Mar 1, 2020
– Adam Bryan
And in this, the first time we've talked publicly about this, because this gets a really people get shamed. This is this is a really black mark on many families. And they get kicked out of churches, they get kicked out of neighborhoods, they get kicked out of families where the grandparents or the parents will say, you know, how can you do that to a child? How can you consider that and will kick people out of families in shame?
- Allie Bryan
I mean, shame, the biggest.
INTRO
Today’s conversation is a complex one. We are going to dive into the story of Adam and Allie and the little girl they adopted from Uganda. Adam and Allie loved their daughter and brought her over to be a part of their family. She lived with them for three years and is not no longer in their home. On this episode of the Handle with Care podcast, we are giving voice to a dimension of adoption that is difficult to talk about, often layered with a lot of emotion. Even the term for what we are discussing can feel charged.
– Liesel Mertes
Is the term. So some things that I encounter failed adoption dissolved. You know, this has been an adoption dissolution.
- Allie Bryan
Yeah. This has been disrupted or dissolved adoption. Okay. Those were the terms that like our lawyer used. Right. Okay.
- Liesel Mertes
So that was only because I was like, man, even the term failed adoption, you know, all kinds of like connotation. Right.
- Liesel Mertes
To how you feel and what terms you guys like to use. I say dissolves. Okay. Yeah. Dissolved adoption. Feel like it's the calmest word.
- Adam Bryan
I don't really identify. I like I don't really even news. Yeah. We had an adoption and we adopted girl. We've transitioned her. I don't really even know because I'm afraid of them. I just don't know.
- Liesel Mertes
Doesn't feel as maybe emotionally freighted in the same way.
This discussion could feel charged for you, the listener. I had my own emotional journey in preparing for the interview. It touches on pain and disappointment and vulnerability. When Adam first approached me last year, it was after listening to prior episodes that talked about adoption. He wondered if I had ever talked with a family whose adoption had dissolved. As we talked, I heard the landscape of pain and isolation that is a part of dissolved adoptions.
Whether or not you agree with Adam and Allie’s choice, I believe it is important to hear their journey, the heartache and judgement and love that is embedded in their story. It is important to hear because we all bear complex stories…and it is important to hear because their story will help you empathize more with anyone who is on the adoption journey.
You will also hear how faith in God is deeply embedded in their journey. Faith is an essential grounding point for many people as they experience disruptive life events.
If you aren’t from a similar background of faith, this perspective might seem foreign or jarring. If that is the case, I invite you to just listen with an open curiosity, embracing the insights that are for you and letting the aspects that don’t apply to simply sit by the wayside.
As we begin, I want to remind listeners of our sponsors. Are you a small business owner? An entrepreneur? Growing your business van be hard, but benefits don’t have to be. Let FullStack PEO take care of your people and your benefits plan so you can get back to business.
We are also sponsored by Handle with Care consulting, through workshops, conferences, and keynotes, we empower your people to respond with empathy and compassion when it matters most.
Let me begin by telling you a little bit about Adam and Allie. I went to high school with Adam. He was two years ahead of me and, in my mind, endlessly cool because he drove a Jeep.
Allie grew up moving all around the US; her dad was in the Navy. She and Adam still love traveling together. Allie also sells things on Facebook Marketplace.
– Adam Bryan
She'll post stuff. And I'm like, wait, I'm using that. Well, no one else. You I use it. One doesn't wait.
- Adam Bryan
Well, I like your toothbrush, right? Right. I think you're getting really kind, honey. You're getting really good at selling everyone else's stuff but your own.
I'm really nervous.
She's really good. So you're on to it through.
- Liesel Mertes
Did you have three children?
- Allie Bryan
Yes. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
What are their ages and what kinds of things do you most enjoy doing around town as a family?
- Adam Bryan
So the ages the youngest is four. Our middle is eight and our oldest is 10. OK.
- Allie Bryan
All of their birthdays in April?
No, no, it wasn't planned. It's just remarkable. Consistent, so. Right.
- Allie Bryan
So they're all gonna be switching here soon. I think we've gotten like I don't really know if we have anything.
- Adam Bryan
I enjoy family bike rides. The 4 year old has a little trailer bike. And so we. But not in the winter because it's Indiana. We do enjoy that as a family.
Adam grew up with just one sister and was always interested in adopting, Allie wasn’t so sure. But that changed when their boys were three and one.
- Allie Bryan
I never wanted to adopt. My sister always wanted to. And I mean, we'd talk about it all the time growing up. And it never like, oh, I was about like. Good for you.
- Allie Bryan
And I was rocking. Our youngest at the time, and it just hit me of this. I think we're supposed to adopt and like now, which was so it was not me. I had never wanted to never considered any of it and came downstairs and told Adam and he was like, okay, that be great. Yeah.
- Allie Bryan
Maybe in like a couple years, you know, and like, no now
- Adam Bryan
or in like 10 years. Right.
- Allie Bryan
And so it started on a process of really trying to figure out from what country do we do it stateside, do it, you know, all the things. And it took a couple months for us to get on the same page.
But, through a process of discernment and listening, they did get on the same page. The next question was logistical considerations, domestic or international?
- Adam Bryan
So we were really open to whatever the Lord had at the time, but
- Allie Bryan
We had our we had savings and we we're like, well, let's get our home study done. And then as the Lord opens the door, we'll just keep moving forward.
- Allie Bryan
It was one of those.
- Adam Bryan
It was all of our savings rate. And so was not Dave Ramsey. It was not.
- Allie Bryan
And so every next step, we. It was that we'll do your money to move forward. And there always was. And the Lord provided all the money for it. Like we didn't because we didn't want to go into debt for it. Minute like he just provided.
There are also a lot of logistics to setting up a home study.
- Adam Bryan
I mean, basically, once they come through your life, I mean, you're getting fingerprinted and blood work and I don't know. Yeah. Just everything. I mean, they comb through everything your life. They come to your house, they meet with your kids, they interview people. You have to send in paperwork from other families that verify that you're good parents. They're so pretty involved. Yeah.
- Adam Bryan
Really, it's a very in-depth and involved process. I mean, the homestay, the paperwork that we took over, I mean, it was a stack of paper, you know, an inch or two thick of our whole life.
Adam and Allie ended up deciding to adopt from Uganda. Allie’s sister was living in country with her country, she could help on the ground and make organic connections.
- Adam Bryan
And so there's a huge need over there.
Right.
- Allie Bryan
And so we ended up getting our home study done. And it was, okay, let's get over there and see what connections we can get. Like, let's see,
- Allie Bryan
Because you have to find a baby home and, you know, like there's an a lawyer. Like there's all these things that because we were doing it independently. So not with the adoption agency,
- Adam Bryan
We tried going through adoption agencies. But it's it's interesting because certain agencies are only work with certain countries and there's certain restrictions. And so it's not it's not really easy. And there's a lot of hoops to jump through. Just even with an agency. And so this was an opportunity
- Adam Bryan
And we were planning to go to visit them. We had the home study and you have to claim a country or whatever in the home study. And so we said, well, let's just put Uganda since we're going. We'll see what happens. In even talking with the agency we talked with to do the home study. He said you can change it later if you want to. So we just kind of started with that.
They get to Uganda and travel out to visit Allie’s sister. Home study in hand, they meet with the director of the baby home.
- Adam Bryan
And then the next day she called us.
- Allie Bryan
She texted and said, I think I have a match for you. Which is a super weird text again. Okay. And so we made a scheduled time to go over to the baby home the next day and we met her. And so we have some precious video of getting to meet her.
- Adam Bryan
And it was also really weird.
- Allie Bryan
Yeah, it's you don't really prepare for that.
- Allie Bryan
And then having to go back to my sister's house and we had to sit in on the conversation of how do you even make this decision?
- Adam Bryan
It's like picking out a puppy at the pound. Except it's a human right. Right. How do you know? Guide for this.
- Adam Bryan
There is no guidebook for this. How do you say yes or how do you say no? Well, here's this child. She fits. You know, she was of age and we wanted a little girl and this or that. Like, how do you say no? How do you say how do you how do you do this?
- Adam Bryan
How do you make this decision?
After prayer and consideration, Adam and Allie decide to move forward. There was still a lot of paperwork, attorneys on the ground in Uganda. But everything was moving forward quickly,
- Liesel Mertes
So you you go. You return is the next step that you go again and bring your daughter home?
- Allie Bryan
Yeah. So we went over and met her in September. And so when we came home, it was that goal. OK, we have to get there's still a good amount. So at that point, we had investigations going on over there making sure everything was legitimate.
- Adam Bryan
And you had to we had to pay for ads to find if any other, Is this any other family? What her have a claim. And so we had to go through that. We had to. So the attorney and newspaper are in all of this stuff. So there's all this stuff. We're funding that's happening. And then we get a call that a court date is in February and March.
- Liesel Mertes
How were you learning or preparing?
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, right on your own.
- Allie Bryan
So there was a really at the time, a really big independent adoption group for Uganda, which was super helpful because we were having to do all of it. So is a lot of updates of like paperwork in this and certain judges how long they take it. You know, you you just kind of start to network a lot through there. And that was really helpful. But I would say that's that was the main support.
There were also some resources stateside for families that were doing independent adoptions.
- Allie Bryan
So some of the classes or most the classes were online. And I remember one of them, it was it was preparing us to be white parents with a little African baby in it being a conspicuous ratably, which is, yes, that is a good thing to recognize and to.
- Allie Bryan
But it, “A” for effort. What I would say. It just doesn't prepare you right. For real life of having an adopted daughter from another country.
- Adam Bryan
And that's kind of like premarital counseling, right? You don't know what you write. You go through premarital counseling, but you have no idea. No. Right. It's kind of the same thing. Like they're telling you. But you have no frame of reference for this. You have no grasp of this. And so really, there wasn't we didn't find it very helpful.
- Liesel Mertes
And especially, you know, when you say that I considered it like you are receiving a person right now is just a child. Right. Right. Yes. A entity of this age. Right. This is a this is a personality. This is a set of experiences. Good, bad, traumatic.
Right. You. Yeah.
- Adam Bryan
Well, yeah. And there may be other agencies that do a better job with international culture and things. But we didn't we didn't receive that. We didn't get that. So. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
And I imagine even trauma. I'm right now. Right. My trauma is, you know, a different dimension.
Allie and Adam returned in February.
- Allie Bryan
And so we showed up in February and went to the baby home and they handed her to us. And it was literally like, all right. Like, do we need to sign anything? We're sorry.
- Adam Bryan
They just handed to us and we just walked out. Had a nine month onesie on. She was almost two. And she had like this dish towel as a diaper like tight around her. And that was it. Like, we just walked out with her. Are you sure you sign it? No, you're good. Go ahead.
Allie needed to stay behind in country for some additional weeks before their daughter could come to the US.
- Liesel Mertes
- So, Allie, you guys are in a foreign country in in Kampala. I've, I've been there, I can picture the streets and things like that. And you actually are practiced at parenting a child, right? This age and stage. But what are you finding that you're like, oh, this is so familiar. And what are you finding? Oh, wow, this is different.
- Allie Bryan
Yeah, I anticipated more of different cause there was just a lot, you know, I. I walked in to the situation. So naive. And I was telling I think Adam a while ago, like I I literally thought within a week she was going to start saying, Mama, like in my head, like, I really.
- Allie Bryan
And then within because she's two, surely.
- Adam Bryan
And everyone had said we had like physical therapists look at her and like developmental therapists like over there.
- Adam Bryan
And it was we had there's, there's like Australian and British in Scandinavia right over there. And so they would look and say, well, I'm a I'm a therapist of this, this and this. Oh, she'll be great. Just give her some love. In a few months, she'll be talking and walking in all this. It'll be great. She's fine.
- Allie Bryan
So that's our expectation. And then the more he was with us for the first ten days, because he had to be at court and then he flew back to be with the boys and work. And so I was with so I was staying in Jinja mainly, which is where my sister lived. And but it was still extremely lonely with out him.
- Allie Bryan
And I have this daughter that I don't know. And there's no connection. There's no bond. And yet there's that high stress of you have to bond and no one else, you know. So for two months being over there, it no one else was really supposed to hold her, feed her, any of that kind of stuff. And so it was just a high stress not knowing her. I don't know what makes her tick. I don't know what she's thinking to she even understand everything I'm saying.
- Liesel Mertes
It's just very, you know, totalizing.
Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah. No.
- Allie Bryan
Yeah. And she was she was also developmentally. She could sit. But if she fell over, she couldn't get herself back up. She couldn't even go on all fours. You know, and she's almost two. And so it was just the rearranging of expectations. And you know, realizing, oh my gosh, this is this is gonna be a lot different than what all the training on the computer, you know, tried to teach us.
Right.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. Well, I imagine then there is the next unfolding chapter of bringing her on to integrate with your other two children. Yes. What? What did that look like?
- Allie Bryan
That looked like me taping masking tape around her chair with enough buffer. Was she eight so the kids wouldn't get her mother? That was literally that that became our world of.
- Adam Bryan
They just wanted to love her and smother her. And that's great. But it's overwhelming. Yeah. And so, you know,
- Liesel Mertes
in the midst of an entire context. Right.
- Adam Bryan
So she was just and and we had been trained on that. Like there's gonna be, you know, different smells and sights and sounds like we get it. Yeah. So look, boys, you have to stay as far away from her.
- Allie Bryan
I have a picture of them standing outside of the tape and her sitting at her chair eating so that she wouldn't be triggered if anyone got close to her food because it was stolen often at the baby home. She because that was that was a big trigger for her thinking her food was gonna be.
- Adam Bryan
Which is pretty typical. Right. And that was expected.
- Allie Bryan
So it was just a lot of a lot of her screaming and being triggered and the kids not understanding why and trying to explain that to them. And it was it was just very high emotion all the time.
- Allie Bryan
So you. Yeah. And feeling completely ill-equipped. Right. And it was. And she was non-verbal, too. You know, like it was there were just so many things that felt stacked against us.
Their daughter’s physical and developmental needs also required a lot of attention. She was eligible for Frist Steps, an Indiana program that provides assistance to children with delays. Each week, she had speech therapy, developmental therapy, and physical therapy.
Her progress was sporadic, all of the board. The therapists were confused as months became yeasrs. Why wasn’t she progressing? MRIs didn’t yield anything definitive.
- Adam Bryan
Yeah, it was really, really difficult because at this stage she's consuming all of our financial resources are physical or emotional or mental. Everything. We are pouring everything into her and everyone else. The children are getting, you know, 5 percent and we're barely even giving each other anything because we're so exhausted and worn out. She's getting everything.
And there's no I remember with with one of the a group with the therapist. One of the last meetings was, you know, we went through everything again.
- Adam Bryan
They said, do you have any questions or concerns? And I said, yeah. There's just no trajectory upward. And they're like, yeah, we we were concerned about that, too. I said, what's the plan? I don't know. I guess we'll just keep doing what we're doing. Yeah, well, that doesn't sound like a really good plan. Clearly, something's not working. This has been two years now. And yeah.
In the midst of these diagnosis, there was a whole swirling emotional world of anxiety and shame.
- Allie Bryan
I was becoming very depressed. I was starting to have a lot of anxiety. And then what you call secondary trauma from living in an in a place with someone that has trauma. And, you know, I was to the point, of course, she was also still in diapers. We couldn't seem to get her potty train. And whenever I would change her diapers, I would start having a panic attack.
- Allie Bryan
And that was one of the it was it happened a lot. But there was one point we'd had her for three years. And I'm having a panic attack while changing her diaper. She's watching me. And my oldest son comes behind me and it's comforting, comforting me saying like, it's okay, mommy, it'll be okay. And that's for me in my heart when it clicked. This is not healthy for anyone. It's not healthy for her to watch her mom have a panic attack while taking care of her. It's not okay that my son is trying to comfort me in this sense, and it's happening all the time.
- Allie Bryan
I was a hot mess and was I would. I often said, like, I'm drowning. And I'd gotten to the point. I never had suicidal thoughts, but I'd gotten to the point of I. I'm just gonna run away. Like Adam is a great dad. He'll be fine with them.
- Allie Bryan
My mother, who was amazing, like in my head, I like I can't do this anymore. I I'm I'm drowning. And then my kids are watching their mom all the time, having panic attacks and crying and not wanting to get out of bed.
- Adam Bryan
And the panic in the stress was, when will this end? You know, when there's no end in sight, right. If there's an end in sight, you can persevere. Persevere on until you. Okay. Like there's an end. It's gonna be hard, but we can't get to the end. But when there's no end in sight and all therapists and physicians are saying we have no clue, it becomes. And you're already drowning in drowning.
- Adam Bryan
Literal drowning is silent. You don't see anyone drowning unless you have a really trained eye from a lifeguard to know what a drowning looks and sounds like because it's silent. And so we're drowning individually and as a family and there's no end in sight.
- Liesel Mertes
And did people did people. No. Did you have voice? Because I think that could be a difficult thing. Yeah. OK, about one. Yeah. How did it feel talking about that? And two, were people able to be helpful to you in that? Or did it feel isolating?
Allie Bryan
And so it was hard to share how difficult it was. But with our close friends, we did. But it still was like, yeah.
- Adam Bryan
I do want to say it fell on deaf ears, but there was no context for them either. So when we say which I don't think we did imagine, you think drowning is silent. We don't even know what to ask for. We don't even know what to say. We don't have the capacity to say, I need you to do this for me. We're just struggling and don't even know how to ask. But when we would, we, you know, talk to our close friends.
- Adam Bryan
They were. To give them a little bit of grace, they were as helpful as they could be, but they had no context for it. And so they weren't helpful.
- Allie Bryan
It was very isolating.
- Adam Bryan
Very isolating. Yeah. And I don't say that to throw them under the bus. They had no context. Or even though the vocabulary when we say shows we're talk reactive attachment disorder, she's struggling through RADS and it's really difficult.
- Liesel Mertes
Tell me a little bit more about what you know, they say,
- Adam Bryan
OK, so reactive attachment disorder or RAD is when the child in almost every adoptive child will have this and even some biological do when they refuse to attach or a bond to the parents. And so they are pushing you away emotionally, physically will push you away and do things to prove that you don't love them.
- Liesel Mertes
So you are feeling like you are drowning? Yes. You have three biological children now in the home. What did you what emerged as the available options for you and how did you begin to try to make away Yahoo!
- Allie Bryan
So it was shortly after I had my last panic attack while changing her diaper. And Adam and I were sitting in our boys room. And I was crying. I was like, I just I can't do this anymore. Like, I know I've said that. But there's some there's a shift of like something else, a change. You know, we had I had randomly talked to some people about this whole dissolving of adoption.
- Adam Bryan
You found mothers in the trenches or whatever isn't discovered. There's a whole community right about this. And in this, the first time we've talked publicly about this, because this gets a really people get shamed. This is this is a really black mark on many families. And they get kicked out of churches, they get kicked out of neighborhoods, they get kicked out of families where the grandparents or the parents will say, you know, how can you do that to a child? How can you consider that and will kick people out of families in shame?
- Allie Bryan
I mean, shame, the biggest.
- Adam Bryan
Very much. And so we found this whole community. Oh, yeah. Other people are struggling through this as well. Okay.
- Allie Bryan
Yeah. Because before then, I had always had the assumption that the if you were to choose to dissolve your adoption, you know, CPS comes in and they could take your biological kids and it be this huge thing.
- Adam Bryan
And that's true.
- Allie Bryan
Right. It can. But I randomly found this. And so for me, I'm like, that's not. Nope, not even an option. And so on this day, randomly found a Facebook group of other families in the same situation as ours.
- Allie Bryan
And so I just posted our story and said, like, what do you do? And within three weeks of me posting that this family emerged and we face time them. And then that it just kind of snowballed from there as well.
- Adam Bryan
And the family had adopted other children with similar needs. And it was a we get it. We understand it. We want her.
- Allie Bryan
Right. There was. There was. And also some other really cool things that like they have connections to Uganda has over us. That was huge for our daughter. Of understanding Uganda and loving it and realizing that she is Ugandan. Like, that's a huge thing 'cause we love that culture and want her to know it. And they also do.
- Allie Bryan
Which was in the Lord kept bringing in these confirmations. And so we decided to, just like a birth mom would give her biological daughter up for adoption. That same legal process is then what we ended up doing. And so this other family had to do their legal process and we had to do ours. And it took a couple months.
- Allie Bryan
And in this time, we didn't share it with hardly anyone, because if you if it gets out and someone just doesn't like you or has, you know, makes assumptions, it can be really.
- Adam Bryan
All it takes is a teacher saying, hey, I heard from one of the children that they're selling their daughter.
- Adam Bryan
Right. And then all the teacher has to do is call CPS and say, I'm a teacher. Here's what. And it goes down or really dangerous and bad.
- Allie Bryan
You need one lie and then you get investigated and kids taken out of your home. And if that doesn't happen for everyone.
- Adam Bryan
But that was scary.
- Allie Bryan
It was really scary. So we're in a situation where we're not. Our kids don't even know. Only close friends and family know we're still drowning. And at this time that our friends, it's that mentality of like, oh. But now you've a light at the end of the tunnel. And so.
- Liesel Mertes
And you're feeling this risk, perhaps? Yes. Yeah. Of What could happen with the involvement of the outside agencies? Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
I imagine that there's also a risk that you're perceiving of, well, you're still considering moving this child out of your home, really wanting to be concerned that she is well cared for. Absolutely.
- Liesel Mertes
And that's sometimes, you know, that's the you know, the reasons that those outside Agent Wright exist. Right. How are you mitigating that risk? What steps along the way are helping you? Yeah. Feel good about this.
- Allie Bryan
So one of the really cool things was I randomly connected with another mom that had also dissolved an older kids adoption to the same family. And so I was able to get on the phone with her. And we had lots of and it was two years prior. So she was two years ahead of me with the same family, same situation, and was able to ask her questions. And she's been and she's been able to visit them and keeps contact with them.
- Allie Bryan
And so I really got to hear another mom's perspective dealing with the same family as us.
- Adam Bryan
So we were able to enter, in a sense, interview this family through another family. Right. And get some of the nitty gritty details, right? Yeah, I wouldn't actually find on paper. Right.
- Liesel Mertes
And it sounds like. Tell me if I am understands that you also were having legal assistance and.
- Adam Bryan
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
And that this was this was a transfer.
- Adam Bryan
Yeah. Clearly a legal right. Yeah. Yeah. So there comes a day that was expensive.
Yes. Yeah.
- Adam Bryan
Legal. So there a lot of expensive attorneys and making sure that it is legal and incorrect in that there's no ambiguity as to what's happening with that.
- Liesel Mertes
There comes a day where you are telling me this news, your daughter to your boys and you're making the trip young. Tell me a little bit more of that.
- Allie Bryan
Our oldest son bawled his eyes out and our other one just sat there silent.
- Adam Bryan
They were six and eight. Yeah.
- Allie Bryan
And so. So they. Yeah. They don't want to say supportive but. Okay. They also saw like they saw everything that was going on.
- Adam Bryan
But we end up telling the kids and even you woke up and I mean, were you saying, how do we do this? I'm like one step at a time. And literally the steps were put the bags in the car. OK. Now, what do we do now? We got to get in the car.
- Allie Bryan
And she loved it because she loves just being the center of attention. And so she was an only child at that time in the car ride. And so we had a long car car ride with her, which was enjoyable. And we drove and met the parents that night and had dinner with them. And she just clung to them, which was bittersweet. And then that night we had one last year.
- Adam Bryan
She stayed with us.
- Allie Bryan
We had one last night with her. And then waking up the next morning was really, just really, really difficult.
- Allie Bryan
And so then we brought her to their house and walked around their house. And we got to go show her her bed. And that's where he and I
- Adam Bryan
They had they had a whole bed set up for her.
- Adam Bryan
And, you know, we set her up and talked with her. And that was when we told her, you know, now Nyla's going to stay here. And we were able to express and there was something at that time that happened that we can't articulate it,
- Allie Bryan
But you know your kids looks, you know, the you know.
- Adam Bryan
And she got it. She got what was happening. She understood it. There was there seemed to be. And you correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember it somewhat like there was a sadness, but also like a content.
- Adam Bryan
Like a. Yeah, OK. I get it. Yeah. And then we had to get out quickly before like emotionally we just had to rip it off like a Band-Aid. Okay.
- Allie Bryan
She was. You said it was going in. Yeah. With one of the parents. I can't remember. Like she was totally she was good for like we were we were the ones struggling. Yeah. She just waved to us and we took two days to come back home and stay overnight at a hotel.
- Adam Bryan
We didn't need to, but yeah, we did. So that we could just have. We don't want to jump back into life. Yeah. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
What is what words are there. Yeah. Right.
- Allie Bryan
What that is. It was. And so on. That are
- Allie Bryan
The day we transferred her over. We had written a long email because that we're like okay this is what we needed. Send it out to everyone that's in community with us so that they know. And so sitting hitting that send button was extremely difficult and vulnerable because you don't know how you're going to be received.
- Allie Bryan
And so we sent that out and it was just a lot of then interacting with people and having to almost love on other people that. They're just getting this information for the first time. And surprised. And, you know, so
- Liesel Mertes
tell a little bit more about that. Because I, I think that's an interesting dynamic. So you're in the position. Yes, Emily. What are you expecting yourself to be or what are other people expecting to be in your communication there in the immediate stages?
- Allie Bryan
Yeah, a lot of people are having a lot of questions. There is a number of people that were super sweet. But like I need to process this, I'm really to which we completely don't expect. But then, yeah, we're also sitting on the other side. I'll speak for myself like just wanted to go into a hole, you know, and just avoid all of that. Thankfully, most everyone was kind and loving. We've really only lost one really good friend from it that chose to separate themselves from us.
And so the majority that explicitly because.
- Liesel Mertes
Yes, they said what? What did they communicate to you for that parting?
- Adam Bryan
Well, it was for one of the struggles in this situation for us is that we were communicated to on a number levels as A-plus being. We'll see. And if you're not getting C, then you're not doing A or B, you need to either more A or more B, and then you'll get C. Well, we're not getting C, so it must be our fault
- Adam Bryan
in this particular family. How did it had adopted? And it was phenomenal. It's like the storybook of adoption. So. Well. A-plus B or C. And when they found out they were also going through another adoption and it was really painful for them and it was a painful time. Just the time the timing was just bad. And so there was kind of a I can't handle and process that because of what I'm trying to go through. And so there was a a unhinging with her actually not agreeing with the choice. Therefore, there was an intentional distancing, which was incredibly painful.
- Adam Bryan
Hurts. It still hurts.
- Adam Bryan
And so that relationship is, you know, hopefully it will mean that over time. But, you know, there's still there's still distance than there could have been more loss.
- Allie Bryan
There's no running fully. There is for an after a couple of months. I was probably six months after she had left. We ended up deciding to post on Facebook like, let's make this because I was getting tired of running into random people and then them ask and then I'm stuck face to face having to travel. Right. And so I finally got to the point of I just want everyone to know. So we posted the same e-mail we had sent out to everyone else, made it a little bit less personal.
- Allie Bryan
And most people were very understanding. But there was one girl that was extremely mean and hurtful.
And I was just really bullying us on social media because
- Adam Bryan
I had known her when I was early 20s to the church and I haven't had contact with her in a long time. And so she started saying all this stuff and it was like judge judgmental of you, like, oh, wait a minute, you've never met my wife or this child.
- Adam Bryan
You're not at all involved in our life or situation. You're in another state. How how are you speaking as if you haven't talked to you in ten years? How are you speaking? As if, you know, very judgmental. And and she did later apologize.
- Adam Bryan
It was a month or so later, she said, you know, what I said was wrong.
- Allie Bryan
Well, then come to find out her dad had abandoned her as a kid. And so for her, that post was a trigger for her. And so whenever I realized that, like, oh, she was triggered, you know. And so you just never know where someone's coming from and still stay.
- Liesel Mertes
It still stinks.
- Liesel Mertes
If you are summing up like what the what the kernel is of of what you receive when you're feeling either shamed or blamed, what is what is the primary message that you pick up from people?
- Allie Bryan
The first thing that comes to my mind is you failed. Yeah. And that's still thankfully the Lord has provided two years of counseling
- Adam Bryan
And you failed her.
- Allie Bryan
Right. And that's been something I'm I struggle with as I failed as a mom. It wasn't enough for her. And so then when people kind of project that, that's it just kind of reinforces. Yeah. Because I definitely feel like I wasn't enough because now she is thriving and she's doing amazing and her family loves her and
- Adam Bryan
Still delayed delays issues,
- Allie Bryan
though. I'm so, so thankful because that was the ultimate reason. Like we want you to thrive and you're not thriving here with us. It hurts that. Lord, why couldn't she have thrived with us? You know, that's still it's still still a huge pain.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Adam Bryan
What's one of the painful difficulties of through counseling as well is this this and this is what so many people don't understand. We're in this state of we've lost a daughter just like death, except she's not dead. She's still alive.
- Adam Bryan
And so you actually have to see her.
- Allie Bryan
And we made the choice.
- Adam Bryan
And we made the choice. Yeah. And so the the loss is similar in that that person is no longer in your life. So there's the loss like death, but not it's different.
- Adam Bryan
And so the church at large and in your community of people, everyone I don't see anyone knows how to deal with death, but a lot of people know how to. Oh, you bring meals and you're there and you write letters and you do this.
- Adam Bryan
But when you say this, people are non-existent, then so will you go and you say, I've lost a daughter and they go, oh, so sorry. And then there's nothing else. And they don't know how to. And. And on one hand, I don't blame them. But on the other hand, it was incredibly difficult.
- Adam Bryan
And so with the kids, everything else. Natalie, we're going to counselling for how do we process loss and grief, which is what we've been working through.
- Allie Bryan
So, yeah, with the kids, it's just a constant. We try to be really open in our communication. We still talk about her like we'll bring up memories.
- Allie Bryan
We kept our family pictures up for a while, but then that was becoming a trigger for me seeing that.
- Allie Bryan
And so it's just being mindful of cause I get triggered a lot even still throughout our house. And I think for me, feeling like there's almost like I only had a small window of time to grieve and to be better. And so that's still the struggle.
- Adam Bryan
And then even with the kids of, you know, one of them is taking longer to grieve and it's two years later starting to come up and just attempting to being patient with this, because it's yeah, there's there's no rulebook on how this looks.
- Allie Bryan
One day, our oldest saw writing, filling out some paperwork for something random. And he came later and told us he was scared that he was filling out paperwork for him to go to another family, that there had been tension with him.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah. Ali, what do some of those, you know, February 2020 triggers look like for you in any given week?
- Allie Bryan
Well, even this morning, my daughter was in her room crying and that woke me up. And it sounded just like her because that was one of the triggers that she wouldn't sleep a lot. And so she just lay in bed and like make mindless sounds and noises. And so I wasn't getting a lot of sleep at that time. And so this morning I woke up to that sound. And I had to like, no, that's not.
- Allie Bryan
Or even seeing any, any little black girls around. That's a that's a trigger for me that looked like her. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
And how does that have a familiar path of emotion that those triggers go down that you you find yourself? Is it sadness, anger that all of the above, you know, sadness and crying?
- Allie Bryan
It happened one time I was hosting our church like welcoming people in and a family came in and the mom was white and the little girl was black. And like, I just started crying. I had to walk away and leave because. And it can feel so foolish or like it's not that big of a deal. Elie Boyer's altogether. But that was really difficult because I still I'm I'm still sad that we can't have her. And so it's just that symbol of.
Yeah, what we've lost.
- Liesel Mertes
You know, what in this journey, have there been meaningful gestures or people that you were like that man that matter that came in just the right time of people who, even if they didn't get the entirety of it, you know, have been helped more along the way. And what did they aren't like?
- Allie Bryan
One of the first things. I had one of my good friends. I think it was really one of the only gestures while we were dissolving. So she was still in our home. She came in, just dropped off a meal on my front porch and wrote a little note and left, which was so sweet for my personality. So I'm more introverted and I was the only.
- Adam Bryan
And that was that was the only like meal or gesture.
- Allie Bryan
And it was so it was so sweet.
- Allie Bryan
And I still remember it. I and I remember shortly after we dissolved. And I I had very frank open conversations with my close friends about how they hurt me. Like I need to get this out. And they were very apologetic. And I think we've all kind of learned from that. But they, too, my friends, came over and helped me like deep clean my house from top to bottom. And that was like that was their way of gesture to help.
- Adam Bryan
But just we had one family give us a gift card to go for. It was like a Chick-Fil-A just, you know, 20 bucks. Yeah. At least that it. It says we see you. Yes. Yeah.
See you here. Like, it's not like we're sitting home going we're we're all of our free meals.
- Liesel Mertes
Right. But it's I see you.
- Adam Bryan
And so whether it's showing up and mowing their lawn or raking them or just doing something saying, I see you're going through a difficult time and yet I can't fix I can't relax, I don't I don't even know how to process this, but I know it's difficult.
And so I'm going to do this
MUSICAL TRANSITION
- Adam Bryan
Was that something they say were some even during even after we transitioned her, there would be weeks and months of nothing. And usually they wouldn't ask us. They would say, hey, how how is she? Have you heard from her? Right. You know, she's fine. But the rest of us are struggling to put our feet in front of it. You know, one in front of the other. Thank you for asking how she is.
- Adam Bryan
You know, that's the smart ass answer. I'd want to get back to them. But you would just say, oh, she's doing great.
- Liesel Mertes
But I hear it left. You feeling still. You still uncertain You haven't even given thought, right? Right. That this could be anything more than a relief. Right.
- Adam Bryan
Yeah. Oh, yeah. The burden is lifted. The sack of rocks you're carrying is now off your back. So you guys would be maybe OK.
- Adam Bryan
It's not a saga rocks. It's a person that we loved and cared for and still do. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
Yeah, I hear that. You know, you you have reference throughout. You know, there is not a playbook for this. Yeah, not well equipped. What? What words? I mean, on the one hand, adoption can be beautiful. And that's.
We still love adoption. The thing. Yeah.
- Liesel Mertes
What do you what do you wish could have been said to a younger version of you in hindsight, whether that was beginning or in the midst of it, like or or, you know, reframing it for someone that's listening, that is maybe at a, you know, a number of points sharing their own journey.
- Adam Bryan
I think we would respond differently. But so I'll let you speak first. I'll give you. Yes. Yeah.
- Allie Bryan
The first thing comes to mind is love does not heal trauma and trauma. Brain doesn't always know that.
- Adam Bryan
You're going to say run away.
- Allie Bryan
Yeah. That you you can't out love trauma. In my opinion, no. By a miracle of the Lord, of course. But that was one thing I had to come to grips with. Like, no, there is like there is scientific issues in her brain from trauma as a young child cause she's been through so much. And yeah, you can't you can't out love. I think that's.
- Adam Bryan
But I also think, you know, we were obedient and faithful to what we were called to do. Right. And we were called to adopt her. And then we were called to transition her. And I could sit here for another hour and go through all of those things. And we were faithful to that. And so what would I say is it's going to be hard, but stay faithful to the calling in what is on your heart and how do we.
- Adam Bryan
How do I express this? Just love. Well, for however long that is.
- Liesel Mertes
I think I would also say for anyone, because I get that question from some people like, hey, we're thinking about adoption or thinking.
- Allie Bryan
I think I would encourage people to make sure you have a strong foundation of support, whether that's counseling or church or friends of like, okay, we're going into battle and we need your support because we came in very naively
- Adam Bryan
and didn't recognize you not knowing that we were the only people in a large circle that have that have adopted.
So.
- Allie Bryan
Right. And so we were we kind of just started winging it. And then we got really exhausted winging it. And then we couldn't find the tools because there was not a lot of post adoption tools. There's a ton of adoption tools for adopting and. And raising everyone's for you when you're adopting and they're so excited and they're at the airport when you come home with her and and then and then you're home.
- Adam Bryan
You know, there is not a church. And in society there's not a lot of post-adoption help. Right. It's pretty sparse.
- Liesel Mertes
Are there any other things that you feel like it's important to give voice to that you didn't get a chance to say? I don't think so.
- Allie Bryan
You know, I think just speaking for all like the thousands of families on their Facebook, even just in the Facebook group that I'm in right now, that have that have to go silent because of safety and shame. Just speaking out on their behalf, because we are we are not, you know, just a few.
- Allie Bryan
We are many. And they all deserve a voice and they deserve a voice to be able to share their story without being shamed.
- Adam Bryan
And that it's this is a part of life and dealing with, you know, sin in the world and just that things are gonna go perfectly. So, yeah, that they're not alone.
- Adam Bryan
Yeah. You know, when this happened, we discovered how much pain so many people are in in bars. Even though it was painful and difficult and we lost a relationship not near what other people have gone through, we said we want to be a voice and advocate for everyone else to say take care of these people that are having to go silent, love on them. They're grieving, they're struggling. And when they transition, love on them as if it was a death.
Yes. Yeah. Love on them in the same way. Yeah.
MUSICAL TRANSITION
We close with three take-aways from this conversation with Adam and Allie
- Move towards individuals and families that have experienced a dissolved adoption.These transitions can be full of a lot of pain. Give what you can: a meal, a gift certificate, a house cleaning. Each gesture matters.
- Be aware that the family left behind will most likely need help beyond the transition.Adam, Allie, and their children are still in counseling, processing grief two years after their disrupted adoption. Ask families how they are doing and offer gestures of support beyond the immediate days and weeks after the transition.
- Adoption can be beautiful, complex, and isolating.Allie and Adam talked about how they felt without resources, like they were silently drowning. If you have friends who have adopted, reach out, ask them how they are doing, provide a listening ear. They might be struggling and very much in need of a friend. Or point them to supportive resources, some of which are available in the show notes.
- And this is a bonus, fourth take-away.Adam and Allie described a few people that responded primarily out of their experience: there was the family who had adopted that could not continue to be in relationship. The Facebook commenter who was shaped by her own history of abandonment. We are always responding to other people’s pain out of our own experience. If this episode was triggering, eliciting strong emotion, take a moment to ask the question of what personal experience you might be living out of in your response.
Thanks to our sponsor, FullStack PEO, offering comprehensive HR support for small and medium businesses, and Handle with Care Consulting, where we create workplace first responders.
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