What If Your Birthday Was Chosen For You

You can spend decades feeling like your story starts in the middle, then one DNA match changes everything. We sit down with Pekitta Tynes, a professional comedian, inspirational speaker, and the author of Thank God I Was Adopted Because DNA Is No Joke, and she brings humor and honesty to the parts of adoption that are hard to say out loud. Pekitta was abandoned without a birth certificate, moved through foster care, and was adopted at nine, which meant even basic facts like a birth date had to be guessed and assigned just so life could move forward.  We talk through what it really takes to begin an adoption search when you have missing records and big emotions. Pekitta shares the early clues that helped her keep going, the role of adoptee support groups in learning the language of adoption trauma, and the practical reality that some people will not talk, not help, or will disappear into silence. We also dig into the difference between closed adoption and open adoption, and why secrecy can echo for years in identity, trust, and relationships.  

Then we get into the DNA testing side: AncestryDNA, 23andMe, and deeper analysis tools, plus what it feels like to see a first cousin match show up on your screen. Pekitta is clear about the warning label here: DNA can give you answers, but it can also hand you truths you did not expect, so emotional preparation matters. We close with one of her best takeaways for adoptees and anyone carrying unresolved pain: write it down, tell the story, and let the feelings rise so you can finally process them.  

If this conversation helps you, subscribe, share it with someone who is searching, and leave a review so more adoptees and families can find this podcast.

Music by Curtis Rodgers IG @itsjustcurtis
Produce and Edited by  Lisa Sapp 
Executive Producer Lisa Sapp
Executive Producer Johnnie Underwood

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Transcript

Why Searching Feels Like Pandora’s Box

SPEAKER_05 0:13

Welcome to the So I'm Adopted Podcast, where we talk everything adopted. This journey is not one we take along. Together we grapple with raw emotions that surface from adoption stories. Stick back and go with us on this journey as we dive to adoption. Welcome, welcome, welcome to episode 21. 21. 21. We are legal, y'all. We are legal. Check it out. First and foremost, again, we want to thank you all for taking the time to invest in our podcast. And as always, I give Lisa credit for this. She was the brainchild behind it. Really just push the envelope at the appropriate season.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 0:57

Because if you had done this probably about three or four years ago, I would not have been a part of it. I would not have participated.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

That's true, because you was already hesitant.

SPEAKER_05 1:07

So everything happens for a reason. So we're just excited to be here. Today is no different than any other episode. An opportunity to have some conversations just about non-traditional relationships.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:18

Again, hit that like, hit that share button, get the word out. I will share with Felisa that I was having a conversation with someone who has been following us and they're adopted. They're in their adult years and they've always known. But they don't know how to start the journey of finding out. They have some intrepidation about opening Pandora's box. Right. And then I I said, Yeah, we'll, you know, we'll we talk about that. And you know, maybe you should come on the podcast. And they were like, I don't know if I'm ready yet. And I and I shared with her.

SPEAKER_03 1:52

I understand that.

SPEAKER_05 1:53

I I shared. I said, it's just like when you squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube, you can't put it back in there. And you never know how it's going to impact others. In addition, you never know how it's going to impact you.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Yes. And I can understand that because I, you know, when I first found that I was adopted, and after I got over the anger and everything else, I'm like, I don't know who's on the other side.

SPEAKER_00 2:17

We don't know what we're going to get.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

We can get good, we can get bad.

SPEAKER_05 2:21

Get nothing.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Or nothing. Right. So I definitely can understand her trepidation about even moving forward when she doesn't know what the unknown is.

SPEAKER_05 2:31

And the other challenge is when you get nothing, it's almost like you get another rejection. Because you sit in that silence and your mind can go many different places. So again, knowing that. But what she said was the episode that really drew her in. Which one do you think?

SPEAKER_03 2:52

I don't know. So many.

SPEAKER_05 2:54

I don't know. The one that drew her in was just us having candid conversations with our family.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Oh, yeah, that one was.

SPEAKER_05 3:02

And she said it resonated with her. It almost was a catalyst to make her start the journey. She wasn't there yet, but she said, I gotta go back in and dial in.

SPEAKER_04 3:12

Yeah, that was a deep conversation.

SPEAKER_05 3:14

It is, but it and wrong. But the larger picture that I want to encourage with the listeners, there's something about being in that circle with family and having those discussions. I think that is another reason why our ancestors sat down and broke bread together. That's where so much tradition, so many stories, so much of our culture was passed that was passed down. And now a lot of that is gone away because of the microwave society we live in. Yeah, I agree. You know, so well, hopefully, sooner than later, she will want to come on.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

We'll see.

SPEAKER_05 3:55

We'll see. We'll see. But she could the request she made was to get more information of how do I start that journey. So that's one of the things that we're gonna be putting on the docket so that we can help individuals start their journey of unpacking and finding where, because there's a lot of free resources that are out there. There is. And because there's this is a vulnerable community, there are people also that will take advantage of.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

Yes, and you have to be mindful, right?

SPEAKER_05 4:21

So if we can help with that in any way, right, in any way. That's that's our goal, and we want to be a resource to the community. So today we we're about to jump in, and I am excited, intrigued. I am too curious. Lisa, let's let's talk. And we we don't have our famous individual that we both normally would go through because we we're shifting gears, and because you know she's in charge, we can do that today.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

And it's our business.

SPEAKER_05 4:49

Indeed. So Lisa, let's go talk to me.

Meet Piquita Tynes And Her Story

SPEAKER_00 4:52

So today we're gonna go ahead and introduce this lovely lady sitting next to us.

SPEAKER_02 4:59

And Kim, can you go ahead and share who's sitting to my left and to my right?

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Piquita Tynes. Piquita Tynes is a professional comedian and inspirational speaker. Her forte is the impromptu comedian style performing routines off the top of her head by finding comedy and the immediate observation. Her quick wit affords her the opportunity to have a different performance at each event. Kikita is one of the who's who in the book Finding Our Place. 100 memorable adoptees, fostered persons, and orphanage alumni, written by Nikki McCaslin with Richard Erlaub and Marilyn Grotsky. Kikita is the author of the book titled Thank God I Was Adopted because DNA is no joke based on her memoirs and journey to finding her biological family through DNA testing. Kikita was abandoned without a birth certificate. She lived in a foster home and was adopted at age nine. She shares her journey through humor to delight all audiences about adoption, foster care, and DNA testing. After 40 years of traveling and exploring the world, Kikita returned to Newport, News Virginia to live. She spent seven years in Denver, Colorado, and 18 years in Las Vegas, Nevada. Entertaining and performing with comedians across the country.

SPEAKER_02 7:03

So it's very fitting to have you. Welcome, welcome, welcome. Okay to help you. The person you were just talking about. Right. So hold on. Perfect timing. Perfect timing. So welcome to our podcast. Absolutely so good to be so glad to be here. Just glad to be here. I'm just grateful you had the time because you are a busy woman. You know my time is challenged. Oh my gosh. So how we typically start our podcast be this ask one simple question. Okay.

Adopted At Nine After Foster Care

SPEAKER_02 7:36

When did you know you were adopted? Always doing that I was adopted, and I think at nine years old. Okay. When it was official.

unknown 7:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Living in a foster home, but officially being adopted, I was nine. So my adopted parents, I always say those are my parents, but they are my adopted parents. So based on our conversation that we will have, I will say adopted parents and biological. Okay. But if I say my mama now, you know I'm talking about my adopted parents. Yeah, because that's who I grew up with. Right. But I stayed with them when I was six. And it takes a while in the process, as you may be able to tell, you don't really know how old I am. But back in the day, back before the dinosaur, yeah, but my grandkids think I grew up with the dinosaurs. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was reading this book to my granddaughter, and she says, So, y'all, y'all, do you remember the erectosaurus? I'm like, No, baby, I'm reading about them just like you. So that's why I always have to say eras of time, right? You had to keep kids in your home for a while. Because when you made that decision to adopt, it was final. So now, nowadays they do things a little different. They may have a kid in their home, maybe like coming from a different country, and they was like, mm-mm, we're gonna need to send this one back. So you don't want that extra trauma in kids' lives. So back in that era of time, they did it for a reason. So my parents had me in their home for like when I was six, and then we'd go visit and maybe at seven. But in between that time, I was living in a foster home. And my adoptive mom was a third-grade school teacher at the school that I was going to. And I found out, you know, as I continued to do research, that my parents can have children. And when they found out that I was in a foster home at, you know, at the school where she was, right? So you know how the teachers talk the first grade. So I had this first grade teacher, then I had this second grade teacher. Automatically, um, I had Miss Times as my third grade school teacher. And so while I'm in this foster home, I see Miss Times ride through the neighborhood. I was like, oh my God, your third grade teachers be riding through the neighborhoods, looking chicken on you and stuff. But it was true. I was like, no, she was looking to see if she was see what we were doing, see if she was gonna be adopting. And then she had to go home and explain to my dad that when she went over to social services, she found out that yes, she wanted to adopt me and found out I had a sister. And the social service people said, Oh, no, no, no, no, we can't separate these two children. If you adopt Pakita, then you have to adopt her sister also. And so in that era of time, again, before the dinosaur, but not, I'm sorry, but you know, in the era of time in the 60s, you did, you know, do things that were very reasonable, really looking out for the children. Right. And my mom goes home and explained to my dad, you know that child I told you about at the school, she got a sister. My dad said, I guess we're gonna have two girls, right? So they adopt my sister and I. And about 13 months later, my brother came out the womb. Oh wow. Do you see what I'm saying? So they went from having no children to three children almost overnight. It's just an almost overnight kind of thing. So that's kind of like I always knew, and I have always been the oldest, you know. So I kind of know some things that was happening. My sister, on the other hand, not so much. She did not know. What's the age difference between you and your sister? Okay, so legally, because we were abandoned without birth certificates, my parents had to give me a birth date so I could celebrate my birthday. And excuse me, that was I got to celebrate my birthday on August the 12th. Okay, right. My sister, she we're like nine months apart, so her birthday is celebrated in May, right? Her name is May. Uh, she was born in May, technically, because they had to give us birth dates. So they kind of uh my mom's birthday is in May, my dad's birthday, everybody in my family's birthday is in May. Then I show up in August. Uh-huh. How did they decide the dates, the month, and it just pick something out the hat and see what no, for May, it was because of her name. Gotcha. Right. For me, it's like, well, we think she's the oldest, so let's just make them nine months apart. So when I have a birthday, and no, my sister has a birthday, we're both the same age for three months, and then I'll turn older. Right. So that's kind of you know how it came about when you have kids that are abandoned and they have nothing. The adopted parents have to kind of do everything, like starting all over again. If that yeah, to make up for what the people who abandoned them. So a lot of times people will ask me, Your mom gave you up for adoption. I was like, no, she didn't. We were abandoned.

SPEAKER_04 13:30

That's a different level.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

That's a different. So did they she abandoned you? Did she take you somewhere? Or girl, ooh, that's why I wrote the book. That's why I wrote the book. I'm gonna jump to the end of the story because y'all want to go to the end. That's where you were. That's where you want to go. That's where you want to go. No, you go ahead. I found my biological family, right? Okay, and I did 35 years of searching. So it's like, let's just say you saw me in the mall, right? And you said you look just like my cousin. I'm like, who? Who is it? Where are they from? Where they live, because I don't know, I don't know anything. I don't know when I was born, how old I am, what my real name is, where I'm from. So if you roll up on me with you look just like, I'm like, oh that's what I need.

SPEAKER_05 14:22

30 seconds 30-second timeout. So I was gonna ask this question, but then I've been listening. So you were you're born and then abandoned, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:32

At what age, age six, or no, I was abandoned probably about four or five years old.

SPEAKER_05 14:38

Okay, so your name, where did that come from?

Abandonment And How Her Name Stuck

SPEAKER_02 14:43

My first grade school. So everybody call me kitty boo. So y'all don't do that on a regular basis, don't do that. But kitty boo was my nickname, okay, right? So as I'm moving on in life, young kitty boo, kitty boo, kitty boo. When I get to to the school where Miss Nancy, right, she was the lady that we were left with. Miss Nancy owned the shot house, and that's a place where you go drink liquor illegally. And a man who was supposed to have been my father dropped my sister and I off at the shot house, told Miss Nancy that he was going to look for a job north, so north of New Burnows, Virginia, you know, DC, New York, um, and he never came back. So that's where the abandonment part came from. She was looking for him to come back, and he never came back. So uh one of her friends comes to the house and says, I think you ought to put kitty boo in school. And she was like, Well, I guess I should, huh? She looked old enough to go to school. Maybe we'll just take her over to the school. Now, they took me over to the school. Unlike you need 900 shots to get into the school now. You would back back in the dinosaur days, you did not need all of that. You said, I need to put this child in school, and they put you in school. It was kind of like real simple, nothing real complicated. And then you had to come up with a whole bunch of paperwork.

SPEAKER_05 16:25

It's interesting because you didn't have a birth certificate.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

So I don't even know how I survived life for real, but uh so when we get to the counter, the lady said, What is your name? And it's like kitty boo. The lady said, So what's your real name? I said, My name's Pakita. And Miss Nancy looking at me like, where's her name coming from? Because all we've been calling you is Pakita. Okay. When I get to first grade, Miss Manley, I'll never forget her. She says, Honey, what is your name? And I said, It's Kitty Boo, because everybody's saying that's your name. She says, Look, we're gonna need to get your real name. So she says, What is your real name? I said, My name is Paquita. She went to the board and she spelt it P-E-K-I-T-T-A. And that's the way I've been spelling it ever since. Wow. So Miss Manley is the one that spelt my name. But I enunciated my name to mean piquita. Now, Pikita means little one, it means little freckle. And look at all these freckles I got on my hand. Look at my face. I've got put I've got makeup, but it's it's some freckles on my face, I got some on my legs, right? So whoever was naming me knew what they were naming me. So remember, I said I know more than my sister knows because I'm the oldest. Okay. I later find out after finding my biological mother that my name was gonna be Poe Kita. I'm like, oh no, I can't do Poe. I can do financially stress. Well, I can't do Poe. I don't mm mmm. So it was so Poe, a Poe. Yes, we didn't have some hard days, but not Poe, just straight up Poe. Come on now. So, so what my biological mom told me was that when I was born, I had these freckles, and I had a Hispanic nurse, and she said, You should name that child Po Kita. Poquita, right? So bio mama saying, how do you spell that? It's P-A-Q-U-I-T-A. She's like, Oh no, not that Q U in it. So how do you spell it using English letters? Like, you know, the re so it's P-O-K-E-E-T-A. So we still back to Po-Kita. But when I enunciated it, Miss Manley heard Pakita. Ah. So I'm like so much. Thank you, thank you. Thank you, Miss Manley, for listening to that Pakita. But every day I gotta spell my name. That's all I'm gonna say. Every day I gotta spell my name. So there you go. That's interesting. But there's so much more to the story. Y'all know it's so much more.

The Hard Truth Behind Being Left

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Absolutely. Now, the man that was supposed to be my father was actually my sister's father. And when so biomar had a child before me, right? And that child got to stay with a family member, right? And that's what we did in eras of time. We did not outsource our children, you know, to another state. And so she got to stay with a family member. Then I come along, right? And then my sister comes along. And then I now I have a brother, right, from the biome. So when the brother was coming along, she says to the boyfriend, I think we ought to get married. And he said, Okay, they go out, they get married, and she starts to change her name on her ID and her social security and all that other good stuff. And a couple of weeks after they got married, she receives a letter in the mail saying that her marriage was null and void because he was already married. Go figure that one out. So she said she packs up all of our stuff and she moves us to a girlfriend's house. And he finds her at the girlfriend's house. So you can't leave me. She said, But you're married. That's like the straw that breaks the camera's back, right? And he said, Well, I'm gonna take the girls. She said, Go ahead and take them. Where are you gonna take them to your wife? Okay. He goes, gets us from the babysitter's house, takes us, puts us in a car, takes us down in New Purdue's Virginia, and that's where he drops us off at the shot house.

SPEAKER_05 21:51

So was the wife at the shot house? Oh, okay. He needed it all to just kind of go away.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Gotcha. But I think the wife was in the Area, and that's kind of the story that bio mom was telling me. Now, if you know anything like I know, people be telling some story. Oh, they ooh, they ooh, oh they you know that Jack Nicholson thing, some version of the truth. You like, oh come on, that's a real story right there. That's just a fabrication. That's downright out. You just feel it. Your teeth are gonna fall out for telling all these stories. But by your mom missed something, that's why she was telling me that part of the story. So I find out that eras of time is so important. So while she's having this child and me and my sister and the boy, she was not married. Okay, there is a stigma on women back then that if you have a child and you're not married, oh, you do, you doom, right? So she bio mom had my sister and I staying with the mother of the neighborhood, the husband and the wife team of the neighborhood. All of us had that family that kept everybody's children. So this couple kept about six or seven different single moms' children. We just happened to be one. So when the supposed to be father for me goes over to the house, it was the babysitter's house, but it really wasn't a babysitter's house. This woman was keeping us 24 and 7, right? She's not a babysitter. So when I find her, I said, So you was the babysitter? She said, Oh no, honey, I wasn't a babysitter. I was like, Oh, I'm sorry, like, oh, Jesus, I'm sorry. So she kept us and kept other people's children. So he went over to the house. She said, in her spirit, she felt like she needed to call her husband, who was working right down the street. But he was like, No, no, no, I'm gonna take the children, I'm gonna bring them back. And he done that. BioMon would do the same thing, go pick us up, go get, you know, you go get some ice cream and whatever you're gonna be doing, and you're gonna bring them right back. And so she let him take us in his effort of saying, I'm gonna bring them back, put us in a car, and again head down to Newcrews, Virginia. So this was in Washington, D.C. So I got a question. Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

So that's not your biofather. So my question is, what was what was the benefit for him to take the two of you and leave you down here?

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Because his name was on my birth certificate. He thought he was the father. But maybe I'll take these children because Biquita don't look nothing like me. You see what I'm saying? Like, you know how sometimes people know, but they don't really know. Like, maybe Biquita, not mine, but you know, she says it is, right? And they so close together. We were together, we broke up one time,

Finding Her Father’s Family First

SPEAKER_02 25:22

right? So my bio dad, okay, when I tell my boss, I found my biological father's side of the family first, and I'm so thankful that I did. Because when I find my bio mom, she says my surname, bio dad's side, is a Barnes. So I say to her, my my father's name is Barnes. She said, Oh, I don't even know no bars. You know, everybody knows Barnes is William Smith Jones. Barnes. Everybody knows Barnes, right? And I was like, Oh man, did we find the wrong person? I think we never we must have found the wrong person. So I give her a minute, you know. God does have his number seven. So I I stopped everything. I stopped talking to her for seven days. You know, give everybody time enough to kind of comprehend this new information that you have facing your life right now. So on that seventh day, I call. She said, Well, I remember a bond. I said, Okay. She said, he worked with me at the Abbott Hotel. And his family had already told me that he worked in the hotel business, went into the military, got out of the military, went back to working in hotels. So the Abbott Hotel is a hotel that was in Washington, D.C. I don't even know how long ago it was, but they worked together. And she said, I went over his house a couple of times. I said, well, one of those couple of times. You know what I mean? Just one. And I I was telling one of my girlfriends, and she said, Oh, Biquita, it sounded like you was an oopsie baby. I was like, ooh, I probably was. You know, you put you, you take you put it out, you put the game. Yeah, I was a oopsie baby. So that's kind of what happened. But because she was, you know, on and off with her boyfriend, you know, it seemed like that was my father, right? But that oopsie time where you went there one time, you know, you did a couple of times, one of them times y'all played too long. You, you, you, you, you, you got y'all know what I'm talking. You know, okay, dad, okay, dad. And so uh I come along. But I uh and I look just like my biological father's side of the family. He passed away about six years before I found them, and uh, but his family embraced me like I've been around the whole entire time. Really? Right. So when I first reached out to him, they was like, Yeah, look at her forehead. That looks just like I was like, Oh, Jesus, you could go for the forehead first, you go for the forehead first. But they my bio father has a twin sister, and she passed away last year. She was 90 years old, and she said, Honey, if the DNA say you some kind of us, then use some kind of us. Like, that's it. She started giving out phone numbers. She called people in DC to say, look, she getting ready to fly in from Vegas. Don't you all be having her running all around Washington, DC, looking for y'all meet at one hour? I was like, she is running some stuff, she was running some stuff, but she was so appreciative of you know me not backing down from them, right? I could be like, oh no, I'm sorry, I don't like y'all. You know, I'm just but I'm not that kind of person, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Were they aware of you prior?

SPEAKER_02 29:11

They had no clue, they ain't even couldn't even buy a vowel. So one of one of my cousins, he came into the house when we were all meeting and stuff, they had pork dinner and all that kind of stuff. And he came in and he paused, he folded up his arms. He said, Now tell us how you some kidnapped us. Because sometimes people trying to get into your families, like the fake kind of stuff, they be making up stories. So now I had to run outside to get the book, I had to go get my bio stuff. I had to this this book, the book that I know, and I had to go. Something else I had to do because he was like this. But it's always a fun. Now he's my best friend. You know what I mean? He the one that be like, You coming into town, you coming into town, I'll pick you up, because it was the convincing thing. And he said, Look at your forehead. I'm like, This is a forehead going around in the family.

SPEAKER_05 30:08

But it's legitimate because, again, that's their normalcy. Yes. And it's like, all right, now, not to say that we won't welcome you, but validate why you're here, you know. But that can be traumatic as well in how they embrace you because you're coming through, like, hey, this is who I am. This is who I am. I don't want anything from you all, just maybe a few answers.

SPEAKER_02 30:30

Yep.

SPEAKER_05 30:30

So it's fairly they show me pictures and everything. That's of you.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

No, no, no, no. I have no pictures of me. Okay. Because they didn't know I existed. That side of the family, they had no idea. They couldn't even bow bow. They couldn't call a friend using 50-50. They had no idea. Got it. Okay. Yep. So I am I am one of those people that they heard about on TV that you know it happened to other people, right? Uh, but it's not happening in our family, you know what I mean? And then I show up.

SPEAKER_05 30:59

So let's uh we jump jump to the end.

Foster Home Memories And Becoming “Mom”

SPEAKER_05 31:02

Let's go back to you being at the foster uh so what are your memories from that standpoint? At that point, did you have an understanding that this is not normal or this is not the traditional family, or because it was so many people? Like, what was your memory?

SPEAKER_02 31:23

If you have any memories from that, I had so so the foster home was is different. The mama Nancy, who was keeping us, she lived in the projects, okay, and the um her sewage became backed up. So you know, when you come into the projects, the road houses, I think down on, I don't know, 2026, 2000 y'all, okay, we're over there. And they wanted to know why was these children in the house, they're not on the paperwork. Right, there was a lady on the girl, girl on the paperwork who was older than me. I'm gonna say maybe 10 years older than me at the time, but she had a disability, you know, like slow, but not quite, but just slow, you know. And she was on the paperwork, but my sister and I were not on the paperwork. And Mama Nancy kind of explained, they was just kind of dropped off, and they like they gotta go with us, right? Right. So we became wards of the state, right? And being wards of the state, they placed us into a foster home that was near the school that I was going to. And that lady's name was Miss Giles. So older lady, her husband had passed away, but she took us to church every time church opened at first Baptist, second baptist. I think it was Second Baptist, Reverend Bird, I think that was his name. See, so I don't remember stuff from back then. Don't ask me what happened yesterday. Don't ask me what happened for breakfast, but none of that, none of that, but yes. And we were with her for probably about a year or two before we were, you know, adopted going into third grade. That was when we just before going into my mom's class, I was adopted. We I we both were adopted.

SPEAKER_05 33:21

So, how if you remember, how was it presented to you that we're gonna adopt you?

SPEAKER_02 33:28

Oh god, that's a good question. I don't know if it was presented, but it was one of those, we are now going to be your mom and dad, right? So, but for someone who has not been calling anybody mom and dad, right? My mom says we're going to the grocery store because now we got to get food for people that's growing up like y'all, right? So we go to the store and she says, You get whatever you want, whatever you want. We like, we ain't never even been in a grocery store before. So I think we might want everything, but right now I'm just gonna say no to everything. My sister is little, she's following along, whatever I say. We get to the cereal aisle. I was like, I think we want something like that right there. But my mom had gone so far ahead of us, right? And I'm like, I think we want these cocoa puffs right here. I think so, I think we want these cocoa puffs. And I was like, So what do we call her? What we call that lady that has gone all the way up there, and we all the way back here looking at cocoa puffs, right? And I was like, uh, we're gonna call her mom. We like mom, mama, hey mama, trying to bowl out, and she like, oh my god, I think somebody is calling me, oh my god. She turns around and it's like she is in much shock as we are trying to figure out which name because she wasn't at, you know. So I go, hey mom. That's what I call them. Hey mom, like that. So she turns around and she said, Oh yes, I was like, I think we want these cocoa puffs. And she was like, Yes, let's get the cocoa puffs. And there you go.

SPEAKER_05 35:17

So it was a I was gonna say, would you call her mom? You probably could have gotten anything in.

SPEAKER_02 35:21

This is what I'm saying. This is what I was saying, but we only knew because we're so young. But when Christmas came, that's all I was saying. She was trying to get it, she was trying to get us everything. Like if we said all, and she was like, Oh, let's get that, right? So, so I think it's like Christmas Eve, maybe the day before Christmas. She said, So, what is it that you want for Christmas? Because she's like mentally doing a checklist. I said, I wanted that doll, baby, that was all the way on the top shelf at the Sears. My daddy comes in the door, she said, You gotta go do that. That's what I taught you at the Sears. That's all she had on the real list, and I done put all this other stuff, but she wanted that doll, baby. So go ahead, you go ahead and ask me because you know I get distracted. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 36:11

So, but again, that that transition that's good. Like you said, from a from a young kid's perspective, yes, those traumatic deposits because that was ultimately that's what they are. You were shielded from some of it because of the age and just not knowing. Your memory is the grocery store.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Yeah, first time calling mama and cocoa posts, yeah, you know, but I remember being at Mama Nancy's house because she owned that trout house. There's always people running in and out, right? And I remember that. Okay. But Mama Nancy burnt up some cornbread one day, and it's a true story. And we always sat on the floor, and so we got we were looking out the back door, and she said, This cornbread is burnt, but I'm gonna need y'all to eat the cornbread, right? To this day, I love me some burned cornbread. I burned my cornbread on purpose, that's what I remember, right? Right, but there was always so much noise, so much activity going on, and it's not, you know, it's not an environment that you want your children to be in, right? But that was what was keeping Mama Nancy going, right? That's kind of her source of income living in the projects, right? And what I learned was she wasn't the only one with a shout out when I started looking for some folks, they were like, oh yeah, and true story.

Searching At Nineteen And Hitting Walls

SPEAKER_02 37:35

When I first started looking at 19, because in the state of Virginia, you can't start searching until you are of legal age. So legal age is 18. We on a podcast of 21, where there's some ages in between that 18 and 20. Yeah, but legally, 19 was the time. And when I started looking, I was working at the shipyard. Y'all know everybody living in the news work at the shipyard. So I had my badge on, I had a suit on, and I got a name. His name was Wallace Green. They said, Wallace Green knew your father, right? At this time, I don't know that he's really not my father, but he really is my sister's father. But I know that Wallace Green worked with this man that's supposed to be my father. I go up to the Burger King right there on Jefferson. I don't know, it's like 25th, something. There's a there's a day, day, day something, you know, day work. All these people are out there. After I leave the shipyard, I got my little suit on, got my badge on. I said, hi. Does anybody know of Wallace Green? Old man comes up off the wall, my chest starts beating real fast. I'm like, all right, I'm getting ready to find my biological family at 19. He said, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know Wallace Green. Young guy comes up right next to the old guy. Now they both at my window. And the young guys looked at him and said, Don't nobody know Wallace Green. Old man said, Yeah, I know Wallace Green. Don't nobody know Wallace Green. Old man turned around and went back. I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, it took me like another four or five months to find Wallace Green. But what I learned was the younger guy looked down in the car and saw that I had the badge on. He thought I'm, you know, Popo. I'm Popo. And Wallace Green owned the shot how. So now we look, we we looking for Wallace Green because he got the question. Don't nobody know of Wallace Green. So ain't nobody telling back in those days, they not telling now, etc. etc. So it took a long time to find Wallace Green. Wallace Green did not know who I was talking about. So as I continued on searches 35 years, but you don't give up. That is always the secret for any and everything that you're doing. Don't give up. Now, if you're looking for ammunition on how to blow up the building, give up, give up. But when you're trying to do something, you know what I mean? You're trying to get your education, don't give up on that. You're trying to search for your biological connection, don't give up on that because those are the themes that bring truth into you, right? And it helps you make those better decisions for your life. By me not having no information whatsoever, always took the higher road of things. You know what I mean? Well, you know what? I ain't even gonna smoke. I ain't gonna drink, I ain't gonna do drugs because that could be running in my family, so I ain't even gonna do none of that. And people are surprised because I do stand up. They like you. A comedian guy told me one time, he's like, You funny and you don't even drink. I'm like, nope. He took his alcohol and got up from the table, went on about it. I was like, I'm sorry, I I could sip on some ginger ale, put some lime in the cranberry juice or something. But I did want to talk to you, but he just like, uh-uh. But anyway, you have to make decisions. You truly have to make decisions, and and you need to stand firm on that decision. A lot of times we kind of vacillate, right? We do what we do on these ups and downs, and you can you can always do the oh woe is me. But no, because what I found, even me being adopted, abandoned, not knowing when I was born, I still don't know how when my birthday is. I still, and I never found my biological family. My bio mom told me, she said, I said, so so what I always wanted to know, this is is when was I born? She said, Well, I don't know. I was like, look, look, look, look, oh my gosh, what do you am I getting ready to collapse on this floor? I need to give somebody my emergency contact number because you know, this is what I'm saying, Lisa. I'm like, oh, we done found the wrong person. We like you have to know when I was born. And you know, because I do have that comedic flair, I'm like, so was it cold outside? Was the leaves on the ground? Let me help you, help me, help us, right? To this day, she has not told me when I was born. But my uncle, my uncle and I, we could be the same people, except for he is a man and I am a female, and uh, ooh, he probably like 15 years older than me or so. I don't know how to do the math with a calculator, but anyway, he I told him that I would celebrate my birthday this this year, August the 12th. He said, Oh, your birthday the 25th. I'm like, okay, okay. Well, because bio mom never put our names on our birth certificates. Back in the era of time, you always got to do that. You when women were at the hospital, black hospitals, they just gave them a form and told them fill it out and mail it back. That the I don't care form. So if you don't care, they ain't chasing after you to, you know, did you put your child's name on the form? So the oldest sister, she doesn't have her name on her birth certificate. I don't have my the my name. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. I know, I know. So you can put your children's name on their birth certificate. Well, I love how possible. I know.

SPEAKER_00 43:57

My question to you is. She didn't have y'all in a hospital. Yes. So when she left the hospital, she left with the children and a phone.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

There you go. So Vital Records has a form like that, right? That has her name and her boyfriend's name on there. But up at the top, it has no name for the child. So a lot of black people, your name ain't really on your birth certificate, or you had to go and sit in vital records to get your name, just depending upon how old you made. We made your ear. You ain't naming your child. So okay. This was in the early 60s. Early 60s. You can imagine what was going on in the 50s. I was trying to understand. I mean, I was born in the 60s. Oh, I'm sick. I was 62. I'm 67. I'm just looking at it. Yeah, it's the era of time. It's the era of time. But you do this for three. But when it was time for the boy to be born, his name was on his birth certificate.

SPEAKER_00 45:31

How old is he from you?

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Oh the difference. Oh, I think it's about, oh gosh, ooh, it might be like seven years. I'm guessing right now. I don't remember.

SPEAKER_03 45:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

But you know, sometimes the laws change, the rules change. But I'm like, well, three girls, and then you have a boy, you treat them different. You know what I mean? You can't, you don't want girls to go through the same thing you went through because we don't really know what you went through, right? Right. And now this boy comes along. And his dad and my sister have the same dad. Okay. Right. So I have other siblings from my father's side. You know. Have you reached out? Oh, yeah. Oh, we have unions and everything. I don't know, nobody. I'm like, could you put your name to it? But they invite me to different events and things of that nature.

SPEAKER_05 46:28

So if you're not having the identifying information, being able to get things, like you said, that journey of 35 years of searching.

DNA Tests, Matches, And A New Surname

SPEAKER_05 46:36

Is that what prompted you to go the DNA route?

SPEAKER_02 46:39

Yes. Okay. Yes. So so I do keynote speaking and I went to, I spoke at a conference. I was doing, you know, doing stand-up park and telling my story, right? And the first day, somebody said, Are you going to be able to attend the family tree seminar? You know, the conference, you know, what they they were doing. I said family tree. They were like, yeah, DNA. And then at the same time, 23andMe came out. Now, 23andMe was 99 bucks. I had to tell a lot of jokey jokes for that 99 bucks, but whatever. And Ancessory was not as popular. It was popular, but not as popular as that 99 bucks for 23 and me. But Family Tree offered more DNA analysis than either one of those. Really? Right. So here I got to spend a good 400, 450, 470, something. Yeah. So the charge card clear. So I did that. And the results came back on Thanksgiving. And I'm gasping for air while I'm looking at this piece of information. But it was so much information, right? That came through for me to identify. I'm like, what does this mean? But for the first time ever, I had a surname. So it was all these names that was popping up. And I'm like, I don't really know. I don't know these people, I don't know this name. I don't know these names. But I got a name. So for me, that was exciting. So I was invited over somebody's house for Thanksgiving. They was calling, like, are you coming? I'm like, oh yeah. Okay. But then I took the DNA test for ancestory.com and 23 Me and 23 and me at the same time.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

I did that too.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Drop you did? Okay. So now I dropped them both in the mail at the same time. Ancessory.com says your results would be back in four to six weeks. I'm like, cool. I go to my calendar, I mark four weeks, right? Because you got four to six. We're gonna start you at four and see what happens. One Saturday, like two weeks later, I'm in the office. You know, you can get more done on Saturdays than you know, people bother you and stuff in the office. And one of my coworkers ain't never been in the office on Saturday. Never been in the office on a Saturday, is in the office on this Saturday. And I'm like, I can't get no work done. I said, well, let me check my email. I go check my email, accessory.com and sent me an email. And I said, Well, yeah, I thought it was four to six weeks. It's only been two weeks. I click on this email and I go into my account and it said I had a first cousin Matt. I'm now gasping for air. Like, the the cube mate on the other side, Peter, you all right? I said, I don't think so. I don't think so. They like, what's happening? I was like, I have a first cousin match. And I'm like, oh my God, I have a first cousin, oh my god. The cube mate said, Oh my god, like who? Like, we all like, oh my god. She gets up, she comes over and look, and she said, I think you'd have found your family. I said, I think so too. Now what am I gonna do? And they tell you, you can reach out to them, you can send a message. And so I reach out to this first cousin. I'm so excited, I don't even know. I'm checking all the words on the on my little message, then I'm getting ready to send, but I don't want it to be too long, you know what I mean? Then I had like a second cousin match and a third cousin match, and a couple of a lot of fourth cousin matches. The third cousin match was the chief of police, had been the chief of police in Washington, D.C. This is him. When I reach out to him, he says, I can't believe that there is somebody in my family that don't know when they was born. He could not comprehend, could not even begin to understand. How is there somebody that don't know when they was born? What the what? Okay. Now he, Bill Ritchie, William O. Richie, you Google him, he he'd be doing a whole bunch of stuff, right? Um, H U, ran trap, all kinds of extra stuff, right? And he traced his family back from Cleopatra to Pocahontas. That's how he he's serious. So he had retired and he was going to this reunion, and they was like, Did anybody validate our family tree? They were like, Well, Auntie Susan, boo-doo boob, and boo-doo, and and they told us about he like, mm-mm, you need to validate. This is my third, this is my no, he's my yep, he's my third cousin, and he had another cousin that's with is my second cousin. Okay, he's the one to help me find my biological mom because he she is some kin to him on you know, his lineage on that side. And when he so we we talk, you know, via email, we talking all that kind of stuff. When he finds my biological mama, he don't even have my phone number. He'll have a phone number. He has to call my parents, and my dad answered the phone. You know, my dad, you know, like that. He's not the person that answers the phone. So he said, I'm sorry, you're looking for. He said, My wife ain't home right now. What's your name again? What's your phone number? He said, Could you tell her I found tell Bakita I found her biological mom? So Bill was tell telling me, he said, I sure hope you have told your parents you were looking for your biological. I said, they know, they know, they've been knowing for a long, long, long since I was 19, right? And so my mom, my dad is now calling my mom, right? And she now visiting one of the you know, sick friends. And she said, What now? Okay, well, let me call Bikita on her cell phone. Well, Bikita was in Chicago, she was getting ready to do a presentation. Uh-huh. I left my phone in my room on purpose. Okay. And I said, uh, when I get to the the session, they move the speaking engagements up. And now I'm up a little higher than what I thought. Okay. So I'm thinking after, you know, after dinner, whatever, I'm gonna speak. They was like, oh no, you gotta speak before and then I was like, uh now I got to run to the room. At the same time, I pick up my phone. You got missed calls. Now I'm running down the hallway trying to listen, you know. And I was like, oh my god, oh my god, he done found body. Oh, what my whole head went into this blur. Now I have to speak. Now it's okay for me to speak, but that probably wouldn't have been the best time for me to speak. You know what I mean? So, so that's kind of how I got the when you do DNA with for that friend that you were talking about earlier, you don't know what you're gonna get. You have to be prepared for everything the good, the bad, the indifferent. And it's 99.9% not what you thought it was. You know, like a lot of doctor people think their parents are Wonder Woman and Superman kind of thing. And they're like, no, your dad was in jail, right? Your mom was a drug act, whatever it is, you need to be prepared for that. But this is the thing that should not deter you from still searching because everybody needs to know that truth. Bill Ritchie, later on in life, after searching and finding my family, he tells everybody about it. He probably tells somebody about it right now, right? He finds out that he is a black man's journey for the American American Revolution. This was not black people stuff, but because of his search and his connection and finding people and finding who we are related to, he now and he wrote this book. After I wrote my book, and he writes the foreword for my book, and he talks about my book inside his book. I don't know what page it is, whatever page that is. Yep. So it's right there. Oh, okay. So it the the search that you do initially pans out to be so much more. He brings the so much more, right? Other people who are searching, they like you know, sometimes you're scared because so many people didn't fabricate it, right? You don't really know what to believe, but your DNA is not going to lie. People lie, but your DNA, your DNA stays the same, right? Right, and it is going to connect you to where you need to go in your biological connection. I know you got you, you your brain's smoking. I smell smoke. What's happening? What's happening?

Siblings, Identity, And Relationship Detachment

SPEAKER_05 56:50

So a couple of different questions. One with sister being younger than you. How differently did the adoption impact the both of you?

SPEAKER_02 57:02

Because I am one of those, I'm gonna take it with a grain of salt. Okay, right? It's not gonna really bother me as much, right? But I am aware of those things that do bother me. Like I am aware that my adoptive family is different than me, right? I am aware that my uncle and I, we share the same DNA and we so much alike, right? My sister, on the other hand, was very young when she when we were adopted, and when we were abandoned. And I do believe that she may have needed more care, right? Even from the lady who, you know, was the mother of the neighborhood, the one who before we were abandoned, she may have needed some more care. She did not get a lot of that care, right? We were taught good manners, but every once in a while you still need to hug, you know, you need that embrace. So that I do believe had a lot of impact on you know my sister. And how did that how did that show? After now, crossing eyes. So, all right, I'm gonna tell this story. My sister told her children. I like out of all the stories we remember, that's the one you want to tell about Auntie King. That's the one. So, so the girls in the school, in elementary school, they said they was gonna beat me up. Right. The girl said, So you think you're cute? I was like, No, you must think I'm cute. The girl said, Oh, we're gonna beat you up. We're gonna beat you up after school. So I go and tell my sister that the girls want to beat the young, my youngest sister, the youngest. Um, I'm an old, but uh, I tell my young, so I go tell her, and she said, Oh yeah, you go home, I'll handle it. And she went outside and beat the girl up. And I was walking home because I'm like, I can't, I can't, I'm a lover not a fight. I can't be doing a lag. So another time they wanted to fight my sister, and the girl was like, Well, no, I don't really want to fight you because I heard you can fight. Uh-huh. My sister goes to the girl's house and they had a little storm door, screen door, or something. And my sister kind of punched that out. And when she got home, my my dad, my dad had to go to the school. And he's like, Yeah, you ain't gonna be able to keep doing that because my dad got to pay for this storm door, screen door. That was like he said, she's very light-skinned, very light, like, and so people would ask, so are you black or white? And she goes, I'm black. So to there, you got you got that you gotta deal with, right? And she was short, but don't mess with her. Don't you can mess with me. I ain't gonna do nothing. Don't mess with her, don't mess with her. So that is her act.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:24

So it sounds like she took a almost a protection of you because you were the out front, the face, the more vocal one.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:33

Wow, yep. That's that's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

Like she felt like maybe she had to protect me because she she she just gonna be doing her little stuff over there. Like I saw my sister that she's gonna be doing. My mom would say, Oh, Bikita's coming, she's gonna talk for the whole family. You know what I mean? Because that's my personality, but not everybody has that. So you have to.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:54

So let me ask this question with the abandonment, the adoption, the abandonment, foster adoption, everything that's going on. As you all continue to get older, how did it impact you with regards to your outlook on relationships?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:10

Ooh, that is such a good question. I'm single for a reason. Because a lot of people don't, they don't, they say you're so you're so outgoing, you're very personable, but I still have detachment decided. Let's keep you at a distance, right? Like, like, don't get too close, right? If you get too close, I will do something and sabotage the relationship. Now, because I know I have that disorder, right? I'm very consciously aware as I've gotten older.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:43

But when did you recognize as a disorder?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:46

Last week. You know, like it's um probably because I've been doing this adoption connection to support groups since I was 19. I'm always involved, right? So you be you come into that realization soon, but you don't really know the impact until you look over your life. You know, and you know, people's like, uh, you she's not married? No, no, well, what's wrong with her? Let me pull out this list, but it's not a lot, right? But I'm not going to bring you what's so close. You know what I mean? And that's the part that is that's you know, a lot of people don't know now they know because of y'all on the podcast, but whatever.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:34

Well, we've been trying to here's the thing we we had to have conversations with our spouses because how we're wired is not the normal for lack of better. If there is a sense of normalcy, I don't I don't use that word anymore. Because why you do it the way you do it, correct? It's what you've been exposed to and how you have responded to the various traumas and the various experiences. Yeah. So that whole it's very interesting. I always ask that question about the relationships because it you're wired in a different length. I mean, if you're not self-aware, like you said, you can sabotage it and it's just that rinse and repeat. Yep. And it causes even more trauma because you're not calling it what it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:16

Right. You know, you're talking about you do have to know what it is. Absolutely. You have to know how how are you going to manage this, right? Right. And you you really need to know and let people know when they meet you, right? I tell I tell you up front, look, I am not trying to marry you and have your children. They think I'm being funny. I'm like, trust me, I mean exactly what I say when it comes to that, right? One guy, like, but if you if we'll be in a very good relationship, good three years. That's that's that's the magic number, right there. Three years, and they were like, Bikita, let's get married. I'll be like, so and that and and it crumbles, it begins to crumble the moment you say it because I'm up front, and now you're trying to overpower what I already struggle with, right? You don't like this good relationship we in has been in for three years, and yeah, I do, but but then ah so why why was 19 the magic number where you started, like you said, doing groups and getting the support?

Support Groups As A Map Forward

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Because that's in in the state of Virginia, that's your legal agent for being able to search, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:04:38

Yes, but even though you were searching, so did you find you're searching through these groups? That's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:45

Oh, I always wanted to know.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:46

I got it, but what made you start getting the support piece? Because it's one thing to search, but then to learn about this journey. Because like we didn't start learning until for me recently about how it impacts us. So when you said that you've been getting seeking support and being parts of groups since 19, yes, being exposed to some basic truths, being exposed to language that's helping you now learn while you look at it the way that you do.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:19

So whenever you're going out to search, so back before the dinosaurs, you had to you had to go to the library and do search. You they had city directories and you had to go pull the directories and you had to go and find names, find addresses, right? When you got to a certain point and you had to go call one of them public buildings to see if you can get some information and tell them what you're getting it for. Some people don't want to talk to you about the adoption thing. It's like, no, we can't do the adoption thing. But you get that one good person, because I'm friendly. Mm-hmm. I'm going to pull the information up out of you. Right. And they said, oh, they have a support group at one of these hospitals that was up in Denby once a month, maybe the last Sunday of every month. Right. Now, the first time I'm going to tell you, I don't like telling a story, but I'm going to rearrange some stuff in order to get the information. So, my first piece of information, I got hit when I was little and I was staying at Mama Nancy's house. Got hit by a car, and I had to go to the hospital. And from this hospital visit, not a visit, I had to stay for a couple of days. I received some money, and it was about $900. So $900 back then, did you say $9 trillion? Did you say $9 trillion? So in this hospital, and I knew I was in the hospital. People came in to talk to all the other little children and all this other kind of stuff. Now I'm 19 and I know I can legally search. I say, where I know I can probably get some information is from them hospital records, right? So I call that hospital and I go in there. I said, hi, and here's my ID. I am now married. I wasn't married at 19, but they've had a different name on them records, and I having to show my real ID and not, you know, not the bill. You know what I'm talking about back then, but yeah, no, this ID for me being 19, driver's license, right? And the lady said, Oh, okay, can you sign right here? Oh, Jesus. I signed my name, Pakita Tons, right? And I walked out the door holding a manila envelope held up to my chest like this. I was like, oh God, thank you so much, right? I ain't really fabricated, but they was able to give me that information. That is where I started. So when you want to go, right, you're not gonna give up. And I'm at 19, right? You're gonna keep going and going and going until you get to that result, to that end result. What's your bottom line? What are you trying to get to? And that is how I started by getting those papers. I found out that Mama Nancy, her real name was Elizabeth Reese. It was from those little papers because I got hit. Oh so I'm out there looking for Elizabeth Reese. They was like, no, no, no, no, Elizabeth Reese. Who is Elizabeth Reese? And I say the address. Oh yeah, Mama Nancy lived there. So I started putting two and eight and twenty-three together and said, Y'all don't even know that Mama Nancy's real name is Elizabeth. I know that. And so now I just say, Oh, Mama Nancy, you know Mama Nancy. So anyway, but that is where you start. Where do you where do you start? And someone told me, you need to go to a support group. So a lot of people have already done work. They've already done it. They've already know where that record is. Now they want to tell you. They go to that support group so they can help you find that information. That's kind of right. And I would listen to people's reunion stories. At 19, 20 years old, I would listen to their reunion stories. I would get so excited, so happy for them because I'ma have a reunion story too. It was only 35 years later, and that group dismantled and all kinds of extra stuff. But you know, it's the thought that there is hope that you can go and be able to don't lose the hope, man. Don't, don't, don't lose the hope. That's why they have the support group. So you don't get despondent. But you hear so many stories, you know, that one lady had come to the support group, you know, later on. Every every city that I've lived in, I've always gone to a support group. So when I was in Denver, I served on the board. And one day a lady comes in, and we knew that we go around the room and you say your name, see if you adopted, you know, are your birth mom? Which what what level of the triad? Where are you on the triad? Right. And and she said, I am here because my mom has passed, my father has passed, I am now cleaning up. And the Bible that was sitting on the table for the last two trillion years, it when she picked it up, a piece of paper falls out. She picks up this piece of paper, sees her name, and in Perrin, it said adopt it. So she caught, yeah, she's like 59 or 59. That's what I'm saying. See, so my parents are a little bit smarter than that. They were sure they didn't have no records. Oh, they wrong for that. We found out. But the thing is, I didn't know at the time when my parents passed, yeah, I had everything of theirs.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:34

Okay. Paperwork, my mom's naturalization paperwork when she became a U.S. citizen, you name it, I had their original birth certificates. I had everything in my possession. So if there was any adoption paperwork that was in there, I would have ran across it. Right, right. Not knowing at the time that I was adopted.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:54

Because I didn't know until I was 37. And did you know I was? Uh-huh. I knew you were. See. Uh-huh. That's it. Everybody knew but me. Yep. Yep. That's why I was so shocked when you told me you didn't know. I didn't know. But everybody knew that you're except for you. Except for me. Uh-huh. Yeah. And my husband. Oh, I thought telling his name. No, he didn't know. I told him no, I'm just giving it back to him. So when she says in paren, I'm adopted, right? She knew that she had a cousin that had put that family tree together. Right. She picks up the phone and calls and says, I think you made a mistake on this family tree. You got that. I'm adopted. She said, you're adopted. Everybody knows you're adopted. She said, but I don't know. I'm adopted. Now she's 59, 60. She don't have nobody's ass, mama, dad's already gone. But that was back then. So that's further back than the dinosaurs. That is further back. So now who do you go to? You go to a support group. So somebody can say, Oh yeah, that happened to me too. Right? So it makes you feel better. Where do she she's just where do I start? And as she she continued to come back and she found their graves and you know, little grave markers and all that kind of stuff because she's now old. So a lot of times now, but we mm we're in a in a different era. The people now they have Facebook, they talking about everybody that so my baby daddy has, you know, like and you know, all the baby mamas, right? They get together and go to the park, meet at the park at, you know, four o'clock, five o'clock. So it's it's different. Yeah. But you know what the real problem is now? And why November is National Adoption Awareness Month. But if we don't really say it, they're not going to talk about it nationally, because it's a problem now. The artificial insemination, you will find out after you take a DNA test, you got like 59 siblings. You know what I mean? You have all different nationalities because right, it's now become a purchase of some kind. And now people are really saying, I don't really need a man, but the kids gonna grow up and have to do these family trees. And then how do they explain it? How how did how do they explain it? That's like Carrie Washington. Yes, oh, did you read her book? Oh god, I was so good. I was like, oh my gosh, don't carry it, but she's she was 40, yeah. Like, really? You couldn't tell me, yeah. I'm I'm on scandal, you couldn't tell me.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:46

Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:46

I would have figured it out, but this wasn't how I wanted to figure it out when you know, yeah. You can't come on now, come on now. But it's so many people that don't know, and now it's getting worse and worse. So they don't really talk about our little safe adoptions. Our stuff is pretty safe.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:06

I was abandoned and your stuff, you ain't no you ain't even know, and your stuff it's interesting you bring up that point because it's like adoption is this stigmatism behind it. There's so many other things that you would think would have stigmatism that are normalized and accepted. Yeah, but like you said, the safe adoption where things are done and decently in order and certain things, uh you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:29

We but they do find out that it is so much better to let the child know that they're adopted. Don't don't hide it, like you know, the you know, they call them closed adoptions, and then they call open adoptions. Those closed adoptions in my era, people are struggling, they are struggling, yeah, right? And the open adoption, the people are struggling, but not as bad. The adopted parents is oh, I think you should know who your mama is. I think you should know who your mama let her come pick you up, you know what I mean? Give them a break if you really want to know your family so bad. Back in an era of time, the absolute last thing you could say to your parents was, I hate you. That oh gosh, ooh, I know we didn't say it, we ain't say it because we still here, right? Right, but we kind of said I hate you. Yeah, oh, let me show you what hate really looks like. Oh, you know what I mean? So my son told me that one time, and I was like, Oh, Lord Jesus, please don't let me kill this child right here. This one right here, this must be a real test. This must be a real test. So I said, Look here, come, you you're gonna need to go with me. You're gonna need to go with me. He's like, uh uh, you can go to one of the meetings, right? It was an adoption support group meeting. He knew that I went to him. Okay, he just didn't know what was happening. And so when he I take him to the meeting, I sit in the back. We sit, we sit in the back. Normally I sit on, you know, on the board chair. I say, but he went man, I'm gonna need to sit in the back. And they went up in that room and they say, I'm looking for my mom, I'm looking for my daddy, I'm looking for, I'm fine, trying to find, I could never find I'm it just went all around the room. I'm adopted, I'm a birth mom. I wish I knew my family. I'm all the way, and then they got to me, right? And I say, you know, I'm adopted, and I bought my son here. He's not adopted, right? He's not adopted, right? I made a choice to raise him, and so that's all I say. You know, a few few other few other little things, and then as we walk into the car after the meeting and stuff, my son said, Mom, I'm sorry. I was like, all right, done. And we never, ever, ever, never heard that because you now look, son, there are people that's looking for their family. Your mama right here. Yeah, take it for granted. See what I'm saying? And a lot of people, when you say take it for granted, they take it for granted that we all know when we were born and how old we are, and where we're from, and life is just great, right? Don't take it for granted, appreciate what you have in life, appreciate where you come from. The most disturbing thing for me that I heard while I was searching out, talk to someone, and they said, Oh, I ain't talked to my mom in five years. I be like, I'm looking for a mom, right? Right. I don't really have a mom. I talk to her almost every day, sometimes when she when she knows when she answered the phone. And then I talked to my dad at a time when he ain't really supposed to be answering the phone, right? So, but people that you ain't five years, what in the world? Yeah, what are you doing to your internal system when you ain't talked to the person who gave birth to you or the the the sperm count that came from the dad that created you? What are you doing on your inside? What could they have done, right? And people say they the parents have done a lot of stuff, and you still need to forgive them for all that stuff, whatever the stuff, whatever, whatever it is, write it down, right? And then read it out loud and then burn that up and forget him. I mean, I I you know, I don't, I don't, I got other issues, but that is one of them things that bothered me so much when people said they did not talk to them or their dad. And they said, Bikiti, you don't know what they did. I said, Do I really need to know? Right? Because sometimes it's the way you have interpreted it, right? If I had uh held on to anything with my biological mother, she didn't even know who my father was. Right? Why would I be mad with you if if I was the oopsie baby and it was just oops? And I'm now telling you at she was I don't know, 75 when she finds out that I she she had an oopsie child from from my biological day. She just finding this out, and you told her. I was the one that told them at 70-something years old. So you yeah, you talk to them, see what happened, because you don't know where they've been, right? You don't know what was happening, you don't know what was going on, you did you just don't you don't know, but you're here and you can't hate them. Or you know, I have to take you to a support group meeting and see what see what happens, see what happens.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:06

So let me ask this question about the support group meetings.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:10

Is the requirement that you have been adopted or have adopted a child? Um, and the reason I'm asking because like we're in our journeys, we know our, we've done the research and things. Would it be offensive if we were to go in to those groups? And again, I'm asking because I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:29

You know, it would not, because that group is to help other people. Since you've already been through the journey, since you've already been through a process, you have already identified some things in your life, you now are prime to help. There you go, to help somebody else that doesn't even know where to begin.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:57

But the question again, you don't know what you don't know. No, and you don't know sitting on this side of the table, there's a concern of if I walk in here, are they gonna look at me a certain way? Are they going to X, Y, and Z? And then it's you know, you just don't know. And then because I'm very sensitive to the journey, I don't want to cause any other trauma because I have the success story. I have markers that have been, you know, impactful. You know, so being able to discuss with somebody who's willing to say, no, it's for support. It is a revolving door where because it may go in there and I may see something that's like, I never thought about it that way.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:39

You know, always look at what you have done, it is going to help someone else. One person, two people, a half a person, quarter of a person, it is going to help. Your experience is almost like you know, being in your experience is the testimony, right? That will get the fuel going for someone else, right? And you don't know what it's going to take, right? But your journey and your success to remember when I was in the support groups, I was like, I it's hope. There is hope, right? And that's at 19.

unknown 1:23:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:22

And now we at this age and stage and having found right, so that again provides that hope to someone else.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:31

So the other question would be this, and listening to you now, your social and emotional health seems to be very positive. Very positive. Was there any time that you carried resentment?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:44

Not resentment. Okay. But you know, whenever somebody used that, they mean forget everything I just said and go with what I'm saying now. Right, right. I really truly wished that I had taken even more time to find people. Because when I left Newport News, Virginia, I went to Washington, DC, right? Well, Alexandria, Virginia, right? So you know, you're working in Washington D. Same different that metropolitan area there. And that is where my biological family was, and that's where they still are, right? And I said, maybe if condition, I had to spent more time. But then I said, you know, everything happens for a reason. Like you said earlier, I wouldn't have been ready. The sister girl on this side right here, she would not have been ready when I was in Washington, DC, in my 20s and 30s. Right. Right. And another thing that I always thought that if I'm in a relationship with somebody, is that my cousin? You know, like, is it like a half-brother or something? Like, I don't want, yeah, that kind of stuff kind of runs through your head, right? So I talked to white boys. So anyway, and I found out through my DNA, I'm 48% European and 52% black. I was like, that was more likely me and my cousin than you know, but anyway, those are things that I think about now. But you know what I think about more now because I'm I'm settled, I'm more sure. I was like, well, I think I can get married now. Like they ain't no way around and get married, I push them all away. Like, come back. The person's name start with a K, you know, but it's but it's it's like we don't want to say it's too like, but it's in a different frame in my mind. Yes, right. More more settled in the thoughts. Yeah, and I'm not gonna really push your way, but don't come crazy, crazy. You know, don't don't don't have two earrings in your eye. I'm gonna have problems. I already know I got problems. You got two, you want to borrow my earring, what? So yeah, so you know, you just come, come more correct.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:07

So let me ask this question as we get ready to I guess pivot a little

Write It Down And Don’t Give Up

SPEAKER_05 1:26:11

bit.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:26:12

What having your journey and being able to reflect back on all of it? What would you say to somebody who is struggling that doesn't have the strength that you have right now, that they want to give up? What would you do? What would you say to encourage them, to help them look at it from a different way? I'm not even gonna say encourage, I'm not gonna say push, but just what would be what how would you speak to them if you had the opportunity? What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:46

I would say if you heard anything that I've said, don't give up. Now the journey is probably different for you because I do believe everybody's journey is different, and we're so you know, unique individuals, right? But as you are taking your journey, write some things down, it kind of helps you, it guides you, it kind of leads you, and the the flow of what you have written will help you come to a realization of where you are and where you're going to go. So if you could write it down, a word, two words, now people feel if you can identify these feelings, like back in the dinosaur days, people ain't feel, they didn't feel. If they felt, they brushed it off. And could not identify the feeling, but we have so many resources now that will help you identify what you're feeling. So write it down. It it when you write, it gives such a release in your body, in your spirit, in your mind, that it helps you continue. A lot of times when you're writing, you stop, you want to stop right up in here, right? I will tell you, I knew that I had not dealt with a lot of my feelings until I started writing a book. So when I talk about writing, I say write because the feelings are going to come up. And it will continue to come up. And next thing you know, you've purged a lot. In writing that book, I told the people that, you know, when I was in this book, in this book, they said, Pakita, you really need to tell your story. And I said, you know what, it'll take me about six months. I'm gonna type. And I began to type. And I got to a section in the book where I was, I was missed Bethel High School. I had to uh maneuver around some things to get my parents, so I ain't really tell them. I ain't get them to do nothing. I just ain't even tell them I was even in the page. So you guys just worked in the realm until my play play aunt, she ain't even, she's some kidney you, but my play play aunt calls my mom and said, So are you going to the pageant? My mom, what pageant are you talking about? And it's like, yeah, Bikita came over to borrow her dress and it starts in I said, next thing I know, I done won the pageant. And my mom comes up to the stage, like, so you won the pageant. I was like, oh, I'm gonna be in trouble. But right now, they are having an after party for the winner. And now I'm gonna need to go. Okay, because I'm the winner. They've been talking about it the whole, like three, four days, putting up little flyers and everything. My mom says, okay, she takes me to the the house and says, When you're ready to leave, let us know, and I'll come pick you up, and your dad to come pick you up. I said, Okay, I go to the house. They open up the door and say, What are you doing here? And I said, Well, I thought it was for the winner. They said you wasn't supposed to win. I said, Okay, I'm gonna need to call my parents. Now, my mom has barely walked in the door, and now I was she said, So what I said, now that hurt me so bad, right? I've already maneuvered around some things to get to be in the pageant, and now our Caucasian cousins is telling me that I wasn't even supposed to win when I'm writing that came up. I couldn't even write for three months because that hurt so bad. I have just regurgitated it, and now I have to deal with it, right? I have to deal with that feeling. So, what I concluded was how do I keep going? Because if somebody tells me I ain't supposed to do something, that you can think is gonna be the only thing I'm gonna do. You know what I mean? And it all came from here you are, 17. They telling you what's supposed to win. So that's how I know, like for a person who is really struggling, everybody should write a book, whether you're gonna publish it or not, just write that book. Because again, it pulls, right? And you it gives you time to to to resolve some things in your life. Like a lot of people don't even know why they do certain things, and people spend so much time suppressing, like you're drinking, smoke, what da-da-da, you know, woman because you don't even know what that trigger was, how far rooted rooted is it? It ain't even the onion, the onion is up here in a couple of little layers. Some people stop, right? So, right, not just being a doctor to being in foster care, but just a human person. Write your story down, right? And you will find, let's say you won't get it published, but at least your grandchildren that you don't know, your great grandchildren, they'll get to know the you that they are a part of. That's that DNA thing. You are part of that person, you are a part of that person now. Whether you do all the things that they do, right? That's a whole different ball thing. I'm gonna tell you about my uncle now. He's a he is not a comedian, but the man is so funny. He said when people in DC see him coming, they just bust out laughing. I'm like, what? So write it down.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:53

That's all I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 1:33:53

Did that answer the question? It did, it did.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:56

And you you transitioned automatically because when you said resources initially, I was like, well, perfect, we can go right into

DNA Warnings, Book Plug, And Farewell

SPEAKER_05 1:34:02

the book. And definitely, thank God I was adopted because DNA is no joke.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:08

Yeah, read the back. That's that's my favorite section. What did it say? If you don't want to know the truth, don't take a DNA test.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:19

Now, I'll be honest, that's why my wife won't take a DNA test. Because she don't want to know the truth. She said she don't want to open up Air Doors box.

SPEAKER_02 1:34:28

Yeah. Uh-huh. That's so true. But what are the questions that you have of that the DNA is going to bring up? Were you was somebody you heard somebody say something when you was 10? Right? Did you hear something? Are you unsure? Maybe I think that's when you want to know.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:51

But even and I did the ancestry.com. And like you said, when you got that first message, I remember typing a thesis. Hey, this is who I am. It just and the one thing that one thing that I've learned in my my first mom, that's the language that we learned. I was not sober in how things started. And I I was excited. I was 40 plus years of waiting, and it's just like, oh, I it's got to come out.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:24

So the safeguards is being able to support somebody as they go through the journey. So as I'm listening to you again, check out the book. They get it on Amazon. Amazon.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:35

Amazon.com. Amazon, I heard it. If you catch me, I got some in my trunk.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:39

There it is. You got some incense too? Chew sticks over raisin cookies.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:46

Don't mess around. Got some sweet potato pie. We're about to cut that. About to cut that. Okay, then. Okay, because I can't even show up at nobody's house this time of year. Don't have no pie. Why are you here?

SPEAKER_03 1:35:58

Why are you here? You don't have a pie.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:00

So I I want to say thank you for the transparency. Yes. You definitely opened up some traumatic portals that you have healed from when you've done the work. So we don't take that for granted. We don't take it lightly. Are you on a social media presence? Nope.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:20

Nope. Somebody hacked my account. I was like, uh-uh, uh-uh, you got to catch me at the library. That's a yeah, that's a lot of people. I'll be at the library trade, yeah, around town, something. Yeah, because uh she's out, she's actually out in the streets. Uh-huh. She's outside. Outside. That's she is outside. When I come, you be like, oh my God, that's her.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:42

Here we go. So again, thank you from the back of my heart. Yeah, but we really do appreciate the investing in time. We appreciate you all for investing the time as well, just to hear the unique stories about non-traditional relationships. And we encourage you to seek out the support groups. Look, Google is your best friend, find a support group in your area. DNA doesn't cost $99 anymore.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:10

$69. Right.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:12

You got ancestry, you got family tree. 23 and me all types. Just be mindful, make sure that it's valid of what you send your DNA to. That part. But hit the like, hit the share. If you have any comments, please send us an email. Uh, we definitely respond to emails, and we're looking forward to connecting with you all. Any questions? If you have somebody that you say, you know what, they would be a good person for the podcast, let us know. Yes, we're here as a resource for you. So that being said, I'm John.

SPEAKER_02 1:37:42

I'm Lisa, I'm Kikita, and we are adopted.

SPEAKER_05 1:37:46

Thank y'all very much. We'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to the So I'm Adopted Podcast. We hope that this was informative and educational. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at So I'm Adopted. Also subscribe to our YouTube channel, So I'm Adopted. And again, thank you for listening. And until next time, make the choice to begin your healing journey.