Infertility and the Path to Adoption

Well, hey everybody and welcome back to Qualified, the place where incredible people share their stories of overcoming great adversity and loss to inspire you and give you hope. I'm Michelle Heaton. Just a few weeks ago, we talked about Mother's Day on the podcast, and how that day can be so joyful for some, and it can be difficult for others. We touched on how certain life circumstances can make Mother's Day painful. Like for mothers who've lost children, those who have strained relationships with their moms, mothers who have strained relationships with their children, those yearning to be mothers, and so many other situations. Well, my guest today was raised by an amazing mom, who passed along to her daughter Some of her own wonderful traits. She's a strong willed and tenacious woman who's worked in the education field for more than 30 years, helping college students navigate their academic paths, and guiding them towards successful futures. She's passionate about helping other people obtain their goals and aspirations. And today, she'll talk with us about one of the most important ones of her own - her deep desire to be a mom. Welcome to Qualified Yvette.

Thank you. Nice to see you, Michelle.

Great to have you here. So let's talk a little bit about your mother, because I know you loved her very much. And the relationship you two had greatly impacted you and your desire to be a mom yourself.

Thank you, Michelle, for asking, I love to talk about my mom. And my mom was just an incredible woman. And we had the most wonderful relationship. And when I think about her life, her life was inspiring to me. She was born in El Paso, Texas. And then she eventually was brave enough after she was divorced from my biological father, she was brave enough to go to Los Angeles and make a life for herself there and took a great risk to raise my brother and I on her own without her parents help. But that's the kind of woman she was. And she ended up becoming a social worker, and just showed us that we were the most important thing, even though she was working and had to work 40 hours a week, she always made us feel like we were the most important thing in her life. And if we needed her to be a monitor for a field trip to be a driver, she would be there for us. If we had any events, you'd be there for us. She was incredible in demonstrating love. And at one point, she ended up becoming a co founder of the East LA rape hotline. And it was something she was forever proud of. It was the very first bilingual rape hotline in I think the country for sure in the state of California. And she was able to start from scratch from cupcake sales to make the money for the rape hotline with a friend of hers. And she ended up finding her voice for these women that did not speak English and then found themselves in the system after being violated. And this was just kind of the role modeling she did for us. But she was always there for a she was a fierce defender of people that needed to be taken care of, or needed to have a voice. And she was always there. I remember, she would go up to you and it would embarrass the heck out of me. But she would go up to if she saw a caregiver being rough with a child and grab their arm and it looked like she was about to abuse a child, my mom would march over there. And our mom thought she was really physically big, even though I don't think she really was, but she marched over there and the way you're treating your child is not the right way to do and I want you to know that I'm a social worker, and she had no fear whatsoever that that was wrong to do or inappropriate. She just felt like she needed to do that. And at some point, she moved and married her love. And at that point, I couldn't believe that me living in LA with my husband, that I was going to be so far from my mom. So we figured out how to follow my mom. And I know it sounds childish, but I'm like, I'm not living that far away from her if I can help it. And so we went in and we followed her and never looked back was one of the best decisions we made.

That's wonderful. She sounds like a very strong and independent woman and definitely a mother to look up to. So you and your husband moved to live near her and you continue to have a very close relationship. In fact, you talked about some of the feelings you had related to the prospect of losing her that were sort of extreme in nature. Can you talk about those feelings and then what happened next?

When I think about those many, many years that I loved my mom, I would be so frightened when I would think of her someday dying. So I was in high school and I was in college. Now mind you, she was not married. So it was just my mom, my older brother and myself. And when I would think about her dying, it would just freeze me up, my heart would stop, I would, it was not a healthy response to something that I knew was going to happen in the future. And it really, really scared me. She was super healthy, she took care of herself. She did Zumba, if not every day, every other day, she always walked. So she did everything in her power to be healthy as long as she could. And she just got sick around her birthday. And then a month later, she passed away. So it was very sudden, but we spoke on the phone or saw each other every single day. And so to lose that I'd find myself at Target just a few days or a week or two weeks after she died. And I would think I wonder if my mom needs anything. And I'd literally pick up the phone.

I'm very sorry, Yvette. You talked about her being an advocate for other people. But I know that her support of you played a very big part in your life.

My mom was my biggest champion. So she would tell me, You are so beautiful, and you are so kind and she was just always uplifting me. And life is hard. And she made it less hard. She made it more joyous, because she had eyes for me. And so she saw me, and would compliment me not to make me feel better, just because she saw this beauty in me or this goodness in me.

That's so important. And I'm so glad that she did that for the time that she could in your life. So backing up a little, when you first met and married your husband, you both knew that you wanted to have children, you had a great role model and your mother who was still living at that time. And you were excited at the idea of starting your own family. Talk about that time in your life.

So no one ever expects to not be able to have children. I met my husband when I was 14 years old, even though we were just friends for many, many years. And then we got married, and then you know, had our careers and we were ready to have children. And then we just couldn't. And we just kept trying and we just couldn't. And so to get the news that we probably weren't going to have children. Unless we did something about it was really, really hard. I was already fantasizing about how I was going to let my mom know, through a t shirt or some kind of reveal I had in my head that we had become parents. And I just I wanted to have a generation of kids. Because I wanted to love them the way my mom loved me. And it was just something I wanted to do. And so not being able to with the love of my life, my husband was very difficult to understand that it's not going to happen. It's just not going to happen. So my husband and I decided then there's a lot of medical interventions out there. And so we pursued infertility treatments, which were costly and painful, both physically painful, and emotionally painful. And so it affected our marriage, our everyday life, going through shots. i I hate shots, and my husband had to give me a shot every day. And we had to save up money to do these medical treatments because our insurance did not cover it. So it was just journey that we were on together. And we had a strong marriage. We were probably married 6, 7 or 8 years. I can't remember exactly. We were married a long time. Well-meaning people would come up Hey, guys, when are you going to have a family? When are you going to have children? And certainly they didn't mean any harm by that. But it was a constant reminder of what we didn't have and what we wanted desperately. So it was very difficult. But it was something that I had to go through. Just because I needed to and I can't remember how long but it was probably a year, year and a half and then we just decided no more.

That's a pretty big decision and a tough one. So at that point, you decided on another path. How did that decision unfold?

So we were just done. It was it was like I said it was painful for me physically and it was costly. And so I still remember we were having a meal together at a restaurant and I just said you know, I want to be a mom. I don't have to have that child. Go inside of me and come out of me. I just want to be a mom. And then my husband's like, well, I want to be a dad. And I don't care how we get a child either. So I said, Well, what about adoption. And he goes, sounds good. To me, it was a, it was relatively easy to come to that conclusion, because we're familiar with adoption, and we have adoption in our extended family. So it wasn't completely foreign. And we just knew that it was the next step. And so before dessert, as they say the decision was made. I didn't know anything about adoption. But I started quickly learning more about what our options were. And they did different the adoption center that we went with, wanted to make sure that we were done with trying to have children. And they make you be very aware, I can't remember if they have you signed something, it doesn't make sense to me. But they were very adamant that you had to have closed the door to infertility treatments, that they didn't want you going through infertility treatments, and trying to adopt at the same time, that was not something they wanted you to pursue adoption wholeheartedly. And without anything else there was because they didn't want you to change your mind. If a birth mom, a lot of the adoption centers are centered around the birth parents as they should be in trying to protect them. And if the birth parent chooses you, and you go, No, I just got, you know, pregnant, then they felt that it was really dishonouring to the birth parent that went through this horrible decision, or challenging decision. So we will say, yeah, no, there's we're done. That's it's over, we're ready to adopt. And so we started pursuing that.

I love how unified you both were about this, and that so important. So at this point, was it difficult to completely let go of the idea that she would never have your own biological child? Do you remember the emotions you felt at that time?

I don't think that, you know, having to have a biological child was anything that important to us. My bio dad, my brother, and I always call him bio dad left our family when I was three months old, and I never saw him. I've never met him, never saw him. And so biology has never been that big of a deal. To anybody in our family, it was always about loving people that you that you're with. And so it wasn't that hard of a decision. And it wasn't that much loss. I think the loss was first done a year and a half ago, when we just thought we were going to be able to have children, you know, the old fashioned way. And when that didn't happen, there was loss there. Because then we had to go on this journey. And I think we were comforted with the knowledge that this was the path for us. We had faith that this is the way we're supposed to go. And that there was a child or maybe more that were waiting for us. And and so I don't remember that much pain, I think we were more excited about thinking we're gonna do this journey on adoption. And we're going to find the child that God has for us, it basically came down to blood hasn't been important to us. And we knew that this was the way to have a family that we wanted to be parents more than than we wanted to have offspring that look like us or came from our, you know, gene pool. Yeah. And so that was the most important thing to us. Then back in the day when I was at, at the university. We were dating at the time, we weren't engaged. But there was an engaged couples retreat that my school offered. And we went on it. And he and I had to answer these questions separately. And the question was, what about children? And both of us said, unbeknownst to the other that we wanted to adopt, wow. And that was back when we had been dating less than two years. And we ended up dating for many years before we got married. So I don't know why it was in our head at the time. But when we shared our letters, you know, later that weekend was like, really you want to adopt? Yeah, maybe want to have one or two my own, but I really want to adopt? Yeah, me too. And so it was it was already out there. And so I think that you as a couple have to come to terms with when you're going to move whatever journey of infertility and then choose to adopt, but my deep belief is that both need to want to do it. Yeah, one cannot want it and the other one, fine, drag me along. It isn't one of those things where I think you both want to need to have you both want to have children or you both want to adopt children. But you need to be on the same page. One parent can't lead the other. Yeah. And for us, just add that meal. You want to stop. Yeah, I'm done. I'm done too. How about adoption? That's good for me. Let's do it. Yeah. And it was it was just an easy transition. There was a lot of love and trust between us.

So We should talk a little about the adoption process. Because it's not a quick and simple means of getting a child. You said you had a few challenges along the way. The journey

to adoption was a long and bumpy road. We had babies in her arms that we lost. So it wasn't just, you put your name in an agency, and they find you a baby, it was a bumpy road to get there. And I remember one story that stands out in my head was we had had a baby, and the baby was taken away, had another baby, the baby was taken away. And I was counseling, a lot of times the birth moms that were that we would meet, and they would tell us, you know, some of their pain and struggles and just me I would, I would counsel them. That's who I am. But I remember that after the second one that we lost, I am just very angry, I'm upset about all the pain that my husband and I are going through. And I was I was having a tantrum. And in explaining how this is unfair, this isn't right. And then when I got over my tantrum, I told God, I don't want to meet any more birth moms, I don't want to travel anymore, get into a car and drive eight or 10 hours way which which we had done, I want to get a call that my baby's ready, and that you have picked that baby out for our family. I don't want to go far. And this was a national agency that we had joined all 50 states were participating. So within the week, I got a call from the agency and said we have a baby in the hospital. And they told me the name of this the town, which is the town I'm living it is a small city. And I said no, I think you're wrong. We're from that city. It was Why don't know where you're from lady, I'm the operator, I'm telling you that this baby is in a hospital in that city and ready to be released. So you need to make a decision. So I hung up just I was just like blown away called my husband said what do you think? And he goes, I think that they made a mistake. They're wrong about the city. So I call them back and they say I think that you're wrong about where the baby is coming from she was lady I got named at the hospital. This is where it's at. We lived a mile and a half from the hospital. And then she just said you need to have a car seat. And you need to go to the hospital. And so my husband and I just were giddy, we were laughing high fiving each other we're Where the heck is that car seat because we had tossed it in the back of the of the crib that was, you know, dusty, and it had been so long. So we get the car seat and we go is sure enough, there was a baby waiting for us. That's our son, Gabriel. And it was just amazing. That, you know, I had this conversation with God and and this was the child that he had waiting for us.

And I love that story. Funny how we pray and ask God for something. And then when it comes, we think this must be wrong. It's too good to be true. But that's how amazing God can be when we ask. It must have been so exciting for you to finally share that news with your mom, after hearing that your baby was ready for you to take home.

So typical my mom when we brought Gabrielle home, and he was 12 hours old. And I was there was no cell phones in the dailies. We didn't have any. And I use the hospital phone to try to get ahold of my mom. So I eventually just left her message and I said we have a baby meet me at the house. And she lives like 15 minutes from us. And this is we're living in LA. So we came home with our son Gabriel. And my mom was standing there outside the porch. She was just weeping, weeping. We bring him out. And she just you know, grabbed him from me. And and that was it. You know, she was in love. So happy. She was just so happy. Just typical. There's another story. We were so shocked that we had a baby that we didn't kind of know what to do and the poor. The nurse looked at me with a deer in the headlight look and she goes, Man, you need help. And she gave me all this formula that they gave me from the from the hospital and she gave me double and she what she should have. And then we come home and a couple days later supposed to be the baby after the umbilical cord comes off. And like Mom, he's supposed to be you know, be the baby. Oh, let me show you. So my husband and I are there in the sink with my mom and she tells us how to do it like Oh, Shoo. Well, years later, she acts all confident years later, she tells me I didn't know what I was doing. She goes you guys think that I'm gonna remember how to be that baby. I have her all those years. She goes but you guys look so scared that I had to jump in and act like I was doing you guys were So gratefully, you just followed my lead. And that was my mom. And she would just go ahead and do something like that. I'm pretty and very comforting. And so that's what I miss now is that kind of strong woman.

So that was the first one.

That was the first one as our sentence. So we were living in a city near my job. And then we a few years later moved, and so we had to start the whole search all over again. And we had to do home study, where they come to your house and check you out, make sure everything's safe. So when you're in the middle of infertility, and you're in the middle of adoption, everything is out of your control everything. And I'm a woman who likes to try to control things. So not being able to control anything was just very challenging. So while we had our son, I thought, at least I want to control the second baby, and have a girl if at all possible. So this agency said, Yeah, you know, we can work on that. So with that story, we had waited a few years before we felt, you know, ready to jump into the whole process, again, because there's a lot of loss in just trying to get a baby. So we ended up getting a call saying that a baby was in foster care, and that she was ready to come home to us. And it was a little girl at that time. And so we went to go pick her up. And we had to meet some people, you know, the social workers, things like that. And then And then about a week later, we picked her up to take her home. So we first met her. And then we took her home after that. So what happened next? So we brought her home, and it was just, it was joyous. I mean, there's a little bit of fear, when you bring the child home that yes, of course, that the birth mom is going to change her mind. That's what everybody would always ask me what if she changes her mind what changes her mind. But we were so overwhelmed with having a second child that that gratefully occupied our time. So we were able to focus on we got our little girl, we got a little boy. And so that was really a gift. But yeah, behind the scene, we're worried what if the birth mom changes her mind? And we couldn't wait till we could go to the courts. But that didn't happen until about a year later.

That was not the same. I mean, that was many years ago is still that way. Now do you know?

Yes, it's pretty much the same. In that you can, you can have a baby two ways you can have a baby, because the court said the birth parents are not fit to be their parents. And so they take the child away. And so then they look for foster care, and then eventual adoption. So that's one way. And the other way is that the birth mom says, you know, I can't do this. So I'm going to place my baby in a family and a couple that I found, and so they rescind their rights. But in order to do that, it has to be a certain amount of days outside of the hospital, then they rescind their rights. But then you have to prove to the courts that you're a fit family through the home study, and then time has to have passed, and then you can go to the courts and then legally adopt and then that the birth certificate is changed into you are the parents. So there's that legal process? Pretty much once the parents have given up their rights. As long as you're a good parent, you're not going to lose your baby.

Did you ever wonder if your children would want to track down their biological parents? And how did you feel about that?

Um, yes, I am very open about it. So, you know, my kids have any desire to see their birth parents, I'm totally okay with that. The only thing was I didn't want them to do when they were under 18. So that was my my big thing. Because, you know, they're just young at that point. So there's no fear that, you know, we're gonna lose our kids, or anything like that. The only thing is that I want them to be able to, you know, have a healthy relationship if they can with their birth parents. So I don't have any fear about it. We talked about them being adopted, since they were very, very little, you know, we proudly say none of the four of us are related biologically, right? My husband and I and the two kids were all come from different places. So my husband feels the same way. We don't have any fears if they want us to search them out. I personally haven't ever searched my biological father out. So, you know, that's just where I'm coming from. But they can if they want to, and I wouldn't have any issues with that.

So what would you say to a woman who's listening right now that struggling to get pregnant that can't that's really down and feeling desperate to give her hope about? This is an option.

Well, I think everybody comes to the realization whether it's going to work or not the natural way. So I think that often the choice and when to stop is up to the couple. Because there are lots and lots of stories of people that got pregnant two or three or five years later. So I don't want to take any of that hope away. We just knew instantly when we were done. And for you women that are out there to listen to that voice of you'll know when you're done. And then you move on to the next chapter, whether that's infertility treatments, or that's to adoption. To be open to that. I just think that every couple with a woman giving more probably input because she has to go through it will know when it's time to say goodbye to the biological way of doing it. And and to give grace to the weird questions, the craziness, the intrusion that people have about, just relax, it'll happen, you know, once you say you're going to adopt, you'll get pregnant. If you do that, you do know. Yeah. But that's that's up to you to decide. But there's hope and creating a family that's the thing is, does it have to be a biological child? For some people? The answer is yes. And for others, no, I'll become a family no matter how, whether it's through adoption, or foster adopt or whatever. And that's a very private journey. And and just because we ended up where we are doesn't mean you're going to and there's nothing wrong with ending it when you're ready to end it or not having children or becoming a family in different ways. There's, they're made all kinds of different ways.

So I remember some of that, too. I remember the baby showers and the frustration with that and seeing everybody else and struggling to try to have joy for somebody else. When you're kind of biting your tongue because you're thinking, why not me and the pregnancy tests. I remember back in the day, you know, it's different now, but we used to buy and I used to buy them at Costco in bulk, you know, because I was constantly taking. So that's hard. You know, you went through that. So there's the baby showers. There's the pain, the Clomid, all that Clomid, you were on clomid. I was Yeah, I was on clomid. It makes you crazy. It does see emotions. Yes, yeah, the some of the drugs that you have to take in order to get pregnant, cause such an emotional roller coaster that it's challenging for the marriage or the relationship. Right. So here you are trying to have an intimate thing and a pregnant and you want to, you know, literally kill each other. Right? Because

of the 20 day cycle. You're probably only fertile one or two. Yes. And so I would pee on a stick and then when it would turn blue, and then you're high, and I would call my husband meet me at the house. But it's just it's not romantic. It's, you know, anything other than trying to create a child,

right? Yeah, no, I forgot about that. You're talking about peeing on a stick. I'm thinking about pregnancy tests. But there were fertility test of urination predictor kids? Yes. Yeah,

they should predict you remember, it was blue is the color we're looking for. I can't remember. I remember saying we I turned blue.

Yeah. And I'm thinking somebody who's listening now is probably like, oh, I have an app on my phone. Right? What do you guys talk about you old Ladies? Right? Yeah, no, I don't I don't know how it's done now. But I think the emotions are probably the same. Yeah. And so back to that Mother's Day thing that we talked about, it's, it's just hard when you want to be a mom, and it's out of your control. Right? So there's a huge spiritual lesson in that on depending on relying on God, because there's no other way around that you have to rely on God. Right. And you said earlier, this is something I had to go through. So what are the big lessons that you learned through this entire journey from infertility to adoption, that you could share with someone listening, who might be in a similar situation, to encourage them and give them hope about their future family?

Well, I think we have in our head the way we want our life, to be the kind of road that it's going to go. And you have to be open to a big change of that. And so I had this idea, after watching, and being part of my mom's life, to be part of her legacy, and to have children with my husband. And when that didn't work out, we we, because of our faith, I think we just kind of quickly turned around after we mourn the loss of fertility, we switch things around, and we're able to go with what was there. And so I just think that all of us have a plan for our life, and we have to be open for that plan to change. And that's what's happened with us. And I was extremely devastated when my mom died. I wanted her to be there for when my kids got married. And I wanted her to be there to keep giving me advice until and keep telling me I'm beautiful and all the other great things that she did, but it wasn't to be and I can't imagine not having those Two children in my life, you know that they're the best, I just can't imagine it. And so the four of us were meant to be, and I have a strong faith that that's the way it was intended to be. But that my lessons, if you will, or to just appreciate what you have, even if it's a different life from what you thought, because that's the life that I think that you were meant to live, even if it's a challenging life, because we have had many challenges. And I believe that God has been with us this whole way. And I'm hoping that I'm bringing hope to others. But it's been rewarding to have the kids I know, we were meant to have, we don't really talk about adoption at the house anymore, because they're just started kids. Yeah, they're our family. And so for me that the biggest life lesson is, is my relationship with God. And that has saved me from I don't know, what would have happened if I hadn't a close relationship with God when my mom died. Because to me, it was seven a month is very sudden, yes. And I was able to survive it and, and still find joy in life, because of my faith that we're going to be able to see each other again, I was insecure, something else. I remember, my mom would tell me, because when I was asking her mom is given birth gonna be painful. And she goes, Yes, but God is gonna give you some kind of amnesia, and you're gonna forget the pain, because he does. So you can have a second because otherwise, you will never have another baby. And so I feel like I have some amnesia, about some of the pain that I went through with infertility and adoption. Because I was given the family that I was supposed to have. So looking back at it in preparing for today, I was thinking about it. And looking back on it, it was a lot more raw than I remember. Yeah. Because there was some amnesia that I was given to cover that because in the end, I got the family, not the way I thought, but the one I was supposed to have. I hear

you say that, and I can totally relate to what you're saying. Because I've talked before in other episodes about losing Shawn, and how the reality of it will hit me even now, nine years later, and I'll go down this rabbit hole of really crying and losing it. But I feel like I had that same kind of an amnesia to, to a certain degree, because I felt like many people have said, how can you? I couldn't do it? Well, what are the options? You know, but I did it was removed from me, so that I could persevere and continue the way that we are now. So

your God had continued plan for you? Yes, yeah. He has a plan for SHINee be with him. But he has a plan for you to be on Earth. Still touching people's lives until he's ready for you. Yeah,

I agree. Yvette, thank you so much for being on the podcast today and for sharing all of

this. Thank you, Michelle. It was a delight. Thank you very much for letting me talk about my family.

So for those of you listening, that might be struggling with infertility, there is hope that you can have a family one day, and you'll know when the time is right to make those important life decisions. Like Yvette said for her, it was all about loving the people you're with and accepting the things that are out of your control. Our prayers are with you today. That you would be granted the desire of your heart and that you will pour out your love generously when the time does come for you to be a parent. It is truly one of the greatest gifts you'll ever receive. Thanks for listening