258 - Twice The Family

Cold Cut Intro

Julie: We don't know what we're walking into. We don't know how disruptive our questions and our contact are going to be with those folks. And I think I went into the situation kind of unrealistic in that I thought they would open their arms to find us and to have us in their lives.

Damon (2): This is Julie and Jenny's journey.

Damon (2): I started my conversation with Julie, as I frequently do, curious about how she grew up in her family and in her community as an adoptee. Julie said,

Julie: Well,

So I grew up in a very big Irish Catholic family in Chicago blended family. And it's an interesting twist that the three oldest of us are the adopted kids and the three youngest were not. My parents did, I would say, an excellent job of not drawing any distinctions between any of us. And, I'm very close to my twin sister.

Damon: Let's pause for a moment. I would love for you to tell me, you said something very interesting.

You said that basically, and to paraphrase, your parents did a wonderful job of not drawing any lines or making any distinctions, or they were, you alluded to, success in parenting. If I read it correctly, what does that mean? How does that look for a parent to be good at that piece? Of not distinguishing between the adoptees and their naturally born children?

Julie: Yeah, that's a great question. They, we all had the same reward system, if you would. We had chores, we got an allowance. The same praise and support as far as following our activities, getting us involved in activities. Sitting around the dinner table at night, everybody got to talk about their day.

But, so that's part of the third book that just came out in February. He's talking about what the family, how the family dealt with all that, and some things that happened afterwards.

Damon: Yeah. I saw you have quite a catalog of books. That's really fascinating and we'll get to that in a moment.

I wanna focus in a little bit on your unique experience of being a twin in adoption. Twins are unique no matter what in any family. You are adopted twins, which is fascinating because as you, I'm sure well know so many adopted people are adopted solo and in many cases they don't have anybody to relate to in terms of, especially myself, I was an only child in adoption.

Julie: Well, I mean, the most easy example to bring up is I never had to wonder who I looked like, like a lot of adoptees do. I just, you know, would look right over at her and I was seeing almost a mere image. As you said, we had a really tight bond in the sense that we would go to our room every night and whisper and talk.

It did not take away, however, from the confusion about being adopted and what our story was like before and the circumstances around it. We also had a brother that was two years younger that was also adopted, and the three of us were a little pack. We had each other's back. I think there was an understanding that we came from the same place, it was the same orphanage.

And even though we weren't biologically related, just to have those two siblings in the same environment was really very supportive.

Damon: That's really fascinating. You said you had a little pack, it sounds like it was the twins and the other adopted brother.

Correct. Parents did a great job of not separating you, but you had a pack as adopted children. How did that play out in your family dynamics of you having A pact together and then there were the biological children?

Mm-hmm. Whenever we went out into the community a bit back then, I mean, my parents would open the door and say, go on out and play. We had a neighborhood park across the street and we didn't come home until, , the streetlights came on. The three oldest of us w would watch out for each other if we looked like there was something harmful or somebody was bullying one of us.

We took care of it with each other. And certainly that happened later when the younger kids got a little bit older. But we were the first three, and I think my parents, because they had infertility issues for so many years and in the early parts of their marriage, we knew where, what our place was in the family, and that was something very special to them.

Correct. Even if you had all been natural in the family. I gotcha. That's really interesting.

Julie: Yeah, I, and I wanna just say, I think our place, we perceived our place in our family as being very secure before the next set came around.

Damon: That's really interesting. Tell me about Twin Life. It can be hard to separate twins from each other.

Like literally people can't tell you apart. Yeah, and if you have the same interests and you're gonna the same activities throughout the community, it's just, it's very difficult to create your own identity as an individual. What kinds of things were you into and what were some of the challenges of Twin Life in your community?

She played volleyball, I played tennis. We had different activities, some different friend groups, although there was some overlap. We went to the same college, but we didn't room together pledged different sororities. So there was this sense of we can go down the same path parallel together, but we're gonna branch off every now and then and do our own thing.

And there was a lot of acceptance about that.

Damon: That's really cool. Are you part of any twin communities or anything? Do you go to twin events or anything like that?

Julie: No, we don't. She's still working and I'm crazy busy with all my book stuff, so we don't, but we appear often together.

Damon: Gotcha. What are some of the misconceptions about twins and what are some of the things that are absolutely true that maybe people don't even realize?

Julie: We don't need to talk verbally. We can talk non-verbally with facial expressions, gestures. Often that is true or

Damon: that's a misconception.

Julie: No, that is very true. That does happen. There's a lot of non-verbal communication that's incredible. Can we read each other's minds? Not really. But our reactions to things are the same.

And I think that is something that, people don't realize is that often I don't even have to look at her 'cause I know she's exasperated or she's happy just as I am.

Damon: Is that regardless of whether you're in the same room

Julie: e Exactly. It could be an email, you know, what do you think we should do about this for mom?

Damon: Not having coordinated previously, no.

Julie: No. And I do think it's a mood thing and we just, you know, share all those things which is really funny. Misconceptions. I was reading a book about twins and I was fascinated by the study. I. They studied twins that had been separated at birth and then were reunited later in life, and then twins that were reared together.

And what they found was that the twins that were reared apart were more alike than twins that were reared together. Because we individuate ourselves from each other trying to be different, to set ourselves apart from each other. Whereas the twins that are reared apart aren't trying, they marry a man named John.

Damon: That's incredible. So what I hear you saying is. By being reared together, you can actually see one another and say, let me find the ways that I can be different. And you sort of repel, not in a negative way, but you just make an effort to find your individualism.

Whereas an individual who is raised in a completely different family doesn't have that direct mirror in front of them and will just go with all of their innate feelings such that they will. Basically do a lot of the same things that a, that you, that a twin their twin was doing. Oh, that's interesting.

Julie: Yeah. I thought it was too. I've gotten to know five sets of twins also adopted together through Catholic Charities and we share a lot of the same reactions and, events and experiences in our life. So, , we're an interesting subset. I don't think we've been studied yet, but and we're all, when we're all twin girls, which is interesting too.

Julie: The five sets of twins that I know that were adopted together are all females. They're not, , different sex twins or that's, or fraternal twins we're all identical.

Damon: So, you know, of a subset of the adoptee community that are twins who were adopted.

Correct. That is so interesting. Yeah. I bet as you started writing, more and more twins started reaching out to you to say, Hey, us too.

Julie: Yeah. And thank you social media for allowing those introductions to be made.

Damon: That's really incredible. Wow. Go back for a minute to your, and Jenny's, for lack of better word, sort of fantasies or ideation about I. Adoption and reunion and your biological parents, what kinds of things did you think what did you share?

Julie: Well, one of the big things was, , trying to make sense of our story.

She was a cheerleader 'cause we were doing cheerleading at the time. He was probably a football player. Their romance got carried away and they wanted to go to college and we were inconvenient. So, because we were going off to college, that all made, sent to us sense to us. And this appeased us. I, we liked that.

Our parents certainly didn't have any information. When I did find my birth parents, I couldn't have been more astounded at what the facts were. They had not any semblance to do with the little fantasy. And even as a 50-year-old adult, I still had trouble discounting that belief that I had come up with like 40 years before.

And assimilating reality.

Was it you or was it Jen?

Julie: Well, a couple of things. My parents, every so often when we were kids would pull us into the living room and would call, we called it the adoption chat. Sort of a check in to see, did we have any questions? How were we feeling? Were we happy? And they would say, if you ever choose to search for your birth parents, we will help you.

It put us on the spot. It was a very uncomfortable conversation for us. And one time, and I write about this in my book my mom asked, are you happy? Now, what is a child that is struggling with their own identity as a teen tween? How do you react to that? Well, you react that no, we're fine. We are happy.

The state adoption statutes had not changed. Catholic Charities , sent us a letter and said, nothing can be shared at this time. Fast forward a, a couple of decades the laws did change and we started that process. I was the one that started the process because I was the one that had the health issues, and she did walk down that path with me holding my hand.

Damon: That's really fascinating. And you're right, it does take a level of maturity to be at a place where the things that you encountered are something that you can actually mull over, not and deal with in a mature fashion, is what I'm trying to get to. That's really interesting.

So. Do you mind sharing? What was the health issue that pushed you to the point of wanting or needing.

Julie: I share openly about this in my first book twice a daughter. It was a breast biopsy and it didn't amount to breast cancer, but it was a serious enough health scare that my husband insisted. I try to find out what, what my background was.

Damon: Oh, fascinating. I'm glad it didn't turn into anything more serious. so Illinois has opened their records.

What did you find in your records that you applied to get?

Julie: Well, that was obstacle number one. We did get the original birth record, but when a search agency was, ready to help us, and they determined that she had used an alias and that was what was on the birth record.

Perfectly legal back then. Also problematic was that my birth father's name was not on there. Legally omitted is what it said. Also very legal back then. So that posed a question that we needed to find another source. Again, lucky for us, the state of Illinois had instituted a new program called The Confidential.

She Wow.

Damon: Take me for a moment through this intermediaries. First contact. So she says, we found her to you and your sister Jen. I assume you grant her permission to make this first contact?

Julie: Yes. But how did, her name was not shared with us, so we did not have any idea who she was or where she was that was kept private until she gave her permission.

Damon: What did her rejection letter say?

Julie: I do not want any contact with these individuals at this time.

Damon: Wow.

Julie: When The problem with that, of course, is that meant they couldn't go back to her and ask for medical history. I did have to get the judge involved, ex get my doctors to provide information about my situation, and he authorized another contact with her, which was out of the realm of what the program was doing at the time.

Yeah. And she replied back with the medical history and then went radio silent again.

Damon: What did you think about her receptivity to providing you medical information? At least

But the intermediary, who was also a social worker counseled us, my sister and I, that often. This is the first reaction because you don't know what the letter landed in the middle of, and that's over time she might soften. So she gave us some hope about that. I was also in a post-adoption support group at that time through Catholic Charities, so getting a lot of counseling with the entire triad.

Birth mothers, other adoptees and adoptive parents that were supporting their adult children through the reunion process. And that was also very educational to me, especially being in the same room with birth mothers to really understand, unlike Anne Fessler book, the Girls That Went Away, what they were up against back then and the issues that they faced in making that contact with their birth son or daughter.

it did take about six months. She called the intermediary and asked if there was something going on with my sister and I, that they needed the medical history.

And from there on we started cards and letters and then in-person meetings and we're still in contact today. She's 92.

Damon: Is that right? Wow. What were those six months like though leading up to her? Reaching back? I mean, you've gotten this rejection letter, but then you've gotten medical information, so she hadn't slammed the door and she said, not at this time, in that first letter, which I thought was interesting.

How were those six months for you where you got the information that you needed but hadn't gotten the contact that you wanted?

Not wanting to have some contact with one of my children. And so I was drawing on that experience of being a mother myself and thinking she just needs time. She's gonna come around because that's what a mother does. They do have to have some curiosity about the wellbeing of their child, regardless of their own circumstances.

How did that hit you?

Julie: Well that was kind of a ridiculous scene, which I do write about in the book. I was still sitting in the target parking lot with one of my children having just done school supply shopping, and I got the call from the intermediary that my birth, she had just gotten off the phone with my birth mom and she wanted to initiate contact.

So, it's one of those movie-like moments that you don't have any trouble remembering where you were and what you were doing.

Damon: Yeah, I could imagine. Is that a tear field moment for you?

Julie: No, I, the big tearful moment was actually seeing her in person and that first hug watching her hand gestures, similarities and differences between my sister and I, you know, five decades of wondering what her voice is gonna sound like, what she looks like how she is.

That was a big tearful moment.

Julie: Well, I, obviously she was my first phone call and she reacted the way I did. But maybe more, more reticent, I would say cautious. Because she wasn't as active as I was in the search. She was sitting back saying, let's be careful with this. Let's just see how this goes. So, and that again is part of the relationship of twins.

It's a. It's often a passenger driver situation where one is in charge and the other is letting the other one drive. And then you have the row reversal. So that yin and yang between us was definitely present during the adoption search.

Damon: That's interesting. And so that's true across, just at sidebar for a quick second.

Julie: Correct. That's, and we willingly give up the reins. We're having health issues for with our adoptive mom right now, and there's things that she said, I got this and I back off.

I don't get involved. I know she has it and I will take care of something else.

Damon: That's so interesting. This twin dynamic is absolutely fascinating, as I'm sure you can imagine, having probably spoken with so many people about the phenomena. So lead me into this moment of your first conversation. I assume you didn't just show up and meet each other for the first time.

You probably exchanged some correspondence and then maybe got on the phone. What was your first interaction with her where you heard her voice or saw her face before the meeting? I.

So I had a different reaction following that about looking like my mom. My brother that was adopted two years after us looks a lot like my adoptive dad did. , and we should talk about that for a second. The reason why Catholic Charities did that back in the fifties and sixties is so that you looked like you fit in and it goes to that stigma.

Damon: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

They were assisting the assimilation at least for, judging the book by its cover kind of purposes. Exactly. Yeah. That's really interesting. . Fascinating, huh. So you see her photos from her letters and you now see that both you and Jen look like her. And you, Julie, you also can see that you resembled your adoptive mother and your adoptive mother and biological mother kind of resembled each other.

You can see this triangulation of how Catholic Charities was attempting to make this this work visually, at the very least. What was your first actual discussion with her?

And in that very first con conversation, you can imagine what my first question was, who is my birth father? That was eating me up alive. 'cause I wanted to have that side of my history. And she didn't hesitate. She was a little, I think, taken aback. That was one of the first things I said. And she gave me a name, but she hesitated over the spelling and I can still hear that conversation because as it came to turn out, she gave me a version of his name, but not the exact name, which meant it was a little harder to find him.

And took more time more experts had to be called in to, to close the loop on the story.

Damon: Yeah, I can imagine. Just to stay with that point for a moment, and then I'm gonna go back. Did you get the sense that was intentional, a mislead? Or did you get the sense that there was just bad memory?

It had been, you know, 40 years.

Damon: Oh, I'm looking forward to hearing that. were you and Jen on the phone at the same time with her?

Julie: No, she had her own time set up with her. I don't know how far along you are with your reunion journey, but it's, we often draw the example that it's like a new romance. You know, you've got those nervous questions and, you're willing to hear the story, but you're ready with your next question. And so there was a lot of nervousness on both parts. I took copious notes and have gone back to those notes many times to try to remember exactly what happened.

Damon: Yeah, I am so glad to hear you make that analogy to romance because I have said it so many times and I can't remember anybody else saying it.

You want to know everything about them. You've got questions you want to know when you're gonna see them, how it's gonna go. It just feels like similar butterflies to, to a romance as you've said. So I'm glad to hear you corroborate What I've always said about it that, that it feels a bit like falling in love.

That first stage of reunion, as you know, is, called the honeymoon period, where you're not looking for any negativity about this person at all. You're only seeing the positivity and then the bubble bursts a little bit , those imperfections come out and you see some cracks in the armor and you at first don't wanna believe it and then you do believe it.

Damon: did Jen convey to you. So keeping in mind, Jen is more reticent and cautious in this, she has her own individual time set up to speak with your birth mother. I make the assumption that she went into it with that reticence and protective caution for herself.

How did you guys compare notes as to how your conversations went?

Julie: We did obviously talk about it that same night after her conversations. We had the same reaction, the excitement about finally making contact with this person that you've wondered about your whole life. We were both excited about making the next step with an in-person reunion and how that was gonna go down.

Damon: So what did you do? How did it go down?

Just like first dates, you know. Had a really good time. And from that, more conversations and phone calls and more meetings. The most beautiful moment was having her come to visit us in Chicago meet her grandchildren. Can you imagine not ever been being able to recognize the fact that you're a mother, but also that you now you've got this whole slew of grandchildren from your two daughters.

So that was beautiful moment. Having her in our homes and meeting our kids and. The circle was complete.

Damon: Yeah. How many children does Jen have?

Julie: She has two and I have four. So between us there's six.

Julie: I think we were all overcome with emotion and certainly some of the granddaughters resembled her in more like attitudes and gestures than others. What has been interesting going forward is some of the things that she experienced growing up. She's one of 13, she had seven brothers. So our two sons, Jen's son and my son they're very physical big guys very athletic and her, some of her brothers resembled them.

My nephew, Jen's son, played college baseball and my birth mom's brothers were also very big baseball players, so there was a lot of synchronicities, which was really fun to explore at that time.

It's so fascinating. My son, Seth, he looks so much like my birth mother. It's astonishing. It's really cool to see.

Julie: Yeah.

Damon: You have expressed that one of your major curiosities was about your birth father, and you've received a name. You've started the search, but it's challenging because you've gotten a name that is not spelled correctly, be it intentional or an intentional misdirection. What is your next step in searching for this person?

I was sharing all this with both my adoptive parents and also my birth mom. And she was just fine. She was going along with it. She never once corrected herself, which is interesting in retrospect. She really intended for that little I'm gonna call it a lie to sit there and be what it was.

As often happens 'cause you've been down this road before. You are not giving up, you are researching, you're trying every angle known to man. And I landed on an angle that paid off, which was hiring a genealogist in the town where my birth parents met and that lady turned out to be an adoptee.

She came up with contact information. And very quickly I sent him a letter and asked for his help. What I, we had come to find out was that breast cancer ran in his family. Oh. And that put the coetus on all of us to figure out, dNA wise first, was he really our birth father, but also how closely aligned were we and the doctors were.

And that is the kind of the happy ending of the story in the sense that he passed on the information to my half brother and sister, that you have two sisters. I didn't know you had two sisters. I knew there was one I had. I love this phrase, gotten a girl in trouble when I was younger, 'cause that's how they phrased it.

And my brother was the one that reached out to me and we discovered a strange synchronicity between the two of us. That I had probably met him that our paths were on the same parallel trajectory. And then he did the DNA testing and we passed, we had a 98% match, which was, is

Damon: that right? Wow.

Astounding. That is really interesting. Huh? What was, sorry? What was the synchronicity that you discovered?

They had four daughters and my brother was married to one of those girls.

Damon: Oh my gosh. That is crazy. Are you serious? Yeah. That's so cool. Wow, that must have been really wild for you to be reconnected with this woman that you knew as a child and she is married to your biological brother, whom you've just found.

Julie: And my parents knew him. My parents knew him. My, my brothers and sisters I grew up with knew him. And when everybody figured out that he was our biological brother, it was like this beautiful reunion and, just a wonderful he's become a, like a best friend. He's a wonderful guy and I'm really happy to have found him.

Damon: What did he say about finding biological twin sisters?

Damon: , that's really cool. That's really cool. I wanna go back for a moment to something you said about the phrase, I got a girl in trouble.

there's such a. Passive nature to it that it, it sounds so glancing, like if you were driving a car and you had a fender bender, right? It's , oops, this thing happened when in fact the creation of a life, let alone two twin lives is a big deal, right? The trajectory of your birth mother's life

changed significantly from this minor fender bender that he has expressed. How does it sit with you when people say this, I got a girl in trouble. What do you think of?

That it really, the onus was on her to take care of this problem. And that's how society looked at it back then. She was viewed as having amoral behavior. It was shed light on her upbringing and her family, and certainly that shame became part of the experience of being a birth mom. He, on the other hand, felt that he could just go off and lead his Mary life, that he was he was off the hook.

Damon: Yeah. . I'm glad you raised that because I don't think that gets a lot of attention. I. It's well known. We just don't talk about it much. So I appreciate you raising that piece. So your birth father never took the DNA test, but it sounds like he admitted that he had been with your birth mother.

'cause he told his kids and you guys did a DNA . How was your relationship with him then?

He did not really wanna complicate his life anymore. My brother was working on trying to make some kind of connection with us and then my birth father died suddenly of a heart attack, so I never did get to meet him. One of the interesting facts, 'cause we were talking about, that biological passing on of genes and athleticism.

My birth father played college football and my son. At that time was playing college football. And when I got hold of my birth father's picture from a yearbook from college, they looked so similar as to, to be frightening. I thought that fact alone might have swayed my birth father in wanting to meet me and my kids.

We don't know what we're walking into. We don't know how disruptive our questions and our contact are going to be with those folks. And I think I went into the situation glossy and unrealistic in that I thought they would open their arms to find us and to have us in their lives.

And it takes time. And that's the beauty of having counseling and social workers help you through the process. They certainly can make it easier and, then you gain more understanding about where they're coming from.

Damon: Yeah. Agree 100%. I can't help wondering, you mentioned earlier that there's a honeymoon period in Reunion that things go great and then , start to really get to know the person.

You start digging deeper into some of the issues, asking some more challenging questions. Tell me about your, the aftermath of the honeymoon period with your birth mother.

Julie: This was one of the first issues was the name for my birth father. I did confront her, which was a very difficult conversation to ask her.

In the situation, and I assured her that my relationship with him would be completely separate, that she would not have him in her life. And I do respect that about her. I don't think she should have lied to me and given me the wrong name. But I think she emotionally did that when I caught her off guard with the question, the very first conversation.

So, to liken this to your situation here, and I make no judgment about how , approached this, but you did say you caught her off guard. I could see how an adoptee in a situation where they want to talk to their birth mother about finding their birth father could take the tack of saying, what is his name?

So it, it's interesting to hear you say that she felt caught off guard and potentially, , told a lie in the moment. But also probably didn't want to know him. It's a, these are complicated situations. Really interesting.

Julie: And in retrospect, I think you're entirely correct. I should have been more direct with her about it.

I just figured she assumed. By giving her name, his name that I was going down that path. Yeah. You bring up a really important point. I caught my adoptive parents off guard with this search. The breast biopsy was the one that instigated it. And just, out of the blue at 50 years old, I went to my parents and asked for my adoption papers.

Certainly as a character in the book, she goes through a lot of transformation and in the end all of that is resolved mostly because we knew my brother, my half brother was like right next door.

Damon: He smoothed the whole thing over for you guys.

Julie: He did. That's

Damon: really wonderful. I'm really glad to hear that.

So, Had, you started to see signs that she was coming around before your brother was discovered, was she getting used to the idea that you were attempting and had made reunion contact?

Julie: Maybe she wasn't asking any questions and I think that was disturbing to me that she had no curiosity about it.

How can you think that this is going to change anything? And it did put a lot of pressure on me to show that our relationship on from my behalf was not gonna change. I wasn't going to call this person mom, that was her title. I was gonna call this person by her first name. Over time. Now both ladies are 92 years old.

They're both the same age, which again, is that Catholic Charities thing about matching you in a situation that's similar to where you originated. And my mom now at this point will say, how's your birth mom? Have you talked to her? But it's taken a long time and a lot of work.

Damon: Yeah, the whole thing is a lot of work.

Julie: Wow.

Julie: Twice a daughter is the search memoir. It's about the five year search that my sister and I undertook to find our birth relatives. And speaking about the book over the last four years, so many people had questions about what was it like to be an identical twin adopted in this blended family.

And so this book that just came out twice the family is about the coming of age story of my family, all the, ups and downs of a big family, of family building through infertility and special needs sister and crises. So it is that story that adds color to the first book they're meant to standalone.

Damon: That's amazing. Julie, thank you so much for your hard work to write down these unique stories.

This is. Part of what we need is more people writing down their journey, being on podcasts like these and getting these stories out so that people understand the depth and the breadth of what the adoption and reunion experience is. So thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it. Julie.

Julie: Thank you for exposing all the stories.

It's really a deep benefit to so many people.

Damon: I'm so appreciative. Thank you so much.

Hey, it's me. Julie's journey reminds us that reunion is rarely a straight line. Her journey began with health questions and her birth mother's.

We don't know what we're walking into with an adoption reunion attempt that might stir up complications in the lives of our birth families. We have to approach with empathy and with our eyes wide open. I'm Damon Davis, and I hope you found something in Julie's journey that inspired you, validates your feelings about wanting to search or motivates you to have the strength along your journey to learn.

Who am I really? And don't forget, if you're interested in the new book about the experiences inside the life of an adoptee, go to the adoptee experience.com.