WEBVTT 00:00:00.009 --> 00:00:05.426 Being a girl that was raised in a um a strict Catholic background in a 00:00:05.459 --> 00:00:11.717 small country town in Iowa. And I was pregnant when I was in college. 00:00:11.750 --> 00:00:16.506 Unmarried. I didn't tell my family. I even had a baby. I didn't tell my 00:00:16.539 --> 00:00:23.116 family that Christopher was born until the day Christopher was born. I 00:00:23.149 --> 00:00:26.567 found myself to be an incredible outsider in my family. So everything I 00:00:26.600 --> 00:00:34.286 did seemed to happened really in my own world. I was looking to move as 00:00:34.319 --> 00:00:39.786 far away from my home in Iowa and anything I knew as possible. So 00:00:39.819 --> 00:00:45.707 Washington DC was about as far away as I could get. I was in art school. I 00:00:45.740 --> 00:00:53.740 was 22 uh living in Washington DC all alone. So my son was born in 1988 00:00:58.418 --> 00:01:04.796 but he was conceived on a trip. I took on the back of a Harley. I bought 00:01:04.829 --> 00:01:12.436 the Harley for my boyfriend at the time Christopher was conceived on a 00:01:12.469 --> 00:01:18.647 raucous night in Mexico on the Baja Coast amongst a lot of tequila shots. 00:01:18.680 --> 00:01:24.257 And I knew it, the moment that it happened, I absolutely knew it. I just 00:01:24.290 --> 00:01:31.596 knew it. And then I remember I had to go back to school 10 days later and 00:01:31.629 --> 00:01:36.936 I had said goodbye to the father, the presumed eventual father of, of this 00:01:36.969 --> 00:01:42.275 child in front of the whiskey ago. Go on Sunset Boulevard on January 14th 00:01:42.308 --> 00:01:49.236 , 1988. P knew pretty much I would never ever see him again. My pregnancy 00:01:49.269 --> 00:01:55.786 , I remember being exciting even though it was, uh, I was the only one 00:01:55.819 --> 00:02:02.867 participating in it and there was, there was nothing like um baby showers 00:02:02.900 --> 00:02:08.656 with, you know, crepe paper. It, it was a lot like the conception was, it 00:02:08.689 --> 00:02:12.886 was based with strange friends around me who had a lot of drug and alcohol 00:02:12.919 --> 00:02:17.066 problems and I was trying to keep it together and, and, and try to figure 00:02:17.099 --> 00:02:21.906 out where, how I'm gonna create a life for this child in the future. And 00:02:21.939 --> 00:02:26.005 what was I going to do in Washington DC with this child as an art, as an 00:02:26.038 --> 00:02:31.436 art school graduate? When I really realized how pregnant I was two months 00:02:31.469 --> 00:02:36.196 in, I quit smoking marijuana immediately. I quit doing any kind of drug 00:02:36.229 --> 00:02:41.517 that I was used to doing, including ecstasy, anything. And I became an 00:02:41.550 --> 00:02:46.636 artist model to support myself. And that's www was an interesting 00:02:46.669 --> 00:02:54.669 transition for me as a woman to go from being a very young, sexual, really 00:02:55.069 --> 00:02:58.666 sexual young woman who felt really uncomfortable. And I found interesting 00:02:58.699 --> 00:03:04.136 that I liked myself physically more because when I was an artist model and 00:03:04.169 --> 00:03:08.916 I was taking my clothes off. Now it didn't seem sexual before I was an 00:03:08.949 --> 00:03:13.775 artist model. And before I had Christopher, I'd also worked in a strip 00:03:13.808 --> 00:03:17.536 club, not as a dancer though because I so don't look like a dancer. 00:03:17.569 --> 00:03:24.017 However, I had this desperate need when I was in college to be objectified 00:03:24.050 --> 00:03:28.975 as a woman, which sounds like a totally weird thing in the age of feminism. 00:03:29.008 --> 00:03:34.217 But I needed to know where I was or a placement as a woman or what men 00:03:34.250 --> 00:03:38.677 thought about me. Because growing up, I had really bad experiences with 00:03:38.710 --> 00:03:44.856 boyfriends with brothers, with my father. And so I wanted to be seen, I 00:03:44.889 --> 00:03:50.077 think in some ways to help me get over a lot of body image which you know 00:03:50.110 --> 00:03:57.827 , became the narrative, the narrative arc that ran through all of my life 00:03:57.860 --> 00:04:01.975 as a young woman. My nickname as a child was Ellen Capel and the 00:04:02.008 --> 00:04:06.225 watermelon. That was the nice nickname. The nickname I grew up with that 00:04:06.258 --> 00:04:13.946 caused me all the trouble in my life was double ugly, double ugly. I 00:04:13.979 --> 00:04:19.096 loathed the nickname, I loathed it and I was known as double ugly and 00:04:19.129 --> 00:04:23.906 Ellen Capel and the watermelon and smelling Ellen so much that by the time 00:04:23.939 --> 00:04:27.666 I'd run away from home and I mean, run away from home and never speak to 00:04:27.699 --> 00:04:35.699 your family again. I needed to somehow psychologically unravel this these 00:04:35.790 --> 00:04:40.236 nicknames and these impressions I had of myself. And so I put myself in 00:04:40.269 --> 00:04:44.197 these really bizarre situations, like working in a really high in strip 00:04:44.230 --> 00:04:50.106 club on M street in Washington DC. I felt that I needed to have, I needed 00:04:50.139 --> 00:04:55.745 to learn something about myself. So for about five months, I cocktail five 00:04:55.778 --> 00:05:00.877 nights a week dressed as a playboy, Bonnie just to work through this body 00:05:00.910 --> 00:05:05.906 image thing I had. But I think even more so was gaining all this weight 00:05:05.939 --> 00:05:10.015 while I was pregnant and really getting comfortable with myself, moving 00:05:10.048 --> 00:05:16.156 into motherhood and accepting myself as sort of um you know, diva sitting 00:05:16.189 --> 00:05:20.257 on a lotus flower for people to paint and seeing me as an object of beauty 00:05:20.290 --> 00:05:23.726 and fertility. I wouldn't get up on a stage and take my clothes off for 00:05:23.759 --> 00:05:26.955 money. But I would get up on a stage and take off my clothes to have 00:05:26.988 --> 00:05:34.455 people make art. People told me I couldn't have this child and I, I 00:05:34.488 --> 00:05:40.416 explored abortion options. I went far scheduling having an abortion in 00:05:40.449 --> 00:05:46.366 Washington DC because the father wasn't involved and I was just so beyond 00:05:46.399 --> 00:05:50.145 what I could do. And I felt that this was the only thing I could do and I 00:05:50.178 --> 00:05:55.895 go to the appointment and the doctor doesn't show up. And I'm like, oh my 00:05:55.928 --> 00:06:00.916 God, I remember the women's health clinic made another appointment for me 00:06:00.949 --> 00:06:04.226 in New York City and I was supposed to drive to New York City and have an 00:06:04.259 --> 00:06:08.067 abortion. I thought I could do this and I planned to do it. I made the 00:06:08.100 --> 00:06:14.197 appointment. I was gonna do it all alone. And once again, something 00:06:14.230 --> 00:06:17.015 happens where they call me and say it's not going to happen. Doctor 00:06:17.048 --> 00:06:21.656 doesn't come. I mean, this freak experience, I could never figure out how 00:06:21.689 --> 00:06:27.895 this came to be that. Now I'm past, I'm so far past the time of even 00:06:27.928 --> 00:06:33.026 considering this, that I recognize I'm having a baby. This conception is a 00:06:33.059 --> 00:06:38.286 surprise. This even idea that I'm gonna have a baby is a surprise. I'm 00:06:38.319 --> 00:06:43.395 sleeping on a couch at a friend's house with my dog. I have no money and I 00:06:43.428 --> 00:06:48.976 can't call my family and tell them it was an amazingly complicated time. 00:06:49.009 --> 00:06:53.976 But, you know, friends were kind of around and then a friend volunteered 00:06:54.009 --> 00:06:58.666 to go through birthing classes with me. We did, um, something called the 00:06:58.699 --> 00:07:02.856 Bradley method, which was based on intuitive connectedness, which I really 00:07:02.889 --> 00:07:07.197 liked and what exactly was going to happen that day when you went to the 00:07:07.230 --> 00:07:14.116 hospital. And so I felt psychologically probably more prepared than other 00:07:14.149 --> 00:07:17.387 people seem to have told me they were when they went in to have a baby. I 00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:21.156 felt pretty ready about what was gonna happen that day because I'd written 00:07:21.189 --> 00:07:25.536 a birth plan and I was working with midwives, which was a little different 00:07:25.569 --> 00:07:30.575 than going to a hospital. There were often different people in the room. 00:07:30.608 --> 00:07:34.486 So there would be students there and there would be maybe a different 00:07:34.519 --> 00:07:37.736 midwife than I'd had the last time. So it was sort of like Ellen's having 00:07:37.769 --> 00:07:41.676 a baby and it's a community event. And so when the actual day came in the 00:07:41.709 --> 00:07:47.137 hospital, I do remember lots of people came in to watch. It was more like 00:07:47.170 --> 00:07:51.666 a learning experience and an art happening kind of thing. Or at least I 00:07:51.699 --> 00:07:56.317 thought when I was going in, it was a living be there event. So people 00:07:56.350 --> 00:07:59.736 were kind of invited to come and they, and people showed up, which was 00:07:59.769 --> 00:08:03.836 nice. There were a number of women in the room. The best thing I remember 00:08:03.869 --> 00:08:08.705 happening was that if this woman came in the room that I had never met 00:08:08.738 --> 00:08:13.606 before and that she was not a midwife, I had been introduced to previously 00:08:13.639 --> 00:08:21.356 , but she came, she came into the room. I remember and I didn't have a 00:08:21.389 --> 00:08:27.086 long labor. It had started the night before and I didn't tell it, I didn't 00:08:27.119 --> 00:08:30.555 tell the people in my house, but I knew it was through the night I knew I 00:08:30.588 --> 00:08:34.936 was laboring alone, which for me always seemed like the most natural thing 00:08:34.969 --> 00:08:38.424 to do is just you're in your own headspace. 00:08:38.457 --> 00:08:43.025 But this woman came in and she was like this angel. And I remember her 00:08:43.058 --> 00:08:49.057 sitting down behind me and said to me, you're not in pain. You're just 00:08:49.090 --> 00:08:54.956 connected to this bigger part of the universe and this, these sensations 00:08:54.989 --> 00:09:00.096 you're feeling are all a part of this birth process and there's nothing 00:09:00.129 --> 00:09:04.025 here that's gonna hurt you and you're gonna be fine and we're gonna 00:09:04.058 --> 00:09:09.116 breathe through this. And she just held me with this huge sense of love. 00:09:09.149 --> 00:09:13.576 And I remember even though my son's father was not there and he didn't 00:09:13.609 --> 00:09:17.936 know the baby was being born. That day. I could feel him in the room. I 00:09:17.969 --> 00:09:22.476 felt my grandma in the room who had passed away about six months earlier. 00:09:22.509 --> 00:09:30.206 I felt this huge sense of love in the room. And so for me, the whole, the 00:09:30.239 --> 00:09:38.239 whole birthing part went very quickly. There was no pain. And I remember 00:09:38.759 --> 00:09:44.807 having a primal scream that was extremely exciting. It was, it, it just 00:09:44.840 --> 00:09:52.206 felt like like the big bang theory was in me and I loved it. I loved the 00:09:52.239 --> 00:09:57.236 birthing part. That part. I remember thinking it was great. It was so 00:09:57.269 --> 00:10:00.976 different than what other people told me afterwards. And people wanted to 00:10:01.009 --> 00:10:06.586 share with me before. It was exciting. It was a roller coaster. I remember 00:10:06.619 --> 00:10:11.885 things like being offered an epidural and I said, oh, no, this will be the 00:10:11.918 --> 00:10:16.236 one thing I will do totally drug free. I will remember every sensation and 00:10:16.269 --> 00:10:22.755 every moment I needed it to be just a clear, clear headspace because I 00:10:22.788 --> 00:10:28.596 felt this need to go so deep in my head and into my psyche. I didn't want 00:10:28.629 --> 00:10:35.336 it to be as much of a physical experience. I wanted this deeply spiritual 00:10:35.369 --> 00:10:40.217 connectedness because I thought this is it. It's, you know, life is a one 00:10:40.250 --> 00:10:43.135 time thing and, and this is probably the only time I'm going to have a 00:10:43.168 --> 00:10:47.936 child. This is really, this is the only child I'm gonna have with this man. 00:10:47.969 --> 00:10:52.885 And I wanted it to be perfection. I want it to be something I would never 00:10:52.918 --> 00:10:59.856 forget, filled with details that I would want to share again, that 00:10:59.889 --> 00:11:04.217 hopefully would enable someone else. If I kept telling this story over and 00:11:04.250 --> 00:11:07.336 over someone else would, would hear this and say, I'm going to have a 00:11:07.369 --> 00:11:11.436 birth like that. I'm going to have this sort of experience where angels 00:11:11.469 --> 00:11:16.917 are in the room singing and, and you feel like this is what I was meant to 00:11:16.950 --> 00:11:21.836 do. I did not talk to the father of Christopher. My son's name is 00:11:21.869 --> 00:11:27.076 Christopher Robin and then I saw him again 18 years later when Christopher 00:11:27.109 --> 00:11:30.826 graduated from high school and he finally wanted to reconnect with his 00:11:30.859 --> 00:11:35.775 father. And by then I was married, I've been married for many years and I 00:11:35.808 --> 00:11:43.808 was way over the pain of being left. So after an exhaustive search, lots 00:11:44.019 --> 00:11:49.566 of phone callings, lots of calling to the universe. I gave his father a 00:11:49.599 --> 00:11:57.599 deadline. Like in my mind, it was very specific. It was 12 o'clock March 00:11:58.178 --> 00:12:03.186 15th during the last commercial set of The Young and The Restless, which I 00:12:03.219 --> 00:12:08.125 used to draw to every day without fail. For 20 some years. That was for 00:12:08.158 --> 00:12:12.836 studio hours for me. I told a friend the night before, if he doesn't call 00:12:12.869 --> 00:12:15.866 by tomorrow, I quit thinking about him. It's been 18 years. You know, a 00:12:15.899 --> 00:12:19.246 girl's got to move on even in her heart, I've been holding this man in my 00:12:19.279 --> 00:12:23.736 heart even though I was married. But I had reached out two months before 00:12:23.769 --> 00:12:28.667 looking for him just out of curiosity. And since I hadn't had a call back 00:12:28.700 --> 00:12:35.946 , I decided that that morning at no, at noon, that was when we would never 00:12:35.979 --> 00:12:40.037 think about this anymore. And I would have to call it quits. And I'll tell 00:12:40.070 --> 00:12:48.070 you at 1157 I swear it's the truth. 1157 the phone rings. I turn it over 00:12:48.580 --> 00:12:54.326 and I see the caller id, I take a huge breath like, like your first gasp 00:12:54.359 --> 00:12:59.366 of air, you know, out of water. And I pick up the phone and I said, is it 00:12:59.399 --> 00:13:04.186 really you? And he said, yes, it's really me. I said, I can't believe you 00:13:04.219 --> 00:13:07.787 made it in three minutes. And he's like, I'm on time, aren't I? The 00:13:07.820 --> 00:13:13.297 conversation I remember flowed like we had just spoken maybe two hours ago 00:13:13.330 --> 00:13:17.927 because I said, II, I, I'd waited 18 years. I've waited 18 years. I gave 00:13:17.960 --> 00:13:22.755 you till noon. You made it, you made it at 1156 1158 you made it. He said 00:13:22.788 --> 00:13:29.606 , well, I'm, I'm under the wire. He had a lifestyle in Hollywood 00:13:29.639 --> 00:13:34.967 that, you know, basically shame Charlie Sheen. He made Charlie Sheen look 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:40.566 like a choir boy during his life in Hollywood. So when I found him again, 00:13:40.599 --> 00:13:46.696 he looked the same. He was still stunningly handsome, but he had changed a 00:13:46.729 --> 00:13:50.946 bit. He was more settled and he was, he was a person now who could work 00:13:50.979 --> 00:13:57.547 consistently and, and maintained AAA fairly seemingly normal lifestyle. He 00:13:57.580 --> 00:14:03.436 wasn't, he was no longer a roadie for Ozzy Osborne. And the thing was the 00:14:03.469 --> 00:14:09.596 electricity was immediate. It was just, I felt like I was in a way back 00:14:09.629 --> 00:14:14.265 time machine. Here, I was presenting this man this myself to this man 00:14:14.298 --> 00:14:20.255 again, almost like a bride would. And I really mean that it was the first 00:14:20.288 --> 00:14:27.635 time in my life since I was 22 that I had some freedom here. I was AAA 40 00:14:27.668 --> 00:14:31.996 a 42 year old woman with some cash in the bank and some time on my hands, 00:14:32.029 --> 00:14:37.125 I sounded like an eagle song and I just played it out over three weekends 00:14:37.158 --> 00:14:43.167 , you know, having a torrid affair. I really, really did because I needed 00:14:43.200 --> 00:14:47.275 to know I needed to know I was a woman because I'd lived through, I'd 00:14:47.308 --> 00:14:52.586 lived through a marriage with celibacy 100% 00:14:52.619 --> 00:14:57.246 celibacy, including my wedding night. I swear it's the truth. And so here 00:14:57.279 --> 00:15:03.135 I was a woman with a child left the nest now because he was 18, he was 00:15:03.168 --> 00:15:08.066 going off to college. My husband had moved away to move on with his career 00:15:08.099 --> 00:15:13.217 and expected me to follow him again in my celibate marriage now of 15 00:15:13.250 --> 00:15:18.927 years. And I was a young woman suddenly with freedom. Like I hadn't known 00:15:18.960 --> 00:15:25.125 , I felt like I was 22 again or who I wanted to be when I was 22. And it 00:15:25.158 --> 00:15:32.096 was almost like I recapitulated right back again to where I was. And three 00:15:32.129 --> 00:15:36.836 months later I was pregnant. It was not a happy pregnancy. The second time 00:15:36.869 --> 00:15:39.616 you would have thought the first pregnancy would have been really sad and 00:15:39.649 --> 00:15:45.246 under tragic circumstances. But it wasn't. And this one, the second one 00:15:45.279 --> 00:15:50.976 with my son, Ansel Jackson was fraught with sadness here I was with the 00:15:51.009 --> 00:15:57.407 man I always wanted to be with that. I thought about for 18 years and yet 00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:02.427 I was in the middle of a messy divorce and ending a life. I had no 00:16:02.460 --> 00:16:06.677 intention really maybe of ending. I hadn't really thought when I was 00:16:06.710 --> 00:16:11.596 having an affair and figuring out what sex, you know, it was Paradise Bed 00:16:11.629 --> 00:16:14.856 , the dashboard life. It was a meat loaf song and I couldn't get over it. 00:16:14.889 --> 00:16:19.677 And I, I just didn't think, oh, what's it gonna be like when I unravel 00:16:19.710 --> 00:16:24.395 all of my life, my grown up life, what's that gonna be like? And so my 00:16:24.428 --> 00:16:30.366 pregnancy when I was 42 was a hidden secret pregnancy. It was, it was 00:16:30.399 --> 00:16:36.206 totally secret. I hid in my house. I didn't let next door neighbors or 00:16:36.239 --> 00:16:41.446 close friends see me. No one knew it was happening. But my closest friends 00:16:41.479 --> 00:16:45.936 who maybe lived out of town, the father by then had decided to come and 00:16:45.969 --> 00:16:51.427 move to Arizona to be with me. He now was the one interested in having a 00:16:51.460 --> 00:16:57.145 child. And I was not, I was the one who couldn't, who said I can't trust 00:16:57.178 --> 00:17:00.856 you. You've left other Children. I can't trust you well enough to have a 00:17:00.889 --> 00:17:03.557 child. And I'm a big grown up adult. Who knows what it's like to raise a 00:17:03.590 --> 00:17:07.506 child alone. And I didn't think I could do it. So there was a lot of 00:17:07.539 --> 00:17:13.897 disharmony, Christopher had to then reconnect while I was pregnant in 00:17:13.930 --> 00:17:19.335 front of him with a father. He had never known while he was disconnecting 00:17:19.368 --> 00:17:23.117 from me. It was turmoil in a house that should have been able to come 00:17:23.150 --> 00:17:30.476 together. But it was not. And so I decided when I was pregnant, 00:17:30.509 --> 00:17:34.137 I wasn't going to be able to keep this child. I don't know what I was 00:17:34.170 --> 00:17:38.575 thinking, but I totally said I can't keep this child. There's just no way 00:17:38.608 --> 00:17:45.535 there have to be people better than us to raise a child. We're not in a 00:17:45.568 --> 00:17:49.967 relationship. This is not a marriage. I'm still, you know, I'm still 00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.835 technically married to somebody else at this point. This is not a good 00:17:54.868 --> 00:17:58.176 situation for a child to be raised in and me raising a child as a single 00:17:58.209 --> 00:18:05.295 mother. A second time, I went through the desperate search of finding the 00:18:05.328 --> 00:18:11.496 perfect people to adopt my child while I'm living here with the father 00:18:11.529 --> 00:18:15.676 who's willing to do this for me because I've already raised one of our 00:18:15.709 --> 00:18:18.877 kids. So he doesn't have a whole lot of cards to play in the whole game 00:18:18.910 --> 00:18:22.877 here. He's, he's better just be supportive and he was, but he really, I 00:18:22.910 --> 00:18:29.717 could tell, wanted to keep the baby. But I, I began a search. I found a 00:18:29.750 --> 00:18:35.406 couple, we met with them, we had lunch. I met their child. I conversed 00:18:35.439 --> 00:18:40.776 back and forth with them. We moved ahead with details and then my gut told 00:18:40.809 --> 00:18:45.196 me something wasn't right. Something wasn't right about the situation. 00:18:45.229 --> 00:18:50.186 We're only maybe three weeks from delivery date and something besides the 00:18:50.219 --> 00:18:56.835 baby inside of me is saying something's not entirely right and I'm not 00:18:56.868 --> 00:19:02.535 getting the answers I need from the adoption agency about the adoptive 00:19:02.568 --> 00:19:08.117 couple and I am questioning things and I'm feeling things 00:19:08.150 --> 00:19:12.766 and I'm, I'm a prayer, I'm praying to God. Show me the way I'm screaming 00:19:12.799 --> 00:19:18.867 in my backyard. Help me, help me, help me, show me what it is. And I find 00:19:18.900 --> 00:19:23.815 out that this family has had some problems. The father's been in federal 00:19:23.848 --> 00:19:29.647 prison for embezzling maybe $2 million from one of his clients. I did not 00:19:29.680 --> 00:19:34.535 want my child raised in a family where money was an ongoing issue because 00:19:34.568 --> 00:19:37.726 I've already heard these arguments in my past. I've heard this as my 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:44.186 childhood. This is part of my verbal memory and I think they're lying to 00:19:44.219 --> 00:19:47.555 me. They got a lot of skeletons in their closet. I'm sure they're nice 00:19:47.588 --> 00:19:52.906 people. I'm sure time served everybody's nice people, but I didn't feel 00:19:52.939 --> 00:19:58.666 good. So I immediately discontinued my relationship with them. I consulted 00:19:58.699 --> 00:20:04.597 another adoption representative immediately who put me in touch with the 00:20:04.630 --> 00:20:10.706 most amazing family ever professors at a university. A couple, they're 00:20:10.739 --> 00:20:14.936 perfect. They're perfect except they're on their way to Brazil to do a 00:20:14.969 --> 00:20:22.107 little research. So I tell them I can do this by myself. I can birth this 00:20:22.140 --> 00:20:28.397 baby by myself. I can wait until you come back to Brazil and then I'll 00:20:28.430 --> 00:20:33.127 give you the baby. I think I can do this because I think I'm really 00:20:33.160 --> 00:20:39.766 generous. I think I'm so generous and so wanting to do the right thing for 00:20:39.799 --> 00:20:44.196 my child, for his future that I, I can live through whatever this pain is 00:20:44.229 --> 00:20:50.825 . I can, I can live through this. This is OK. So the family is off in 00:20:50.858 --> 00:20:56.766 Brazil and I'm not a happy woman at all. I've gained a lot of weight. I've 00:20:56.799 --> 00:21:03.436 been in hiding now for months. I haven't told anyone I'm having a baby. I 00:21:03.469 --> 00:21:10.075 did not bother having birthing classes. There was no nursery prepared in 00:21:10.108 --> 00:21:15.516 the house, there was no diaper, there was no plan for a child. I was 00:21:15.549 --> 00:21:21.357 literally psychologically thinking I'm doing the right thing and I'll get 00:21:21.390 --> 00:21:24.575 through this. It's gonna take some counseling. I'm gonna get through this 00:21:24.608 --> 00:21:30.206 , but I'm gonna have done the right thing, the right thing for someone. So 00:21:30.239 --> 00:21:34.946 we go to the hospital, mind you, I feel that I can have a baby by myself. 00:21:34.979 --> 00:21:41.186 So I don't go until 20 minutes before the baby is gonna be born. Skipped 00:21:41.219 --> 00:21:45.186 all that walking, all that, you know, anything ice chips, anything anybody 00:21:45.219 --> 00:21:48.416 else ever talked about in in their birthing story wasn't a part of it. We 00:21:48.449 --> 00:21:51.387 just went into the room. I said it's time to have the baby because I was 00:21:51.420 --> 00:21:58.347 ready to be done. Now it was an easy, easy, easy delivery. I remember even 00:21:58.380 --> 00:22:04.877 thinking ahead, I'm going to be getting up on my feet and squatting. I 00:22:04.910 --> 00:22:10.006 could be I because I used to say to people I literally could deliver in a 00:22:10.039 --> 00:22:14.476 field, pick up the child and move on and work because I was just such a 00:22:14.509 --> 00:22:18.785 worker, such a midwestern girl. And I literally went back home with the 00:22:18.818 --> 00:22:23.476 baby the next day and thought I'm waiting for somebody to come back from 00:22:23.509 --> 00:22:28.936 Brazil to get their child. And I started nursing the baby. And you know 00:22:28.969 --> 00:22:34.266 how, even if you don't think you're bonding with a child, you are bonding 00:22:34.299 --> 00:22:38.285 with a child, you might not be looking at your child and thinking, oh, 00:22:38.318 --> 00:22:41.926 they have their father's eyes or they have a nose like their grandfather. 00:22:41.959 --> 00:22:45.617 Those weren't the thoughts. I think it's the un verbal moments. It's the 00:22:45.650 --> 00:22:50.726 back and forth, symbiotic energy between you and your child and, and this 00:22:50.759 --> 00:22:57.575 is where it changes. I see the father now with this child in his arms, 00:22:57.608 --> 00:23:05.127 this baby with his father and the way he holds him and I think, oh, this 00:23:05.160 --> 00:23:09.776 is what this older father, now, this father now is 51 years old who's 00:23:09.809 --> 00:23:14.486 never raised any of his kids. He has four other Children. He's never 00:23:14.519 --> 00:23:20.867 raised here. He is in front of me and I am seeing him for the first time 00:23:20.900 --> 00:23:28.900 in this loving parental role. And I think this is his child. I'm letting 00:23:29.910 --> 00:23:33.426 him bond with this child. Maybe I'm letting him bond with this child 00:23:33.459 --> 00:23:39.467 because I don't want him to leave. And so for about the next week, 00:23:39.500 --> 00:23:44.597 although I was nursing the baby, I knew I was psychologically stepping 00:23:44.630 --> 00:23:51.295 back. This was really more about him having this time and I start to 00:23:51.328 --> 00:23:58.805 realize this baby is not leaving us, baby is not going anywhere. I 00:23:58.838 --> 00:24:04.516 remember the adoption person came to us, the family came back and we had 00:24:04.549 --> 00:24:09.006 to take the baby. We wrote down a name. I didn't choose the name, the 00:24:09.039 --> 00:24:13.325 baby's father chose his name Ansel Jackson. I remember he'd seen a number 00:24:13.358 --> 00:24:18.706 of Ansel Adams PBS documentaries. I think the name was in his mind, but it 00:24:18.739 --> 00:24:22.416 also connected to my work as an artist and doing large landscape paintings 00:24:22.449 --> 00:24:28.656 , my drawings, they, there was a visual connection. So he chose the name 00:24:28.689 --> 00:24:34.617 and he went along with the idea that we were gonna still adopt this baby. 00:24:34.650 --> 00:24:37.535 But somewhere in my mind, I thought, I don't know if we're really, really 00:24:37.568 --> 00:24:45.568 doing this, but we did get in the car, we did go to the family's home and 00:24:45.799 --> 00:24:52.825 we left that baby for a night. We drove back home without the baby. 00:24:52.858 --> 00:24:59.097 And I got up the next morning and I walked in my backyard and I screamed, 00:24:59.130 --> 00:25:05.545 what have I done? What have I done? What have I done? 00:25:05.578 --> 00:25:08.575 And so 00:25:08.608 --> 00:25:12.535 I called the mo the new mother 00:25:12.568 --> 00:25:20.196 and I begged for my child back and I cried and I begged and I begged and I 00:25:20.229 --> 00:25:26.246 cried and I didn't have a leg to stand on. And they politely argued with 00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:34.016 me very politely, very kind and said, we don't have to do this. And I said 00:25:34.049 --> 00:25:37.805 , of course, I know you don't have to, I know you don't have to do this 00:25:37.838 --> 00:25:45.838 for me. And they agreed to let me come and get and get my son. So I drive 00:25:46.029 --> 00:25:51.236 and I pick up this child and I pull this child from this woman's arms. 00:25:51.269 --> 00:25:57.097 This mother was so good. She looked at her daughter, her five year old at 00:25:57.130 --> 00:26:01.196 the time and said, well, let's just think of it as we took care of the 00:26:01.229 --> 00:26:05.607 baby for a night and that he was our baby for a night and that was good 00:26:05.640 --> 00:26:13.640 enough for us. I quite thought, man, that's a good mother. She's weeping, 00:26:13.799 --> 00:26:21.799 I'm weeping. Everyone's crying. No one's happy. And I know I have broken 00:26:22.318 --> 00:26:27.276 hearts. I have broken a family. I look at a grandmother there visiting and 00:26:27.309 --> 00:26:32.246 she tells me you've broken hearts and I know I've broken hearts. I know 00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:38.397 everyone hates me and I'm in turmoil and pain. There's nothing happy about 00:26:38.430 --> 00:26:42.967 it and we take the baby home and I'm not happy the baby's with us, but I'm 00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:49.696 not happy. I did this very hurtful thing and I was going to have to do a 00:26:49.729 --> 00:26:55.217 lot of soul searching trying to make everything ok with people. And I 00:26:55.250 --> 00:27:01.107 remember driving to the Walmart and thinking, what am I doing? What am I 00:27:01.140 --> 00:27:07.916 doing? What am I doing now? I have a baby living with me in my adult life. 00:27:07.949 --> 00:27:15.949 My very manicured, perfect adult life. There's nowhere in my house. Have 00:27:17.170 --> 00:27:22.246 I thought about a child coming or what's gonna happen? But I'm in, I'm a, 00:27:22.279 --> 00:27:27.726 I'm in a situation light years different than I was 20 years before when I 00:27:27.759 --> 00:27:33.236 had my first child. And yet I wasn't prepared at all, but I was told I, I 00:27:33.269 --> 00:27:38.877 knew you don't really need, you don't need color schemes in a bedroom. And 00:27:38.910 --> 00:27:43.607 a mural painted none of that is necessary. You need some diapers. And so I 00:27:43.640 --> 00:27:46.585 went to Walmart and got diapers and thought, I can't believe this is 00:27:46.618 --> 00:27:50.756 happening and we're moving forward with this. But this is what we're doing. 00:27:50.789 --> 00:27:58.789 And it really became a one day at a time. Really, really, really slowly, 00:27:59.279 --> 00:28:04.956 there was no excitement of a family. There were no phone calls, there were 00:28:04.989 --> 00:28:11.545 no flowers, there was nothing that said this is a cherished experience. 00:28:11.578 --> 00:28:19.578 Instead, it was this beautiful child that came to a broken home. 00:28:20.838 --> 00:28:27.526 But the thing that became magical about this child is that Jack Ansel 00:28:27.559 --> 00:28:33.647 Jackson has always been known as Jack began the beginning of a family. 00:28:33.680 --> 00:28:38.877 There were remnants of, of his family everywhere when he was born and all 00:28:38.910 --> 00:28:42.776 of these siblings started to meet each other. The two brothers in Los 00:28:42.809 --> 00:28:49.456 Angeles met for the first time and became very close adore each other and 00:28:49.489 --> 00:28:54.647 a family started to come together that had never been a family. Suddenly, 00:28:54.680 --> 00:28:58.857 Jack had two parents he was growing up with and Christopher had two 00:28:58.890 --> 00:29:03.535 parents living in a house for the first time that knew each other. And he 00:29:03.568 --> 00:29:07.847 had the older brother that he had always prayed for but never knew that he 00:29:07.880 --> 00:29:11.256 had that he's very, very close with as an adult. And he had the younger 00:29:11.289 --> 00:29:16.325 brother that he always wanted. And this family that had no connection 00:29:16.358 --> 00:29:24.358 throughout its seeming life suddenly now is coalescing around this baby 00:29:26.150 --> 00:29:31.647 like he's the fire. He's the fire that holds us all together and we all 00:29:31.680 --> 00:29:35.209 couldn't get close enough to him.