On this episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour, host Julie Gunlock speaks to Stacey Chamberlin about her own adoption journey and her commitment to protecting her son’s privacy and personal story. Julie also digs into what made Stacey consider adoption, what it was like for her to go from working woman to working mom — in a matter of days — and why a supportive network of friends and family is key to success as a single mom.
TRANSCRIPT
Julie Gunlock:
Hey everyone. I’m Julie Gunlock, host of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. For those new to the program, this podcast is focused on how parents should custom tailor their parenting style to fit what’s best for their families, themselves, and most importantly, their kids. So today I have on Stacey Chamberlin. Stacey is an award-winning PR professional in the DC area. She has leveraged relationships to advocate for nuanced positions while operating within complex and sometimes volatile political and media environments. In other words, she works with some tough clients. She is the chairman of the board of the National Taxpayers Union and a trusted advisor and founder for other high profile individuals and organizations. And she, again, runs her own PR company. I’m so excited to have her on today to talk about something interesting, her own adoption journey. She adopted an adorable, now five-year-old little boy named Whit.
I am so excited to have Stacey on with me today. Thanks for joining me, Stacey.
Stacey Chamberlin:
Hi, thank you for having me.
Julie Gunlock:
I think I love your story. I know about your story, and have followed your story, and I love every single time you put up a Facebook post because you’re hilarious. You’re a very funny mom, but Whit could not be cuter. And I want to talk a little bit about the process that you went through of adopting Whit and what it’s been like. And, as a single mom who kind of goes, really, from you’re this high-powered career lady, and then suddenly you’re a mom, and that’s a huge change. I want to talk a little bit about that transition and what it was like. And people’s reactions, their intrusive questioning. I want to cover all of those things.
But one thing I want to start off with, and I thought it was really interesting. When I asked you to come on my podcast, you responded to me. You were like, “I’d love to, but there’s some parameters that I like to observe.” And I thought it was really, really interesting about… You told me, “Look, it’s not my role, or really right to tell his story.” Tell me a little… Well, tell our listeners what you said to me. And tell me a little bit about that philosophy of telling your story, but not really speaking for Whit.
Stacey Chamberlin:
Yeah. I’ll say first off, this is a thing that I had to learn about because I was going through an adoption process. So I say that to say, I have a lot of grace for people who, almost all the time, their questions or comments, but mostly questions are out of love for me and my family and my son. Right? I mean, I don’t think anyone’s approaching me or our family with anything other than curiosity and love for us. But one of the things that I have learned… Anyone that has gone through adoption or training for foster care, probably too, is… Because you do a lot of training for both in the process before you actually end up doing the adoption. But you learn that information around how a child comes to your family, or the specifics around their circumstance, for the reason they are not with their first parents. And the reason they need an adoptive family or a foster family is really their information. It’s hard to think of a newborn and think that they really own anything, right? But we talk about, in our community, all the time about things like property rights and privacy and stuff like that.
And so, it was kind of a head shift for me to think about, “Okay, this little eight-pound, 20-inch guy, he also owns… I know, I don’t know how he was ever that small, considering about like stretched-giant he is now, but… But that they own their information, and they own their story. Right? So I use this, it seems crazy, but I mean, it does illustrate, I use this story of, if my mom came to you, my friend, Julie, and wanted to tell you something about my birth… Which was, my mom carried me, she birthed me in a hospital many, many, many years ago. And if she came to you, if she wanted to share something about that birth story that was private, and maybe it was traumatic for her or something. How weird would it be if she went to you and told you, and I didn’t know it?
Right? Instead of telling me… Now, that’s different because we’re adults, but it is kind of the same idea because you have this infant, or this child, he’s five now. He only has the capacity to understand so much about his story. And that’s just because of his age. But the reason that you would kind of hold that information is because, as a newborn, even as a five year old, he can’t know all of the information and the circumstances yet. Right? And so, he should always be the first person to know anything about him. And so, that’s kind of the idea. And I think it does occasionally offend people when I say, “Hey, that’s not my information to share with you, that’s Whit’s. I think that they’re taken aback a little bit, because they might even be people that are close to us.
But when it comes to questions about his first family, questions about their circumstances for needing to place him, it’s just not, it’s really not anyone’s business but his and mine. And mostly, it’s his information, but I have it because I’m the keeper of his life, right? And so, I cringe because I remember a very specific moment, many years ago, that I asked an adoptive parent friend of mine, I asked them a specific question about their adopted child’s birth mom. And they answered me in a very similar but diplomatic way. And I just remember being like, “Well, why does that matter that I can’t know how old she was?” Why does that matter? But now I completely understand it. So when people ask about our adoption story, I often say, which is what I said to you, “Well, that’s Whit’s story to tell, if he ever chooses to, not mine. I’m okay talking about my adoption story as an adoptive parent and coming into the adoption. But I do not tell his adoption story because that’s his, right?
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s really interesting too, because I am thinking back, and now I’ll probably be cringing for the next several hours because I actually remember asking someone about her adopted brother. It was international adoption and I was kind of curious about the country and the circumstances. And I asked more about the circumstances in the country, and she had that same kind of, “Oh.” And I think she was finessing it more as like, “I don’t know,” but it makes me now realize that she was essentially protecting him, and recognizing, and also respecting, it’s his story.
So she then, of course, told me a lot about their journey as a family, doing an international adoption. They actually adopted two children, siblings. And she told these marvelous stories about how they prepared and the shock to their family. And it wasn’t really a shock to their family, but it was sort of a… You have to shift things around a little bit.
Stacey Chamberlin:
Oh, it’s 180 from day to day. Yeah.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, let’s talk a little bit about the 180. Stacey, we go way back. We have known each other in the DC circles and the liberty movement, and also we’ve actually worked on some projects together. And we’re good friends and we see each other around town, but I’ve always seen you as sort of this like high-pressure professional woman in these high-pressure jobs, and sort of a girl about town.
Like you’re always… The dinners and the receptions and stuff like that. And then Whit comes into your life. And I just do have to say, he is the cutest. I’ve often written you and said like, “You better lock your doors because I’m going to come over and steal him.” He really is so cute. But you’re suddenly a mom, your life has changed. What was that like? I’ve always been curious about that. That has got to be a big change. And were you… Did you have a lot of lead time, is another question. Did you know this was coming? Or what was that turnaround?
Stacey Chamberlin:
Yeah. Well first, let me address his cuteness, which I will say to viewers. I mean, because we do not share DNA, I don’t feel like I’m accidentally bragging about myself, but he is so adorable. And the worst part about that is that he knows. He knows how cute he is. He will say, “Did you hear that lady..” Last weekend, last Sunday. “Did you hear that lady in church say ‘that boy is so cute.’ I think she was talking about me.” I was like, “You get in the car. So not cute. Put your seatbelt on.” But yeah, he’s adorable. He’s got, he’s got… He’s cute. Okay. So you know what I say to people? And I’ll go into the timeline a little bit, but what I say to people is like, “I was pregnant for two weeks.” So can you imagine, with your three boys you had somewhere between eight and a half and 10 months of knowing, right? And so, two weeks is kind of… I kind of knew something was a maybe for two weeks.
And for six hours, I knew it was for sure before I went and met him at the hospital when he was born. And so, when you think about all the things that you did in the six months prior to birthing your kids, I had a couple hours. So it really does force you to say, “What is important and what isn’t,” as far as the buying of things, right? And you and I have a mutual friend and she was my… What was she? She was kind of the warehouse because when I had to leave… This is what happened. He was born on a Tuesday afternoon. And I knew that he was being born, but had… This is in the bucket of things I don’t talk about, but did not know if this would end up going forward or not.
And so, I was in DC. He was born in Texas and I was just at my desk at work because what else was I going to do? And he was a planned C-section. And so I did know it was that afternoon. And so, I was on the phone with my social worker all through the day, getting great news that he and first mom were healthy, and it went well and all that. And then around 7:00 or 7:30… To your prior point about being career girl, of course I was still at the office, working away, at 7:30 at night. And she called and was like, “Hey, I need you to come to the hospital.” And I was like, “What do you mean? I can’t just come to a hospital in Houston.” Or she actually said, I think, “Come by the hospital.”
I was like, “I can’t come by [crosstalk 00:12:36] Texas. So, I left the next morning on a 6:00 AM flight and went straight to the hospital outside Houston. But our mutual friend, she became… I mean, I ordered so much off of… I don’t know if it was Buy Buy Baby at the time, or Amazon, or whatever it was. And just, it was all just shipped to her house because I had to leave. And then I think a lot of people don’t know…. I mean, I didn’t know about it, about these laws called ICPC, which are about moving children across state lines. And they’re really laws that are intended to protect children, particularly like trafficked children. But unfortunately, adoption laws fall under that. And so, when you adopt out of state, you actually end up living in that state for a little amount of time.
Mine wasn’t too bad. It was about two weeks. And so I had to leave for two weeks. And so, she got all the packages and everything. And I’ll tell you, that was a Tuesday afternoon. I left Wednesday morning on a 6:00 am flight and then went through the process in Houston. And then, in a normal amount of time… I think babies are usually discharged at 48 or 50 hours, or whatever that was. We were discharged and I took him to my hotel with me. I then took him to my hotel with me. We sat on the bed, I opened up my computer and emailed my CEO and my boss and said, “Hey, I’ll be back in three months.”
So that was fun. Yeah. And I had a generous 12 week maternity leave, but I just not told a lot of people because it was so early in the process that… Typically, you’d expect a single mom adopting to… At that time. It’s very different now for lots of reasons. But at that time we kind of thought… We, my social workers and I kind of thought, “You know what? If we don’t get any bites in about 18 months, let’s look at your profile book and see if we need to reassess.” But it had been three months. And so, it was just so unlikely that it would end in a placement that I just hadn’t told people, because frankly, I didn’t want everyone knowing.
Julie Gunlock:
Sure, sure. And, well, look, I have a question that goes a little bit further. And I feel like I keep referencing career girl. But, really busy, high pressure job just all the time. At what point did you start… This is an enormous shift in lifestyle. It really is, it just is.
Stacey Chamberlin:
Enormous.
Julie Gunlock:
Enormous. And so, at what point had you started toying with this idea? Or was there something that happened that set… I don’t know, I hate the word triggered you, but what was it?
Stacey Chamberlin:
Yeah. So I think if you had asked like 19-year-old Stacey, or even 24- or whatever-year-old Stacey, I probably would’ve said, “I hope in my future family, there’s some adoption somewhere in it.” Right? But that was making the assumption that some kind of prince charming was coming along, and he just hadn’t. And hasn’t, for any eligible bachelors out there. Just haven’t come along, and I got to 33 or something and I just had a, I would call it God moment. Not everybody would. But it just kept coming up. And finally, one time… I kept thinking, “Well, I’ll just go to this initial meeting at this agency, like the introduction meeting. And I’ll just see what it’s about, just so I know for the future.” And I kind of left that meeting and thought, “What am I waiting for? What am I expecting to fall into place perfectly in my life?” And it sort of hit me when I talked to a couple friends that were pregnant with firsts, or seconds, or whatever at that time. And they were like, “Stacey, no one’s ready. No one is ever, ever, ever ready.
And I just thought, “Okay, am I looking to bank another couple thousand dollars? Do I need one more world trip? What am I really waiting for?” And there’s no good answer. And so, I just went for it. And it happened fast. And you’re right, it was kind of a brick wall for me, as far as my life changed.
Julie Gunlock:
I tell people sometimes, you just have to start, right? Because when you’re like… If they’re really mulling over a big decision, I say just… I get this a lot with writing. People are like, “So how do you get started?” I’m like, “You just write. You literally just write, and then write [crosstalk 00:17:47]. It really is, just do it. It’s important. It’s working a muscle, right? And you got to practice.
And I think in some ways that is just such a spectacular story because I don’t think a lot of people actually then do it. They might think of this. “What am I waiting for? What am I thinking about?” I always feel like… I do this with a million things. “What am I waiting for? What?” But I end up not doing it. Right? I just keep having these… It’s so impressive that you did it, but it’s funny because I suspect when you’re like, “Okay,” and you pull the trigger, you’re like, “I should be waiting for at least six months,” and then boom.
Stacey Chamberlin:
Yes. Yes, here it was, right in my face.
Julie Gunlock:
It just happened. I will say personally, suddenly there was an email. You sent an email to sort of a large group of people saying like, “Hey, introductions.” And I was like, “Wait, what happened? What happened? What, what, what? What’s going on? What’s going on?” I was so shocked, and actually, I didn’t realize that you had just started this… I hate the word journey. I keep using it. But I hadn’t realized that you’d started off on this path. There, that’s better. This path. And it is really interesting that it happened so quickly. If I can ask you a question. This isn’t directly what we were going to talk about, but you’re in this adoption community now. I know you probably talk to other adoptees or adoptive families.
Stacey Chamberlin:
We all know where each other are. Yeah.
Julie Gunlock:
How has COVID… I think about, you say, “Get to the hospital.” But now there’s all these restrictions on hospitals. Has this affected that process at all?
Stacey Chamberlin:
So COVID has affected adoption as a whole significantly. And this has brought up, to be totally honest, a lot of questions for me about foundational beliefs that I had. And when I say foundational, I don’t mean like foundation to my life, which would be like Christianity, but sort of like policy questions that I have, right? One of the things that’s happened during COVID is that there are, to kind of put it crassly, there are not as many children to adopt. And so, if you are a family that’s looking to grow your family in that way, it is much harder now than it was two years ago. And by harder, I mean there are just very few children available.
The reason for that… I mean, there are a lot of theories on the reason for that. The one that most experts are leaning on is that there are so many assistance programs right now, like the eviction moratorium, the increased unemployment, the increased child credit, that this… What, frankly, you and I might consider small amounts of money, smaller amounts of money, for a lot of people are allowing them, instead of placing their child, to be able to parent them. And so, that’s the theory. No one can prove these things because you can’t go to women and say, “Well, why were you going to place, and now you’re not?” Right?
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah. You don’t know what their intentions were.
Stacey Chamberlin:
Right, right. But the concern is that when these things end, which they are rolling ending, right? So a lot of states have pulled back on their increased unemployment, and eviction moratorium keeps getting, “Well, it’s another three months, it’s three month extension.” But it will end here eventually. That what happens then, when these policies are pulled back and these parents are not able to then afford, or they feel like they’re not able to afford parenting? Are there then a bunch of one, two- and three-year-olds that are in a situation that were then… Who are we relying on to help fix that situation?
And so, COVID has affected adoption in that way, in available children. And then, I don’t really know. I only really experienced DC and Virginia, which I think have treated COVID a lot differently than a lot of other places, right? And so, places like Texas, where Whit was born, my assumption is it just doesn’t really matter, right? I mean, I don’t think there’s as many hospital rules and things like that. And so, process-wise, probably doesn’t matter all that much. But the biggest thing that’s happened is that there are far… And there are agencies, in turn, that are really in trouble because they don’t really have children to place. And so, they are financially underwater as well, which is just… The whole thing is fascinating to me.
Julie Gunlock:
Well, I think there’s a longer conversation to have here about, also, the state of foster care. And there certainly is not a shortage. There certainly is not a shortage of children in the foster care system.
Stacey Chamberlin:
100%, yeah.
Julie Gunlock:
And a lot of children are turned over or taken into foster care because of either abuse, quality of parenting. We don’t have to go through the reasons, we know them. But I understand your point about these services being available to them, then women are able to keep their babies. Yeah, there is concern that these kinds of services incentivize the kind of behaviors that lead to children suffering, and then eventually turning over to foster care.
Stacey Chamberlin:
And then what is the long term, right? It’s easy to make a decision in the moment because there’s an extra $600 a month, but that’s not a long term solution for your life, or the child.
Julie Gunlock:
Yeah. So I do worry. It’s just really interesting. I smell an Atlantic article coming out of this, Stacey. And I’m not going to write it, but I do think this is interesting. And I think people, the closer you are to people who use these services… My sister is a social worker and she gets really tired of the right bashing every… And I don’t think the right does, I don’t think the right bashes every social service. But she gets a little bit angry because she really deals with some of these families who have literally been pulled out of the fire because of the food stamps and other programs that have helped them.
And certainly during COVID, we know that people are really struggling. So I am happy for some of those programs that helped people over the hump. But then, goodness gracious. You see the signs, help wanted, out at your local restaurant. And these poor restaurants can’t find anybody because… Or, health home workers. IWF has done quite a lot on this idea of home…. These are like assistant nurses, or they’re not quite nurses. They’re home care-ers, sort of like the visiting angels. And I don’t want that to get me in trouble. I don’t actually know what qualifications the visiting angels have to have. But you get it. These home healthcare aids. And we did a feature story on… These home healthcare aids make a lot more money, they make more money on unemployment.
And then when they were extended… We did a feature on a man who’s handicapped who had this sit in his bed. He cannot move. And have to literally hold his bladder for something like 17 hours. And this happened multiple days because his home healthcare worker just didn’t come. So again, these are really tough, tough issues. But I do think it’s interesting how this sort of changed you a little bit on some of the policy issues that you held before, you see in a whole different light now. And I think when you do get close to those issues, that happens to all of us.
Stacey Chamberlin:
Yeah. I think it does, yeah.
Julie Gunlock:
Whit is now five, is that right?
Stacey Chamberlin:
That’s right.
Julie Gunlock:
He’s five. I have to say, it’s such a sweet age. Five-year-olds are super sweet, but five-year-old boys are super crazy.
Stacey Chamberlin:
He is super crazy. Yes. I can confirm, yes.
Julie Gunlock:
Super crazy and super active. I would not have been able to survive those years without a network of people helping me. And tell me a little bit about… We’re going to, we’re concluding here, this podcast, but tell me about this network of people who… You’re also a single mom, right? So how critical… When people are considering this, tell me about making that a part of weighing this decision. How important it is to have a network of people. You mentioned our mutual friend as being a big part of that, but talk to me a little bit about your support.
Stacey Chamberlin:
You know, I think going into it, I did not really think of it. I knew I had great friends, right? And that’s awesome. I didn’t really know what it took to have, and build, and maintain a really thoughtful community of people that really love you. And we have been blessed and privileged to be in multiple communities where people do offer. I’m reluctant. I’m the very typical “I don’t need your help” person. But as, particularly as COVID has roller-coastered, and school has been virtual here and there, and things like that, I have had to say yes to people offering help. And that is hard for me, but it’s been really important. And it’s also, when you’re a single parent, whatever your gender is, and then whatever parent is not at home, or however that works for your family, it’s been really important for me to provide male… I don’t know if I’m trying to say input, into Whit’s life.
And so, we have a lot of strong men around us who, even if I’ve never talked to them about it, some of them I have, but if I’ve never talked to them about it, they know that it’s important that if they’re out with their kids and my kid is out there too, they know I’m probably not teaching him great basketball throwing techniques. And so, they step in. And it’s not all the time. He’s five, we’re not into the big, big talks yet. Right. Where I think I will have to intentionally tap some of them in. Right? But we’ve got this amazing older Black gentleman who is our barber, who has had some tough conversations with Whit about things he can do and cannot do. And we have amazing neighbors who have taught him how to better throw a basketball than me just being like, “Hey, there’s a net. Just put it towards there.” And his papa, and his uncle, and these great friends we have really do show him some of these things.
And I am so grateful, but I do think I did not know the importance of that before we were in the middle of it. And so, to people thinking about it… Now thankfully, when you go through a home study and the adoption process, they make you intentionally think about your community in a couple different facets. But you do want to make sure that that’s there. And if not, start growing that now and be thinking about like, who is it that, when I have COVID or I’m throwing up in the middle of the night, or whatever it is. If your parents aren’t close, who is going to drive your kid to school the next morning? Or who can let you take a two-hour nap because you’re sick. Or, I emergency had my appendix out three years ago and couldn’t lift my kid into his crib because you can’t lift right after that. And there’s no one else in my house.
Julie Gunlock:
Good grief.
Stacey Chamberlin:
So who’s going to do these things for you? And so, thinking about that beforehand is really, really important.
Julie Gunlock:
You are such an inspiration. I hate to put you on… I usually ask guests beforehand to think of this stuff, but what are your thoughts on life? No, I’m kidding. What’s the meaning of life, Stacey? No. I just wanted to ask if there are any specific resources, online forums, online groups, agencies that deal with these questions and help guide people through things? Is there any particular one, or a few that you would advise people, if they’re considering this in their own life?
Stacey Chamberlin:
Yeah. So, I think agencies are usually helpful, but there’s one central learning place, which is called Adoption Learning Partners. And if you go through a home study, you’ll have to log hours with them because you have to go through particular trainings. But there are a lot of free courses, and by courses, I mean maybe it’s like an hour long video. And you can get some great resources there.
And then, for people considering this, I always… I wasn’t in a position to do this as a single parent, the only income. But if you’re thinking about this stuff, please first think about older children and foster. There is such a huge need to adopt and foster older, like non-newborns. And so, if that’s something your family can do, it is so much work, but I know so rewarding. Please always consider that first. I did. I didn’t think I could do it. And I didn’t think I could do it better than other people could, but always consider that first because it is where the greatest need is.
Julie Gunlock:
Stacey, that is such great advice. And I can’t tell you how happy I am to have talked to you today. I really think you are really shedding light on an important aspect of adoption, the respecting of the adopted child’s own story. The attitude of like, “Let’s just do this,” which I think is really, really important. And what you said at the end of consider fostering, look at older children. It is a great need in this country, especially at a time because of COVID where there aren’t as many newborns or children of a certain age available.
So again, I can’t thank you enough. You are definitely an example of bespoke parenting, parenting in somewhat different circumstances. And thanks for sharing your story today.
Stacey Chamberlin:
Thank you so much for having me on, appreciate it.
Julie Gunlock:
Thanks, everyone for being here for another episode of the Bespoke Parenting Hour. If you enjoyed this episode or like the podcast in general, please leave a rating or review on iTunes. This helps ensure that the podcast reaches as many listeners as possible. If you haven’t subscribed to the Bespoke Parenting Hour on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcast, please do so, so you won’t miss an episode. Don’t forget to share this episode and let your friends know that they can get Bespoke episodes on their favorite podcast app. From all of us here at the Independent Women’s Forum, thanks for listening.