Ron Reigns:
Welcome and thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption with Kelly Rourke-Scarry and me Ron Reigns, where we delve into the issues of adoption from every angle of the adoption triad.
Speaker 2:
Do what’s best for your kid and for yourself, because if you can’t take care of yourself, you’re definitely not going to be able to take care of that kid. And that’s not fair.
Speaker 3:
And I know that my daughter would be well taken care of with them.
Speaker 4:
Don’t have an abortion, give this child a chance.
Speaker 5:
All I could think about was needing to save my son.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
My name is Kelly Rourke-Scarry. I’m the Executive Director, President and co-founder of Building Arizona Family’s, an Adoption Agency helping women with their crisis pregnancy choices. The Donna Kay Evans foundation and creator of the You Before Me campaign. I have a bachelor’s degree in Family Studies and Human Development and a master’s degree in education with an emphasis in school counseling. I was adopted at the age of three days, born to a teen birth mother, raised in a closed adoption and reunited with my birth mother in 2007. I have worked in the adoption field for over 15 years.
Ron Reigns:
And I’m Ron Reigns. I’ve worked in radio since 1999. I was the co-host of two successful morning shows in Prescott Arizona. Now I work for my wife who’s an adoption attorney, and I’m able to combine these two great passions and share them on this podcast.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We have begun season two, and this is second episode. John, thank you so much for joining us. We have heard so much about you. I do know you personally, but we have heard so much about you on the podcast from your dad. All delightful things, how amazing you are. And I’m going to just jump right into this episode because I have been wanting to talk to you about this for probably six to nine months.
John:
Excellent. Can I say congratulations on season two? That’s awesome. Season two, episode two. I’m glad to be on it. And I’m honored to have been spoken about. It’s just good to be here. So thank you.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
We’re happy to have you. I want to start off, like I said, I’m just going to kind of jump into this be because your dad in my opinion is one of the bravest, most forthright men, and he represents so many other men that don’t have the courage or the bravery to come forward and talk about what they feel is one of, if not their biggest mistakes and their biggest regrets. And not only is he standing up for those that don’t have the courage to stand up, but he’s going there and going to places that people just don’t go to. And you are absolutely following in his tracks by agreeing to come on the show and talk to us about your thoughts and your feelings, and just know that regardless of what you say, no judgment. But it’s important to really talk about this issue that we’re talking about. And today we are revisiting crisis pregnancy choices and issue of abortion.
John:
Okay.
Ron Reigns:
Now a while back, John, I had asked you to listen to one of our podcasts in particular. It was the one where I discussed a pregnancy choice I had made, or your mother and I had a long time ago concerning abortion. I don’t know if you actually listened to that, did you?
John:
I’m not sure if I got to listen to that one exactly.
Ron Reigns:
Oh, okay. Yeah. But so now did you know, so this is a revelation maybe to you, that we had had actually, she had had two abortions, one of them from a previous relationship and one of them with me before we ever had you, got married, any of that. Did you know any of this?
John:
Yeah, I did talk to, it was either you or her and I’ve known probably for about six months.
Ron Reigns:
Oh, okay.
John:
So yes, I’ve had a bit of time to process said, I don’t know if I’ve fully processed what that means. And that internal who am I thought process that comes with it, but yes, I am aware of that choice and the choices that were made. But I’m glad to answer questions on anything that you want to hear from me about it.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
The reason that I think this topic is so important, especially understanding how choices that we make as young adults or middle-aged adults, how they’re going to impact future generations and how they’re going to impact those we love the most. And when we are in that moment of, okay, so, I’m experiencing an unplanned pregnancy, what are my pregnancy choices? What am I going to do? And Ron, you have shared that you didn’t really in-depth, think about your pregnancy choice before it was made. Is that correct?
Ron Reigns:
Absolutely. At the time it was the expedient choice. It was “I’m in a bind here and just the easiest way out.” And that’s, I think how I looked at it, although I never really thought as a 50 year old man, I would look back and regret that choice and every day, miss a child that was never brought into this world because of that choice. And now, so John, for instance, have you, since we talked about this or since you and your mom talked about it, have you ever thought I could have had an older or two older brothers or sisters or any variation in there of, have you thought about that at all?
John:
Strangely, no. And it might sound selfish. It may sound self-centered. I always thought that maybe the first could have been me still. I’d never… And that’s kind of the philosophical, I guess, way that I thought about it.
Ron Reigns:
And there have been a couple of younger siblings.
John:
Correct. I just, I never thought about it as a form of two separate entities. Yeah. And it might be weird. It’s just kind of how my mind went to it. And that might just be, I don’t know if that’s selfish. I don’t know if that’s just me pushing it to the side or pushing away those sad thoughts.
Ron Reigns:
I’ve always thought that it’s… I mean, when you look at life, it’s hard to conceptualize things that happened before, especially as you’re younger, but all throughout life, it’s hard to conceptualize anything, whether it be history or whatever that happened before you ever existed. Okay. So when I look back to things that happened in the sixties, they don’t quite seem real because I wasn’t even born yet. And things started getting more concrete or real to me if they actually existed during the time that I existed. Does that kind of make sense or so maybe that’s why you feel the way you do?
John:
Maybe. I think so.
Ron Reigns:
Okay.
John:
And maybe part of me my whole life, maybe when I was very, very young, I heard conversations or overheard things that made me face that reality already. Because it didn’t surprise me to hear those things.
Ron Reigns:
Right.
John:
I was not… I didn’t go and sit in my room or sit in my car and ponder deeply about it. It may have just been a reality I already had.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
John, you grew up as an only child, correct?
John:
Until I was six.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Okay. And then you had a younger or older?
John:
Younger brother, with my mom and stepfather being the parents of him.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Did you ever want to have an older sibling?
John:
No, I enjoy that I’ve been the older sibling to my brother.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Okay. That’s probably a huge relief for your dad, I will say.
John:
Right. Well, I mean…
Ron Reigns:
It takes a little of the pressure off, definitely.
John:
Maybe. I mean, I’m sure. I, I do my best to be a good younger brother, but going through my whole life, being that older brother, the one that has to learn to share everything, the one that has to try and protect this little person, it really changed my outlook on life.
Ron Reigns:
Right.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Wow.
Ron Reigns:
When you look at it in your philosophical way, where you’re saying that you might have been that because you would still be the first child, so it might have been you anyway and then maybe have a couple of younger siblings.
John:
Right.
Ron Reigns:
Do you ever, I mean, this is kind of odd, but do you ever think what it would be like if you were now 30 instead of 26? You know what I mean?
John:
I feel 30. I don’t know if that’s…
Ron Reigns:
Don’t feel bad, I feel 70.
John:
… Just a living problem. So yeah. I don’t know. My age has been a… The only time I look to age is that I look forward, kind of hopeful and I look back wishing I had done more. I feel like I’m in maybe this limbo state that I don’t… Maybe I do feel 30. I don’t know what it’s like to feel 30 and I don’t know what it’s like to feel 26.
Ron Reigns:
Okay.
John:
My spirit, whatever conjurence of me that might be 30 years old. Right. My outlook on life might be 30 years old.
Ron Reigns:
Interesting.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
What an interesting perspective. Yeah.
John:
Thank you.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Yeah. When you heard and you first learned about their choice, were you upset, were you a little bit angry? Were you relieved? Were you just indifferent?
John:
I was relieved. And I wasn’t relieved because of how I felt, more so with my mom, less with my dad, because I feel like you’ve come to terms with it when you told me about it. But I feel like my whole life, my mother has never come to terms with the pregnancy choices that she’s made. I feel like she regrets it every day. And I had to see that on her face every day. When she finally told me that was, I could see that she could breathe fully for the first time, if that makes sense. And I was so happy to see her like that.
Ron Reigns:
To get that off her chest.
John:
To feel like she could share her act with me, the thing that she possibly regrets her whole life.
Ron Reigns:
Wow. See, and I didn’t even know this. I mean, we never, especially back then, talked about… And I don’t know that at the time I did have regrets and I don’t know if she did at that time either. But, so yeah. I didn’t know this is how she felt. I haven’t talked to your mom in years, to be honest. But I am glad that helping to unburden that for her because I know how it’s made me feel and I know that I still have regrets about it. And you say, I’ve come to terms. And to some degree I have, I’ve really gone through it a lot in my head, especially over the last couple of years, but I don’t know if I’ve totally come to terms with it because I still regret it.
John:
The way I see it is that it was never my pregnancy choice to make. I don’t feel like I’ve really missed somebody in my life, in that way, as it being a physical person. I feel like I’ve been missing the full reality of my parents, the full character of my parents, because they’ve kept that bottled away from me, changing how they feel about me.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
When you say that, do you think maybe they clung to you just a little bit harder and loved you just a little bit more because of their previous pregnancy choice?
John:
I feel like I’ve been extremely gifted with the amount of love that I’ve been showered with my whole life. Sometimes to a fault because I just look for love wherever I can find it. I seek it. I want to be with people who love me and that’s because I had such loving parents, which makes it difficult for me to be by myself sometimes. I’m getting better at that. So…
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
Well, I have to say, I mean your acceptance level and your support of your parent’s pregnancy choices is unprecedented. I mean, it really shows what an amazing job that they both did. And I’m not sitting in your father’s shoes, but if I was, I know I would feel a huge sense of relief. Ron, am I nailing it?
Ron Reigns:
Yeah, you absolutely are. I mean, you know me, it’s hard to stop me from talking about John and my pride for him and in him is always something that I just can’t let go of, ever. I’ll always be just as proud as I am, but yeah, it does… I don’t know. I want to know something about you as a person. Now, knowing what you do know about what we did some 30 years ago or close to, if you ever found yourself in that situation where you were with somebody and you got her pregnant before you were expecting to or thought you should, or just didn’t think it was the right time. Do you think that what we did in the past might help you make that decision one way or another? Do you think it might make it easier to go through with an abortion? Or do you think you might think of alternatives that I didn’t think of when I was young? For instance, other pregnancy choices, like adoption or things like that. Do you think that’s colored your view on this topic?
John:
Yes. I feel like it’s colored my view. I don’t feel I’m going to be put in a position with somebody where I would end up potentially having a child unless I knew they were the one that I wanted to have a child with. So your actions, the way that I’ve learned from both of you, my parents, is that even before, that’s a possibility, I want to choose the person that I can have a child with. I don’t want it to be a choice I have to make. I don’t think it’s a choice I ever want to make. So I’m going to avoid that choice. If it were a situation where I wasn’t expecting to have someone be pregnant, I know that I’d be okay with it because I know that that would be the person I would want to have a child with.
Ron Reigns:
Okay.
John:
And hopefully they would want to have one with me. And if they don’t, that’s a whole another story. That’s taking everything they value in life and talking about those values with them.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
What an incredible answer. I mean, seriously, that is yes.
Ron Reigns:
Now see, don’t you see why every day I have just these prideful moments and it’s just like, see, he’s learned from my mistakes. He’s moving ahead in his life in a way that’s actually informed, unlike the way I have led much of my life. So, yeah. I’m awful proud.
John:
I make plenty of mistakes, just different ones.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
That’s how we learn.
John:
Exactly. Pass on those stories.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
I always say we can’t high without the lows. And you can’t make great decisions without having made some mistakes. So, but I have to say that you coming on the podcast today and talking to us about this, again, people don’t talk about the after-effects of an abortion. They don’t talk about how it’s going to impact people 30 years down the road.
Kelly Rourke-Scarry:
And that’s why your father coming in and discussing it was so revolutionary and so amazing and so brave. And that’s why you coming on, you’re following in his footsteps, you’re doing the same thing because to learn six months ago that you could have had more siblings and to be able to even talk about that without fear of judgment or without fear of hurting someone’s feelings or without… It’s one of those things that you have to put it out there because there’s so many people just like you in your shoes that don’t know how to process that information and don’t know where to go with it and don’t know how to feel about it, or should they be angry or should they be upset or should they be relieved or where do you take this? And so your responses are without a doubt going to help so many people that are out there. And I can’t thank you enough.
John:
Thank you for having me. One last note for me before I let you guys take it away, do your thing. I hope that anyone listening to this, if you are a parent, who’s gone through something similar to my father and mother, please talk to your children about it. They’re intelligent. They see things, they feel things they can read the emotions through your eyes. Tell them about your crisis pregnancy choice so that they can learn from you. And thank you for listening to this podcast because I feel spreading that word will make a lot of people’s lives, a lot more meaningful and full.
Ron Reigns:
Thank you for joining us on Birth Mother Matters in Adoption. If you’re listening and you’re dealing with an unplanned pregnancy and want more information about your pregnancy choice or adoption, Building Arizona Families as a local Arizona adoption agency and available twenty-four seven by phone or text at (623)-695-4112 that’s 623-695-4112. We can make an immediate appointment with you to get started on creating an Arizona adoption plan, or just get you more information. You can also find out more information about Building Arizona Families on their website at AZpregnancyhelp.com. Thanks also go out to Grapes for allowing us to use their song I don’t know as our theme song. Birth Mother Matters in Adoption was written and produced by Kelly Rourke-Scarry and edited by me. Please rate and review this podcast wherever you’re listening to us. We’d really appreciate it. We also now have a website at birthmothermatterspodcast
