119 Mary O'Rourke
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Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/119
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You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast for adoptees to discuss the adoption experience. This is episode 119. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Today, I am honored to introduce you to Mary O'Rourke. Mary shares the difficult news she received in her non-identifying information at age 21. We discussed her reunion with her birth mother and sister, the added complexity of coming out twice as queer, and how she ended up finding a grief support group and an adoption competent therapist.
We are going to reference sexual violence at a few points during this episode, so please make sure you're listening without little ears around and that you're in a safe head space, if that topic is difficult for you. We are gonna wrap up with some recommended resources and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, AdopteesOn.com.
Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Mary O’Rouke. Hi Mary.
Mary O'Rourke: Hi Hailey. How are you?
Haley Radke: I'm doing really well and I'm really excited to chat with you. Thanks so much for agreeing to share your story with us. Why don't you start out with that?
Mary O'Rourke: Sure. I am about 24 years old now, but in April of 2016, I was about 21 years old at the time. My older sister, my older adopted sister, was 24 at the time, and she wanted to request her non-identifying information and my adoptive mom always told us that if we searched, we had to search together because she wanted us to have each other. And so my adoption was a closed adoption. I didn't know anything about my relinquishment or conception story or anything like that and so I had just turned 21, which is the minimum age that you have to be to request your non-identifying information.
Haley Radke: In what state?
Mary O'Rourke: Massachusetts. So, I was adopted through Catholic Charities in Massachusetts. They no longer actually do adoption. They still have their like reunion services, but they don't do private adoption anymore. I had just turned 21, requested my non-identifying information, and I was definitely in the fog and very ignorant to the impact that this would have. I didn't think it was gonna be a big deal. I was like, sure that might be interesting to learn about. Let me see what this is all about.
And so I was like standing in the lobby of my crappy college apartment, and I just opened like the large manila envelope that Catholic Charities had sent me, and I was just like, gripping the banister so I wouldn't pass out because I had no idea like what I was gonna open, and I learned for the first time that day, like the story of my relinquishment and my birth mother was 15 years old when I was conceived, and she had been raped continuously by my birth father for over a year at that time. I believe she was about 13 or 14 years old when it first happened.
My birth father was 24, and he was actually married to my birth mother's sister, my biological Aunt. Both of my birth parents were in-laws and so some of the circumstances around my birth mother's family life, her parents were both abusive alcoholics and they were often neglectful. So her home wasn't really what I would call stable.
I think that along with her being so young and like the circumstances around my conception wanting me to be safe from my birth father were reasons in the pro column for relinquishment. I was born two months early and I weighed, I looked in the records, I weighed 1745 grams, which is about 3.8 pounds.
Ron, my birth father did not want to relinquish his parental rights, but he had to go to court for statutory rape charges. Sentencing took eight months, so even though my birth mother wanted me to be placed with the family right away, I ended up in foster care for eight months. In the non-identifying records, it states specifically that my biological Aunt Katie, who was the one who was married to Ron, said she wanted to raise me. But she was not interested in raising me if my birth father was sentenced to a long sentence, I will adopt her only if Ron doesn't go to prison.
The social worker who sent me the information was also the same worker that handled the case 21 years ago. She met with both Ron and my birth mother, and she relayed to me that she's never forgotten the case and she remembers specifically how unremorseful Ron was like had no concept that what he did was wrong. It was also clear to me based on Ron's physical description, that I looked a lot like him, in particular my eyes, which are big and blue, and they were always the first thing that anyone ever commented and so that day and learning that, changed a lot about my relationship with myself and my body. Like my body never really felt like mine anymore in a way that it had before.
I think for adoptees we often find joy and comfort when we meet our first families and we can see ourselves in them because it's a really unique experience that you haven't had before. You finally see someone with your traits and I did get some of that in reunion, but physically I look a lot like him, which has been difficult. Obviously, I don't want to be like someone who did something so terrible. In April, that's when I got the records and in July, I had my first phone call with my birth mother, Meg. We exchanged letters in between that time and I see my relationship with her as something positive that came out of this.
I had responded to letters that she had left to me when I was growing up. She wrote one to me when I was maybe about eight years old, another one when I was like 18. So I had a few letters to respond to her to get us started that was in my non identifying information, so I had no idea growing up that those things were left for me.
There was also a baby book that I had no idea about, a picture of us the day I was born and just a picture of me. So two pictures, pictures of me in foster care and also my name was Hope. Hope, why not? Which I always say is really corny, but also really sweet. And so, she wrote down the Emily Dickinson poem for me, Hope is a Thing with Feathers. And I actually got my birth name tattooed on me as Why Not, Hope with a feather, which is just a side that I thought was sweet and a good way to honor that. So yeah, I didn't get that until I got my non-identifying information. After our first phone call in July, we met for the first time in August of 2016.
We got lunch. It was me, my adoptive sister, and Meg is my birth mom and Meg's other daughter Marie, who she raised. She's four years younger than I am, so at the time I think she was 17, she's about 20 years old currently. Yeah, we got lunch. It was like super…I think we were all really nervous, like no one really ate anything.
Marie told me that Meg was shaking on the car ride over there. Just like shaking on the steering wheel because she was so nervous. It was clear to me from the beginning how well Meg and I connected, and that wasn't really something that I felt with my adoptive parents. As much as I love them, I think adoption is all about holding onto seemingly oppositional things at once, like the love with the anger, the grief with gratitude, which is, I know a loaded word in adoptee land. I don't subscribe to the grateful adoptee narrative. But for me personally, I am grateful that I received basic human rights of love and necessities because those rights aren't necessarily afforded to all of us.
And so meeting Meg was kind of holding the truth and the relief of, oh, I fit, I make sense here with the painful realization that, oh I could have made sense all along, like I didn't have to grow up in this world where I didn't make sense my whole life. And I will say, of course, nurture has an impact on who you are.
I like to compare being an adoptee in reunion, to being a round peg, repeatedly jammed into a square hole. So by the time you meet the round hole, you no longer fit there either because your round edges have been beat up over the years, so now you're just like a wonky hexagon.
Haley Radke: That is so good! I have never heard that before. That's like the perfect description.
Mary O'Rourke: I'm glad you can relate. I didn't know how relatable that was gonna be, but yeah, we're just a bunch of wonky hexagons. What can you say? Haley Radke: Oh my gosh. Is that going to be the title of this episode? Okay. Thank you for sharing all of that. That is, whoa I mean, my jaw was on the floor the whole time you were talking and there's so many things I wanna ask you about. So can we just, let's pause here cause I wanna go back to, you don't even really want, necessarily wanna search, like it's not really your idea, you're kind of going along. Cause your sister is looking and what is it like to be 21, which is, my friend that's very young…to be 21 and open up this envelope and get this really devastating information about your conception.
Mary O'Rourke: I mean, shock is the only word I can really describe it as. It's not what I expected, right? There's no quote unquote normal adoptee story, but I think mine is particularly abnormal or else it felt like it was time. I think there are probably a lot more people that have had a similar story that it's just not represented in adopting narratives or in the media or anything like that. So it was very shocking.
It was very painful. I was very angry. I can't say I'm not still angry. I really felt guilt almost even though obviously, I had no choice in the matter. I felt guilty for Meg that she had to go through that for me to be born. Or like she was even, she was on bedrest for two months. Just a lot of guilt for everything that she had to do for me.
And obviously, anger at Ron and anger at a lot of the other adults in the story for not realizing what was happening over the course of over a year that this was happening. No one stepped in as soon as Meg told her parents that she was pregnant, they knew it was Ron. They said it before she did.
And yes, the fact that they had an inkling, like maybe they didn't know a hundred percent, but that they had an inkling that this was happening and they didn't intervene at all, is really upsetting. My biological Aunt's reaction to it was very upsetting, I mean that was written out in the non-identifying information so there was a lot of anger there.
Haley Radke: You also said, my body didn't feel like mine anymore. When you read Ron's physical description and kind of looking in the mirror thinking like, oh, do I look like him? How did that impact you?
Mary O'Rourke: It's impacted me a lot. Even though I was a kid, like I grew up with glasses and acne. I was made fun of a lot actually. Both of those things are his traits. I had pretty good self-confidence and self-worth. Surprisingly, I don't know how that happened. I don't know how I got away with that. But yeah, looking in the mirror and seeing his face and his traits just felt like another decision that I didn't get to make. I…it felt like almost his mark, like his ownership on me that I didn't wanna associate myself with. Yeah or even Meg, I worry that if she looks into my eyes or my face, that she sees him and what that experience is like for her. Like someone who abused her for all that time and I am him, basically.
Haley Radke: Wow. So when you first wrote to her. You already knew these things.
Mary O'Rourke: I did. So that was all in the non-identifying information packet. It also said some really sickening things like Ron described himself as a cheerful family man that donated to charities, that was his description of himself. So there was infuriating tidbits like that. But the first time we were exchanging letters. She just kind of said, I hope you're not angry with me. I love you so much. I hope we can reconnect, this is in your hands. I will always be here waiting for you, but this is your decision to make and I'll respect whatever decision it is that you make.
Haley Radke: So when you meet and you're having a meal together, and it's not just you and her, you've got two sisters, yeah. What happens from there?
Mary O'Rourke: From there, we like at the dinner itself or just in life, like after that day?
Haley Radke: Well both cause we kind of paused there at the, was it lunch, supper? What did you guys have? Did you order lunch? Nobody ate anything. So you ordered food, nobody, anything.
Mary O'Rourke: Yeah, I think it was lunch.
Mary O'Rourke: Yeah, I usually am really good about eating a ton of food at hot pot, but I just couldn't do it. You know it was, that moment was meaningful and that it was the first time that I was meeting my birth mother and my biological sister. So it was meaningful in that way, but we didn't…there was so much tension and awkwardness, I think with that meeting that it wasn't like we deeply connected that first meeting like we had.
It had been easier to talk on the phone. It had been easier to, I think, express feelings over letters. So this was like just getting the nerves out. I think the first time we met here's this strange thing that's happening and like how we deal with this. And it's also, you know we did have other people there.
And so, it's a little bit of managing relationships and trying to make sure that everyone's included. And actually that day my sister, my adoptive sister got information about her birth parents and she had to leave halfway through to meet someone to get it. So it was kind of a crazy day where everything was just happening all at once.
But after that day, and still now, we talk on the phone like almost every single day, and we see each other as often as we can. One of the most impactful things was learning that Meg was also queer and I use queer as like a blanket term for LGBT. We're using it as a blanket term. I know it wasn't always used that way. I am gay and I had my first queer relationship. I put that in quotations when I was really young. I was 13 years old and my adoptive parents, particularly my mom, they were not supportive of the relationship or me being gay. When she found out I was still seeing this person after she told me not to.
I came home and my room was trashed and anything she could find from the person that I was dating was thrown out…letters, pictures from school dances, and at the time, I didn't know the circumstances around my conception, but she started yelling that I was quote “like this” because of my father and that he was a rapist and I was just like him and she hated me.
And it really felt at that time when I was 13, 14 years old that she was second guessing adopting me. And at the time, I didn't really believe her or make the connection to my birth father because I didn't know that story and I didn't know anything about my birth. I didn't know that they knew anything about my birth family and I almost didn't wanna believe it.
Haley Radke: Right, yeah.
Mary O'Rourke: And it was only later when I was you know, 21 and in early reunion that I made the connection and eventually my mom and I's relationship did improve and she loved and accepted my college partner, but by that time, I had made the connection my mother was terminally ill with cancer and she was very close to death and much too ill to have a meaningful conversation.
So she died shortly after I turned 22 and I love my mother, and I'm not telling any of these stories to cause anyone any like pain or for vengeance, but I've learned in my life as an adoptee and a particular a queer adoptee that secrets that others have tried to make me keep about myself are toxic and add shame to my experience, and I can't hold them anymore.
And the fact that I even felt like I had to make that disclaimer is part of the loyalty that adoptees feel like they are betraying in reunion. It's hard to know that had I grown up with Meg, my coming out story would've been a lot easier there. I have several biological cousins and family members that have also come out as queer, and that would've been a completely different experience for me. And the intersectionality of my queerness and being adopted has affected reunion in particular with Meg's parents. So my biological grandparents, at first, her parents were very excited to meet me until they learned that I was gay. And then they said they would meet me, quote “socially.” But didn't want a relationship with me so.
Haley Radke: But didn't, did you say Meg was queer? Yes, that she identifies as that and are her parents okay with that or like?
Mary O'Rourke: So she's not out to her parents. She's married to a wonderful man now.
Haley Radke: Okay.
Mary O'Rourke: And she said that she didn't want to come out to them because then she would lose her relationship to them and her siblings won't take care of her parents in their old age. So I kind of agreed to be the lone out person because when you pin that against two elderly people dying alone, the choice seems easy.
Haley Radke: So what is seeing you socially but not having a relationship with? What does that even mean? Mary O'Rourke: I still ask myself the same thing, but I did meet them at a family party, and particularly Meg's mother was very rude to me the whole time. Didn't wanna talk to me, very snappy at anything I would say like, can I clear your plate? Like, just very snappy.
What's interesting is, I'm left-handed and I got that from her. So the one time she was remotely nice to me was when she noticed I was like, cutting cheese or something and she noticed I was cutting it with my left hand. And I think she said something about it. She was like, oh, this person is related to me somehow.
But also it's complicated right because they weren't great parents. I don't think that they, I mean they're maybe decent grandparents to the kids that they were grandparents to their entire lives, but you know they’re not the most loving people in general. There's just that added layer.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Do you have any advice or thoughts on this for other adopted people who are may be fearful of searching because maybe they did have a bad experience in coming out to their adoptive families. And then there's this whole other layer of searching and having to do that again. I liked what you just said, like you're, like, I'm telling them upfront cause I wanna know, you know, do you have any other thoughts on that? What would you say to someone who is in your similar position?
Mary O'Rourke: It is hard because you put yourself up for secondary rejection even more than if you were just an adoptee that was searching in general. I would probably recommend, obviously this is the way I did it. I can't tell you how it would've worked out in your circumstance or if you had done it the other way, but for me it was easier to approach the relationship with honesty and the good thing is that, in a way, for me, it was almost easier because I was meeting these people as adults.
It was harder in some ways, but easier in another where I was meeting these people as adults and so I was more comfortable with my feelings and my feelings around being gay and coming out, and I had done it before, you know I had been out for a long time at that point. So maybe wait until you're at a really good place with yourself and your identity before you reach out, because I do think you have to have a little bit of a thicker skin.
Also, try and get that upfront, like as soon as possible just to get it outta the way. I don't know. You don't wanna, I think it's harder almost to experience the love you could have had until you tell them. I don't know.
Haley Radke: Well you know to be really frank with you. I had never thought of that…of this in reunion until I interviewed Liz Latty. And she said some similar things except that she did come out to her biological father who happened to be evangelical Christian and so she was very nervous. And I remember that conversation very well, because I was just like, oh my word. Like it's something that someone like myself I just never would've thought of that.
It's that whole extra pressure and layer and so, thank you for sharing those pieces with us because a lot of us have no idea what that would be like, and to just be able to experience that with you is really meaningful. And I think they'll be really helpful for a lot of people listening.
Okay. You have shared some really hard stuff and I'm laughing, but it's not funny. It's just really challenging things, and I'm wondering how you navigated this you know like did you reach out for help in some way? Were you walking this alone? I mean this is really, really deep life stuff. As a young person. What were some of the things that you did to cope and make sure that you were safe as you did this?
Mary O'Rourke: Sure. So it's been three years since I first met my birth mother and if I'm being honest, for the first two years I did nothing. This time for me I mean It was extremely difficult, not only because I was grappling with this story about my relinquishment and my conception, but in this timeframe from slightly before I you know got the non-identifying information until now. I've lost six family members, 6, 5 family members. And that actually that one person that I had dated in that coming out story. And so I was dealing with a lot of grief at the time. And so for the first two plus years, I was definitely in the fog. I was definitely just trying to survive. Like I can't give you any advice for that time other than I was alive.
And functioning slightly, but I ended up going to grief counseling actually, because in my town, therapists are in short supply and I could only get into group counseling, and so I decided to do a writing grief group counseling session, and in my intake session I learned that my therapist was also adopted and that she was also conceived via rape.
Haley Radke: Come on.
Mary O'Rourke: Yeah, just like, serendipitously out of the blue. Had no, like I went to her grief counseling. Like she's also experienced a lot of grief, which is what motivates her to focus in the areas of grief and adoption and she does some other things as well. Those are two of her primary focuses.
Haley Radke: So you went to a group session that's supposed to be focused on grief and your therapist just happens to be a fellow adoptee who was also conceived in rape. Wow. Yeah. That's serendipitous.
Mary O'Rourke: Yep. Yeah. So she had been invaluable in my experience and in like my coming out of the fog journey, like she's what catapulted that. If you had talked to me last summer about adoption, even I would've said, oh, you know no big deal. It had no effect on me. I'm grappling with this story, but I'm not grappling with relinquishment and adoption and the fact that has on me at all, like that's no big deal.
Not that I was really processing or coping with the conception story very much as well. Like I wasn't really doing anything for that either. So she was helpful on both fronts and she was also helpful on like just the general grief counseling. Haley Radke: In the group was anyone else adopted? Did that come up as a topic of discussion or was that more just your conversations with her?
Mary O'Rourke: Yeah, so I ended up going to her one-on-one. She was able to get me in after the fact. But the grief counseling was interesting because everyone else in the group had also lost a parent, but they had that rosy angelic narrative around the person that they had lost. Like they were speaking of their parents as if they were martyrs and I think to a point that's helpful. But for me, I had, I loved my mother. And in some ways, I honored that relationship. But there were also really difficult things and I felt like I couldn't deal with that in that group because everyone else had a very idyllic parental situation for the person that they had lost.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Wow. That is, I don't know. Like I, I am, I can't, six losses like that is, that's a big number. This is a huge upheaval of your life. All of these different things and six losses and what pushed you to find that group therapy class? Like what, what was just like, I have to go, I have to do something.
Mary O'Rourke: It probably was, the fifth person that I had lost, it was my cousin who I was very close to, and then my uncle died, just a few months after that. And I think I just had this moment of reflection of, you know, I am surviving, but it feels like I have a lot that's unprocessed right now, and I really should get myself into therapy.
Like it was just, it felt like the logical thing to do at the time. I'm very composed and calm in times of crisis and because this happened one after the other. It's almost been like, I've been in survival mode like this whole time, and then I had to take a step back and say, all right, you need to get out of survival mode and like really deal with everything that's been happening.
Haley Radke: All right. I appreciate you sharing that and I think it's so important for us to pay attention to when it's time, like it's time to go and it's not always the easiest thing to do. I appreciate you sharing that. Is there anything that I didn't ask you, Mary, that you really want to talk about before we do recommended resources?
Mary O'Rourke: So Ron has four sons, two through my biological Aunt Katie, so they're my cousin brothers which is gross and I met them. Jake, one of the brothers who's only two months younger than me. So basically the same age exactly because I was two months premature, ended up telling Ron about me. And so he got my phone number, he got my social media profiles, he got my name, my pictures.
He knew where I worked. And so there was this whole crazy time where I had to tell everyone, not everyone, I had to tell my manager and some coworkers at work what the situation was, which is not something I ever wanted to do. And we thought we might have to take him to court because he was actually able to get his records sealed and he doesn't show up on a sex offender registry list.
And we wanted to make sure that the restraining order that was placed and I was a baby, like still applied and we ended up being able to get the records like out of court and everything, which is good and I haven't heard from him since. But yeah, he like looked at my LinkedIn profile, you know how you can see who's viewed your LinkedIn profile?
Haley Radke: Yes.
Mary O'Rourke: So his name like, popped up in my LinkedIn profile which really freaked me out.
Haley Radke: Oh talk about a, like a, just a privacy violation. Like I'm just, I feel icky, just like hearing it and it's not my experience. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah. There's a lot of complexity to your story. My goodness. Do you have any final thoughts for another adoptee who finds out this really, shocking information when they search and find out they were conceived in rape and what that kind of looks like. Do you have any advice for someone who gets that shock, that shocking news?
Mary O'Rourke: It's been helpful for me to, I think, trust myself. I think I personally can be easily bogged down in this story and pinpointing the influence that Ron might have had on me, or nature versus nurture. And so it's easy to lose yourself and sit in the anger, in the pain of the story, but to understand that, it's, you are more than what happened to you and that you're your own person and that you have to trust, and I don't know, love yourself.
I know that sounds corny, but it's a part of your identity, but it can't, you can't let it define you. Without taking into consideration everything else that you are.
Haley Radke: Wise, thank you. Okay, Mary, let's do our recommended resources, and why don't you go first. What did you wanna recommend to us today?
Mary O'Rourke: Sure. There is a photo series called Meeting Sheila, and it's actually by someone I went to high school with and we're not friends or anything, just, mutuals on social media and she is, obviously adopted and she's a professional photographer and she created this photo series of the first time that she met her birth mother.
And I think what's really special about it is that it shows candid moments and it also shows really poignant moments and it really exemplifies to me the reverence that we have when we meet our first, like our first parents, especially the same sex first parent where you're looking for yourself in them. There's this one picture where they're like comparing feet and you can tell that they're really similar which I think is really sweet so I would give it a look.
Haley Radke: These are really unique and just like a really intimate view of a reunion. I spent way too much time looking at these when you sent them to me because they're really moving. And I, I didn't, wasn't sure what to expect when I clicked on that link, and it's so worth it. So we, I will definitely put a link to that in the show notes. Beautiful series Meeting Sheila. Okay, I knew a little bit of what we were gonna be talking about today and so I thought I would recommend something that Liz Latty has posted on her website, and it's from a couple of years ago, but she was a part of an adoptee roundtable.
At the City University of New York, and it's a queer transnational adoption politics round table, and it is available on her website. If you go to Liz-latty.com and just click on watch or listen, you can view this whole presentation in its entirety. And so you hear from multiple adoptee voices from different perspectives, and it is really powerful and I learned a lot from it.
If you're interested in activism. If you knew exactly what Mary meant when she said intersectionality, this really brings those things together. And so I would highly recommend that you give that a watch when you have a couple hours, some quiet Saturday. Yeah, Liz is great. You gotta be following her and she's a part of this round table. And of course you would recognize some of the other adoptive voices on this. Mary, where can we connect with you online?
Mary O'Rourke: You can connect with me on Instagram. And I, as I've warned Hailey, it's a funny username. It is, Homo underscore mojo. So, h o m o underscore m o j o.
Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us, even the really challenging parts and I think it'll be really helpful for a lot of our listeners. So thank you. I really appreciate it.
Mary O'Rourke: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Haley Radke: I am so grateful for everyone who shares their story on the podcast, and especially when it is such a personal, challenging. Oh my goodness. What do you even say about some of the things that Mary has had to process? If this brought up some challenging things for you today, can I just encourage you to find some support, give a friend a call, or you can Google crisis hotline in your area.
I know I have people listening all around the world, so I don't wanna give out a phone number that doesn't work where you are. But if you Google Crisis Support line, you can always find someone to jump on the phone with you. And I am just blown away by the community that we've built here where adoptees can come and share in a safe space and support each other via a podcast.
Who knew that would happen? So Mary is actually one of my monthly supporters and I'm so grateful for her ongoing support. When we ended our call I thanked her and I told her truly, and I mean this without people like Mary signing up for monthly support of the podcast, I wouldn't be able to do it and so I'm so grateful. If you want to join Mary and about a hundred and 120 ish other monthly supporters. If you go to adopteeson.com/partner, there's details there of the bonuses you get when you are a monthly partner, including did you know there was a whole other. Weekly podcasts that I do with some rotating co-hosts.
It's called Adoptees Off Script. And if you are subscribed to this podcast, you would've heard a few of those. I aired them in September 2019 on the main feed, and so I hope that you enjoyed those. One other way you can support the podcast is by telling just one other person about it. Do you know another adopted person?
Pick a favorite episode and ask them to listen to it and let them know what you think, let you know what they think. Let them, it's very late when I'm recording this. I'm sorry. Word of mouth is how most people find out about a podcast, so I thank you so much when you share the show. Thanks so much for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.
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