 4:All we had to do was open the refrigerator. And not only that, but he was actually handing us plates of food a lot of the time. Yeah. Just the best. Nobody ever did that for me when I had my own no. I had people bringing things to the house, but I didn't have anyone sticking it on a plate and handing it to me.
Speaker 2:And I think it's also just a really good example of just self-care. That's when you go from an act of love to some kind of martyrdom. I didn't want to be martyred.
Speaker 1:I just want to take care of this kid he wanted to make sure that he continued to have that very loving, safe, calm, peaceful environment until he did go to his new family. And at the same time, you have to take care of your own family and I totally get that. Six more days is going to feel like six weeks. That's what you're thinking, how it feels that you're stepping into it. So I know you guys did great the next six days and all of that. Let's fast forward a little bit to when the family came and let's talk about this handoff. What was that like for you?
Speaker 2:guys thing that abby came out she wanted to be there for the handoff and I just said that ain't gonna happen yeah, no, come out that day no, I said she wanted to come out she wanted to and I said no, I said you'd come out the day before. Yeah, you want to talk about that and if you remember about that other than, it was sad.
Speaker 4:The thing that touched me most deeply about that day is abby out. She's sitting on the couch, she's holding Rowan and we got pictures. We were always taking pictures. Anytime they were together we were taking pictures. So she had those and we've got this picture of him in her arms looking at her. And so for 13 days we had this child.
Speaker 4:Abby had been with him, for he was born Wednesday night. Three and a half days, right, he'd been with her three and a half days. He'd been with us for 13. But he's sitting there on the couch and I had had seen this before, but we captured it in a picture. He's looking at her in a way that he never looked at any of us. All the love that he got, all the peace, all the calm, all the nurturing, all the you know tempers, and first never looked. And I didn't expect that. I didn't expect it. I was very aware of it the whole 13 days that we had him that he did not look at me like my own babies looked at me. He never once did that. He didn't gaze at me like my own children. You know, the second they're born, they're in my arms and they're looking at me like I have their entire universe.
Speaker 4:Yep, never looked at me that way and we got it. We caught it. We caught a picture of it. He's in her arms and she's looking at him and he's looking at her like you were the center of the world. Baby love, that just makes you just feel like you're falling into, I don't know, heaven on earth and it's my favorite picture of him. It is the most beautiful picture and it just tells you that mother-baby bond. There is something.
Speaker 1:Yep, you can't take it away, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 4:And there's no words to describe it. You can't take it away, it doesn't matter. And there's no words to describe it. You can't take it away, you can't, you can't describe it and he won't have that with anybody else. It's going to be different.
Speaker 4:He'll still have a bond, but it will be different, and every time he was with Abby, he perked up at the sound of her voice. I could see it. I could see the difference in him and I could feel the energy shift. He would hear her voice before he even saw her and he would do that kind of jerk his head and, like he did the same thing with Alex's voice, he would hear his father's voice and he would change. And's something he did with us again. There's so many parts of this story that are they're just, they're everything, it's everything, it's holistic. It's because that is heartbreaking, yeah, and it's incredibly beautiful at the same time that there is a bond between a mother and a child. That is there from who knows? From, we don't know, but I don't even want to get.
Speaker 1:No, that's a different conversation, but you're so right and it's, and it will be different. He will have a bond with his mom and his dad now, but it will be different. And I still believe that when a child is given that safe environment even though he couldn't look at you in that same way, he was given that safe environment to have an attachment that is going to change the way that his, the trajectory of his life. What you guys did for him and I think that is a really important point that you know, even though the situation most of our listeners know Abby's whole story so, even though the situation is what it is, that connection is there and it's something she'll always have as well. And who knows what this will be for her five years down the road, 10 years down the road, who knows? But yeah, it is, it is, it's beautiful and it's heart wrenching all at the same time.
Speaker 2:It's not any sense of what are we chopped liver?
Speaker 1:No, no, it's the reality of the biological connection.
Speaker 2:So to fast forward now to the end, because we've gone on a while, is so. Abby comes out Thursday. We described that Friday. It's pretty well orchestrated and they come out at noon and they're without just enough background so people can get a sense of the dynamics of it. They're a younger compared to us, a younger couple. I would say they're 30s, 40s.
Speaker 4:No, they're not younger, they're in their 40s both of them Mid 40s. Very active, 45.
Speaker 2:Very active 45. Very active, big lives, skiing, hiking. They have an adopted son. They have a very open adoption with their other son's parents and they're not the kind of touchy-feely people we are. So it doesn't mean they weren't sensitive and loving, it's just that it's a different kind of a dynamic there and we just spent an hour just talking. It was very organic, it wasn't.
Speaker 4:It was the right time and with rowan in my arms, which is interesting. Like I, I was wondering it before they came, like how what's this going to look like? And all you can do is just respond to what's in the moment right and what's in the book was that?
Speaker 4:just, I ended up keeping him and holding him while we chatted and then, all of a sudden, it was just really clear it's time to hand him off and, oh my gosh, like it was fine. I, you know, I didn't feel devastated, I didn't feel heartbroken, I and I also wish that I could say that I saw a baby in a new mother's arms, where it just that he looked like he was the new center of their world, and I didn't see that. I didn't see that. It doesn't mean that it won't develop it, just I didn't. Yeah, anyway, it's so hard to talk about these things.
Speaker 4:So hard to find the lines, but at the same time it feels like he belongs with them. And then so we got a bunch of pictures of her holding him and then of the dad. He took him for a little while.
Speaker 2:he wasn't as comfortable yeah, yeah, and I think the discomfort is more the audience rather than yeah, the audience than the role yes, yes, no, I think he's a great dad.
Speaker 4:Yeah, will you go ahead?
Speaker 2:I'm going to say, without we started the podcast here, we would talk an hour about the handoff yeah but. But enough to say. It had its own timing, it had its own rhythm and it played out perfectly. And it, and then it was time for them to go. It was time for him, for him to go with his new family, and, and he did. And what was it like that night without him? What was like for you?
Speaker 4:we laid in bed and talked about it a lot and poured our hearts out to each other. I it was a little bit of everything I definitely felt loss and I definitely felt grief and I definitely felt some really human emotion, like I just felt. I felt everything. I just felt a whole everything. I felt happy for him and I felt scared for him. I felt I felt like on my knees, grateful to life that I got to have this experience. How many.
Speaker 4:Being a mom is my favorite thing. It is the only thing that I. It's the thing that I most wanted to do and I've got to do. And my kids still live at home, so I still get to do it like every day. Of course, we're always mothers once we're mothers, but I cannot speak enough about how much I love being a mom. I will leave this life feeling fulfilled because I got to do that. It is that important to me. And then I get this incredible gift where I get to be a mom to a newborn for 13 days. A mom, mother, a newborn non-stop, not like being a grandparent where the mothers come and take their kid back, just babysitter for 13 days. I got to do that again and I got to do it with this guy who we never got to do it yeah, I thought about that, yeah we got to do it together for 13 days and it was such a togetherness he and I were.
Speaker 4:It brought us so close for those 13 days in a whole different way than we'd ever had closeness before. We were a great team. I felt like he really had my back and he was really watching out for me and he was a participant and at the same time, he was letting me take the lead with everything. He trusted me a hundred percent and I just feel like I was given this incredible grace that for 13 days, we got to change this little baby's life like you said, because I know his life is going to be different because of those 13 days and he changed my life.
Speaker 4:He changed my children's lives, he changed, he affected every single one of us and even people beyond us, my kids and other people who would come over and say, oh, I hear you have a baby, I've got to come. I gotta come hold the baby. Yeah, and then it was time for him to go yeah, and that's what I want to.
Speaker 2:I think it's time to speak to that. What do you guys now? You guys sit around and cry and want it, and it touches on some things we said before about having this having. I'm speaking myself. I'm secure enough to know I'm a loving man. I love everyone and everything without I don't miss them. I don't miss them and it's natural not to miss them. I'm not hiding or whatever the hell. The psychological terms, my repressing or whatever avoid it, and I I'll speak for myself and Julie can speak for hers. But it's a shared experience too, in a way. Is I loved him? I told you, I quoted Anash that said our job is to love and then make ourselves obsolete. And we loved and made ourselves redundant, and it gives us so much about what this is, just a continuation of the parent journey. You just love them and then how do you let go? How do you when, when, whatever? Do you actually let go and say, okay, I've loved them and now I can cause we never, she'll never move on from it.
Speaker 3:You could you think she's ever going to be able to walk away.
Speaker 2:It's the way walked away, oh no, or meet that sort. So it's not okay. Here's a lesson just love and then leave and it is a case study. Let's call it that's neutral, but it's a case study on how you can love and be detached. And love and I don't want to say be detached, because that word has so much baggage to it- yeah, but there's a loving detachment it's a neutrality.
Speaker 2:I'd say let's just use the word neutrality because that's so neutral you just love with this beautiful neutrality. And we got to experience that and we went in a couple weeks after abby arranged to to meet with the family and we were invited and we went, we met with them and it was nice to be with them and it was sweet to hold them and it wasn't like pulling the band-aid off again it wasn't right back again. Now we got to eat all over again it's like no, that wasn't and.
Speaker 2:And the other thing is and I don't know if julie, julie could speak more, but I was going to. They're not, we're attachment people. That kid was never out of our arms, it was perfect. That's not and it's not a judgment. It's just they have a very different loving way of raising and we just had to let go of that and not just like oh my god can trust.
Speaker 2:That is exactly what that child needs 13 days of being swaddled and having a heartbeat in his ear the whole time, and now he has a lifetime of something different. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm, I can't remember exactly when it was. He left us on a Friday and, like I said, I had all the emotions for about 24 hours and then it was just like it lifted. It was just like a bird that just flew away. It just within no time it had just transformed into this real neutrality, yeah, and it was just gone. The all the feelings that I had, from just sadness and grief and heartache to a little bit of oh, I can get a full night's sleep like it just all just it was just gone and it didn't come back.
Speaker 4:And, like Dave said, it's not because I was sticking my head in the sand, it's not because I was going, you know oh.
Speaker 4:I got to stuff this down, it just genuinely lifted. And then Dave said and you reminded me of something on Abby's last day. This was a difficult day for me, and I think it went into Friday too, during the handoff, because I was so aware that if somebody tried to take one of my babies away from me, I'm like, really you would have had to kill me, like you there would, I would not have. The only way somebody could do that was to render me incapable of fighting for them anymore could have taken my babies away from me yeah.
Speaker 4:I'm so aware, going into this, of being sensitive to anything Abby might be feeling. Might be feeling, not putting it on her.
Speaker 1:Just the aware.
Speaker 4:Aware this can be an incredible tearing and rending and just having my eyes out for that and being sensitive both for her and for the baby. And I didn't have any sense of that whatsoever with Abby. Like I said, we got that beautiful picture of them where he's just gazing up at her like she's the center of everything, but I didn't feel a tearing on her end. Of course there were a lot of tears, but I didn't feel a tearing and I didn't feel it with him.
Speaker 4:It doesn't mean it wasn't there but, then I also was going into Friday with that awareness of how's this going to be for me. Am I going to be tearing? And I didn't. I didn't feel a tearing. I felt sadness, I felt a bunch of things, but I didn't feel a tearing and I didn't feel like someone was tearing your heart. I didn't feel a tearing and I didn't feel like someone was tearing your heart out I didn't feel like, yeah, someone, yeah, exactly yeah, wasn't that?
Speaker 4:it was just you know, this period, this little, this chapter is done and there's some sadness that goes with the ending of this and then you, you know, two days later, the page had turned and we were on to the next thing. And then I'll tell you.
Speaker 4:Two weeks later, when we saw him Dave talked about it when we went to the, met him at the coffee shop and we got to see him again, that's when it really, that's when it really hit me I felt such closure. Then we're obsolete, we're done. Our work here is done, and it doesn't mean we won't ever see him again. It doesn't mean we won't, you know, go to his first birthday party when they invite us. But that, but our involvement. We did what was ours to do and it's done.
Speaker 2:Maybe the last word may not, because you know me better than that I was thinking about am I just becoming a crotchety old man? And I just and I was telling Joy, I said my golden retriever died a year ago and I still cry when I think about her. It's not that I don't grieve, it's just what's. Whatever, I don't know, whatever is appropriate or whatever is there and the freedom to just feel what you feel. What a gift that's been for all of us. Everybody on this screen right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, as I just think about the story, the whole story of this, the things that pop out at me is how incredibly present you've been in the whole thing. You know, from the moment you found out, throughout, you know it felt different, all the things, but you were just really present with it, the whole thing, with Abby, with Rowan, with the family, just present. And I think that is a key for anyone who might be listening to this and hoping that there's some nugget that's going to help them through their own experience. That being present, I think, is really important. And not telling the story, not creating a story with expectations or outcomes, and all of that, just really staying present with what is, because you can't predict, you just cannot predict. So staying present, I think, is an important point. And I think it's also important to reiterate the level of work that's been done with your family before this event occurred and everything the work that you guys have done as a couple, as a family, as a parent, a step parent, both on both sides of that, with all of the kids, the whole journey that you've been on. Had you not been willing to dive in and do the work and create healthy boundaries and hold those healthy boundaries.
Speaker 1:I don't know that this experience would hold the level of beauty and grace that it does. I think that it would have been tinged by your own limiting beliefs, your own soul woundings, and at this point you were able to put. Those were not the things that were driving this experience. The only thing driving this experience was love. I think that encapsulates why you've been able to come through it the way that you have. And there is no judgment. There's no room for judgment in this kind of an experience. There's no room for judgment. When a family situation like this occurs and we know that there's going to be judgment there's no room for that.
Speaker 2:There's only room for love and for grace and putting the child first, no matter what yeah, no, the only thing I would add to that is just widen that love, love circle is we were loved. Julie and I were life, loved us god, whatever I call it. Life loved us, god, loved us the universe. Whatever I call it, life loved us, god, loved us the universe. It's not that we were just such great. We are what we are. I'm really happy to be who we are and be married to who I'm married to be who I am, and but we were just. This was grace. We were loved and the love was. We were just in a, we were just loved everywhere.
Speaker 4:A little side benefit that I want to acknowledge is that, as we said earlier, abby and I hadn't communicated in any way for years, and now she'll text me and I'll text her. You know, she came back into my life and David used to say to me how do you think it's going to come about that you're going to come into her life again someday? And I would say I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 4:But this is what it was. Yeah, was yeah, and you know we are all we always have to. You know, have our ears perked for when we might have to set a boundary, or but. But that's not even the point. The point is that I feel really happy that we're connected again, and even if it is just, you know, on an every once in a while. And both of my kids reconnected with her too for the first time in here.
Speaker 4:And she and my son do a little bit of communication now and I think that's perfect, perfect. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. This experience has changed all of you. It has changed all of you in this dynamic and if we look at it from really the center of the universe, every soul, my soul, chose this journey, chose this body, chose this life, chose this family, chose this. Rowan chose this, his soul chose this journey and it has and probably will continue to provide opportunity for change for all of you, which I think is wonderful.
Speaker 2:We could go on forever, obviously, and I'm trying to figure out how you end this elegantly but we've got a new dishwasher that was supposed to arrive between eight this morning and eight tonight.
Speaker 1:And it just arrived, so it's time to end this. I know Julie's walked off the screen, but thank you, dave, and please thank Julie. I think this is just amazing for you guys to share this experience with our listeners, and we thank everybody for tuning in and, as always, if you have more questions, feel free to reach out to us. Thanks everybody, thanks, thanks, angie. Wow.
