87 Janet Weinreich-Keall
/Haley Radke: This show is listener supported. You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where Adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is season four, episode 19, Janet. I'm your host, Haley Radkey. This is part one of our two part season four final. All season long, we have explored a variety of different relationships from different parental figures to being a parent ourselves, to relationships with maybe an ex-spouse.
We have covered all kinds of things that I never anticipated talking about, and it's just been such a treasure trove of insight for me, and I hope for you as well. Now, today's episode is a little different because I don't wanna give you any spoilers. My guest is Janet Weinreich-Keall, and she's gonna share her really shocking and unbelievable story.
But I just wanted you to know a couple things about Janet before we get started.
This is a very strong woman and her persistence in searching for answers for 21 years is incredible. So you are going to hear her fierceness and strength throughout her story. And then next week we are gonna have two other special guests with Janet and we are gonna have a discussion about relationship.
So I will tell you more about that when we reach the end of our interview with Janet today. But for now, I just wanna let you know everything we talk about today will be on the website, adopteeson.com. And let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Janet Weinreich-Keall welcome Janet.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Hi there. Thank you for having me.
Haley Radke: I'm so excited to chat with you. I've been following your story, I'm sure lots of our listeners have been following your story for the last couple of years and maybe even longer. But I'd love for you to have an opportunity to share with us your story.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Yeah. I tell you, Haley I, this story has just blown my mind at times. I still certainly have moments where I go, wow, is this my life? Is this my life, really? And then other days I go, okay, yeah, check done. So let's get into it. So I was born in a small town below Alaska in Prince Rupert, British Columbia on October 13th, 1977.
And I was abandoned the next morning. From there, I went to an orphanage where I was drugged and neglected. And then I was adopted by my parents, Gordon and Jeralyn and actually up and until I was 38 years old, that's all I knew. Interesting to note, is the exact day that I was taken home to start a new life with Gordon and Jeralyn, my biological father, who had no idea about my existence, and my biological mother were there in that town that day and they were together.
It's just wild. Yeah. So I had a great childhood in many ways. I had very loving parents. I had siblings, one that was adopted as well, and two that were biological to my parents, Gordon and Jeralyn however, like many adoptees can relate to, I, from a very early age, I was very curious.
And I was also very confused. And not only that, but from my time in the orphanage, I also suffered from reactive attachment disorder. So essentially it really hindered my bonding with my adoptive parents for many years. When I was about eight years old or so, I really went into quite a funk.
I look back on it now and see lots of shades of anxiety and depression. And really what it was really, I was at that age where I was starting to go, okay, wait a minute. I was adopted, but I wasn't just adopted, I was left on a doorstep. Who does that? What what's wrong? Yeah.
Haley Radke: When did you find that out?
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Yeah my parents told me from as early as I could remember, but I have a glimmer of a memory when I was around five years old and I would say, oh, tell me about the lady that left me. Tell me about the lady that, put me on the doorstep type thing. And of course, they gave me a very age appropriate response.
It was a bit fairytale in nature and that's fine for five years old. But of course, as you grow up you recognize pretty quickly that it's not a fairytale, right? So I certainly started to recognize that. And then of course, as you go through elementary school and you meet other kids that are adopted and stuff like that, you start to say, oh, where are you abandoned too?
And they just look at you like you're crazy. What are you talking about? Who's abandoned? And I'm going, wow. Yeah me. I recognized from a very early age that my story was quite unusual, especially to happen in Canada. And I felt really quite alone for a long time.
I, I felt like I was dropped out of the sky. And here you go, fend for yourself, which is really interesting because I really did have a good childhood, of course. But again, this is what a lot of adoptees can understand. It's okay, great, you can have all the, all your needs met or whatever else, and you can have people who love you, but it never really fully resolves the loss, right? And trauma. So yeah. My teens came along and I think just like most of us in our teen years it can be very interesting. And mine certainly was. I really kinda felt like I woke up one day and I was just really angry.
I just thought, how could this have happened to me? Am I really this bad of a person? I was really analyzing it from all fronts and I also felt very ashamed about my own story. In fact, a lot of close friends going back to high school had no idea about my story because I actually felt that if they knew that they wouldn't want me too. Again, my abandonment and all of that was very deeply rooted. So I remember one day I walked into the counselor's office at my high school and I just said, I need to talk. And at 15 years old that was my beginning into, I would say, therapy, which then of course transitioned over to an adoption proficient therapist, right? Because there is a difference, right? So.
Haley Radke: Yes.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Oh, there certainly is. But I certainly recognize that I needed to talk to somebody. And yeah, and I started at a young age. I also think too, that sort of spawned from the fact that my parents were always very open and honest about my story and it wasn't taboo in my home, so I, it just left a bit of an open door for me to really explore my own feelings and my thoughts. Yeah. And then of course that kind of led into turning 18 years old and I figured, okay, I'm gonna start searching. And I thought, wow, I'm gonna, write to the ministry and get my file and I'm gonna go back to Prince Rupert, and do a n article in a newspaper and I'm gonna find 'em.
Boom, boom, done. Oh, yeah. I had it all figured out. It didn't really work out that way. Certainly I wrote in for my file and my file was missing. Certainly, I did media in Prince Rupert, and I got nothing. And then I even at the time, I first reached out to the R C M P because of course I had recognized that, abandoning the child is a criminal offense, so clearly they must have my file.
Not only is it a criminal offense, but it, I was a minor and it's unsolved. Sure enough, they came back to me and said, Nope, your file's lost. We don't know where it is. And by the way, we're not in the business of matchmaking. Yeah. It was actually quite insulting. So anyways, what do you do when you have nothing?
So for me, I just figured, okay, I have to go on with my life. I continue to just, build my career. And I had my family, but always in the background, my search was there. I would always say to people some people would golf every Saturday. I would search for my biological parents.
I certainly had to treat it almost like a project. No different than something like with work, because I could see that it would be very easy to get very obsessive about it. But I had nothing to obsess about it because I never really had any leads. I had no names, I had nothing.
So what do you do with that? You bang your head against the wall and you hope for a different result every time. However, I I did all along the way through my search, I, did everything. I did newspapers, magazines, I did just tons of stuff. I was on tv, radio, you name it.
Yeah, so a few years into my search I did a newspaper article in the Prince Rupert Daily News, and it was just, again, a regular story. I had already done a few and I went to my mailbox one day and I opened it and it was a letter from the editor and he wrote me the letter and he attached a newspaper story of another woman that was also abandoned in Prince Rupert. And she was also searching.
And he wrote it and said, Hey, look at the headline I just published this last week. This woman saw your newspaper article and she thought that she would copy your same tactic of using media to try to find her biological parents. So sure enough, I'm looking at this and I'm looking at the picture of her and I'm looking at her name and this and that, and sure enough, she was born also the same town I was born in, Prince Rupert.
She was also abandoned in the same town I was abandoned in. And it would've been enough time for her to be a half sibling because she was abandoned and born in early 1976, and I was fall of 77. So of course I contacted the editor and I said, wow, I really need her contact info. Like I, I can't believe it's another foundling.
Like I just genuinely wanted to talk to her and just basically talk, shop and say, Hey, wow, I'm a foundling. You're a foundling. Wow. Isn't this wild? Anyways, he couldn't give me her contact info, but he did say that he passed it on many times and she never called me back.
Now, of course. Did I try to find her? I did, but Oh geez. I tell you, Haley, this is just like my search. This is just how my search went. Even the newspaper didn't even spell her name correctly. So I'm trying to find somebody with an incorrectly spelled name. And of course it was, I, it's just, are you kidding me? I just couldn't believe it.
So for many years I held onto her newspaper story and I always wondered, wow, this just seems so strange. But I just kept searching and I kept wondering, and as Facebook grew, I would plunk her name into there, but of course it was misspelled. I had nothing to go on. Many years went by, I kept searching.
I kept working with my therapist. Being a foundling, I think brings up this sort of deeper, I would say, almost trauma and loss. Because, okay. Yes. I can relate to many adoptees without a doubt. But knowing that you, yourself, your body was actually just left somewhere.
It's a whole other layer of the onion that is so painful. It's to say that, in many ways you were never given that dignity and respect to go through the proper channels of adoption or to be birthed in a safe place in a hospital, or, so there's all these other layers to my own loss that I really felt I had to uncover and discover, and then really ultimately understand why I was who I was, and find a way to turn that around and live a really happy life.
So I have to say, in many ways I do look at how long my search took. It was 21 years. But being in the body that I am today, I think to myself, wow. All those years in the background that I worked on myself and I worked on my loss really actually prepared me for the unthinkable, right? So I go between those two worlds of, wow, okay.
I was so glad to actually be a bit more prepared but also sad that I missed out many years with a lot of family, right? Yeah. So then April of 2016, I figured, okay. I just, again, like I'd always do, okay I'll do another newspaper article in The Province, and.
Haley Radke: That's a BC newspaper.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: BC newspaper. Yeah. Yeah. And and then again, everything else, all the news stations jump on board, radio, everything, you name it. And and, honestly I even remember it going well, gee whiz. I guess I may as well just try again. I had no real hope that I would have, find anything or anybody would step forward.
However, though, on April 28th, 2016, I got an email from this gentleman named Ted Lofto, and he actually was my social worker that placed me in Prince Rupert with my adoptive parents. And so we spoke on the phone and he said, Hey, Janet, I don't wanna alarm you, and I don't have any real proof for evidence, but he says, there was a case of a baby boy that was abandoned after you in Prince Rupert.
Now I'm sitting there scratching my head because I said to him, I said no. There was a baby girl that was abandoned before me in Prince Rupert. You must clearly be wrong. There's no way there's three of us, right? And he says, no, but Janet, you don't understand. I wasn't even stationed there in Prince Rupert.
I know I have the dates, right. Fine. Yes. Maybe it could be a girl or a boy. I believe it really was a boy. And he went on to say that he wanted to tell me this because, everybody in his office all thought that we were related. So that I was related to this other abandoned baby boy that was abandoned in 1979 in Prince Rupert.
I'm sitting back here going, huh? What do you even do with that? So I didn't do much with it right away, but then I didn't have to. A week later, I get an email from this abandoned baby boy because he had a friend that heard me on CBC Radio, and he emailed me and said, we have a similar story.
Anyways, I couldn't believe it. I was just jumping up and down going, oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. What in the world, right?
Haley Radke: It's the first connection that you've actually made.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Yes. Yes. Oh, totally. Totally. So we spoke on the phone and you almost can't quite believe, it's are you kidding me? That we were both abandoned by the same mother? And I was just still skeptical going I'm not so sure about this. So I went on to ask him about health issues. I've always been fairly healthy. However, I had a condition with my teeth when I was younger. And so it required a lot of surgery and different things of that nature and stuff, and a lot of orthodontic work.
So I asked him about his health and he, what does he end up saying? He too had the same issue with his teeth. And so I'm just going, are you kidding me? Cuz it's very rare. And so I said to him, okay, I think we have to DNA n a test. But again, I'm very analytical, right? And I didn't wanna go ahead and spend his money for him, to do the DNA testing.
And so I researched percentages and possibilities and it's so rare. It's 0.03% of the population have this, right? The very next day we agreed and I went through Canadian DNA testing. They are a private DNA company. And so what we did is we did a test that was a full versus half sibling ship test, and it came back a week later that we were definitely half siblings.
So he was my first confirmed biological family member. Yeah. So I'm sitting there, okay, we got two babies now, right? So I'm going, okay I relished in the moment. I was just so ecstatic. I was crying, laughing. I just couldn't believe it. I, it is just like, are you kidding me? And anyway, so the next day I figured, okay, I have to tell him about this other story, about this other woman that was abandoned before me.
I figured I'd give him one day. I was like cause actually what I wanted to do was I wanted to tell him as soon as possible, because I really wanted to give him space and time to make the decision too, to also be part of that decision. I actually anticipated that he'd say, okay, Janet, let me think on this for a few weeks or a month.
Hey, I'd be totally okay with that, right? Instead he said, wow, great. Let's find her right. And I'm thinking, are you sure? Are you sure? You're sure? And he was like, no, go for it, Janet. Do it. Do it. So sure enough, I went again, went to the province newspaper in BC and I said, okay, you're never gonna believe it, but this is who I'm looking for.
And sure enough, they ran the story. And that same day I got a phone call from this woman's ex-husband telling me her full name, her email address, her cell number, her address, her birthday, just everything. And I thought, wow. Oh my goodness, what am I getting myself into? So sure enough, I phoned her.
She didn't answer it. She thought I was like a telemarketer. I don't know. And so I emailed her and these emails are very strange, to say the least. It's Hey, I heard you were abandoned. And guess what? I was too. And guess what? I just found a half-brother that was also abandoned. And guess what?
We're half siblings. So I kept the email very to the point, very professional, and she called me back in five minutes. Like it was like boom, done. And again, very similar to his reaction. It was, no, let's do this right away. Let's DNA test right away. So sure enough, we did a private test through Canadian dna, and again, we did a half versus full sibling ship test and it came back positive that she was our half sibling.
So now we're up to three of us, all abandoned by the same parent in Prince Rupert. So the date so far is 76, 77 and 79. So I have to say for me how I processed that information was the first half sibling that I found. I actually felt a lot of really positive emotions. I, it just felt very, I would say very connective.
And it was actually quite happy, and it didn't really fully hit me yet on the magnitude of what really happened for the two of us. But when I ended up finding the first baby abandoned, so when we became a sort of this threesome of abandoned babies, that really hit me hard. Having three as a number was very difficult.
Yeah. It was very difficult to swallow. Because then, I don't know, for me, it, it just turned into a whole other league of, wow. I'm really uncovering something really serious. And really dark, like it, it felt very dark.
Haley Radke: And then what are you thinking about, what are you thinking about searching for the parent that abandoned then?
Are you, did you waiver on that? Were you thinking, I don't know if I wanna look anymore?
Janet Weinreich-Keall: No. I didn't because. Again, I'd have to fall back on all those years that I did therapy in the sense that I was already very resolved, that I would probably find out very little about my biological mother and biological father.
So much so that I thought, you know what, Janet, you gotta count your blessings. If the best you get is a name, and if the best you ever get is maybe a picture or two, you'll be okay. Like I, I really had such low expectations after searching for 21 years. And of course, with everything missing, my files missing, no, no one ever stepping forward.
It was very obvious to me that my biological mother told no one which in fact, she told no one. I did keep going forward with the search, even though I was feeling that I was uncovering something very dark. I thought of it all. I thought, wow. Was she, were are we products of say, rape? Is this incest? Is she a prostitute?
I thought of it all, but again, I'll go back to all of my pre-work and my therapy. Those were some of the points too in resolving the mystery, in resolving my own loss as, Hey, wait a minute. That could be a possibility. So those thoughts weren't the first time I ever had those thoughts.
And I also felt as well and I still feel this today, and that's why I don't use names when I talk about my biological mother, is that my, my search, my wanting for answers is because I feel that's right for me. And however, why ever she abandoned me and all my half siblings and this and that, and whatever, That's not for me to throw on the front page of a newspaper.
Like I had some very strict boundaries on that. And that was something for me that I thought, no, that's fine. I still want privacy and this and that anyways. So I just felt that, I just had to continue on and who knows if we'd ever find her, and if we did. And if we didn't.
And like I never had any dreams of sitting down with her having a cup of tea saying, hi, how was your day? And again, I think that is something that is a little bit different than say, having a regular adoption. And going through the normal channels, again, being abandoned physically, it's just a whole other realm where you go, yeah. Okay. Some of those other hopes and dreams that other people might have from Reunion don't really exist for foundlings. Yeah basically from this point on, all of us were now half siblings and getting to know each other and we all agreed that hey, we'll always keep her identity private and secret.
I will say it's sad to say that none of them have held up their bargain of that. So that's been really difficult that they haven't acted in honesty and integrity. So DNA was a major game changer. I had been on 23 and me and Family Tree, DNA and Ancestry and I was just basically waiting for a hit.
Sure enough the summer of 2016, I got a first cousin match. Absolutely amazing. I mean that right there. Wow, okay. I've solved it.
Haley Radke: Because lots of people, they'll find maybe fourth cousin, third cousin, and then there's a lot of work still to do after that. Oh yeah. Yeah. So if you get first cousin, that's like peak. That's really great.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Oh, I know. Oh, I know. Oh no, it's like goldmine. Like I was like, it's one of these things where I'm going, okay, so I searched for 21 years and even by that point I had probably spent, about $25,000 - $26,000 at that point on searching and traveling and everything.
And I'm going, wow, I'm sitting here and I'm looking at a first cousin match. Okay, now, so anyways we spoke pretty much soon after. And actually one of the first messages I almost wanted to laugh and cry. Her first message to me was, oh, hi Janet. Great, but guess what? I'm adopted too. And I thought, oh no.
Are you kidding me? It's ah, so for a whole day or so, I'm hanging on to this going and I'm like, okay, but that's fine, but still let's talk, like what she neglected to say was, okay, fine. She was adopted, but she actually had an open adoption for many years. So she had a very thick file, a very thick file, and within 24 hours she sent me everything.
Everything I just I, oh gosh. I just thank her so much for doing that.
Haley Radke: Because you've never had a piece of paper with any info. Nothing. You've never had anything?
Janet Weinreich-Keall: No. Nothing. Nothing.
Haley Radke: So this is like the first info. It's not even about you, but it's like the first hard copies. Okay.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Oh totally. So I'm looking at this and there are so many pages. I was just going, wow, this is unbelievable. Now what was even more unbelievable is, especially back in the day, because she was born in the early eighties, I guess the way that adoptions were done back then BC is before the adoption order could be granted, the social worker had to show that they had done everything in their power to keep the child in the natural home.
So thereby they had to do a lot of family interviews. That was amazing because they interviewed everybody in the family and there was a lot of family history. Everything from addiction to mental health issues. And even my biological mother was interviewed as well. So really it was a way for the social worker to say, Hey, this baby has nowhere to stay in the maternal home.
Now. This was one of the pieces where I think a lot of people inserting and reunion can relate to in the sense of you start to see these glimmers of, oh wow, okay, I see what I'm stepping into. Oh wow. Ooh, yikes. And, so literally on the file, I'm reading this in the sense that my first cousin was conceived because her biological mother was a prostitute and a drug addict on the downtown east side, and she had very severe mental illness.
So it's those sorts of moments in search and reunion where you you're taken aback and you go, okay, and I hate to say it this way, but it's wow, what kind of family am I getting myself into, right? And it's okay. And again, not in a judgmental way, but just, okay, keep your eyes open.
Because while something's going to really be revealed here, and so in the early days with his first cousin, she actually asked me to also find her biological mother at the same time that I was trying to find my biological mother. And I just took that as quite an honor. And I said, yes, absolutely.
I will do that for you. So again, I've got all these pages. I just start scribbling down, a very loose family tree. Where else do you start? Okay, I got her and then her mom and then her siblings, and on it goes and it kept coming back to this one woman. And so of course I think it's like anybody searching in this day and age, you Google, right?
You Google and you Facebook and I could find nothing on her. And of course I was like, yeah, not surprised. It's just like my whole search where I get nothing. So then I started googling her siblings and they ended up finding them on Facebook. And so anyway, so from there I just started reaching out to family.
But it wasn't that easy because I learned very early on that none of these siblings had any relationship with each other. And I'm not just talking a few years, I'm talking estranged for 20 years, 10 years. They didn't know, they didn't know who was living, who was dead. They didn't know anything.
So I'm going, oh my gosh, are you kidding me? So again, I'm just like, oh, and I start telling them my theory about who I think could be my biological mother, and then instantly there's already these sort of themes of a bit of infighting between the siblings.
Oh no, I bet it was because she was a blah, blah, blah. And I'm sure it was the other one because she was, and so it's here you are trying to make these phone calls and you're trying to. Get these people to speak and talk to you just from a very genuine point of view.
And they're already pointing fingers and accusing each other. So it was very interesting to start walking into this family with that. And but still what do you do? I was, in some ways I felt I was almost there. I just had to continue on. And so I just, again, just like a project at work, I kept it very professional and I tried to always keep it to the point.
And so then that ended up me talking to who would've been my biological mother's husband. So I got his name through other people in the family who again, they hadn't even talked to in 20 years, 25 years. And just on it goes, right? So I actually found him on Facebook and, oh geez.
What kind of a conversation is this hey. So guess what? I think your wife, cuz at the time I figured they were still married, I didn't know, is my biological mother. And I kept it very just loose on that. I didn't talk about my abandonment at first. I didn't talk about the other babies cuz it's too overwhelming, yeah. And I really meant it in that very sincere way. Not in a way of, lying or trapping him into a conversation that he didn't wanna have. And anyways you know what I got to hand it to the man, he was very shocked of course, but he was very kind and he was very helpful.
And I also found out that the day before I actually spoke with him, that my biological mother had passed away. Yeah, that was pretty devastating. I actually found that out on Facebook. What a place to read it. The same day that I found my first cousin's biological mother, who I would've sworn, probably would've been deceased based on her mental health and things of that nature.
And she was actually doing quite well and living in a mental institution. So it was very bittersweet that one day. And yeah, that was very difficult to come so far and be like, wow, okay. She's gone. I'm sorry. Yeah. Yeah. But, again I don't say this in a way to sound as though that I'm not honoring my feelings or I'm not going there.
Believe me I think I'm probably one of the most emotional people I know. But in, doing the work and doing the therapy for so long, I don't know, my, I really didn't have high expectations. And I actually came to learn much later on that she did know that I was searching, and she had about a two week period where she cocooned in her room and she didn't come out because she knew that I was searching.
And I would have to say it was very emotional, very high stress for her. It was a very fearful time, and she had a very sudden heart attack and died. I also too had to really wrangle around even my own guilt. For many months. I actually thought I killed her like I really did, thinking, okay, here I was just searching for answers.
I had no idea she had abandoned all these babies. And I actually felt for many months that I had killed her like I really did. It was really difficult. I know I didn't today, of course. I do get that, but. But I know that, I guess I would say her decisions in the past which of course I was one of those, did result in her demise for certain, she couldn't step forward.
And I, I certainly know the stress of it just ate her alive, literally. That was really, geez I can't even quite tell you that was really difficult.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. And just, I, when you think about her experiences and just the deep shame she must have carried, I know.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: And, and I really tried to get it out in the media. I really thought that I was very dignified and tactful, and I had it out everywhere to say, look, step. You email this anonymous email, I had a lawyer set up for a plea deal. I had a counselor set up. I had everything set up for her, so it could be the best possible way of her stepping forward.
I even said, look, we don't even have to meet. That's not the point of this for me anyways. I just sincerely want to know who made me. Just, I just really wanna know just the purest form of why I'm living on this planet. And, I can't say that she read that or not.
I believe she would've. And but you know what? She just couldn't step forward after all of that. How do you really explain abandoning so many babies as she did, right? Yeah, I mean that that was really difficult. So now here I am talking to her estranged ex-husband. They had been separated for many years, but they never formally divorced.
And he's just thinking, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? And it's hey, yeah, I don't think I am. And so I'm sitting back going, how do I actually figure out now, okay, so this woman has passed away. How do I know that she really is my biological mother? It turns out that they had a son together, that they actually kept.
And ironically, or maybe not ironically, he was actually born on my eighth birthday. I just I'd love to say I can make this stuff up, but I can't Haley, so yeah, so he was born October 13th on, my eighth birthday. And so the ex-husband said, Hey, I can patch you through to him. And and I really still feel for him to this day, here he was this, man in his young thirties still processing his mother's death.
And then he has this woman named Janet phoning, saying, Hey, wait a minute. Your mother probably abandoned me and these two other babies. He was very shocked, but you know what? He was very kind and he was very respectful. I got a hand it to him. He handled it so gracefully and he did agree to the DNA testing right away.
And so again, we went through Canadian DNA and we did the half versus full sibling ship test. And again, it was proven that yes, he was my half sibling. So thereby that makes us to, to share the same biological mother. Now, it doesn't just end the three of us abandoned either, right?
Okay, great. I've got a last name. Something I've waited for my entire life. I would have to say that a lot of adoptees would take that and run, right? So I'm searching all the different databases and looking through death notices and birth certificates, and I just actually wanted to genuinely figure out who was this woman, because nobody else around her knew her.
Clearly from all of these babies and this past, right? And sure enough, I ended up finding a death certificate of a baby that was born in 83. And I'm reading it and it has our name on it and you name it. And, but yeah, it has all this stuff about social services and this and that.
And I'm going, gosh, this doesn't make sense. It basically looked at like my birth certificate, right? I'm just thinking what in the world's going on here? So sure enough, I applied for the file. I got it. And actually they made a mistake and they didn't redact anything they should have. So I'm going, okay, I'll take it.
I'll take the wins.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Yep.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: And basically yeah, it showed that yes, I have another half sister. Yes, she was born at the hospital, but on the second day, my biological mother just up and left and abandoned her at the hospital. So again, it was like, okay, so now we're up to four of us. All now also too, I've come to learn who that baby's father is.
So that's been an interesting conversation as well. It's just loss on top of loss on top of loss right. Now, however, in these files, because she was actually at a hospital with that one baby, she had a geneticist come and meet her and talk to her because the baby had a very a very rare sort of medical condition.
And so the doctor said to her how many pregnancies have you had? Okay, this is where it gets interesting. So she admitted to a certain number and she called us all miscarriages, which I have to say certainly hurt that stung for quite some time. But she gave a number, which meant that there was more babies.
So she gave the number of six. So I'm sitting back here going, okay, wait a minute. Right now we're only at four. There's only four of us babies. Now this doesn't make sense. Why would she give the number of six? So the only thing that I could think of is, this was sort of her way of having these half truths, right?
The sort of way of admitting and having something off her conscience or something, I don't know. So I got some volunteers in Vancouver and I said, Hey guys, can you go through all the micro film in BC and can you look through this date and this date to see if we can find more abandoned babies in BC?
Sure enough we did. And we found a story of this one baby named Kenneth, and he was abandoned in North Vancouver in 1980. Now of course, I've done a lot of digging on my biological mother, and lo and behold she lived right around the corner from where the baby was abandoned. And so from a geographical profiling standpoint and how all of us were abandoned and where she lived, it was identical.
Now, not only that, but that baby looks identical to me when I was a baby, like identical. So anyway, so fast forward, I start asking for files. I wanna figure out is this half-sibling or is this baby half-sibling? Where do we go from here? But there's just too many coincidences.
I ended up speaking to law enforcement whereas they said to me, look, they're not going to exhume the baby. Not that I ever asked for that cause I didn't, I kind of figure rest in peace, that's fine. But based on the different health conditions that this baby shared with one of my living half siblings that was abandoned as well as the same health condition that I know my biological mother had, which another baby had.
There's too many coincidences. Even law enforcement said, yeah, we would certainly say that this would be your half-sibling without a doubt. So now we're up to five. Yeah. So is there one more? I still think that there is, I have more volunteers helping me. I also have the librarian at the province going through the microfiche on just, a real needle in the haystack approach.
For anybody who's ever looked through microfiche, it can be very difficult to do because your eyes start to gloss over and I think it can be really easy to miss things. I did get a lead last winter, and I followed that through. I actually thought he was my half sibling. He looked identical to one of my brothers, but it just doesn't add up.
So I've let that lead go now. So now I'm sitting back here going, okay, there's five of us abandoned by the same mother, and there could be one more. It's just wild, right? It's just wild.
Haley Radke: And so of all the babies, she just, she parented one child.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So really all in, there's a good chance that she had seven children total, but, so far I've only been able to identify six of us and five of us were abandoned.
Just like everything else I think I do in life. It's I gotta wrap this up and I have to really validate, is there one more? Could there have been a miscarriage and between all of us of course there could have been, but why would she give that number? Yeah. So I do wonder about that.
And yeah I'm hoping soon I'll be able to close the chapter on the search and just say, Hey, this is exactly what I know and move on from searching.
Haley Radke: Wow, that's, it's just you heard this all the time, right? It's just like an unbelievable story. Even from the founding world to have so many, it's just, wow.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: I haven't found a story that's had five. There is a case of three in LA and I know them, and I've talked with them and I have friends with them on Facebook, and they're lovely people. But three is the only one that is as high as close to five.
Of course, I'm sitting back here going, okay, great. I've found out all this information, but wait a minute, there's still somebody missing. And that's my biological father. Now, of course, my biological mother is gone and she didn't say anything to. So I'm already thinking, okay, I'm not gonna find him.
I really resolved that and thought, Nope, it's not in the cards. I guess I'll wait and see if I get a match on dna. But otherwise I just thought, Hey, this isn't gonna happen. But then, I don't know about you and how other people who are listening this feel so much about intuition, but I feel that it has to be seen through sometimes.
And I kept hearing this one woman's name who apparently was a good friend of my biological mother, and her name was Susa. And her name came up a lot that, oh, they were best friends. They were best friends. They were so close. And it went, and I thought to myself, okay, I gotta find this woman Susa. I, it's come up too often now.
Okay. I just gotta talk to her. And I went into the conversation with her in the way that I thought, maybe a woman wouldn't tell her husband of 25 years that, Hey, I did all this and this, whatever. But maybe to a girlfriend, she could have said a little more. I don't know. I just thought hey, I'll just try it Anyways, I contacted Susa through Facebook.
We spoke on the phone, and of course she was so shocked. She was like, are you kidding me? No way. They were very close, she never saw her pregnant or so she thought, right? She never knew anything about any of the pregnancies. Everything was hidden. Now, one thing I can say, I'm sure a lot of people are going, okay, how can you hide a pregnancy?
I'll just say quite honestly, my biological mother was quite large, I'd say from a young age. Looking at photos, she certainly battled with her weight from the time she was 12 ish. So in many ways she was able to conceal that. Then you throw in the fashion of the seventies with the moomoos, and it was it was like the perfect outfit for her of sorts, so yeah, so sure enough, I talked to this old best friend of hers and she had no idea. But she said to me, Janet she did live with this man for quite some time. They were in love. It was a very serious, committed relationship. And he was very lovely. He was educated, he was good looking.
He came from a really good family. And I thought, wow, this guy sounds fantastic, and, but then she goes on to say I can't remember his name. And I'm going, oh, geez, I'm going, okay. But then I thought of it, it's like anything in life where you're trying to remember something so hard that you'll never remember it.
You have to let it go, yeah. So I said to her, look, Suza, I've been looking for 21 years. Even another year, if it took you a year, I'd still be very grateful. I'd still be very thankful. And she's just thinking, huh, really, and I said, trust me, I, I don't wanna put any pressure, just, let it come to you.
So anyways, here she was, and she's an aspiring actress and singer, and she lives in LA and she was screaming down a highway one, one night, about two weeks later, and the name came to her, and she's texting me. She goes, I've got it. I've got it, but I only have a first name. And I'm like, okay, I'll take it.
I'll take it. Anything. And so then she went on to tell me that his first name was Emil. E m i l and at first I thought, Emil, I've never even heard of this. What's an Emil like? Is that a name? Does she have this wrong? And then I thought to myself, Janet, if it's him, it's perfect because it's not a Robert John or a David or a John.
So I thought, okay, I could do this, I could do this. So I've got a great volunteer. He's actually a lovely friend of mine now. He lives in Prince Rupert. And he's my eyes and ears, so I can always lean on him and say, Hey Robbie, can you search through the microfiche for this? Or, Hey, can you search here or there?
Cause I can't just jump on a plane and do this on my own. I actually did that for pretty much 21 years, right? So finally I had 'em. And so I said to him, okay exciting. I've got a name. I want you to go through the high school yearbook because I've heard from him that he actually went to school.
He educated the whole bit. Can you find Emil? Just find an Emil. Oh, he found it so easily. He found it in minutes. And I'm just thinking, are you kidding me? Like it was one of these things where I thought, if he too good to be true, he's probably not my father. Like that kind of thing starts to go through your head.
So of course I've got a name and his last name was Weinrich. And I Google him and nothing really came up. And I thought, oh geez. Of course, here we go again. But then I just looked through the phone book and he was listed. And I thought again to myself, this doesn't happen to me. Like I've had 21 years of the same thing of nothing. Dead ends. Dead ends silence.
I remember it was, it would've been last year, it would've been around February, and I'm sitting back with this information on the heels of finding yet another abandoned baby sibling. And my other half siblings at the time weren't doing very well with the news, and there was just a lot of drama going on behind the scenes and I thought, you know what?
I can't call him with this going on. I just, I felt like I had to come into my own with the story and the new revelations. So it was a very counterintuitive thing for me to do because in some ways I was so quick about everything else, but with this, I just said, no, Janet, you want a phone when you're truly present, when you're really able to just go through this process.
Because I thought to myself, if he really is my father, I really want to be as present as possible for him and for that experience. I didn't want to go into it with all of this other loss and sadness and chaos and confusion of all the other babies, so I basically sat on it for a couple months and of course everyone around me is thinking, okay, this is not like Janet, right?
And I just kept saying, no, guys, like I just have to process this first, right? I just feel like I need to be in a better frame of mind and I just need to be more settled. And so anyways, the end of April comes along and I'm looking at the calendar, and again, I'm very calendar minded and I'm very aware of timing and I knew I was coming out for a big family party in June and I had my flights booked, everything.
And I thought, okay, Janet, If this guy is your biological father and you've gotta do the DNA testing and you still have to find him and this and that, you probably should phone today. Don't go into another month. Don't go into May. Phone now. Phone now. So sure enough, I picked up the phone and I dialed, and I think I mis dialed several times over, and I finally let it ring through.
I was shaking and it wasn't just so much so that I thought this man was my biological father because hey, I've got a whole bunch of babies to choose from at this point. Who's to say that Suza had the timing right and all of that, but I just was so tired of changing people's lives, right?
Because here I am, just some random person named Janet phoning these people saying, Hey, guess what? Your sibling did this, or your wife of 25 years did this, or your mother did that. It gets, for me anyways, I started to feel so responsible for changing realities for people that I didn't take that very lightly, and it really weighed heavy on me.
So when I phone, I was shaking because I was thinking, okay, Janet, here we go again. All right. Geez, what am I doing? I'm just going, okay, all right, Janet, you know the quest for truth, the quest for answers I'm owed the answers, right? Like I, I had to sorta give myself this pep talk, right?
So sure enough, it rang through. Now I'll back up. Many adoptees probably do this, but there's a bit of a rule book for founding. Before we make these phone calls, we already try to identify as many people in the family tree as possible. Because when we phone these people and we say, Hey, this is what we think we know.
A lot of families will say to us, oh no. Oh no. Like abandonment doesn't happen in our family. Oh, that's too shameful. Oh no. And they'll just hang up. And then they block you on Facebook and this and that, and then where do you go with that? So even before I phoned, I already knew with pretty good, probability that, Hey, this guy over there is probably my first cousin and this guy here is probably the uncle.
And so I already had the family tree in place and thereby I also knew that this man had a wife. So I phone and sure enough, she answers it. She answers the phone, and I'll never forget it. I thought, oh my gosh. She answered the phone. Damnit, I don't want the wife, like I, I don't want the wife.
And it was nothing against her. It was just my own feeling of responsibility that, oh my gosh. Okay here's this woman. Now, she's not gonna sleep tonight. You know what I mean? And I'm going, oh no. Oh geez, Janet, what are you doing? And anyway, so sure enough I did say, is Emil there?
And he was away on a job. He was away at, in Winnipeg or whatever at the time. And so we ended up having this conversation and and I told her who my biological mother was, and she says, oh yeah Emil dated her. Oh, yeah. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh. And then she's oh yeah, they lived together.
And I'm going, oh my gosh, this is wild. And anyways, around the end of the conversation, she was like why are you phoning? She didn't really fully piece it together. And I also didn't say, and I'll tell you, that's probably one of the hardest things to ever do, is to be on the phone with a stranger, but yet another woman, where you can put yourself in their shoes.
And have to tell her that, Hey, I actually think your husband of all these years could be my biological father. I wanted to throw up oh, wow. It was so hard. And she took it very well. She was very surprised, but she says, oh no I'll let him know that you called and you guys should talk type thing.
So then of course she tells him, but of course, what does he say? That's not possible. That would've been in the middle of our relationship, I would've seen that she was pregnant. I would've seen this, I would've known that... on it goes, and so I also knew that he would doubt it because of course, finding out everything else that I had found out, I figured, you know what?
I'm gonna get his email address, which I got from his wife. And I thought, photos are really powerful, right? And so I attached several photos and here he was, on his computer typing a message going, no, I'm gonna let her down gently and say, oh no, it can't be, and this is why.
And he had it all figured out. And then he opens up a picture and sees his daughter. He knew I was his daughter right away. And yeah, he just couldn't stop crying because he had no idea. And not only that, but him and his wife never had children, so I was his only child. So it took him several hours to phone.
One of the, one of the conversations he had with his wife just before he phoned me was he kept saying to his wife, look, I can't phone. I can't stop crying. I can't call this woman. I can't stop crying. And she said to him, It's okay. You can cry. Don't worry about it. You can cry. So sure enough, he phoned me and oh yeah, every five minutes he was crying.
I was crying even though we hadn't done dna. And even though I still wanted the d n a done and obviously still had doubt until I knew for certain I could feel something with him. Like I could recognize him. I don't know if you ever had anything like that, but I knew his voice. I knew the cadence in his voice.
I, I just knew all these things about him. It was really interesting. Sure enough, we agreed to D N A testing. We actually did a legal paternity test, and sure enough, there's no doubt. Yeah, I'm his daughter. It came back like 99.999.
Haley Radke: It's a girl.
Janet Weinreich-Keall: Yeah, it's a girl. It's a girl. Yeah. So sure enough, of course, we're. So excited. And it was an interesting thing for him because he really is by nature, a very private person, very quiet and private. But of course, the story now is so public, because it's been so public for so long. And I kept his identity quiet for quite some time.
And finally he just said to me, Janet, he says, you know what? I have nothing to hide. I've done nothing wrong. I'm happy to go out and say exactly how, what I know, or what I don't know. And so now he's very much out in the public eye and, he lets me talk about him. And he is very humble.
He rolls his eyes and he is oh, Janet, and so we've certainly worked those sort of things out and he just says, oh, say whatever you want, how you want. And that's all great now, right? So anyway, so certainly, yes, we met and meeting for the first time was, oh geez. It was just unbelievable.
Yeah. Huh. Definitely for the first day that we were together, we just sobbed and sobbed for most of the first day. And it was an everything sob. It was the loss, it was the joy and the elation. It was just everything. It was everything all mixed in. Even still confusion and Wow, this is so surreal.
And him looking at me and, us being able to touch each other. It's yeah, it's pretty unbelievable. Wow. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Okay. I'm gonna pause you right there.
Thank you so much for sharing your story with us. And yeah, this is really special because Janet has asked both of her dads to come and share with us.
So we're gonna get to hear their perspectives of what Reunion has shifted for their relationships and all that. I usually, I can't imagine. Thinking you don't have a kid forever.
And then surprise, I have an adult daughter. So lots of big things.
Yes. Okay. So we're gonna just say pause and when we come back, We will get to chat, talk with Janet and her dads.
If you would like to connect with Janet, I would encourage you to go over to her website, JanetWeinreichKeall.com, and she has links to all her social media profiles there. She's on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, and links to those will also be on our show notes adopteeson.com. As I said, next week we are gonna be talking with Janet and both of her dads.
It is a really incredible conversation. I can't wait for you to hear it. I felt like I was on Sacred Space while they were talking with each other, and it was just a really beautiful time we had together. It's so infrequent that we hear from fathers and I just think it's so important. So make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you like to listen.
If you need a link for that, adopteeson.com/subscribe has links to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can find a link for that there. And as always, I wanna say a giant thank you to my monthly supporters. If it wasn't for you guys, I would not be able to keep producing this podcast for you.
So if you've ever found the show valuable, if you have learned something from it, if you think it's as valuable as going to therapy, I'd love for you to join my team and become a monthly supporter. Adopteeson.com/partner has details for that. Thanks for listening. Let's talk again next Friday when we wrap up season four with Janet and both of her dads.
