[00:00.5]
Welcome to Inside Personal Growth podcast. Deep dive with us as we unlock the secrets to personal development, empowering you to thrive. Here, growth isn't just a goal, it's a journey. Tune in, transform, and take your life to the next level by listening to just one of our podcasts.

[00:20.0]
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voice and the host of Inside Personal Growth. And joining me from Johnstown, Colorado, on the other side of the screen there is Sydney Curtin. And you can actually learn more about Sydney by going to her website, coachkurtin c-u r t I n dot com.

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That's the website that you'll want to go to. Sydney, welcome to the show today. How are you doing? I'm doing so well. Thanks so much for having me. It's good to see you again. Well, it's good to have you on the show and you know, we're going to be speaking, about your book, but we're also going to be probably be speaking about a lot of other things because you coach people from your website on many different things.

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As a matter of fact, it says the hard pill. Are you the victim or victor of your life? But Sidney is a life coach, but she also has a book that we're going to be speaking about today called Courageous Considerations. And this is kind of part of her personal journey and how she's collected much of her wisdom about life.

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But I'm going to let them know a little bit about you. She is a speaker, an author, a multi business owner. We were just talking about that. A consultant, a life coach and serial entrepreneur with over 10 years of professional experience and one hell of a resume. I could actually, vouch for that based on what she's told me.

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Coach Curtin extends her knowledge to you in order for you to be able to change your life. Overcome dark and haunting past. Coach Curtin found herself at the break in the road. And many people out there listening probably find themselves at a break in a road and they need somebody to coach them through it and I'd recommend that they go see you.

[02:13.1]
So Sydney, how did you, after all this challenge that you had in your life and decide to write the book and then decide actually to become a coach when at the same time you're running multi successful businesses as well.

[02:31.3]
So it's not like you needed another thing on your plate. So what did your people that were around your experience that you were like, hey, I think I have the skills and the abilities to help people move beyond breakthrough or break down, right?

[02:51.1]
No, it's true. It's, You know, everybody has stuff that they go through, and pain is relative to people, because some people have been through things that movies are made out of, and other people have been through things that others might consider normal life circumstances, like losing a parent, which I've also had to deal with.

[03:10.2]
I lost a parent to a drug addiction when I was young. And when I was young, nobody else had lost a parent. It was. I was the minority at the time, based on the stage of life that I was in. And I thought that that was a pivotal point for me, to be somebody who could be a beacon of hope for others.

[03:29.4]
What I found later on in life, when I endured the, circumstances of my adoption that I speak on in my book, I found that it's a natural part of the circle of life to lose a parent.

[03:44.4]
That when you look at the cycle of life and how it is, quote, unquote, supposed to happen, that parents will have children and that those children will eventually lose their parents. And we hope that that's too of old age or natural causes, and those children will carry on their legacy and write their own legacy and have their own children and so on and so forth.

[04:05.1]
So losing my mom ended up being something that was very minuscule in hindsight, to losing my daughter. And I didn't know the world that I was entering into when I was convicted. Deeply to write this book as a resource to others who also don't know the world that they're entering into with adoption.

[04:22.8]
Well, you know, yes, you lost your daughter, but not in the same way. Right. In other words, and I. And I know it's the emotional connection to a parent. It's the emotional connection to a daughter. Explain to the audience this journey you took, this adoption process.

[04:44.9]
And really, you know, at the heart of this book, it's about this adoption experience. So I think the listener would like to know. So you have two major losses in your life. Emotional traumas. No wonder. The breakdown. Right. To be able to break through and then write this book.

[05:03.5]
Right? Absolutely. And you're absolutely right. The permanent loss of death is different than the loss of adoption. When you're mourning somebody who is living, that's a different type of mourning than mourning someone who is no longer with us. Also, the trauma inherently is different because I was mourning the loss of somebody who was here and alive and safe and deeply loved, and navigating that in the context of adoption versus the loss of my mother, who had put me through a lot of really deep, dark trauma that I had to reconcile with because of her addiction.

[05:37.4]
And then she was all of a sudden no longer here. When talking about the concept of adoption and how I entered into it, I found myself pregnant when I was 20 years old, turning 21 shortly thereafter. And I found out that the person that I was having a child with was not who I thought him to be.

[05:56.9]
I had known him for a long time, and so I thought I knew who he was. But I was young, and because of the mother wounds that I had and father wounds to a degree, but different topic. I was deeply looking for approval from someone, and this was somebody that at the time, I had been close to and thought I could gain that from.

[06:15.0]
When I came very shortly after to recognize that this was somebody that I was unwilling to raise a child with at the risk of compromising my daughter's wellbeing and emotional stability. Also having these voices in my life, like my father at the time, who was still an active figure in my life even after my mom had died.

[06:34.2]
I was raised by a single dad, and I had two brothers, so I was the only girl in this family unit. A lot of people viewed me as my mom, and a lot of people spoke to me as though I was her and was doomed to repeat this generational trauma that we had seen in our family lineage.

[06:50.5]
And all I knew was, was that this little girl that I was carrying had no responsibility in the emotional turmoil that I had been through or that my family had been through, and that I wanted better for her than what I had had. Similarly, her biological father had also had a lot of traumatic upbringing and family trauma.

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And so for that reason, my options became very simple. I could move states and live on the run, or I could terminate my rights, and therefore his rights as well, because he was unwilling to just give them up. And that was only going to happen through the realm of adoption.

[07:26.9]
Interesting. You know, and you. You stated that it took you six years after your daughter's birth. Okay. To heal enough to really write this book. Courageous considerations. What was the healing journey like, and what was the turning point that made you really kind of want to share this story?

[07:49.4]
I. Obviously, you're building community on the Internet. You'd like to other mothers who are trying to go through adoption, you want to help them with their stories and their journey and so on. Was that really your cause behind writing this book and wanting to put it out?

[08:05.7]
It was a large piece of it. So when I entered into adoption, I didn't realize that there was a body of women behind me that had been through the same story. And I wish that I had known that before so that I could have talked to them about their experience and what I didn't know and the things that people would not openly put on the table.

[08:23.5]
But I didn't know that I needed to have those conversations either, because it seemed like all of these decisions were being made for the benefit of the child and in the best, interest of the child. So those thoughts never really crossed my mind when I entered into adoption. Less than five years into my open adoption, my daughter's adoptive parents almost entirely closed the adoption.

[08:44.8]
Nolan voided all of the promises that they had made me on pen and paper and invoked full control over my relationship with my child. What encouraged me to write the book was that how did they. How did they legally do that?

[09:00.1]
When you signed adoption papers, I noticed you, you wrote in the book, you asked the adoptive mother, and this is quote, unquote from your book, do you promise you'll never take her from me? Okay. And. And her responses, it would be ungodly to do so.

[09:19.3]
Yet all of this changed. So how did it feel to include such a vulnerable moment in this book like you did? Because obviously you're telling us the story, but it just must have been totally devastating for you to have all this did.

[09:37.2]
And I started. The question is, how legally did these adoptive parents actually shift the way in which you had access to your daughter? As a result of the legal system, What'd they do, go back and petition for, hey, went full adoption, and we're going to kick Sydney out.

[09:57.3]
Right. So I will address the first part of your question first. So the answer to your question is that a lot of people are unaware that open adoption is not legally binding. And the reason for that is because even though in most states, states, contracts between two or more individuals is, in fact legally binding, the quote, unquote handshake agreement that we talk about amongst individuals, as long as you can provide documentation that supports that agreement, can be legally enforceable in the majority of states.

[10:26.9]
Because this is an agreement that is done by an agency more often than not. It is not something that is enforced by the state. However, I also write in my book that state, state supersedes agency. And if I had known that at the time, I would not have allowed my daughter's adoptive parents to only put together a quote, unquote, good faith agreement with me.

[10:49.3]
I would have made them go to an attorney and get a legally binding document through the state that would give this adoption. At the time, I was unaware that that was an option, but State supersedes agency 10 out of 10 times. And what agencies will coach their prospective adoptive families and their prospective natural families to know entering into the agree agreement is that this is really just a good faith agreement.

[11:12.4]
In other words, it says this is our hopes and aspirations for what this relationship will look like. However, all legal authority is being transferred over to the adoptive parents once this is finalized. Ergo, natural families or birth families, whatever the terminology your viewers use or our viewers use, that is what will happen at the end of the day.

[11:33.0]
Even though we said a minimum, a minimum of six in person visits a year with pictures every month through a shared account, I didn't want to do this. I was forced to do this to protect my daughter and to make sure that generational trauma did not repeat itself.

[11:48.8]
This was not my first choice. And so I told her adoptive parents going into it that I will not do this without these stipulations. But at the end of the day, as soon as the ink dried on that contract, everything that they promised with smoke and mirrors, and they had the legal authority through the state to uproot all of that and invoke full legal authority and decision making rights regarding my relationship with my daughter.

[12:15.2]
So the interesting thing that you're letting listeners know is that open adoption isn't what it appears to be. So, what you're saying, in all the states in the United States, are the laws different? There are.

[12:31.0]
There's two states, is my understanding there might be three, and I can't recall which ones they are off the top of my head, where open adoption is legally binding. But it's a very, very gray line because what happens is it starts to become a. Okay, so it's legally binding in what context?

[12:46.6]
In the sense that a lot of people that are less adaptable to adopt these laws, which I'm, I'm actively working with a nonprofit right now that's working to change laws regarding open adoption in our United States. But, we found that a lot of senators and these legal representatives that we have, their fear is, well, why are they placing the child to begin with?

[13:10.2]
And if they're placing the child, then why should they have legal authority, which in and of itself inherently is a valid concern that should be discussed. But what we run into is situations like mine, which unfortunately are not few and far between, where my options became move states and live on the run.

[13:28.4]
And what kind of life is that for a child to constantly be running from somebody who you feel fear, legal threat of being her biological father at the time or terminate my rights, therefore his parental rights in order to protect her state of well being?

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Well, I get what you went through. I guess what we need to look to is looking at the future of all these adoptive parents. And you wrote that there's about 2 million hopeful adoptive families out there looking.

[14:01.6]
Right. And for expectant mothers considering adoption, what's your advice about not settling and truly finding the right match? I mean, in your case, okay, you thought you had the right match. I guess I, don't know what, protocol you went through to try and find this quote unquote right match that turned out to be a nightmare.

[14:28.8]
But the reality is, how would you guide and advise people today, knowing what you know and what you've been through, to actually make the right match and if in an open adoption, make it as legally binding as possible.

[14:49.2]
It's a loaded question. It's a really good one, and a very considerate one. So the first thing, when somebody is considering adoption, and I talk about this in my book's broken it into segments, as you know, I talk about first identifying why is it that you're looking into adoption as an option and are those circumstances that are leading you to consider this permanent or temporary.

[15:13.9]
If I had fast forwarded six months into my life post placement after I had placed my daughter for adoption, I would have been making well over six figures a year and I would have owned a home. And if finances alone had reconciled a large majority of my concerns pertaining to be a parent at such a young age, I probably would not have considered adoption.

[15:35.6]
So the purpose of segment one is to really reflect on self. What do I want from this? What are the circumstances leading me to consider this and what are my goals pertaining to adoption? Closed adoption still exists and closed adoption versus open adoption, very just, I guess generically put for viewers who are unfamiliar with the concept is closed adoption is what happened a lot when adoption was first a concept where mother cannot parent baby or doesn't want baby or cannot, whatever those circumstances are, places baby with family that can do all of those things and there's no contact in between.

[16:12.5]
Right? Adoption is, well, there's no contact until the adopted mother goes searching to try and find the family. Oftentimes we didn't find that. We found that it was adoptees. There was a big crisis during the, or the adoptee, the, the, the daughter or son or boy or girl went back looking for it because you see all these stories that appear around people finding, you know, their real mother.

[16:41.4]
Or their real father. Right. I get that. You know, and I love the fact that you're spiritual and that you have faith, and you said that it should play a role in the story and decision making. Right. You, in the book, you reference John, 3.16, the concept that we're all adopted through Christ.

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How did your faith both guide and challenge you throughout this process? Because I'm not saying that everybody who watches my show is spiritual or religious, but I would say there's tons of people that are spiritual.

[17:22.9]
And I know you've got to have faith to get through this, and it obviously played a big role for you to keep your sanity. Absolutely. And I do reference John 3:16 later in the book. The book that references adoption specifically is Ephesians chapter one, specifically verses four through five.

[17:43.4]
And it says that we're all adopted through the blood of Christ and that we were predestined for adoption and our names were written in his book of life. And the reason that that was so profound for me was that as a believer and as somebody who was saved at a, relatively early age, I didn't grow up religious.

[18:01.3]
And that's a really part of my story. A lot of people think that I went this route with adoption and that I have these pro life standpoints or positions in my life because I must have grown up religious. But that wasn't the case. My, with all of the history with my mom, that was not a real part of my identity until I got saved independently, which happened at first when I was 16.

[18:26.5]
And when you get saved, Jesus starts coming and cleaning out your closets. And I wasn't ready to deal with all that trauma. And because of that, I took a hard 180 from faith. Even though I had a real encounter with my Creator, I wasn't ready to address head on all of the traumas that I had been through.

[18:44.6]
And I tried to do it my way, and my way led to all of these consequences. And that's what I tell the people that I coach, especially the people that I coach from a faith perspective, all of my clients know that, that I have this faith perspective. I do not omit it from my coaching. As a matter of fact, if you want my opinion, and you don't want Jesus involved, I'm probably not a good fit for you because I'm going to talk about my faith in retrospect.

[19:07.6]
Now, it doesn't mean that you have to believe these things, but it means that my personal testimony and the experience that I have had that's led me to this knowledge that I have had in life. It comes from that position of faith. All of that being said to say that I can't explain the things that I've been through without my acquisition of faith in the context of adoption, that really just simply put, looked like knowing that my daughter didn't belong to me originally, that she was created by God, and that God had entrusted me to make the best decisions for her life.

[19:45.8]
And that in application for me, looked like trusting that I didn't have the legal authority that I needed to in my present state, to protect her from all of the trauma that I had been through. And so adoption was the route that we went.

[20:01.0]
And I still to this day believe that Scripture says he will restore beauty from the ashes. I don't know what that looks like because she's still really young, but I still cling to that faith. So a question. Given this time frame now, how long has it been since your daughter was adopted?

[20:16.8]
What is her name? She'll be 6 years old in July. And I actually named her. That was one of the stipulations that I put on paper, was that if I'm going to carry this child for nine months and everything that I'm doing in consideration is for her entire life, that I'm going to choose her name.

[20:34.4]
And so her name is Emberlyn. So is Emberlyn now with this family. And I know you've been shut off with contact, but your curiosity has to be killing you. How do you or have you been able to find out how she's doing in any way, shape or form?

[20:56.6]
Whether you go snoop into Facebook and try and find the family's pictures or whatever you might do. How are you kind of keeping track? Or are you. Yes and no. So, my position has always been that I understood the sacrifice that I was making for her well being and that at the end of the day, that if this was to protect her, that it meant protecting her from all of the things that I couldn't control.

[21:21.0]
And in application, God has showed me that I can control none of this. And so I have done my best to lean on my faith and know that she is loved and that she's protected. All of that being said, the original openness agreement stated six times minimum per year in person.

[21:37.6]
They have since moved my daughter out of the country. They no longer live in the United States at this time. We do share a photo account where they upload photos once per month. And I am instructed to let them live their life. So I Respect the boundaries. And at this time, I do not communicate with them outside of.

[21:55.6]
Around her birthday, I do a FaceTime with her. And around Christmas, I do a FaceTime with her. Fantastic. At least you've got that connection now. Look, this obviously was a very painful process, and if people get your book, they're going to really experience that. And you've turned your pain into purpose.

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And, you know, it took you a while, but you became a top performing sales representative, you started your own business. And so there was another mission that your fate had for you. How did becoming a mother through this adoption fuel your ambition and really drive your success?

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Because you turned what could have been a crisis into an opportunity. You are a very driven person. I think people can see that by the way you talk and, you know, your drive and your articulation. That's not very difficult for someone listening to this podcast to understand.

[22:53.7]
But when did that turning point for you occur? And snap, the switch went on and it said, okay, I gotta do something else with this energy that I have. Some people, when they've been through something that breaks them to rock bottom, turn to vices such as alcohol or drugs, which I can only speak to because I had my mother do that in my life.

[23:17.5]
And it took an extreme detriment in my family's life. When looking back at everything that I had been through, my choices really seemed very simple, even though, the application of them was much more complex. But I had a choice to allow the things that I had been through to break me and to be exactly what everyone my whole life had said I would be.

[23:40.6]
And that was my mother. Somebody who struggled with addiction because of the pain and because of all of the events that life had thrown at me. Or I could turn it into something. And one of my biggest. Like, it's not a regret, but the fact that adoption was the only viable option to protect my daughter's wellbeing meant that I had to make this worth it.

[24:02.7]
Come hell or high water. My only option was to make something of myself so that God forbid that she would always know that this was not for nothing. And that's all that it was, was my love for her. Well, it is. How do you.

[24:18.7]
I want to say, you have a tremendous amount of grace to be able to do that. And so. And courage. That's why it's called courageous considerations. But look, now you are president of Curtain Call. You're a coach, you're a speaker, you're an author, you're founder of, Is it L E V A.

[24:38.5]
I'm currently rebranding. I'm the founder of a mobile application. We're going to be renaming the application it formerly was Levi. That's correct. Levi and AI Driven up. How did these ventures that you've now gone out and you're driven to keep working at, connect to the mission of you helping people find their voice and clarity in different situations.

[25:04.9]
Because, you know, when you look at, you know, how this adoption, open adoption, turned out to being, well, and you could say a blessing, right? Or you could say, no, it was a curse, but you took it as a blessing and now you've turned it.

[25:21.0]
And now you're trying to help other people find that same blessing in their life through your coaching. Yep. Yes. Yeah. No, absolutely. It's. It's really that. And to a degree, once I had gone through the adoption, so I had been through all these things, I was still working a W2 position in sales.

[25:41.0]
I was a top performer across the entire country. People knew who I was and they knew the numbers that I produced. You were in solar sales, weren't you? For a long time I was in solar sales, that's correct. And then I did roofing sales, window sales. So I've kind of done it all pertaining to home and auto restoration.

[25:58.1]
I just got down to the business model. My dad was always in business. And this part wasn't really directly correlated with the experience that. Experiences that I had had in life. I just didn't want to work for somebody because I wanted to be invested in my children's upbringing.

[26:14.6]
And that was a freedom that was not allotted to my dad. He owned corporate furniture stores that required a lot of his time and attention. So then, even after my mom was no longer around, he still had to find a way to balance the fact that in order for our family to survive, he had to honor the obligations that he had committed to prior to her death in order to keep our family afloat.

[26:37.8]
What I wanted to do was create a level of financial freedom for my family that I could be present for my children and not have to miss those moments that I felt my dad had missed. Well, you. I think the important point is being an entrepreneur.

[26:55.0]
Yes, you've got freedom, but you've also got a lot more obligations. Right. And so you have to be able to manage your time better to find that free time with children and with your family. And kudos for you for being able to do it.

[27:10.2]
And I know it's a big juggling act. It's a big juggling act for anybody, to stay, hey, in balance, quote, unquote. So look, you talk about, for women that are currently in a position, you were like six years ago, pregnant and considering adoption, what's the one thing you most want them to know?

[27:36.7]
Like, hey, there's probably lots of women out there that listen to the podcast or listen to other podcasts or are directed to this podcast because of your topic. What do you want them to know? And we covered some of this, the open adoption.

[27:53.3]
I mean, really looking at your rights in your state. But there's gotta be a bigger why behind this. What's the why? It's. It's trust but verify. That's the. In a nutshell, trust but verify.

[28:09.7]
Because all of the voices that led me to adoption, while they had my best interest in mind, at the end of the day, they didn't know me and they didn't know what I was capable of. I was capable of keeping my child, and I was capable of being a good mother. And nobody was affirming that in my life.

[28:27.4]
All I had was the legal scarcity that existed in paternity tests and custody battles prior to birth. So in all things, not just that, it's when people are considering adoption, you're looking at your financial situation, your interpersonal relationships, your upbringing, all of the socioeconomical factors, whatever it is that's driving you to consider adoption, trust the people's intentions, but verify whether those are actually facts, because feelings are not always factual.

[28:57.9]
That's why when we meet these adoptive families, knowing that there are 2 million almost prospective adoptive couples hoping to adopt a child, that means that for every one child that is placed, there are approximately 40 families waiting to get matched with the child.

[29:15.2]
So when you meet somebody that throws you off in any regard, whether it's based on your alignment of open adoption or your goals for, for open adoption, you can go on to the next family. You are not obligated to make it work. That was the detriment in my relationship, was all of the red flags I justified.

[29:33.0]
Because like I say in my book, who was I to question these people if they had been vetted by an agency or if they had been background checked and home studied and had degrees and jobs and careers? I wasn't at that stage in my life yet, so who was I to question them? But the answer to that question is I was the mother of my child and I was making these decisions for the wellbeing of her life.

[29:54.8]
So I had all of the authority that I needed to ask these Questions. And I didn't have the confidence or courage to make these courageous considerations. Courageous considerations they were. And so I have a question. The father of your daughter, is he totally absent from anything with relation to his daughter?

[30:17.7]
No. The. One of the ways that I was able to get him to cooperate with the terms and conditions of the open adoption was to involve him in the family that I had chosen. So was I had chosen a family, I had him meet with them.

[30:33.9]
And my understanding, although I do not have a relationship with him now, is that he has a child of his own and he's married, and that he gets to see her as frequently as I do. And for that reason, I'm grateful that Emberlynn, my daughter, gets to make these decisions about the character of all of the people in her life at her own discretion and own discernment, as is appropriate to do so with her age and level of maturity in life.

[30:57.6]
Very good. I mean, that's cool. Now you have married and. Right. You have another child, is that correct? I have two kiddos. I have a two year old and a four year old. Okay. And I figured you did. And so now how do you deal with your kids?

[31:16.1]
The four year old, maybe not the two year old, or at least the four year old, in speaking with. Is it a boy? My four year old's a girl, speaking with her about her sister who is living in another country.

[31:32.8]
And have you crossed that yet? And do you believe that it's important for adopting or adoptive mothers, meaning like yourself, to actually cross that line with their children? I do think that it's important.

[31:48.7]
Unfortunately, these are some of the things that as natural parents and maybe even adoptive parents, we don't really consider the consequences of all of the people involved because adoption's not transactional. It really is the marriage of two families. When you're talking about either a semi or open adoption, we're blending our families together.

[32:05.6]
And yes, that decision making authority looks different. But ultimately, if we have this relationship that we agree it is going to go on for the future, it's ultimately going to affect our children as a result. So they even my daughter that I placed for adoption, her adoptive parents have four biological children of their own.

[32:26.4]
So she's one of five, and she's the only one that's adopted in their family. When I went on to, have children, my daughter, my oldest daughter that I raise, who is now four, going to be five this year, I was always open with her about her sister because they were so close in age.

[32:46.0]
So my daughter is going to be six in July. The daughter that I raised in my home is going to be five in October. So they're really not that far apart. They're not, no. Or while they were in state and while we were still maintaining the promises that we had originally agreed to, all of our in person visitation was done with both of the children.

[33:04.6]
So I would bring my daughter with me, they would bring her, of course. So it was really like a play date. And neither of them of course understood what their relationship to one another, what they understood that this is somebody that I see every other month and somebody that I get to play with and that's close with me in age.

[33:21.4]
That was the hardest part about the deterioration between myself and my daughter's adoptive family was the consequence emotionally on the daughter that I raised. Because I cannot control what they do with my daughter that they raise. I gave them legal authority to make those decisions, trusting that they would make those decisions in her best interest.

[33:40.3]
What I do have authority over is my daughter that I raise. And the consequences of that were she, she, cries to this day. She doesn't understand, well, where's my sister? I know I have one. I know I used to see her and that I used to play with her. Why can't I talk to her? But she's got a little brother.

[33:56.5]
She does have a small brother and she loves her brother dearly. She loves her brother. There's something to be said for the natural birth order of children though, if you know what I mean. I don't know if you have siblings, Greg, but I have two younger brothers. I've always been the oldest and I've always functioned independently as the oldest for that reason.

[34:12.8]
My middle brother, however, when you pull him out of the age gap between me and my brother and put him on his own, he calls us all the time and he misses us and it's like he's not used to being alone. As the middle child, I see that similar complex of my 4 year old where she knows whether it's biological, whether it's spiritual, that she's not supposed to be leading the pack here.

[34:34.7]
And I have an older daughter, she has an older sister. People don't understand the emotional consequences that open adoption can put on the table when you do not approach these conversations with grace and openness and transparency with one another. We really are marrying these two families.

[34:51.5]
So I had to navigate that with occupational therapy with my 4 year old. And we're still, we're still going through it to a degree. Well, I Think, Sidney. You know your story while you had the courage to tell it, it's going on thousands of times all around the world, everywhere, right?

[35:10.3]
And so as the airwaves fill with your voice telling your story, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of people nodding, going, yep, yep, I went through that. A very similar thing. And I think the important thing is, is that, they find the faith in themselves, like you have to work through it without it being a regret.

[35:34.4]
Because they don't need to carry a regret or a pain around the rest of their life. They need to let it go. Easier said than done. I haven't done it. But you have. And you're a person who's just told a story, that you've been able to do this successfully. So now I want to go back and on our, closing question here, if you could go back and speak to yourself in the hospital room six years ago, what would you tell Sydney, and what do you hope that your daughter will understand about your journey when she's old enough to read your book?

[36:10.8]
Which, you know, at six years old, she probably could read it now, but she might not understand it. But, she's, getting pretty good at piano. But these might be emotionally complex for her understanding at six, that's for sure. To myself, I would say that you are nothing less than your identity in Christ.

[36:32.9]
And everything else that people say that you are is just an opinion. It's not a fact. I was resting so heavily on the ideas that people had of me that were not rooted in truth. They were rooted in fear and their own, unhealed emotions.

[36:49.0]
And people do that frequently. And it's not something that I hold against them. But I was making decisions about my life and my daughter's life based on who I believed my. Myself to be. Because of voices other than who Christ told me I was.

[37:07.0]
That would be my core thing to myself and to my daughter. It's that, if I could Wave a magic wand and I would have known that you would have grown up with me and that I would have been able to keep you safe, that this would not look like what it does, she'd be home with me to this day.

[37:25.6]
Every house that I've ever bought to this day has always had a room for her. I will never not have a space for my daughter so that if something happens and she wants to come home, she always has a room here. But she's loved. And even though the situations of her upbringing, were not ideal or Fairy book, like everybody has a story.

[37:48.0]
And I want her to find what God has intended for her life with her role in the story. Because I found mine and it's changing legislative. I do not want this to happen to anybody else. It happened to me and my daughter.

[38:03.7]
And if I can't protect my daughter, then the least that I can do is bring it to people's attention so that it does not continue to repeat itself. But I cannot change that reality for my daughter and I. So I want her to find what her purpose is and I want her to fill it with her whole heart and whole mind and whole soul.

[38:21.4]
Well, there were two things you stated there. One is you would like to still be an advocate for, young women who are putting their children up for adoption and make sure that the legal system changes for open adoption. Which would mean, you know, hey, you run for office and become somebody in Colorado that can do that, or you become an attorney, which you easily could with your knowledge and expertise of this, with, focus in that area, so that you literally could work the system.

[38:54.1]
Because these systems that we have developed are almost like, I call them big, aircraft carriers going down the road. And to try and turn them around requires somebody with a lot of tenacity and a lot of know how.

[39:10.2]
And I wish you your best on that. I think that if there's anybody to do it, it could be you, at least in the state of Colorado. Maybe reset some kind of president precedent for that. But I want to thank you for coming on inside personal Growth and sharing your story.

[39:27.4]
And again for all of the listeners, if you want to learn more, go to Coach C U R T I N dot com. There you can learn more about the blog, her portfolio. You can sign, up for a coaching session she even has if you're in the life coaching arena or sales mastery, she's got that as well.

[39:50.9]
So take a look at it and look at the blog entries as well. There's a little blog there, a little Contact Me in the corner, so you can reach out to Sydney and do that as well. Sydney, thank you for being on. Blessings to you. Thank you for telling your story, and being a guest and enlightening people about the open adoption process.

[40:12.6]
Thanks so much for your questions. It helps us spread the word in this industry that's so such a small population that it affects and I greatly appreciate your time. Small population, but a big impact. So, yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast on Inside Personal Growth.

[40:31.8]
We appreciate your support and for more information about new podcasts, please go to inside personal growth.com or any of your favorite channels to listen to our podcast. Thanks again and have a wonderful day.