292 Shelby Redfield Kilgore
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/292
Haley Radke: [00:00:00] This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing stated on it, either by its hosts or any guests, is to be construed as psychological, medical, or legal advice.
You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm Haley Radke. oh my gosh, Haley, where have you been? It's been so long since you published an episode. You listen, I had double pneumonia. You guys, I'm so sorry. I was sick for two whole months and I was thinking to myself, I think this is.
I think it's the first, maybe second time ever that I missed a podcast drop date in eight years. So I'm trying really hard to give myself a pass. And I think it's been a while, but I think last time it was like, oh, I didn't hit publish. And [00:01:00] so it was up, Friday midday instead of Friday morning or something.
So that's a little different than ghosting you for six weeks or whatever it's been since I published it. I think it's been like two months. My apologies. We're back. We have all new shows ready for you. I want to thank you for all of you who sent your well wishes my way. I appreciate it so very much.
And we have brand new shows coming in every other week starting today. And it's so exciting to start back in with today's guest, Shelby Redfield Kilgore is a Korean adoptee and filmmaker. I'm going to call her a YouTuber since you can watch her documentaries and videos alongside 800, 000 other folks who've already had the pleasure on YouTube, we talk about Shelby's passion for sharing adoptee stories and how that has shifted in tone over the years.
And we also talk about her health struggles [00:02:00] and the impacts those have had on her reunions. And a recent motherhood. Before we get started, I wanna personally invite you to join our Patreon adoptee community over on adoptee on.com/community, which helps support you and also the show to support more adoptees around the world.
And we wrap up with some recommended resources. And as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website, adoptee on.com. Let's listen in.
I am so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On Shelby Redfield Kilgore. Welcome Shelby.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate being a guest on your amazing podcast.
Haley Radke: Aw, thank you. I'd love it if you would start the way we usually do. Would you feel comfortable sharing a little bit of your story with us?
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Sure. I am a Korean adoptee. I was adopted in 1983 when I was about [00:03:00] 11 months old to a white adoptive couple. And I was raised in a loving family. Where they allowed me the space to talk about my conflicting emotions about adoption in the sense of missing and grieving the loss of my first mother and talking about, just feeling like there was a hole in my heart, that there was something missing.
And so that was, I was fortunate to have that. And I also have another connection to adoption because my adoptive mother, and I'm okay to share this because of her she shared her story with me on my YouTube channel about being a birth mother. She was sixteen when she had to relinquish her child for adoption.
And they were reunited 47 years later. So I've known about that since I was 11 years old. So we've had a very close relationship in that sense, [00:04:00] because I just remember her telling me that I wanted to be the adoptive mother that I hope my son had. And when I was 17, I was able to meet my first mother in Korea with my adoptive parents, and that sort of, at the time, felt like closure to me, because I thought that's all I ever wanted, but what really happened was I started to have more questions and I started to process my adoption in a different way.
And so I it was a difficult process for me really, because I also struggled with identity issues as a Korean adoptee living in a very predominantly white community, which I hadn't really addressed as a kid, which is hard to when you certainly don't have this space at home to talk about that, because it's not that they probably wouldn't have been comfortable talking about it.
I just never brought it up and they never thought to bring it up. So [00:05:00] when I was in my late twenties is when I decided, because I am a producer in documentary work, I decided that I wanted to launch my own channel and share other adoptee stories, adoption stories too. And that's when I really started really realizing that I was in somewhat of adoptee fog, that term, and that I was experiencing a disruption.
But each time I was talking to a new adoptee and their experiences about reconnecting with other biological family members. So not just their mom. And I was like, oh, cause I knew from my adoption paperwork and meeting at least the maternal side of my biological family, that I had these half siblings, two half brothers.
So I started wondering about other family members. And that's where my adoption, [00:06:00] my personal feelings and evolution started really taking flight was when I started the channel. So that's my story.
Haley Radke: Okay, so I've been doing this podcast for a little over eight years. You've been telling adoptee stories for over a decade.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Yes, over a decade now.
Haley Radke: Okay, yeah. It's interesting how you know, community story sharing and things really shifts our opinions over time when you look back at your work from the early years. Can you do that now? And how has that changed for you? What do you think about having those? Early storytelling. Do you have cringe moments? You're like, ooh, I don't think that anymore. Do you have anything like that?
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Yes, when I am looking back at my earlier [00:07:00] videos I came with a lens of I know there's trauma and severe grief in adoption because of the separation of mother and baby. I grew up with that my whole life and processing that, but that was only one dimension of my adoption grief and trauma and but I thought I have these loving parents. I have a great relationship with them and so there is something good that came out of that. So is this idea of making something good come out of something bad and I wanted to share that with other adoptees and adoptive parents, and I think it was challenging for me because I was joining all these adoptee spaces on Facebook at the time, and so I wasn't necessarily ready to hear everything that they were saying about adoption through the lens that [00:08:00] it's an industry.
It's a billion dollar industry and children are looked at as like commodifying children basically. So it's very hard to look at it in that sense. And looking back on it now, there's some adoption stories that I was thinking do I need to take some of these down because some adoptees I interviewed were children and I know that as a child you progress and you change your views on adoption from your own personal experiences, especially big life events that may trigger your adoption.
And, but I, I remember reading this one adoptee that I follow on social media, and I love everything she says the Diary of a not so Angry Adoptee, which I know that you interviewed on your podcast and I listened to that. She said, she wa s considering or thinking of, should I remove some of my posts from when I first started out blogging, but it's the evolution of her journey as [00:09:00] well.
And so my sharing these stories, like keeping them there in the beginning, like from the beginning is I think so important because that's also the evolution of my adoption story and how I started seeing things differently. And I still will always be grateful because in the beginning, it was adoptive parents and adoption lawyers that wanted to tell me their story.
And it was adoptees that saw that. And then they came forward and they said I want to tell my story because adoptees should be centered in this narrative of adoption. And I was grateful that the videos that I did have, they're very varied perspectives on adoption, that it allowed, for other adoptees to come forward to tell me their story.
And that's how it started. It all started from people watching my videos and then reaching out to me on social media to ask if they could be a part of it and [00:10:00] I, it just, it's been an incredible experience and I feel so honored to be able to share these stories and I try very hard as a filmmaker to let them tell their story whatever stage they are, because I'll still find adoptees that see their adoption probably the way that I did a decade ago, and there was one time when I remember I struggled and I was really trying to, and I apologized about doing that. It was, what is the term you would call it, but being almost forceful, like a way about, are you sure you think that way? And I'm like, oh no, I'm stepping out of my non judgmental seat basically, or.
Haley Radke: Yeah. As a I just was talking to a qualitative researcher and she's talking about how she's interviewing adoptees and you have to be neutral, right? And you can't give your side or add in bias, especially when you're doing [00:11:00] research for academic work. So you have that stance as a filmmaker.
You don't want to insert yourself into the story. Yeah, I totally get that. I'm so biased, Shelby, I know that comes across. No, I appreciate that. I love having documents that can show our progression. I know if people go back and cringe, listen to the first season of my show. And you can hear me in real time unpacking so many things with the people that I'm interviewing.
So I so relate to you on that. Can we go back to childhood? I know you've shared before that you. grew up as a person of color in a very white community and you were experiencing racism, schoolyard situations, those kinds of things. And it's interesting to me that growing up with a mother who [00:12:00] is also mother of loss as a birth mother and I'm sorry that your adoptive mom experienced secondary infertility.
That's really common for a lot of birth moms. I don't know if our listeners knew that, but super common. Anyway, so she was able to give openness and language about talking about adoption, but not to the potential for you to be experiencing racism. Are you comfortable sharing a little bit more about that?
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Of course. So what happened was, as I was a young adult, like in my 20s, I started talking about it with them, and then I started writing about it when I started filming other adoptees. And I had forgotten that they really didn't know that I hadn't told them when I was a child. Because I never had the tools when kids in elementary school would call me flat face.
Or they would pull their face back so that [00:13:00] their eyes would be more slanted. I just shut down. I didn't have the language to respond. And that's, sometimes even as an adult, when something like that might happen I will just shut down and internalize it. And as a child in elementary school, when kids were like that, I wanted so much to disappear and I did not want to be Asian.
So there's a lot of almost self hatred in a way of not wanting to look like you do. Seeing yourself in the mirror and feeling like this is not how I feel and also I remember, I think I was in high school, a friend of mine at the time called me Twinkie and I'm like I'm like, what? And she said, you're yellow on the outside, white on the inside.
And I, again, just, I shut down and internalized it. But I, I remember [00:14:00] very strongly feeling incredibly upset by that, especially like a friend. And it's really because I don't know how even to this day, how to tell someone, but I am Korean American. I may not have been raised with the values and cultures of Korean American, but what does that mean?
Would it be over in Korea? Cause that's quite different than Korean Americans. And I'll still have people say, oh, I consider you my white friend, but I am not, I, I still, it's very frustrating. And it's I don't even want to get into it because I also recently read the book by Angela Tucker, You Should Be Grateful, where she uses the word exulansis.
So it's basically a term where it's impossible for you to describe your experience for someone who hasn't experienced that, which would be adoption, [00:15:00] for them to understand. It's almost what's the point? But basically I do wish my parents had the education to at least start the conversation or let me know that this may be something I would face.
I also felt it in the church we grew up in. I grew up in. I was raised in an Episcopalian church and was very white. And I remember bringing that to my reverend. And I was doing this school report. In high school, I remember that because we were talking about racism and segregation and how to end self segregation and all that.
And I'm like why don't we just make these churches require for, a certain amount of people of color to attend? Because I didn't understand why there was a church right across the street that was an all black church. And then this is an all white church minus [00:16:00] myself and my adopted brother from Korea too. That we aren't biologically related. And I remember talking to him that, and then the next weekend, there was a social gathering between our churches. And then after a few times it stopped and I found out why. Because people in my church complained. And I'm like, besides having my own issues with faith at the time, because of being an adoptee, I was like, I think I'm just, I think I'm done.
That's how I felt, at least with that church, that was my experience. It very much stuck with me that why are churches like this? They're supposed to be loving and accepting of all people, yet here we have pretty blatant racism.
Haley Radke: Blatant, overt racism.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Not just subtle.
Haley Radke: No. oh my word. Okay. Thank you for sharing [00:17:00] that. I'm sure a lot of our listeners will relate to those experiences. You know what's making me so frustrated, Shelby, is that I'm like how much has changed since then? Not that much. You know what I mean?
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Nope.
Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. Okay, so let's go to meeting your birth mother, which was like not gonna happen and then it happened and she had kept you a secret from her new husband and family. Can you share a little bit about that? That's another thing a lot of people can relate to for sure. Because when we're a secret, it's very hard to maintain a relationship.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Yes. I was 17 at the time when we were getting ready to go on a trip to Korea, South Korea, with [00:18:00] a group of adoptive families. And my parents took us to family therapy so we could all prepare.
And I was just focused on, whether or not I was going to get to meet my birth mother because they said that they had found her and they had asked her for a meeting and she said no. And I was so devastated. It felt like a second rejection for me because that's all I had ever wanted since I was five and understood what adoption meant.
And they also gave me this piece of information with more information about my biological family. That they had withheld for 17 years. So then I had this intense feeling of anger. Like why would you withhold this information? I have a right to this information. What I, it's. I didn't understand, especially as a child, why they would do that.
And I found out, I had several half siblings on my birth father's [00:19:00] side, and then two brothers on my mother's side. And, the kind of their story, I had both of their names, their ages. It's not like they were teenagers, they were in their mid to late twenties. And, just, this information, just one and a half pages of information.
And I felt like I, I learned so much in so little time that had, that my parents didn't know about. And anyway, so we went on the trip and I asked them to ask her again, just to tell her that we were there because I was, I, I was enjoying the trip, meeting other adoptees my age and sightseeing and, but it was an emotional rollercoaster.
They would make you cry and you would go to an orphanage or it was called Esther's Home at the time, but there was also an orphanage [00:20:00] attached to it. But you would speak with these birth mothers who were deciding to relinquish their baby the day that they're born and they're asking us do you have a better life?
Because this is the messaging that everyone is telling everyone. The adoptive parents, the birth mothers.
Haley Radke: You're part of the propaganda machine.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: I know and I know that I just, I couldn't say anything, at the time, yes, I love my parents and I I was for the most part very happy but you're telling me this while you're making this decision, but you're not a teenager and I don't think that you're you know you're single and you just I was trying to understand the culture because it was like a culture shock for me learning that the single unwed mothers in Korea are just ostracized by society even to this day to relinquish their child for adoption.
To find out that I would have grown up not being considered a citizen [00:21:00] because I was, my, my mother was unwed at the time that she had me, I don't know, it was just a lot of information to take in at 17 and I of course felt torn about seeing these children that would age out of the orphanage because their parents left them there since they couldn't afford to take care of them, but they wouldn't sign their rights away.
So that was also hard to see. Is it better for them to grow up in their country of origin in an orphanage, or to be sent to a loving home? I don't know.
Haley Radke: Or to be given the resources to
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Exactly.
Haley Radke: support their own children in their own home.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: I know. I know. But my birth mother relented in meeting me. She met me in secret and brought her sister along for support. And so I got to meet my aunt and she told me, I remember in the beginning, that I'm not going to cry. I'm going to stay strong. And I'm like, oh this is totally different because I am very emotional and I cry all the time. So she came across as very cold in the [00:22:00] beginning.
I remember asking her if she loved me, if she thought about me, and she said all of those things, that she thought of me every day.
I think I'm very emotional now because I am a new mother. So it's hard to imagine ever being parted from my son. And I asked her, did you struggle with the decision? She said she said no, that she always knew she was going to relinquish me for adoption, but she wanted to keep me for two months because she wanted to breastfeed me, which that's something cancer took away from me.
So as a breast cancer survivor, I had to have the bilateral mastectomy. But, so that was, I didn't really think about that until after the meeting because I had wanted to hear her say that she [00:23:00] was, I thought it was that she tried to keep me for two months and then decided it was too difficult and then to place me, but the plan was always to place me, at least in her mind.
And at the end, when we said goodbye. She cried. I think always goodbyes are very hard for me, even whenever I see it in, movies or TV series. That always gets me, for sure. But it's funny, I felt like my aunt was very warm. It's funny to me looking back why I didn't. My mom said that she did ask, about family health history at the time, but she didn't really give anything. She just said, oh, we're healthy. And that she just said my birth father had a good heart, so she didn't really talk about his health or anything or what she knew, but we didn't stay in contact [00:24:00] afterwards because I would have had to write a letter to the agency, then they would have to translate it, then it would have to be sent to my aunt who would give it or tell her the contents in secret since my birth mother had remarried and kept me a secret.
And she still keeps me a secret to this day because I have done two family birth searches. I did another one when I was filming an adoptee, a Korean adoptee, going back to Korea to find out more information about her biological family. And so I tried to do a second family birth search to find not just my birth mother or reconnect with her, but also my birth father and his side of the family, but it resulted in nothing.
I was at Eastern Social Child Welfare Society, they wouldn't let my husband, who was at the time my fiancé or Kathy, come in, the adoptee I was filming. [00:25:00] I had to be alone, and they wouldn't let me record it. And she said we feel that we were able to give the telegram to who we believe is your half sister at your father's house.
And I remember just bursting into tears because I was like, I'm in Seoul, Korea, and you're telling me, you're not going to give me the address and let me know, or, try and reach out. It felt so unfair to me, but I had to, I decided to just push it aside so I could focus on Kathy's story cause I was filming her story and I'm so happy that it has so many views now on my YouTube channel because her story is so important and I, it's, I feel like it's, it could have been a story also in the recent documentary on PBS, Frontline, the South Korea's Adoption Reckoning, because of her information being falsified.[00:26:00]
I did want to go into my third family birth search was after I was diagnosed with stage three breast cancer right after the pandemic hit, I felt the lump and it felt like it came out of nowhere. And then it was just a whirlwind of tests, scans, and doctor's appointments. And because it was breast cancer, and it's so funny, an adoptee that I have interviewed and worked with on other projects, she asked me, what did your 23andMe say?
And I was like, that I didn't have BRCA1 or BRCA2. But I didn't realize that it only tested for a couple strands. And I did go through genetic testing after I found out about the cancer, and I did find out I'm BRCA2 positive. That's what prompted me to initiate the third family birth search.
And I got a letter from my [00:27:00] oncologist that I sent to NCRC, the National Center for the Rights of the Child. And because of the family health issue, they could be more aggressive in their search and in contacting them, and they reached both of them. My mother was very upset about being contacted again.
She said, please don't ever contact me again, because I'm still a secret. Which is still very painful for me. And she said that she doesn't know of any cancer in her family. And then the same with my birth father. And he actually wanted to get a DNA test, which at the time I was still going through breast cancer treatment, very aggressive, chemo, the surgeries, everything, radiation.
And I said, no, because I had already done three DNA testing. In the US. 23andMe, Ancestry DNA, and My Heritage. So I didn't want to have to pay for another test that they have [00:28:00] done in Korea. So I just let that chapter close for now. And then, I was feeling terrible headaches when, after all the treatment and surgeries and I was on the medication to help the cancer from returning.
And so they wanted to make sure the cancer hadn't returned or spread. And so I got a brain MRI and they cut a mengenoma, which is a benign brain tumor. Thank goodness it's benign, but because of the location in my brain, it's very close to a nerve. So it has no room to grow. Or else it'll cause very severe damage.
And I decided to do this Gamma Knife procedure, which is targeted radiation. To hopefully make the brain tumor inactive, or to kill it, which we think, it did, but I still have to have brain MRIs once or twice a year for the rest of my life, besides all of the other things for my health. And so that made me, once again, [00:29:00] I reach out to my family to let them know about this if maybe this has happened in their family or to let their children know this is a possibility that could happen to them. And I decided to do the DNA test with my birth father to prove that I was his biological daughter and so that he could maybe be more open about family health history.
And fortunately, they sent me the test. So it didn't cost me anything, but it did cost me shipping. And to ship to Korea is like $70. So it was still a decent amount of money. And so that made me very upset. But I got the results the night before I had the Gamma Knife procedure. And it was a match. And I got this phone call from someone in Korea and the person was talking Korean and I knew in my heart it was my birth father.
And I felt this immediate sense of guilt because I [00:30:00] had not learned the language. And that is just another loss I've had to come to terms with that I lost the language of my country of origin. And it made me think of my parents. They had a Korean babysitter for me up until I was about four. And my mom would say that I understood her.
Like simple things like go put your clothes in the drawer or those kinds of things, and then something happened that was dangerous with my babysitter's partner. He was very violent and he, the house. And so that's when they had to let her go. But there was also another incident where she left pills out and I got a hold of them and I swallowed them and I had to go to the hospital for my stomach to be pumped when I was a toddler.
So there, so after that second incident with her violent partner, they had to let her go. So that was very unfortunate. But the [00:31:00] knowledge that up until I was four, I still had someone speaking Korean to me, and that I understood that. I wish I had been able to keep that, that going, because I never, I remember in college, I, the college, didn't offer Korean, but they did offer Mandarin.
So I was like, oh I want to try and learn an Asian language, but it was so hard. And I'm like this is not natural to me at all. And I actually had to drop that class because it was the first time I was feeling something. But back to my birth father, he was talking in Korean to me, and I told him, I'm so sorry, I never learned the language.
And the next thing I do is I check my email, and the NCRC told me that he wants to communicate with me via an app called KakaoTalk. And then Papago is like a translator. And so we started talking that way, which has been a little bit challenging. But he told me his side of the [00:32:00] story. And that's where the stories don't match between my birth mother and my birth father.
He told me that he was injured and in the hospital. And that before he was in the hospital and estranged from my birth mother. They were in a disagreement about what to do with me. And by the time he got out of the hospital, I had been sent away already. He didn't know where I was. Learning that information, it was still something I'm processing and it's been a couple years. But I could have lived a different life.
Haley Radke: It makes it real, right? The other imagined life, it makes it more real, like a real possibility.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: And I learned from him, this is where I think I get my compassion from, is that he has, besides several half siblings of mine, like children, so half siblings of mine, two that live at home that are adults, one with [00:33:00] special needs, and so learning disabilities, so he's not able to live on his own, and then a daughter who had an injury when she was a child that the treatment was incorrect and they weren't able to have the finances to have it redone. So she was handicapped. I don't know the specifics, but so she has to live at home with him. And that makes me feel like he must be very compassionate to be taking care of his two adult children, that are special needs.
He has told me that he loves me, which is, means so much to me and that he accepts me and everyone knows about me. So completely opposite of how my birth mother is. I wish I knew the circumstances that if what is the fear of her telling her husband, would he leave her? Is she in, I don't know.
There's so [00:34:00] many, there's so many things that go around in my head for me to try and understand why to me, her silence, her inability to have a connection with me, it seems very cruel. That's how I feel. But I know that my birth father really wants to meet me in person, and it was really strange. There was a lady trying to call me, and she texted and left a message, and I'm like, I don't know who this is, but it was a Korean American lady who said that her husband was over in Korea, and met my father, and told my father told him this story, and so they want to try and help facilitate us meeting.
So I, I don't know when that will happen, but I hope maybe in a couple years. I just wasn't, I just haven't been ready because I don't know who he really is. To me right now, he seems like a wonderful person and compassionate, but I guess I'm just not quite ready to meet him in [00:35:00] person because we do have that language barrier and their stories don't match.
And I know that there are so many lies sometimes surrounding adoption. And also there's shame for the parents relinquishing for having to make that decision. And so maybe there's some truth in what they're both saying. I don't know. Or maybe I'll never know.
Haley Radke: I want to go back to that you're a new mother and you got super emotional when you were talking about your mother keeping you for two months in order to breastfeed and connect with you.
And this is just like totally an aside, shall we? And I don't know if it's welcome or not, but I know how much you wanted to be a mom and it was. You shared some of that journey publicly and challenging, of course, with health issues and stuff, but our [00:36:00] connection with our babies, you're giving your child nourishment, he is with you physically, you're getting the skin to skin and the connection you're building all the connections.
And I know you're missing that piece, but you're still giving him all of those. Yeah. I'm so sorry you're missing out on this extra experience that maybe you had hoped for, but he's still getting everything that he needs from you, in my opinion.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Yeah.
Haley Radke: Are you comfortable talking a little bit about becoming a mom? We're the same age. I was thinking today, oh my goodness. If I had a baby right now, how would that be? I'm already tired. I gotta just tell you, I have two boys. They're 10 and 12. And I remember when I gave birth to my first son, literally one of my first thoughts was, how could anybody? Yeah, okay. [00:37:00] So can you talk a little bit about that and what, what's that done for your adoptee lens that you see things through?
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Oh, that is, that's a very good question. I can start with when I was pregnant, I knew it would be emotional for me. And I knew that at six months, if I was feeling in distress or emotional so would baby in utero.
And so I wanted to work with my therapist as much as I could about grieving the loss of not being able to breastfeed him because of the cancer taking that away with surgeries. And I wanted to really also process being pregnant and being in the total opposite environment of what I know my birth mother was.
That I so desperately wanted this child and and I have a loving husband who so wants this child too. And, having that [00:38:00] support and I was thinking about her a lot and what she was going through. And also my adoptive mother, when she was just a kid at the time. And the desperation that they both must have felt.
So it was very, it made me think why aren't there more resources for mothers? If they feel they have no choice but to relinquish their baby for adoption. But there is still a desire. My mother, my adoptive mother I know, wanted to parent her baby. I know that for my mother, my adoptive mother, like for her trauma, she couldn't go to baby showers when she was younger.
A lot of times for my big events, her trauma would be triggered. I've always been sensitive to that, but at the same time, it's still hard for me that I would try and put her feelings before mine when it was something about my experience, if that makes sense. [00:39:00] And, by the time I was six months, And it was funny.
When I would watch movies or things that I would normally cry at or during for certain parts, I wouldn't. So I'm like, oh, I think my baby is very chill and he's making me more chill. Which I was, this is great.
Haley Radke: That's nice. I don't think I was chill when I was pregnant.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Really?
Haley Radke: I was busy puking.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Oh no. oh no. The shock for my husband and I was that Rowan came four weeks early. We were going to just a regular gyno appointment and they're like, oh, your amniotic fluid is low and you need to go to the hospital and be induced. And we're like, what? No, thank you. That would be. That was, I remember bursting into tears and he's like, why are you crying?
I'm like, we're not ready. I'm not ready. I was reading books up to the stage of the month that I was at in my pregnancy. So it was like, [00:40:00] I'm like reading a little bit about what labor was like, but not really. And I'm like, but I haven't studied enough. But we get to the hospital and it's, I'm not going to go into details about being induced and how long the the labor was, but when he was born and you could hear him crying and then after they dress him, they first put him on my stomach, but I was so like, out of it. I couldn't really be in the present when that happened because it was so quick too. And because they did take him away to clean him up and dress him.
But, and as he's crying and then they bring him to me It was just this incredible moment where he just recognizes me and he stops crying and looks at me. I just felt this incredible, huge emotion of just pure love. A love like we all say, [00:41:00] we've never known before. But it was just overwhelmingly, powerful and beautiful and I'm so I was so happy that I didn't have to have an emergency c section because I was preparing myself actually for a c section more than actual labor because in the groups that I'm in on Facebook support groups for breast cancer survivors most of the women that I saw had to have emergency C sections.
That went through my same journey of IVF before chemo. And then once it was safe to pause medications to help the cancer from returning. But then also when Rowan was handed to Travis, my husband, that was a beautiful moment of him recognizing his voice. I just, it was just, ah. I feel so grateful that I got to experience that.
I know some people don't. And then I knew just reading [00:42:00] adoptee memoirs and speaking with other adoptees that, the age that your baby is when you were relinquished will always be a difficult time for you. And so when Rowan was two months, cause that's when because that's when I was removed from my mom's or, I was relinquished and put into foster care.
I also had very loving foster care family and that I met my foster care mother in Korea too, when I was 17 and she had so much love for me. And she brought a picture of me in this bathtub, a wooden bathtub outside with my hair and a ponytail sticking straight up. It was so cute. And I remember thinking later after the trip, what, why couldn't I have stayed with that family?
They loved me, her husband and her child. It just took me a while to understand the culture about how children out of wedlock were just also ostracized besides multiracial [00:43:00] children and everything, but at two months it was definitely more emotional for me, but I knew it was coming and so I had prepared as much as I could with my therapist and I, Rowan now is eight months. No, he just turned nine months old. So I know at 11 months old, it's going to be another emotional time for me because that's when I left my foster family. And started a new life. But, I do my best to keep that separate because I know when you feel anxious, so does your baby. He just feels how you feel. So for the most part around him I'm very zen, or try to be.
Haley Radke: I think though, so you've mentioned, and I see it too, that you're, a compassionate, empathetic person, and I really think when we model, in front of our children, like [00:44:00] showing our feelings like that's what creates also kids that are in touch with their feelings and adults who are free to express their feelings, right?
You're just being a good example. Yeah, I see all kinds of conversations in your future with your son about what it's like to be an adoptee and what your experience was like and he doesn't have to experience that and you can give him his history and yeah, building the new legacy. Very cool. Thank you for sharing that. It's big stuff big feeling stuff and I can also tell that you've been working with therapists that you've processed a lot of these things and it's easier to talk about probably.
I really want to recommend that folks check out your channel. You have so many videos, documentaries, docu series, where you, we mentioned before that you document adoptee stories, adoptive [00:45:00] family stories. Do you know you have over 814, 000 views on your channel on the day we're recording?
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: I did not know that. I didn't look at that. Usually I just look at, oh which video has the most views right now? So I'm just really glad it's my adoption documentaries from 2015. But those were a long time ago.
Haley Radke: That's a big number, Shelby. One of the things we didn't get to talk about, but I wrote down a bunch of words because I wonder what you feel about them now, but these are some of the titles for either a series or videos. You have kindred, placed, surrendered, kismet, beyond biological, adoptee lens. You're making a face. God, I wish people could see your face. That's the beauty of video and the beauty of audio. There you go.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: I, that's why I'm like, I. Yeah, I wanted to explain some of my names that I've come up with. Placed was because [00:46:00] I heard this term in an adoptive parent support, where I came to speak at as an adoptee about my experiences.
And they were using this term I placed my child, that's the language we use instead of giving up my child or relinquishing. And I remember it not sitting well with me at all. It's because it's, you're taking all of the emotion out of this word where a child is being transferred from their parent to another, to a stranger essentially.
And this is a time in my life where I still struggle with people pleasing, which I've now learned is a trauma response called fawning. And so I use that because I wanted to make this a space, a safe space for people to share from all different aspects of adoption. And the reason why I did that was because of my adoptive mother, who is also a birth mother.
And I [00:47:00] am so sorry for using that term. It just, that's what I grew up saying. And I know that's offensive, but I'm only using it in the context of how I know these women are referring to themselves, that they use that word. So just because I've actually spoken with Karen Wilson, who coined the term, the baby scoop era, and she, I read her book and I've spoken with her a lot.
And she got me the interviews for my Surrendered Series, which is mothers of loss. But yeah, so that's where placed came from. And then. It's so funny, I remember thinking of the name for my next one. oh, and Kismet was this idea that adoption is meant to be. So I was still in the belief that things are happen for a reason and it's meant to be so that's where kismet came from and then for the Kindred what I was also thinking of calling it was tethered. And I used that word and everyone was saying no Shelby don't use that I'm like, [00:48:00] okay, I guess I'll do kindred
Haley Radke: I feel like I'm taking you trip down memory lane. Maybe you didn't want to go down.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: And then, okay, I know Beyond Biological may throw people off about what that series is, but I really, that is my really, that's a heart piece of mine. I interviewed all different sides of adoption, a trauma therapist, so in episode two, I really do hope a lot of people watch that, that are considering adoption, because it really does go into all the different faces of adoption, open adoption, international foster care adoption, there's it just has everything, but Beyond Biological comes from my name, or not my name, part of it, and, but from the Korean documentary called Yoonmei, Beyond Korea.
Because Yoonmei is my, the name my Korean mother gave me, and it means shining truth, [00:49:00] and that's the story of my life. I want to tell my truth, and I want to help other people tell their truths. In whatever stage of the journey that they're on, because it is so freeing and not only is it helpful to you, but someone who might need to hear what you have to say to connect or to realize that's what I've been trying to articulate for years that I haven't been able to.
Thank you for giving me that language to finally say that and understand it in myself. And Yoonmei Beyond Korea means your life beyond where you came from. And so it doesn't mean that, that biological roots don't matter. It means just what happens to you after you're adopted. And so that's what Beyond Biological means.
It means what happens after you were put into another home. So that's actually, I really [00:50:00] put a lot of thought into that one. And I know that may think people, or turn people against that. Because of the name, but that's where it comes from. And then Happy Girl is also one of my documentaries, but it's not what you think it is. If you watch it, it is, it'll take you down a very emotional journey, for sure.
Haley Radke: You also do the adoption education series where you touch on different things, which is super helpful. Like I, you have so many different things and of course people can tell, I'm sure, as an interviewer. The questions and the things that you draw out of your subjects, I relate to that. I guess we have similar jobs hey.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Oh, yes, definitely.
Haley Radke: Mine just has a lot less cameras. And so I know folks will learn a lot from you by checking out many of your videos. So we'll make sure to link to your channel in the show notes. And people, also if you Google Shelby's name, it'll pop up for you. [00:51:00] But what did you want to recommend to us today?
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Oh, that was really tough for me to narrow it down because there's so many books and podcasts and I would love to recommend adoptee advocates, but I'm going to narrow it down to Adoption Unfiltered Revelations from Adoptees, Birth Parents, Adoptive Parents, and Allies.
I chose that one because I think it's the perfect book for anyone who's considering adoption or considering relinquishing their child to adoption, but also adoptees who are just beginning to look at adoption critically. I really think it's a great book that goes into that from all three perspectives from the triad, because they're all out of the fog, if that's the term you want to use, or disruption adoptee consciousness model.
Haley Radke: You're coming into consciousness. Yes.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: And that is a term from, I don't want to say her name wrong, JaeRan Kim.
Haley Radke: JaeRan Kim. [00:52:00] Yes. Yep. And Dr. Susan Bronco, there's several adoptees that worked on that model. We'll link to it in the show notes to make sure there's credit to all the authors of that model. It's super helpful, especially for folks who are new to that. And we have an episode with one of the authors and we talk all through the model, which is so cool. The other thing I just wanted to mention before we let people know where they can connect with you is that you also helped write a book with filled with adoptee stories Rooted in Adoption and so we'll make sure to link to that too.
Like I love that we're fellow adoptee advocates sharing adoptee stories I think we have a lot of things in common that you might not know we have. Yes, we have many things in common.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: We do, and I love it.
Haley Radke: Yes. My birth mother also did not want to stay in reunion with me. My birth mother also wanted to keep me a secret. We can relate to all kinds of things. [00:53:00] Anyway, it's been a delight to hear your story, and thank you for sharing it. Where can folks find your work and catch up with you online.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: You can just Google my name, Shelby Redfield Kilgore, and my YouTube channel will pop right up. And then I have a Facebook group or community group called Adoption Awareness.
And you can find me on Instagram @yoonmeichae. And I have a website called WeAreMirrorLight. com.
Haley Radke: Perfect. Thank you so much, Shelby. Such an honor to talk with you.
Shelby Redfield Kilgore: Thank you again for having me on your podcast. I am so grateful and thank you for all the work that you do. I feel like there are times when I have to take breaks from my own filming of adoption stories because of it's just a lot of emotions go into it. And so sometimes I have to take breaks. And so I always feel okay doing that because there are always other adoptees out [00:54:00] there doing this work. And it's so vital. And thank you. Thank you for all you do as well.
Haley Radke: Thank you.
Okay. I just want to reiterate my thanks for those of you who send such kind messages and healing thoughts, and all of those things. As someone who must be reliable, slash perfect, lol, how are we all perfect? It's I know it's impossible. Being so incapacitated was so hard for me, hard for anybody. I get it.
I sent, I think, two different episodes to my editor where I was like, oh, hey, can you cut out these 45 coughing fits from an hour long conversation? Also, thank you to my [00:55:00] editor and it has been so nice to be feeling better. And I feel, frankly, I feel totally back to normal now. My energy took a long time to come back as well.
I feel totally back to normal and just so excited to be working. The other thing, I don't recommend this. This is not healthy, but I kept going on all the Patreon side of things. For all my Patreon supporters, they kept hearing me every single week. Bleak health or not. You can ask them if it was worth it to listen to Haley.
It was like, sometimes I was okay. And then I edited one episode and I was like, wow, I sound like really out of it. Anyway, I don't know if it's worth going back to listen to me being out of it, but I don't know. Anyway, thank you for your support. I'm so thankful to be back recording. I know I've already said that [00:56:00] and we have a brand new healing series episode coming up.
Not this Friday, but the Friday after. And yeah, so much good stuff coming your way. Really excited to share it with you and thanks for listening. Let's talk again soon.
