Dawn Taylor|6/19/2023

Transcript

Dawn Taylor

I am your host, Dawn Taylor. And today we are talking to one of my most favorite humans on this planet. His name is Reese. He is my nephew. He is a little rock star. He is a genius who can draw like nobody's business. He was also adopted at three months old. and today's topic is we're going to dive into what adoption is like from his standpoint. So welcome to the show, Reese.

Reese Rempel

Thank you for having me here. I am so happy to be here.

Dawn Taylor

I am so excited to talk to you about this. So what is it that you wish people talked about when it came to adoption?

Reese Rempel

I feel like the biggest thing with adoption is people assume that I should be be grateful for it and that I was somehow, in a sense, almost rescued from what it could have been. And so I feel like the biggest problem with that is people have this ideal that I was somehow saved but I still had to deal with being adopted all the same.

Dawn Taylor

Ooh. But it's true, right? So you and I have chatted so much over the years. I mean, let's be honest, we have connected through our inability to connect, which always makes both of us laugh. But people do look at it as, you were rescued, you were saved. And while maybe you were rescued from the situation that was going on with your birth mom and that sort of thing, have you ever felt that? Have you ever felt that you were rescued or that you were saved or any of that?

Reese Rempel

I think I tried to believe it, but it's hard to kind of wrap your head around because I still had to deal with a lot of identity issues that came from being adopted and not knowing who was. So while I was saved from what could have been a really horrible situation, I still had a whole another package to deal with, with being adopted.

Dawn Taylor

Let's talk about that when it comes to adoption. So you were three months old when you were adopted. You have three older half siblings, so yes, you heard that, right. My sister did adopt four children at one time. One mum, four dads. Pretty crazy situation. But you didn't ever know your birth mom, right? But you also had never met your siblings prior to being adopted and, I mean, you were three months old, so obviously it's not just like a big pivotal thing, but they had a different experience than you did. 

Reese Rempel

Yeah, and I think with my older siblings, they came from a situation that they knew their birth family, or at least like my birth mom, which I never really had. So being adopted at such a young age, I really didn't have any of that foundations. All I knew was my adopted family.

Dawn Taylor

And then add to that, so there's a lot of people on this planet that have an inability to bond, right? And whether you want to call things like attachment disorders or whatever. But, when there's a lot of rejection and there's a lot of issues around even like conception, we learn to bond in utero, we learn to love in utero. And so when we are born into a situation and I'm saying this from a standpoint of I deal with this, and I had a reasonably healthy family, right? I wasn't adopted but around conception and birth and my mom's pregnancy, I struggle with this inability to bond and the struggle to connect to people in the way that I wish I could, and so being adopted and then also dealing with that, how has that shifted you growing up?

Reese Rempel

I think, to just talk about the bonding stuff from even back to in utero. You see with a lot of pregnant women, they talk to their baby and they do all these things while they're still in the womb. And I think as I got older, I realized how much of that I didn't necessarily get. So it's like I've never heard my birth mother's voice before so when you're at such a young age and you think of all these things that you do for newborn babies, it's like they smell you and things, like, I never had that. What I knew was a hospital that I stayed for, and then I just got shipped away to this entirely new family who were essentially strangers.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah.

Reese Rempel

I think that caused a lot of disconnect from them because even though I was in such a loving and caring family, I just didn't have that immediate, like, I wouldn't let my mom hold me for the first nine months of my life without crying. Like, crying. I was just, like, unhappy continuously. And whether you call that just being a baby or that was something deeper, that went to, like, my connection issues, where I was so unwilling to be loved at that point.

Dawn Taylor

So talk to me about how that's shifted over the years. You're now 17, I should know this. You're now 17. You've been in our family for 17 years. How has that right, like, your entire life? How have those bonding issues how has that shifted over the years? And where has it shown up? Where has it shown up in your life where you're like, "Oh, that's an obvious disconnect issue."

Reese Rempel

I still definitely see it in a lot of my relationships, even day to day. I have a hard time just having a general empathy for people. Not to say that I don't have empathy at all, but I really struggle to connect to people in an everyday sense where I always feel like there's continuously a wall in between us. So I do see it a lot and I still have a hard time seeing my parents as mom and dad because that feels like it's a role that I don't have, which is really hard to say because they did raise me and I have all the things that should qualify them as parents, but there's almost like a mentality about it of things they should have been but weren't because they weren't necessarily like the traditional from, like, the beginning of, like, "Oh, you know? Baby time?" I don't know. How do you describe that?

Dawn Taylor

No, but I think it's, so you and I have talked a lot about this over the years.

Reese Rempel

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

Like, you've come and stayed with us at times just to get away. And this is not against my sister. My sister is an amazing mom and her husband's an amazing dad, so anyone who's listening to this hear that, but you and I have always just had this interesting little connection and bond. And so ,you've come and stayed with us for months at a time, sometimes just like to get a break from life, to get away, come hang out. Or if you were just, like, wanting to not be at home for a bit, and you and I have talked a lot about how do I word this? How it's different to know it in your head than to know it in your heart.

Reese Rempel

Yeah. It's almost, like, accepting it for yourself.

Dawn Taylor

Right? But also knowing what love is and what love looks like, and that sometimes it's a very big brain decision versus a heart decision when you struggle with bonding, right? Where it's like, I choose to love you,

Reese Rempel

it's always been like it felt very decision-based.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah.

Reese Rempel

I didn't know what love was, and even today, I still struggle in my relationships, whether just, like, platonic or romantic, of what this would actually look like. So, I go into just about every situation with a very almost transactional lens of thinking, "Okay, what would this relationship look like? What am I putting in to get out?" And so I have a hard time kind of loving unconditionally because I don't know how that even looks like.

Dawn Taylor

And again, not a bash towards anyone who raised you.

Reese Rempel

Yeah, this is completely my perspective. I've received so much love from my family, and I honestly, I do love them, but it's been, like, a very me problem of not understanding how that looks.

Dawn Taylor

Which I think is so interesting. And I think so from the outside listening, right? For someone who's listening to this, going like, "Oh, is this my child? Is this my niece or nephew or spouse, or maybe it's me?" Do you have any recommendations on how to respond and react and treat somebody who struggles with that inability to bond and that different connection?

Reese Rempel

I think the biggest thing would, just, understand that it takes time. I think with my parents, my mother has been ever so graciously understanding, but I've had a really hard time. Even when it's like saying "Goodnight, I love you." Those words mean a lot more to me. I have a really hard time getting them out. So, I think it's understanding that it takes time for them to understand what "Goodnight, I love you." essentially means and how that would come across.

Dawn Taylor

Well, and I know for myself, it's giving so much grace to be like, I don't fully know or understand what some of those feelings are.

Reese Rempel

It's a very lonely point, but it doesn't mean you value the relationships any less.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, not at all.

Reese Rempel

People think that it's like, I'm not completely closed off. I still value all my relationships. It just takes a very long time for me to completely comprehend them and understand, like, these people are okay to have in my life.

Dawn Taylor

So, then let's fast forward a few years. You got a Christmas gift from your parents that you wanted.

Reese Rempel

That I did.

Dawn Taylor

And what did your parents gift you?

Reese Rempel

My parents, I had been talking about this for a long time. I never knew my birth dad at all, and so I had been asking for a DNA, like, testing kit.

Dawn Taylor

Ancestry or 23 and Me or something.

Reese Rempel

Yeah, that's exactly what I got and I ended up going through. Ancestry and I did end up finding my birth family.

Dawn Taylor

Okay, so for anyone listening. 16 years old all of a sudden finds out you have this entire birth family, and I want to walk people through the situation of how it all went down because that was a fucking whirlwind. Like, that is the only way to describe how that Sunday night went. But, for people listening, my podcast episodes come out in two weeks. I'm actually talking to my sister. I'm talking to Reese's mom about adoption from her perspective, so we're going to do the other side of this as well, which I'm really excited about. So, you were staying with us at this point because you were homeschooling, and you're like, Reese and I are buds. Let's just be honest. We've been pretty tight for a long time. And we were sitting were we even, like, sitting on the couch?

Reese Rempel

Yeah, I think we were watching, like, a TV show.

Dawn Taylor

Probably something super cheesy. We're eating blueberries because that's what we did together all the time, and you were like "So, I got my results." 1.2s I was like, "What are you talking about?" And, oh, my goodness. It was like, I think it was like May or June, and you had already gotten them like, months earlier. And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And you're like, "My 23 and Me" or Ancestry, whichever one it was. And I said, "What?" And you're like, "Yeah, I think I want to reach out to some people." And so tell me if it's okay if I tell this whole story. Is it okay?

Reese Rempel

Yeah, it's fine.

Dawn Taylor

Okay. So we are sitting there, and I was like, "Okay, so let's look at this." And somebody had come up, and what was it that they could have been, an uncle or a brother?

Reese Rempel

Yeah, an uncle or a brother.

Dawn Taylor

One of the relations that had come up was an uncle or a brother. And you're like, "I don't know what to do." So part of it is not knowing, not knowing anything about your birth family, not knowing anything about your mom's situation, really, when she conceived you. There were a lot of stories, but nothing factual, and there was no names on birth certificates or anything, right? So, I know the conversation we had is you're like, how do I reach out to someone and be like, "Hey, are you my uncle or my brother? Do you happen to know a dude that had sex with this woman? I have her name." Right? And then we were having this hilarious conversation, and we were actually giggling about it of like, how do you approach someone with that information, not knowing, does this man have a family? Does this man, is he having an affair?

Reese Rempel

No way of knowing if they accept it as well? Because it would be like, would they be totally open to that? Or like, "Who the hell are you? Get out."

Dawn Taylor

Oh, hundred percent. So we stalked this dude on Facebook, we did, and then I reached out to him because I was like, "No, let me do the reaching out so that I can deal with the rejection."

Reese Rempel

I mean, also at that point, I was some 16 year old kid who had no clue what I was doing. Contact old men online? You need a tip on cybersecurity right now. Don't put everything on Facebook, because I found a lot of information.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, yeah, you've like–

Reese Rempel

I made a whole family tree.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, yeah. You're a hilarious little sleuth when it comes to this. So I messaged this man and was like, "Hi. This is who I am. This is the situation. There was a test done." And to say that the result was unexpected is probably the understatement of the day. It was wild. Not only did they know your mom, and it was your uncle that I was talking to, but we found out that you had a half sister living 45 minutes away and nephews and a brother-in-law and another half-sibling somewhere. And, how many aunts, uncles, cousins did you have or do you have?

Reese Rempel

My aunts and uncles? I have twelve. But in the whole family, including cousins, there's like 150 of them.

Dawn Taylor

Oh yeah. And then I went further that we found out that your uncles went to school with some of my aunties. My grandma, your adopted great grandma had been friends with your birth grandma, for, like, fifty years. Oh, no. This blew up in the biggest way possible. We found out that you had aunts and uncles in the town we were living in at the time, and cousins and second cousins. And this was I think it was a Sunday night, and all of a sudden, I'm Facebook messaging them, and then all of a sudden, your sister is texting me, and you're talking to them. How many people showed up at that house within 24 hours?

Reese Rempel

I don't even know. It was such a wild amount. It was like this complete 180 from, like, "Hey, would you know about my birth mom at all?" To like, "Oh, suddenly there's a family gathering outside my house."

Dawn Taylor

And I remember you and I sitting there like, we escaped it at one point. And we were just, like, looking at this group of people sitting on the back lawn going, "This is your birth family." So. your dad had passed away about ten years earlier, but in this wild twist. They had known about you and that you were born, but nobody knew your name, nobody knew where to find you, and no one knew your birth mom's last name to be able to track you down because you had a half-sister that was having kids. Like, you have nephews that are older than you.

Reese Rempel

I do.

Dawn Taylor

Right? And, like, she had thoughts of even, like, finding you and adopting you and raising her little sister, and no one could find you. So can we talk about that for a sec? Because it went from zero to hero overnight, and then they're this beautifully connected family, and they just wanted to love on you and adopt you into their group and spend all their time with you, and it literally went from, I don't have any extended family to, oh, I have 150 and 149 of them want to meet me and be friends now?

Reese Rempel

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

Let's talk about that for a sec. How did you feel? How did you deal with that? What was that experience like meeting him for the first time?

Reese Rempel

It was definitely disorientating. I kind of went in with the mentality of, like, went into it expecting rejection, and what I got was a whole lot of compassion and learning that not only had they known about me, is that they had also met my other half-siblings and that they were wanting to adopt me had they had the chance. And it was this really interesting perspective of, like, they were trying so hard, but they just didn't have the tools they needed to actually go through with it and actually have me as part of their family.

Dawn Taylor

So this life of believing how rejected you had been, you had actually been so loved and so wanted and so cared for, like, how crazy is that?

Reese Rempel

It was definitely a wild experience. It still kind of weirds me out to this day of understanding just how deep it went.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. So we started having a lot of time with them.

Reese Rempel

A lot. Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

A lot of time with them, which was amazing. It was so cool. I hosted a lot of barbecues, but you had dates with them. I remember one of the comments you made, and keep in mind in all of this, your parents aren't here.

Reese Rempel

They knew at that point. I was like, "Oh."

Dawn Taylor

I phoned them. Don't worry. I phoned them. I phoned them. I talked to your mom about it and your dad, but because it had gone down so hard so fast, your parents were way far away, like, opposite side of the province. This is also during COVID, like, we're trying to keep everyone six feet apart, getting to the big backyard, right? And we're dealing with all of this emotional stuff, but one of the cutest comments ever was when one of your aunts walked in, And you're like, "Oh, my gosh, I'm so tall." because you'd always struggle to feeling so short. And then you met your birth family.

Reese Rempel

And suddenly they're all shorter than me, and I understand, "Oh, this is where it happens."

Dawn Taylor

You were like a giant compared to them.

Reese Rempel

One of the tallest in my family.

Dawn Taylor

Like, literally, you had the shortest family, but all of them, every single one of them also had your chin. They all had your adorable little bum chin with your little dimple, right? And it was this, how did you feel? How did you feel seeing that?

Reese Rempel

I got a lot of comments saying that I look like my half sister. Honestly, personally, I don't see it, but I think that's just like an eye of the beholder kind of thing. I don't think I could see that, but going into it, it was, it just kind of felt very relieving. I had some kind of reconciliation at that point of understanding, like, this is where I came from, and suddenly things were kind of starting to fit together because despite me and all my siblings having shared DNA, we still looked very different, and so it was very like this kind of rut that I couldn't get over because it's like even though we were related, I could still pick out so many differences that I felt alienated me from them.

Dawn Taylor

Interesting, right? So then you have to deal with all of a sudden this, not only do have adopted family that loves you more than anything, and that's one thing that I will give our family so much credit for is when my sister said like, "Hey, we're going to adopt." and that was all starting. There was never a hesitation. Nobody was like, "Oh, really? What if it's awkward? Or what if we don't love them as much as we do?" No. It was never even a hesitation from my grandparents down. All of these generations, every single person was like, "Hell, yes." and we choose these kids and we love them, right?

Reese Rempel

Honestly, I really just need to give such a big props to everyone in the family for not only accepting us, but taking us as we had been there from the very beginning.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, like, huge props, because I know families. That that's not the situation, and it's never been ever been a thing. Like, it's not a thing that you're adopted. It's not a thing that you weren't just born into the family or that you're not ours. It's, it's never been a thought, and literally, like, every aunt, uncle, cousin, my grandparents, like, everybody, it was just like, no, no, you're just our kids. Like, you're fine.

Reese Rempel

Yeah, honestly, like, I think for me personally, because I was adopted at such a young age, I never really had to think about it much, but for my siblings who are all adopted at an older age, it was definitely like they were just, without question, family, no matter where they came from.

Dawn Taylor

Like, nobody ever talked about it. It was just like, "No, they're family. They're ours."

Reese Rempel

I don't think I've ever really had people ask me how it was being adopted because of that. It was just like a no-brainer. It wasn't a sensitive topic or anything. It was just like, "No, you're family, no matter."

Dawn Taylor

Oh, yeah, and it didn't matter what behaviors were happening. It didn't matter, looks, it didn't matter. Even when it came to you finding birth family, everyone was like, "Cool, more family!" Nobody was upset or hurt or, I mean, there were some sensitive feels. I mean, obviously, like, your parents and I'll discuss that with your mom in a few weeks, but, you know, they were definitely like, "Shoot, are we being replaced?" kind of idea.

Reese Rempel

It was this kind of just, like, sense of "How do we invite this entirely new family into our own?"

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, it's never been a thing. We have never looked at our nieces and nephews with any sort of division. Actually, we used to laugh about it that we're like we chose you guys, right?

Reese Rempel

There was nothing, like, accidental about the entire process.

Dawn Taylor

Nothing. The entire process, from start to finish, of adopting you guys and having inner family was just a miracle. And so, it was interesting. All of a sudden, there is a whole another family and there is this whole other group 1s and there are all these people. But when you're struggling already with connection and when I say that you guys were accepted, like, no, my grandma would write you guys letters and gifts and how many band concerts did my aunties come to? And sporting events. Everyone's just loved you. It's never been a question. But now you deal with like, there's this whole other group, but you're also at a really pivotal age in your own life where you're graduating and all these things going on. Can we talk about that process of the overwhelm of “How do I do this?”

Reese Rempel

I think already because I am quite young, and so I can't really say that I've made it through all of my life with some expertise, but I think because of the age I am, I am already in a situation where I'm finding my identity and I'm preparing to leave home and make my own name for myself, right? But when you take into all this identity issues from adoption, it was really kind of disorientating because I didn't know where to start from. And so, it feels like I've lived so many different lives already, from having my name changed since I was an infant to when I was adopted. And then it was, like, all these different identities that I could almost put myself into little boxes of, like, "Oh, from this age I was this person and then I got adopted, and then I became a new person." And so it felt like there were very distinct stages of my life of who I was at that time, and so now that I'm getting older, I'm trying to almost put them all back together into one person of understanding, like, "No, that wasn't a different person that was adopted. That was me."

Dawn Taylor

Yeah. There's definitely been some identity struggles, but also then even finding out what your cultural heritage is, like, to add to everything else. What did you learn?

Reese Rempel

Well, I heard somewhere down the line that my birth mother and possibly my birth father had been of Indigenous ancestry, and so I'm probably about as white as you can get.

Dawn Taylor

You're translucent, darling.

Reese Rempel

Am I? And so growing up, we all had this kind of doubt of, like, are you actually? But through the adoption process, because they knew my mother was of status, that they tried to keep my history with me, and so that they tried to involve me in different cultures and it was a struggle for me because I never felt like I fit at all. For, like, I feel like I didn't look the part. I didn't know any of the actual history. I didn't grow up like that. So it felt like is a complete alien in those areas.

Dawn Taylor

You know, it's amazing, though, because you're just a human.

Reese Rempel

Absolutely right.

Dawn Taylor

No matter what, whether you were adopted or not, adopted or aboriginal descent or not, or you don't match the coloring or you don't match the looks or any of those things, there's this core piece of you that has just been authentically beautiful. You from the day I met you, with all your feistiness, with all of it.

Reese Rempel

I think almost a part of with all the identity issues, it made me so determined to become my own person that I just became wildly unique that I could not handle being like anything else but myself.

Dawn Taylor

Which has been beautiful. So has meeting your birth family. So you even actually got the opportunity, you did get to meet your grandma, your birth grandma, before she passed away in some time with her. I mean, you've had your birth family travel far to come, even, like, hang out at your parents house, and they've met them all, and your siblings have met them, and you went on a vacation to Disney with them. It's been a whirlwind what, year and a half, since you met them in any way. Has that actually caused you to be able to connect more to your adopted family now that you know where you came from?

Reese Rempel

I think in some sense, it has it's kind of hard to put my finger on exactly, but I feel like I definitely appreciate my relationship with my adoptive family a bit more. Um, I was a very angsty kid, so I was there's. Like, I tried to reject them before they ever, like, rejected me. I had this just, like, insecurity of, like, because I had been put up for adoption, I was like, "Oh, are they going to leave again?" And so I just had that insecurity that I always tried to push people away, but I think growing up, over time, I kind of realized that I just needed to get my head out of my ass and that they weren't going anywhere anytime soon.

Dawn Taylor

No. We're kind of like a wart. Like, you can't get rid of us.

Reese Rempel

So stubborn.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, you can't burn us off.

Reese Rempel

Yeah. I think having met my adoptive family, I kind of realized it was like, this pivotal point in my life where I realized, "Oh, there's enough room to love two different kinds of families." It wasn't just, like, one or the other. I was not picking sides. It was understanding, like, I've spent my life with these people but on the other hand, with my birth family, I understand more of my history now.

Dawn Taylor

And I think part of it like, it doesn't have to be about gratitude. It doesn't even have to be but any of those things. It's like I was chosen, I'm loved and sometimes we end up exactly where we're meant to be and where we're supposed to be, whether it makes sense or not, right?

Reese Rempel

Yeah. Whether or not I was, like, as I mentioned before, I was really, like, an angsty kind of kid about a lot of adoption, but I kind of began to realize, like I don't know even how I say this, like, losing my train of thought now.

Dawn Taylor

It's okay.

Reese Rempel

I lost my thought.

Dawn Taylor

Okay, it'll come back. So for someone who has been adopted and is struggling with and not knowing your birth family, struggling with that identity crisis, struggling with those things, is there anything you recommend to them? While you think about that. One thing I would say is give yourself a hell of a lot of grace, right? It's very normal to feel like you don't fit. It's very normal to feel, like, I mean, I grew up feeling that way. I never felt like I fit with my family. Good grief, I did the same test as you did just to figure out if I was adopted, because I had actually bet money with my husband I was. I fully believed I was because of how different I felt than my birth family, right? And they're my actual family, and I still never felt like I fit, right? I think it's so normal. It's so normal and so much of our identity that can come down to who we are as people and our values and our morals and our ethics and our standards and our personality traits and all of these things. I think for myself, I've realized over the years and talking with a lot of friends who've been adopted, is all of those things are who you are. It doesn't matter where you came from, right? You're still a human being walking on this planet. And those are the things that matter. Those are the things that matter is, like, your actual personality, what you're doing with your life.

Reese Rempel

I think kind of just touch back on the gratitude piece of it is when you're adopted and you're like, what would be like your advice to other people in that situation? It's give yourself time. Because whether or not you learn to almost accept of the piece of adoption, whether you've adopted somebody or you are adopted yourself, it's like in the points, they're going to love you no matter what because I don't know. I'm losing my train of thought again.

Dawn Taylor

You're hilarious.

Reese Rempel

I'm so ditzy right now. I'm trying, I swear. No, I have good thoughts.

Dawn Taylor

It's also a very vulnerable conversation, but tell me if I'm wrong, but I think what you're saying is like, give them time.

Reese Rempel

Yeah, give them time.

Dawn Taylor

On both ends.

Reese Rempel

Yeah, that's more or less what I'm saying before I become a space cadet again. Sorry.

Dawn Taylor

We've got you. No, but it's give them time, right? So give your parents time, right? Like your adopted parents. Give them time and grace and understanding of the fact that the story they've created on how this is going to go down, how this is going to look, how this going to feel, what's going to happen is going to be very different than yours, right? And the love might look different, but even in those moments when you are rejecting them or you are pushing back or you are doing those things, it doesn't mean you don't love them.

Reese Rempel

Yeah, I think that's really one of the biggest pieces of just like, knowing that even though it seems, like, really scary and it's difficult, that it's not going anywhere. That's something that's going to handle eventually, it might smooth out, but even if you are in a bumpy path right now, it doesn't always have to be.

Dawn Taylor

No, it doesn't. Well, without telling any of the stories of your siblings, because they're all their own stories. When your mom and dad adopted you guys, you were, what, three months? Almost two, five and six, something like that. You're all about two years apart or just around that. But you guys were really young, and out of the four of you, three of you have met some birth family. One has absolutely no interest. Like, couldn't care less. He is very like, "No, I got family. I'm fine, I'm good." He doesn't care, he doesn't care. And will that change? Maybe when he's older? Who knows? But he doesn't care, right? And some of the situations have gone really well, and some have gone not as well, and there have been different struggles amongst it, but I think everyone's story is unique and individual, and if you do want to find your birth family and fight for that, man, it's never too late. I know a woman who she's fought for something like 30 years, and she's now found all her siblings, and it's been amazing. Right. Rven if the story with your birth parents doesn't turn out amazing, you have no idea the acceptance and love you could get from the extended family.

Reese Rempel

Yeah, because I feel like from already my personal experience, I didn't really have the option to meet my birth dad because he had already passed. But that doesn't mean meeting the rest of family wasn't just as meaningful.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, I think one of the coolest moments was when they brought over photo albums and we got to sit at the table and look at pictures and see your dad when he was young, and I think there were even pictures of him and your birth mom when they were dating that we saw, and they're like, "It was wild." and to see the genetic traits and to see that life. 1s And you know what? I think your life would have turned out amazing and has turned out amazing no matter which path it would have been.

Reese Rempel

Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest takeaways of, like, I can't hold it against my adoptive family for what I could have had, because either way, I've lived such a meaningful life already that I'm, like, I don't think I have any teen angst anymore about it. I'm just, like, happy that I've had the opportunity to meet both my birth family and have such an amazing adoptive family.

Dawn Taylor

We like you. We'll keep you. I mean, if we have to. You're amazing, Reese. You seriously are. All right, is there anything else that you want to talk about when it comes to adoption or your side of it or anything? Or can we go to the silly questions?

Reese Rempel

I think there's one thing that I would like to touch on, and it was just kind of going back to the birth family bit of like there's some parts that I don't think can ever be fully reconciled, because, as I mentioned, my birth father had already passed, so I will never have that opportunity to meet and talk to him, but that doesn't mean I have to kind of grieve him in a very unique perspective, because I never had him in my life, nor will get to, because he's not here anymore. It's like learning how do I deal with that grief and understanding that I can still continue to move on and have a relationship with my adoptive family and my birth family without him, because ultimately, that was like, my whole goal going into meeting my birth family, was to try and meet him, but I didn't have that. So it was just like, understanding, of not everything will always work out, and I think you have to be mindful when you go into, what do you want if you're contacting birth families? What do you want out of that?

Dawn Taylor

There was that night sitting on the couch, couch. You and I had a big talk about that before I sent that first message is, "What are your expectations on this? What is it that you're wanting to get out of it? And how are we going to deal with it if you don't get it." Right? And I think that that was probably one of the smartest things that we did prior to sending those messages, because we had already talked that all through and figured that all out, because I was like, no, what are your intentions? Because it's understanding that, despite being adopted, is part of my identity. It's not my whole identity. So even without having all these relationships with my birth family, I'm still me. I still have an identity, and I can't let that completely tear me down.

Dawn Taylor

No. And it was like I remember asking, "What is your intention behind this?" And you were like, "What do you mean?" And I was like, "What is your intention behind reaching out? What is it that you're needing and from this? What is it you're wanting from this? What is it you're desiring from this? And what if those aren't met?" Right?

Reese Rempel

Yeah, because at that point, it's a very vulnerable position to just go into this whole scenario of understanding, like, "Oh, I have to open myself up to people, and they very well might just completely reject me."

Dawn Taylor

Which I was honored. I was honored to be your rejection barrier. I was so honored to be that person for you that day, right, where I was like, "No, let me deal with the aftermath of whatever happens. But, man, we're going to hope and pray it turns over really well."

Reese Rempel

Yeah.

Dawn Taylor

I'll never forget that day. Do I have permission to post in the show notes a picture of you with your sister and nephews?

Reese Rempel

I think you might want permission from my nephews and sister.

Dawn Taylor

I will ask. Yeah, I will. Totally. No, but if it's something that you're okay with so check the show notes and thetaylorway.cA, you might see a picture. I just think those pictures of you just, like, beaming with your family, looking so gigantically tall with matching chins is one of the cutest things ever, but no, I will definitely check in on that and we'll see if one gets posted. But let's ask you the fun little silly questions.

Reese Rempel

Question time.

Dawn Taylor

What is one of your secret guilty pleasure ways to decompress?

Reese Rempel

Honestly, it sounds really bad, but isolation. I absolutely love just like crawl in a blanket, hide, put on YouTube, just chill. Taking time to just hide.

Dawn Taylor

You have been that way, I think, from the day you were born.

Reese Rempel

My mom has definitely had stories of me being two. And I would be over at my grandma's house and she'd be like, "Where is Reese?" And would just be like playing in a corner in a closet.

Dawn Taylor

We used to literally set up toys in the bottom of our closet so that you would have a safe space to go.

Reese Rempel

That's what I would do. 1.6s I would just, like, hide.

Dawn Taylor

I love that so much because it's so you describe yourself in one sentence.

Reese Rempel

Stubborn. Stubborn. I feel like I can just minimize that to one word.

Dawn Taylor

Yes, I also agree with that in a major way. What do you spend a silly amount of money on? What do you have to these days and spend your money on?

Reese Rempel

Clothes.

Dawn Taylor

Yeah, that's a new one.

Reese Rempel

I like big boots that are like six inches tall. They're like knee high, six inch platforms, leather, lots of zippers.

Dawn Taylor

That's amazing. You're so funny.

Reese Rempel

I spent a lot of money on chains and these big spiked collars.

Dawn Taylor

Got to love you. You're seriously so amazing. Well, Reese. Thank you, thank you, thhank you so much for joining us today and I hope listening to this, to my sister who I know is listening to this, I hope that this was interesting and insightful for you to hear a little bit more at a deeper level, what's been going on with Reese over this last little bit, but for anyone else, if you know someone who has been adopted or you've adopted kids, I hope that you listen to this episode and also check in on the one in two weeks where we dive into this from the other side as her mum is coming on the show, but also know that you're not alone, know that you're seen, you're heard, you're all of those things and I hope you got something out of this episode. Join us again in two weeks for another amazing topic, adoption from the mum's perspective, and also tell your friends, the more people that feel understood, the better. Reese, thank you, thank you, thank you for being here and thank you for having me.

Reese Rempel

You're welcome.

Dawn Taylor

Check out those show notes located at thetaylorway.ca for more information and all the contact information for myself. If you're needing to do some coaching or some healing work in your life on what's been going down or the contact information for Reese, I think we're going to put your page up for your art if it is still available because you are a phenomenal artist. Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen your podcasts. And if you love the show, please leave a rating and a review. See you guys in a few weeks.

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