Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Each episode will feature a conversation between host Rebecca Harvin and foster/adoptive caregivers or members of the community who support foster care and adoption.
Behind the Curtain: Honest Conversations about Foster Care and Adoption
Forging Lifelong Bonds: Navigating Foster Care and Adoption Through Friendship with Danielle Browning
How does a missed meeting at Starbucks transform into a lifelong friendship that helps navigate the challenges of foster care and adoption? Join us as Danielle Browning and I share the story of our unique bond, forged through shared experiences and mutual support. We open up about the unspoken rules of friendship that have been our lifeline as we journey through the complexities of parenting children from hard places. Through candid conversations and shared laughter, our friendship has become a source of emotional stability and reassurance, illuminating the path through some of life’s most demanding moments.
Danielle and I dig into the profound freedom our friendship offers, a space where we can express difficult truths without fear of judgment. Whether it’s a road trip filled with anxiety or the everyday struggles of post-adoption life, we stand by each other as unwavering pillars of support. Our bond is the epitome of a "ride or die" partnership, showcasing the importance of having someone who truly understands the intricacies of the adoption and foster care community. We navigate the unpredictable paths together, celebrating the resilience and strength found in our shared journey.
From the pride of watching our children reach significant milestones to grappling with dreams that didn’t turn out as expected, our conversation touches on the highs and lows of motherhood and friendship. We reflect on the complexities of relationships, the evolving bonds with our teenagers, and the joy that comes from supportive connections amidst life's challenges. The episode wraps up with a lighthearted lightning round, sharing what brings joy to our everyday lives, from delightful homemade treats to inspiring podcasts. Tune in to experience the warmth and wisdom of a friendship that is as rewarding as it is resilient.
Hey guys, thanks so much for joining us today. On Behind the Curtain, I am your host, rebecca Harvin, and today my guest is none other than my very best friend in the foster and adoption world, danielle Browning. Danielle and I became friends at the very beginning of our journeys and we walk you through today some of the unspoken rules that have guided our friendship and have made it what it is today, which is an unbreakable bond that we use to cope with the ups and the downs of life as adoptive moms and, for me, for a long time, as a foster mom. And I just want you to know that today, as we're recording this introduction, that just this morning I sent Danielle a text that I could send to literally nobody else and Danielle called right afterwards. That is the mark of this friendship, that is the joy of this friendship and that is the safety of this friendship. That is the joy of this friendship and that is the safety of this friendship. It was a text that I struggled to write, even as a mom. I didn't like the things that I said in the text, and Danielle answered it with such graciousness and such candor, and her ability to hold the hard helped move me through my morning, so I hope that you enjoy this conversation. I hope that you learned something about friendship here. I really hope that this is a gift.
Speaker 1:Also, and I do need to say this, you probably should not listen to this conversation with small children around you. If you listen while you drive, I'm going to suggest that this is not one that you do that if there's small children in the car. You hear more colorful language in this one than any other podcast that we've done so far, so that's your warning. Do what you want with it. Enjoy the conversation. That's your warning. Do what you want with it. Enjoy the conversation, danielle, welcome to the show. Um, first, cheers, cheers. You are the. You are my friend that taught me to love mimosas.
Speaker 2:It's a great beverage. Everyone should try it. You can um. You can count on me for beverage adoption For mimosas.
Speaker 1:I remember when you first anyhow, this is beside the point, but Danielle pours like 90-10. And when I first started drinking mimosas with her, I was like 10-90.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we just gradually Even out to 50.
Speaker 1:Okay, welcome to the show. You are here today. We're going to talk about friendship and why friendship is so important to this foster care and adoption journey, and it is, in fact, the thing that has centered our friendship is. We became friends because of this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you want to tell everybody how we became friends.
Speaker 2:So I'm not actually sure why Rebecca puts up with me the inauguration of our friendship. I stood her up at Starbucks and just like never showed up.
Speaker 1:I was at Starbucks or Starbucks, it was Starbucks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had planned to meet up just to chit chat about starting up our adoption journeys and connect on really like mindedness about adoption, and I never showed up. I just like completely forgot about it. And you know that is tried and true to who I am. Uh, she, she put up with me and rescheduled.
Speaker 1:Uh, we sat at a coffee shop and chatted and, chatted and chatted, and and here we are and I think our first cough, like when we both showed up to it, it was like three hours, four hours or something like that.
Speaker 2:I mean it felt like the entire day, but also like two minutes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we both left and we're like whoa, I found somebody.
Speaker 2:This is my soul sister, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so from that moment on it was.
Speaker 2:We could not have anticipated the journey.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely not. But we were both. We we met cause. A mutual friend said hey, you guys are both adopting from Ethiopia. You should, um, you guys should know each other. Yeah, you did adopt from Ethiopia. I did not adopt from Ethiopia. Um, brad and I became foster parents and we ended up moving around the corner from you just as a pure coincidence, and it could not have been better timing. The joy of my life In the two years that we lived around the corner were so necessary to both of us. It was your first year home and my first year fostering.
Speaker 2:First year home, first year of parenthood.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Double whammy.
Speaker 1:Double whammy and I had only ever parented a six-year-old and a four-year-old at the time. Right, you were halfway helpful. I was like I don't know what to do with this, but it establishes like prior to adoption we talked regularly, even then, Like you would call when you would be driving into work and we would talk in the morning. But post-adoption, talk about that.
Speaker 2:Post-adoption called you every morning, called you every evening and sometimes in the middle of the day. Sometimes in the middle of the day Because when you are a new mom, and a new mom to kids from hard places, sometimes it's hour by hour. Yeah, and I did not get. It was not acceptable if you didn't pick up your phone.
Speaker 1:It was not acceptable. Oh well, I think that this I think we should talk about like our first when when I asked Danielle to come on the podcast with me. First of all, I want you guys to know that both of us are a little bit nervous about putting our friendship in the in on the stage, because, one, it's so precious and, two, we're no holes barred, and so we're both a little bit like, ooh, what can we talk about in public, because you would never publicize our actual phone calls ever, no, never.
Speaker 1:But when I was talking to her and I was like I want to do this, I want to get friendship in front of people, one of my thoughts was we have these unspoken rules in our friendship that just became and they just and we've never like sat down and analyzed our friendship. But there are real things between us. One is it's a standard phone call in the morning on the way to work.
Speaker 1:So if our phone rings between seven, 30 and eight, 15, um, we're picking up we're picking up, but also it's normal and we anticipate this phone like this phone call is one of the ways that we um manage our weeks and our lives Right, and we're using this for a lot of different things that we'll get into in a little bit. But there is a rule, unspoken until eventually, we started naming it If the phone rings outside of that time, it is an emergency and it is, you answer immediately, you answer on the first ring. It doesn't matter where we are, it doesn't matter what. I could be at a friend's wedding and I would be like, oh, I need to go take this phone call.
Speaker 2:I have left work conferences and stepped out. I have been on the toilet.
Speaker 1:Like my phone rings and it's Danielle and it's not morning time, that is a red alert. And so one time it happened and it was shocking because I was like hey, what's going on? And she was like, oh nothing, I was just going to get dinner and I wanted to talk to you and I was like how dare you?
Speaker 2:How dare you ma'am?
Speaker 1:Okay, hold on. I have to, like my nervous system has to come down because I thought something was like exploding. And so now, if there's ever that time, we answer it like, hey, nothing's going on, I just have some time and I was calling. Those are nice, those are nice. Those are so nice when it's just like, oh, we can just talk and it's not because our life is falling apart. Yeah, so unspoken rule number one calls outside of normal. Normal calls are an immediate answer, and I know that I'm so in, for instance, when this happens and it's me on my end and you can talk about your end if you want to.
Speaker 1:There was a time um, it's 2024, back in January of this year, that I sent a text. I didn't even have the capacity to call. I sent a text that was an absolute red alert I need help right now. And my phone rang within literal seconds and Daniel was on the other side saying okay, all right, tell me what's going on. And then what do we do as soon as, as soon as we're on the phone together? What does that look like?
Speaker 2:Uh, so there is, I would say, enters unspoken rule number two there's no judgment. Yes, and I know that people say that, I know that people say that, but truly there is nothing that Rebecca, in the length of our friendship, has said and I feel the same way about my end that has made me think less of her as a woman, as a mother, as a friend, as a daughter of the king. There is nothing that has made me think less of her in any facet of her life. It is complete, no judgment, and it that's unspoken rule number two.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Unspoken. Rule number two so it's.
Speaker 2:It's immediate, uh, dump of information. That's usually how it goes. It's a dump of information. That's usually how it goes. It's a dump of information. It's maybe some silence for both of us to process, because sometimes we say things for the first time out loud on the it's like we're externally processing and it's like, oh, it kind of hits us like, oh, that is how?
Speaker 1:I think that's what. Oh, that's what happened, that's it that's the thing.
Speaker 2:and then we need some time to like be in quiet and like process and think. And then it's like a mutual back and forth of like let's solution this thing for right now, because sometimes it's a right now problem, sometimes it's a chronic problem, but either way, you need a friend who's in it for the right now and for the long term. And, uh, you know, it doesn't.
Speaker 1:friendship doesn't necessarily negate the need for therapy or professional help, but we made it a long time we made it a long time and uh and lots of therapy now, but that is and there's something to be said for somebody who knows your heart intimately.
Speaker 2:right, I know that, regardless of what rebecca is going through, her heart is good, and that is the basis of which I start every conversation and every problem solving stream uh, so yeah, that's usually what it looks like. It's a dump of information. Every problem solving stream? So yeah, that's usually what it looks like it's a dump of information, some silence, some tears, some tears and then action plans. How can I help? How can I support? Sometimes, that's just that's this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's prayer, sometimes it's showing up at your house, oh for sure, sometimes it's prayer, sometimes it's showing up at your house.
Speaker 1:Oh for sure. Sometimes it's food, sometimes uh it's planning a vacation.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's planning a vacation. Uh yeah, that's what it looks like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say that one of Danielle's skills is um. We don't call it, we don't call it strategizing.
Speaker 2:We call it scenario scenarioing. Scenarioing, it has so many syllables, that word. It does.
Speaker 1:It's probably a made up word, but it's what works for us and um, we're looking at so many different scenarios going if I do X, how will my husband respond If, if that's who we're talking about in that conversation? Um, side note at one point and it was this was years into our friendship and years into my marriage Brad was like um, does Danielle know about this too? And I was like Brad, please, brad, please. If you don't want Danielle to know about something, you need to tell me Explicitly, explicitly, and then she might still tell me in code.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's 100% true. So there's this thing. He was like you need to understand that there's a third person in our marriage, and Chris Daniel's husband understands there's a third person in their marriage. So super fun in their marriage. Um, so super fun, um, but we will. We will, literally we will go through so many different scenarios, especially with some of our harder kids, of, okay, this is the intended outcome that we want, or this is where we, this is what we want for the family, or this is what, this is what I need to get through the day. How do I approach? What is my, what's my approach?
Speaker 1:And in this and I would say as a caveat to the, there's zero judgment and I have a really funny story, a partial story. The full story is not available for public consumption, but I have a partial story about what this looks like. That I'll get back to in just a second. But the side effect of knowing that this person's not judging me at all and I can be exactly who I am, is that we have space to say things. We can say really hard things to each other because we know, we know the good the other person has for us and so, um, if Danielle is like Rebecca, you need to get your shit together. I I listened to that more than anybody else in the entire world because she knows she wouldn't say it right If it wasn't um, if it wasn't absolutely needed to be said. For example, yesterday in the store in target, I said to her um, I think we're really effed in the head about an idea that she had, and I did not like the idea that she had and I was like this doesn't sound.
Speaker 2:We might be mutually broken in this way.
Speaker 1:We might be mutually broken here and I was and I put myself in the category of it because it is something that we both experience, um, where we maybe make our life a little bit harder than it needs to be, and she can hear me say that because she knows I'm in it with her, even if she were going to do the thing well, I'm here, I'm in it with you, we're just both effed in the head.
Speaker 1:And this particular brand of it led us here to this one. So, on that note, one of my favorite stories and a turning point for Danielle not a turning point because we were already there, but something that solidified her even more in my heart as just a soul sister. We were going on vacation with each other.
Speaker 2:I didn't know where you were going, but I'm on. I'm on the train.
Speaker 1:Through a series of events, some things happened that day that I that had me feeling nervous, we'll say. And we were on the other side of the Florida state line. So we had just got into Georgia and I was like, brad, I need you to pull over the car, I need to talk to Danielle face to face. She was in a car behind us and we get to this gas station and I say to Danielle I need you to leave your phone in the car and I need you to walk with me.
Speaker 1:My anxiety is like through the roof, like I just am, like it's completely through the roof. We leave the kids in the car and I say to Danielle, like I need to tell you something, but I need you to decide if you want to hear it, because cops might get involved later. Cops would have never been involved, but that's but anxiety, anxiety doesn't such a bitch man?
Speaker 1:And I was like so just I'll stop if you don't want to know. And she says tell me, tell me everything. And I pour out everything that I was anxious about. And she looks at me and she goes here's our story.
Speaker 2:Here's the alibi. This is what we're going to say, Because that's what she needed to hear. She didn't need me to tell her. Rebecca, you're being crazy. This is not as big of a deal as your brain is making it out to be. She needed me to. She needed me to tell her that, whatever, whatever comes, we're in it together and I've got your back, and that's that's how it's going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I, as soon as she said that, I was like Danielle will never leave me alone, like, this, this is ride or die, ride or die. And yeah, and she was. She was like you're my ride or die. You literally said it right then and I was like that's what this means, that's, oh, that's what it means to have a ride or die, like if I do the dumbest thing which I didn't like again.
Speaker 1:Disclaimer disclaimer it was a like anxiety. Was driving that train for me? Um, yeah, it was. It was so great knowing I wasn't alone. I my anxiety was instantly calmed and since then I'm like danielle's my ride or die like how we didn't switch cars with our husbands at that point.
Speaker 2:I don't know that was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you had a plan. You immediately had a plan that you put into place and also, um, if memory serves correctly, I had children in my car that no adult would want to be. Fair, fair, fair, fair. That's one thing. What has it felt like to have a friendship like this through the journey? And or what, um, what would it look like if you didn't have this friendship?
Speaker 2:I, I don't know that I let my brain go there. Um, it's been, has been, will be again the closest thing to a real lifeline that I have ever experienced Like it. When you talk about those morning phone calls, it's how I got through work. It's you set me up emotionally for a place where I could focus on something else besides what was going on at home, and sometimes in the middle of the day I needed a refresh. And on the way home you set me up to deal with whatever I was going to experience at home and I knew that when I got home, if it was an emergency, I could call you and you'd be there, because you lived right around the corner.
Speaker 1:I lived right around the corner.
Speaker 2:And so it gosh without that, truly some of the darkest days I've ever experienced in my life, and that was with your support. So without it and I mean we're talking about a time when Chris and I my husband were just like passing ships in the night. We were both completely underwater. We had no real post-adoption support, not in the traditional sense where you have people who come alongside you who've done this before to say, hey, this is normal, or the way you're feeling is normal, the way your kids are responding is normal. Um and man, our kids went through it. Our kids went through it, and so it was everybody sinking all at one time and your friendship was like a life raft.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, um, yeah, I mean well, first of all, same like when we had like, as placement after placement came. There was a time when I wanted to quit every single day. And in foster care, different than adoption you can quit Like I could have called a caseworker. I could have called and said we can't do this anymore and instead I would call Danielle, and Danielle would remind me you were made for this. You can quit Like I mean always.
Speaker 2:All cards on the table.
Speaker 1:All cards. Rule number three Always All cards on the table. And we don't I think part of both of us just operate that way.
Speaker 1:Like um, it's better for us both, for our brains, for our scenario wing of a situation. You have to be able to put every card on the table, and so for me, in foster care, I could quit, and Daniel never acted like that wasn't an option. And so for me, in foster care, I could quit, and Danielle never acted like that wasn't an option, and she knew me well enough to know that that was not my heart, and so it was just another like you can do this, for what do you need to do for today to not quit today? But you started talking about post-adoption support and I think one of the things that's not unique to our story but certainly felt unique at the time and I want to be really careful how we talk about this but we had been part of an adoption group prior to either one of us adopting, to prepare ourselves for adopting and to establish a community so that when we did adopt, we would be bringing them home to a community of support, and that fell apart.
Speaker 2:It did and it fell apart and also, you know, from my point of view. So from my point of view it's I was dealing with new motherhood and also bringing home two children that were not infants, right, they had experienced life in their own way. They had endured just horrific circumstances and things that children should not have to endure and I was ill-equipped as a 27 year old 27 year old baby to to really handle and I didn't know how or who to raise my hand to. It felt like, everywhere I was looking, our community was, you know, not equipped to help me with that specifically and it sort of just fell apart, like you said, it kind of dissolved.
Speaker 1:And I think it's fair to say that one of the reasons that it dissolved is because it did not have the unspoken rule of no judgment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's true, all cards were not on the table. All cards were not on the table.
Speaker 1:All cards were not on the table and it did not have the unspoken like it did not, and I think that that's fair to say and protective. Still, I think everybody involved in that would be would say oh, we were all. We all thought we had a better way of doing this than the other person next to us and so, and that sucked, we had a better way of doing this than the other person next to us, and so um, and that sucked.
Speaker 1:That really sucked. Yeah, it sucked. It was really sad and it felt really lonely, but we still had us.
Speaker 2:Still had us Um, and you know, it ebbed and flowed and that journey took a path that I don't think either one of us foresaw no Sitting in those connected parenting roundtables and how we would handle different scenarios. Before that you can't. You can prepare as much as you want.
Speaker 2:You can prepare as much as you want, and please do prepare Absolutely but the level of hard we experienced in practice. Neither one of us were prepared for the day in and day out trudgery, and I could say the same thing for my kids. I don't want to leave them out right. They went through it in their own right and they also lacked community. They also lacked support, and they're both doing amazing. They're both thriving now, doing hard things every day and being successful. But, man, I couldn't have even imagined a world where that was true eight years ago.
Speaker 1:Gosh, one of the joys for me is that the duration of our friendship now comes with success and we don't live in the I mean, sometimes I still do. Let's be very honest, be very honest. I'm still in this, um, in the adoption stage of our journey is still still in the beginning, um, but the pride that I felt for towards you and towards one of your kids in the springtime, when, when she graduated from high school, and the way that that happened, and the way you were able to show up as a mom, and the way she was able to show up as a daughter, and the way that your family was able to show up, it costs something, first of all, but as a friend, to have been, have born witness to the cost of that moment, I'm gonna cry. I cried that day. I cried like I just the the level of pride that I felt for it, towards you, um, it's a gift of a friendship that has these, that has these rules, because we wouldn't have made it we wouldn't have made it through blood, sweat and tears.
Speaker 2:Man, it's like and how many more things right? Yeah, like you said, your journey is really just just. It's just starting with adoption. You've been in the foster care community for years. But your kids are little, they're little and you know the things that you will have to walk alongside them with and for yeah, we got the teenagers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we got the teenagers.
Speaker 2:Oh, you got the teenagers, and the teenagers are wild. The teenagers are wild. I mean, my daughter and I are not that far apart in age, so we get confused for cousins, sisters, friends, and it's something to go into a meeting and feel like you haven't earned this place right, like I don't have the wisdom, didn't have the wisdom of a 45-year-old that has a 17-year-old daughter.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm looking to my left and to my right and these moms are seasoned, right, and I'm over here trying to figure it out. And, hey, so is my kid, so is my kid, and we're doing this together for the first time. And she had, some days, more than others, patience for me and, you know, I think we eventually came to an understanding where we just had to trust one another. We didn't have all the right answers, I didn't, she didn't. She's learning how to be a person, yeah, and I'm learning how to be a mom, gosh, I know, I know, and so, yeah, I mean that day to watch her walk across the stage, diploma in hand, having navigated all of the hard that she had to do, it was like damn, we made it, yeah, we made it, she made it, she did it man.
Speaker 2:And here you were, yeah, and I could look to you and say we made it, yeah, we did this, yeah, together. Like I don't get to experience that victory without you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I also felt like I had a part in the.
Speaker 2:I felt like, oh, okay, this is, we're doing this thing, we're raising our kids together and um and I mean we, like I cannot express to you all the level of disgust, truly, that sometimes my kid and I would look at each other with. We didn't understand each other. We came from different worlds. And if you could see her now and if you could see our text messages now, I mean I might cry. It's okay too. I mean to the point where we just I can look at her. She turned 19 this week and I'm just so proud, I'm just so proud, I'm so like, I'm so excited and I'm so enamored by the fact that I got to be part of her journey as her mom.
Speaker 2:And she's doing a hard thing right now. I mean she is. She's struggling in her own right um with a new experience. Uh, she's. She's away from home for a few months, working a program um and a ministry, and is going to be giving back to the community, the orphan community, in ways that I you couldn't have foreseen eight years ago. I mean she's doing a really hard thing and she's not giving up. She may want to give up, but she's not giving up.
Speaker 1:She can do hard things she can do hard things, man.
Speaker 2:And uh, I don't know that she believed that for herself for a long, for a long time.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because as we're talking, I'm like oh, we have another unspoken rule we are for each other first, which is that sounds maybe hard. Maybe if you're listening, you're like what you should be for the kids and we have had this rule of like if you are healthy, your kids will be. If you can do this well, your kids will be better off. So we are knowing, like we're never losing sight of the kids in our home, but we are for first each other.
Speaker 2:Yep, grab a babysitter, have those kids go play with a friend. You need to do you right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also, but also, like when you're in those hard times that you described with your daughter, I'm more concerned about your emotional response to it than I am her emotional response to it.
Speaker 1:And again, like I want to caveat this by saying that might sound really hard or backwards if you've never considered that before, but in our friendship I am Danielle's friend before anybody else in our families. I am Danielle's friend Now obviously I am also because I am Danielle's friend for her entire family. But I don't give a shit and I said that just. I want you to hear my tone when I'm saying that.
Speaker 2:that's exactly how I would say it in a conversation and exactly how Danielle would say that back to me about the other players in. Whatever conversation.
Speaker 1:Husbands included. Husbands included. I am first concerned about how Danielle is processing it and everything, because I know that she can then go back to her family and bring healing and health to her family, right, I mean, that's so true.
Speaker 2:We're the we've said it before we're the emotional gatekeepers of our homes.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if we're not, okay, the ship is sinking the ship is sinking, and so we have prioritized our like, our health, in our friendship, and so, as you were talking about your daughter, I'm just thinking the number of times that I've been on the other side of the phone and been like I don't give a shit what do you need to stop crying?
Speaker 1:And you know, in this journey we've both. There have been times for both of us of well. First of all, we don't have the expectation that we're operating at our finest or best or like highest self all of the time, all of the time, um. And so there've been times where it's like you're pulling scenario E or F and feeling like you're getting an F, but knowing like you don't have the capacity and speaking I'm saying you, but speaking generally to like both of us, um, and that's enough to keep going. That's how we did this, that's how we got to graduation. That day is understanding. There's sometimes where you're picking not the best scenario, right.
Speaker 2:And you know when you're going through those different scenarios, because you're experiencing a really hard time. There's also this it never leaves right, this idea in the back of your mind that says I dreamed about this. I spent years pining after this exact life that I have. And how come it doesn't look the way, nothing, nothing like the way I thought it would look. And how come? How is it that my son doesn't even want to be in the same room as me? He's just this little guy and he'd prefer my husband. And what do you mean? I wanted you so much. And you know the feelings of the rejection, the feelings of dreams unrealized.
Speaker 2:Dreams unrealized, right, and it was the same dream. It just didn't look like we had thought, it didn't feel like I had thought, and so I had to relearn what the dream was, um, and you had to remind me that this is still the dream, that we're still doing the heart of what we set out to do, and that our families are going to be better off for it. We just have to get through today, um, because I and I'll say it probably 19 more times, uh, in this podcast I you could not have told me eight years ago that my family would look like it does today, thriving like it is today, with each of my four children, happy, thriving like it is today, with each of my four children, happy, healthy, friends, like it looks almost normal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, which is why you were really ready to do some dumbass thing the other day.
Speaker 2:You're like oh, my life is normal, like it feels pretty good right now.
Speaker 1:Probably should shake things up this is the most, the most I've cursed on a podcast, so far.
Speaker 2:Cheers, friend Cheers. So I and you know we have had, we've had other pretty significant support mechanisms our spouses for one. Incredible people, incredible men, men um, faithful, loyal, good-hearted people um. But sometimes you need your gal pal yeah, also let me caveat something.
Speaker 1:Um, danielle thinks as highly or more highly of brad than I, and I think the same way about Chris, and so there is nothing that she can tell me about in her marriage with Chris where I view him as less than or struggling in any way. And same for same for Brad, and in fact our husbands are. Danielle is married to somebody similar to me and I am married to somebody very similar to her.
Speaker 1:Brad is more like Danielle than Chris is like me, but I understand some of the things and so I'm like oh, I can speak to that. We have the same lens that we see the world through. Sometimes he tends to be more depressed as a person emo kid he's a little bit more emo than I am. But chris and I like send each other reels on instagram all day, every day, like it is. If I open my instagram and I don't have a reel from chris browning, I'm like did he forget? Right? Like this is. But that stands. Even when I'm saying I don't care about anybody else's experience in a scenario when Danielle's telling me about it, like it doesn't matter to me how Chris is responding to something, even though we're going to process this in a second, how Chris is responding to something, even though we're going to process this in a second. I'm always more concerned about Danielle and I never think less of Chris in this scenario.
Speaker 1:The no judgment rule is a spider web to every person in our universe. Yeah, it applies to everybody where it's like they all get the same treatment. My priority is Danielle. They all get the same treatment. My priority is Danielle. They all get the same no-judgment treatment. And we're committed to seeing their hearts, which is good, because sometimes we have to remind each other of the heart of our people, of our people. Yeah, I think you know. I think, in the grand scheme of things, when it comes to friendship in foster care and adoption, it's one of the common losses that people talk about.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah, it's really, really difficult to expose the vulnerability of what you're feeling to somebody who you know can't quite understand. But you're going to, you're going to jump out on a limb and you're going to let them in and you get these weird cockeyed looks right and the uh, well, maybe you should talk to somebody about that, or the um my kid has a temper tantrum too yeah, oh, that's my favorite, my kid also has a meltdown, does he?
Speaker 2:I'm sure I thought my kid was the only one that had meltdowns. It's just, it's not quite the same. So if you gosh, if you are in the foster care and adoption community and you don't have somebody that truly knows because of experience it's an island man, it is. It's a special kind of help, truly.
Speaker 1:It's the number one thing that I didn't. I, when I started Haven, I didn't know that people struggled with isolation and foster care and adoption, because I'd had you, and so it never occurred to me that that was going to be the number one thing that people say when they come to retreats.
Speaker 2:And I mean it's not just friendships. People lose family, people lose jobs. It is because you're doing something that's so backwards Kids belong in families and you're doing something so backwards to what our culture tells us to do, and it is go out on a limb for somebody other than yourself. You're going to stretch yourself to the thinnest possible breaking point for this other human that isn't related to you at all, that you just met yesterday.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're going to do that for the rest of your life and it's going to look wildly different than anything you thought anything you thought and it's going to bring up feelings about yourself, about your children, that you didn't even know you could have, like you didn't even know you could think those thoughts and to have a friend to bring you back down to earth and say feel your feelings, let's talk it out. But at the end of the day, that person on the other end of the line is interested in your joy, in your family's preservation and in life, right Like life, coming through each and every member of your family. It is irreplaceable. It is something that it's like gold. It's like I know that part of the purpose when the Lord was putting you together was to be my friend. It's that intentional, as intentional as it is that I am the mother of my four kids.
Speaker 1:Rebecca is made in part for me to be a sister. If somebody is listening today and they are listening to us talk and they're like I don't have this in my life, I don't have this person my life. I don't have this person. Um, do you have any thoughts about what they could, how they can find somebody, how they can? I mean, for us it happened because of a mutual friend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, set us up on a blind date if you will. Yeah, um, so I okay. This is a shameless plug and was not seated to me, but Haven was built for this purpose and there are not quite the same, but other organizations that exist to bring some sort of community right to foster and adoptive families. The way that I think Haven is different is that it doesn't stop at the retreat or at the initial meeting or the introduction. Haven's great about following up.
Speaker 2:Haven's great about making sure that the connections are meaningful, giving you space to process and rest, and also providing you with the support that you need to just keep your keep the wheels going, keep your life moving. Yeah, so that's One way, one way.
Speaker 1:Definitely not set up, like I did not tell Danielle to plug.
Speaker 2:No, 100% she has been around since the very beginning and it's something I wish that was there when I first started, right, um, and so it's really cool to watch that organization grow and the number of parents and children who are impacted. So problem, promise, not, it was not seated to me, um. And then, second is is be vulnerable. It's really freaking scary. Be vulnerable. It's really freaking scary and you may lose some people in the process, but open yourself up to the hard and sharing that hard with other people and the ones who are in the game, the ones who are your ride or die, they stick around. It's really hard to hide in the shadows of your own life all the time, without a reprieve, without somebody who really knows you and who really understands your heart and is for your family. If you don't have that person, be vulnerable and try and seek them out.
Speaker 1:Mm-hmm. So I know that it might feel like we're putting a little bit more on a plate that's already full, but I promise you that everything gets better when this is done in this. That understands what you're talking about when you call and you say some off the handle story, or I mean I called a friend a couple weeks ago. Daniel knows the story and I am not telling this story on air, but I called a friend. I had to return a phone call.
Speaker 1:I was heading to this event that all of these like. It was an event where there was going to be a ton of rich people like living in these very neat, at least on the outside lives and I was coming from a literal shit show in my house, like a literal story that involves disgusting elements to it. And I called my friend and I was like I called. I was calling back a friend who was a bachelor with no children. I was calling back a friend who was a bachelor with no children and I he answered and I said I want you to just really enjoy the fact that you are a bachelor with no children.
Speaker 1:I'm going to tell you a story and I want you to just soak it in, because I'm about to walk into this environment where I one cannot say this story whatsoever Because it is so wild, it is so outside of the box. There is nothing about the crowd that I'm walking into that can handle this story and it makes me feel totally out of place, like an imposter. Like an imposter, but also not an imposter in that setting, cause I, I, I belonged in that room. It was like a, it was like a informational meeting for some high school stuff, for my, for my kids, um, for one of my kids, but it was, it's like, unrelatable and completely unrelatable and undigestible for public consumption.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how I feel a lot of the times. I feel like my life is not digestible for public consumption and so I pick and choose, um, what I share. So, finding a friend that you don't have to pick and choose for, that you can tell these outrageous stories to, and just be like what even is my life, what is my life Like? That is everything gets better when you have that.
Speaker 2:So, you know, I was just thinking about, I was going through in my brain very quickly, kind of year over year, and, um, you know, if I think back to who I was, right Pre kids, pre adoption, I I'm still that, I'm still that person right, like there's not a lot of my core that's changed, but what I have come to value is the sanctity of quality friends.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, in high school I was kind of like this social butterfly and even into college I kind of, you know, it didn't matter who was in the room, I could talk to anybody and be around anybody, and that now is just exhausting. It's just exhausting and part of that, I think, is is getting older, but part of it is like my, my time is precious and so much of it is devoted to my family, to my job, and so I've got like a core group of friends and I can count them on one hand and those are people who I trust with my heart, with my family, and it's okay. It's okay if that looks different and it doesn't need to.
Speaker 2:It doesn't mean that you're I don't know like part of what I struggled with is am I just a person that can't have a lot of friends anymore? Am I just not personable anymore? And it's? That's not true. That's not who I am. It's just that I have become fiercely protective over who has access to me and my family. So literally I can count the people who I do real life friendship with on maybe one hand and these people are like family like you, you are like family, family Like you, you are like family.
Speaker 2:Um, and I mean these are people who, again in the adoption journey, have showed up in ways that again unimaginable for me. To think that I would call on a friend to pick up one of my kids because the scene at my house was so tumultuous and I just needed one of them to be okay and to experience fun and not be in the thick of it. And so I mean, again, I could call friends at the drop of a hat and be like, hey, I can't really explain, but I need you to come pick up my kid.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I might not ever explain.
Speaker 2:And I might not ever explain.
Speaker 1:To a depth that would make sense Right.
Speaker 2:And it didn't matter, they were there in five minutes. Gosh, the proximity of my friends during that year, your proximity around the corner, was just. I mean, I can't even. It's like some kiss from Jesus that I can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't explain. I can't explain that we both had availability, like now I'm like at on calls at 8am, so it really sucks. It really sucks, uh, but like that we both had the availability and like the openness to be there for one another at seven 30 in the morning on the way to work or yeah. At exactly the right time.
Speaker 1:It's just. Right season, such a gift. Okay, at the end of every show, the end of every show, we do a lightning round. We ask you three questions. Okay, the first is easy. Okay, it's what's on your nightstand.
Speaker 2:Ooh, what's on your nightstand? Oh, what's um, okay, um, what's on my nightstand is a nail polish kit, uh, from olive in june. Is that what it's called? Okay, um, do I have to be honest? Yeah, okay, uh, I am hard by Instagram ads and I succumb to them every once in a while. So Olive and June nail polish kit was one Cakes the forehead thing. No, my girl.
Speaker 1:That was in fact too honest for this conversation, but trust that I got an education in the part that we edited out and we are going to skip ahead to the next lightning round question what books or podcasts are you listening to right now?
Speaker 2:um, geez, you make the assumption that I read and I don't. Uh, but podcasts, I'm still in and out of Baymaw.
Speaker 1:I love Baymaw. I know that's the one, one of my great successes is that I have turned so many people on to the Baymaw podcast. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. Marty Solomon, if you ever listen to this, I am one of your biggest fans. I think everybody. If you are listening to this and you are a Christian, I think you should listen to the Baymall podcast.
Speaker 2:Fantastic Amazing.
Speaker 1:Okay, and then my last and final question is what is bringing you joy right now?
Speaker 2:What is bringing me joy right now? Honestly, watching my kids thrive in their little ecosystems of life is true, I mean I. It's something I talk about every day, at least once. Um, and also and this is silly, but Chris made me from scratch pumpkin spice syrup to put in my coffee. Oh, like with actual pumpkin puree, of course he did, and organic pumpkin puree he would kill me if I didn't mention the organic piece. He paid double for that can good job.
Speaker 2:He didn't like roast the pumpkin. That's aggressive, like let's calm down, we have four kids. But he used the organic pumpkin puree, the pumpkin pie spice, uh fancy pumpkin pie spice, of course uh and like did like, he boiled it over a thing and he and he made the freaking syrup and he puts like two teaspoons in that in my yeah, strained it through a strainer and it sits now in a mason jar in my fridge and it's like screw starbucks, forget it like it it's. Starbucks is nothing to me and it brings me.
Speaker 1:I can absolutely see his next fixation.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:On coffee syrups. For me, coffee syrups.
Speaker 2:Chris does not drink coffee. For all of you who are wondering, it's I. I consume so much coffee in every day, and so he's just like oh, my wife wants pumpkin spice, something, I'm going to make it. And so he found a recipe and it is the highlight of my morning afternoon and sometimes evening thank you.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to be here thanks for this mimosa.