Healing & Reunion with Melisha Mitchell & Lizz Hutchison

[00:00:00] Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of The Thriving Adopties Podcast.

[00:00:06] Today I'm delighted to be joined by Melissa.

[00:00:10] And Liz, so this is a birth mother and birth daughter combination, a rare event and full

[00:00:21] of wisdom and love, I'm sure we're going to be today.

[00:00:25] So hello, welcome to the show ladies.

[00:00:27] Thank you. The fall is on Bill and it's birthday.

[00:01:41] All right. Okay.

[00:01:42] 24. Her favorite musician.

[00:02:48] healing from a physical wound, it means getting the right medications and taking the proper rest

[00:02:56] so that your wounds heal. Unfortunately when it's emotional healing, sometimes we don't have medications that really take care of that and it's a combination. Yes and you know the thing is when I first began searching which was back in 1990, actually I started in 1992, was discouraged by the cost of searching and by the inavailability of searching for birth mother and the adoption agency, the adoption agency and my parents, I could really feel that power imbalance between my birth mother apart and the agency. And yeah, Liz, what does, what does he leave me for you? I think, and my first with what Melissa said was, it was a big healing thing for me when she found me because, you know, I was wondering for 28 years, where did I come from?

[00:07:04] Who knows who I have. Oh, sorry. Yeah. So the latter really, the latter was written by Pat to Mrs. Ballist, who was the social worker. And it was expressing her gratitude to the social worker for helping,

[00:09:29] They washed away about 20, 40 seconds of anger and fear towards my birth mother. But I'd had some couple of scary moments, but they were kind of washed away.

[00:09:37] Reading this letter, feeling perhaps desperation, feeling that's love for me, to the lawns in Illinois, was allowing birth parents through the state registry to leave letters for their children. And it is the provision that the agencies fought the hardest, like they didn't want birth mothers to be able to send that communication to their children

[00:11:01] without someone inspecting it,

[00:11:04] taking out what they didn't like.

[00:11:05] Do you know what I mean?

[00:11:06] They wanted control without their control. So, obviously the reunion has been a huge, healing moment, right? And moments. And I think it is for all adoptees and birth parents.

[00:12:22] I think that they all experience a certain degree of healing.

[00:13:27] I was from Chicago so my first reaction was well it's about time. You knew the surname Mitchell. Yeah my mom had seen something upside when I say mom I mean my dad. I call militia militia.

[00:13:34] Yeah everyone calls me militia. Even her other kids call it militia.

[00:13:40] Do some people say that it's awkward being called militia and it should just be Melissa like everybody are you waging, militia? And I said, you know, I'm here from the adoption trenches, I think. Now, the best part of this story is I didn't see Barack Obama who voted for our bill for four years after that. Four years later, I had another piece of legislation. It's late one night. There's nobody in their Senate office. But oh, then, what did you, in the work that you did, Malika? What did giving out false information about birth mothers to pretty up the story. I remember one girl who was, you know, in her background information was listed as a farm girl from Iowa. She had never been to Iowa and Illinois who's actually on trial right now for corruption. I will not give his name, but his son came to me for an adoption search. And based on the information I gave to me,

[00:19:02] his reaction was, at the time,

[00:19:05] this man was quite well respected in political circles No, but there was one time when she said something, you know, like, you know, I can't recall what it was anymore because it was so long ago, but little subtle things, you councils are everything, can you? Yeah, but they are paid by was demanded by birth mothers Didn't come from the adoptive parents and it certainly didn't come from the agencies it came from the birth mothers who knew their

[00:23:02] Commodity was at a premium because after Roe v. Wade And a verbal promise has a six month shelf life in the United States, or at least in the state of Illinois.

[00:24:20] I know that for a fact.

[00:24:22] So after six months, they were no longer obligated. if I want to be adopted or not. Yeah. So. Yeah. Yeah. And did you have, did you have adopted siblings as well? Yeah. One brother. He was five years older. Yeah. Yeah. He had been adopted from New York. Right. Okay.

[00:25:40] And as he reunited with his birth family.

[00:25:43] No, he isn't.

[00:25:45] It's not. my finding the birth mother. I'm not really sure what the man, but I've heard that excuse. My birth, my adopted mother is still alive. I can't hurt her feelings. Yeah, I had a friend. He said, you know, I would never search for my birth mother, I would never do that to my mother. Yeah. And then he ended up registering and getting a match. And those are no.

[00:27:03] Yeah. Yeah., very. Yeah, they've got more empathy. Adopties are fed the line, you know, your birth mother didn't want you, but we were there to take over and take care of you. And then they grow up and they have children of their own and they're like, this is not possible. There is no way this woman gave birth to me

[00:28:22] and just said, I want to be done with it. I have in New York when she found me. I moved here after I broke up with a boyfriend that I was living with in California. Yeah. Wow. So what have you learned about navigating that relationship in all those 27 years?

[00:29:43] What have we learned?

[00:29:45] That I have a doppelganger? remaining 10% okay, you may have there may be an influence from nurture, but it's nature's doing a lot more than we realized. The laugh, you know, the way you might hold your hand. I'm just insane. And not just us, but many, many adoptees. I guess the door. Make sure it's always a jar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's, and it works for all relationships. I just, I just, I just, I just.

[00:32:22] Yeah. Well, we haven't had it down for years, over 10 years.

[00:32:25] No, it was really terrible walked in the house he's like why are you looking at me like that you know i'm in a bad mood no we did not and he just marched off and marched up the stairs 15 minutes later he came back

[00:33:40] down and it was like nothing had happened well that's how relationships are you just let the person

[00:34:44] really gotten a big fight or anything with any of them. I really love them a lot. Yeah. You feel like full brothers and sisters. I think that she has her

[00:34:49] relationships with her siblings. They're pretty close to what they would have

[00:34:53] been had she grown up with them. Yeah, there's not that space in that

[00:35:00] relationship because they didn't grow up together to know what happened to their child. They signed away their rights. And all you did is sign away property rights, but you didn't sign away emotional rights. And you have every right to follow your emotions and at least find out what happened to your