Toni and Ryan - The Search For My Birth Mother Is Over

Episode Date: December 2, 2024

A change of pace today to be there for our beautiful friend Ryan. Love you xxxx Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It is a slightly different episode today. If this is your first episode, would we say if you just found us on TikTok, maybe like start tomorrow? Maybe listen to yesterday's. Yeah. Because that was a bit fun. We got pizza. That was a good time. Yeah.

Yeah, it was a better time after, but it's a slightly different show. A little bit different. So just know that. We do have, because I've got a personal update. I do have the tissues here. That's a good call. Now, who do we, and then not because Sophie's going to come again, but who do we think will cry first? Let's just like place our bets.

I think it's probably going to be pretty even Stevens. Okay. Maybe me. Sophie, would you like to place a bet? How are you feeling today? Do you have a good night's sleep? I did actually. Yeah, but I don't have a box of tissues next to me. I've just realized. Would you like some of these just in advance? Flick some out.

Oh, you are a crier. Sophie, for those who don't know, Sophie cries all the time. It's quite endearing, but then when Sophie goes, I started to cry. I'm like, well, not really a spoiler. Love it for you. No, as someone Tony Lodge, who is also a bit of a spoiler. Love it for you. No, as someone Tony Lodge who is also a bit of a cryer. I'm also a cryer.

I see you cry, I cry. Yeah, we both, it's simply crying. I'm feeling some stones being thrown from a Tony Lodge glass house. No, no, no, no, no, no, it actually wasn't. It was also the fact that people don't know Sophie as well. So when she says, I'm a cryer, like, she's telling the truth. Yeah. Anyway, so that's just a cryer, like she's telling the truth. Yeah.

Anyway, so that's just a- No. Okay. But let's not be silly. Let's not be silly. It's a sad day, but an important day in a important thing for me to share. So indulge me if you will. The search for my birth mother is over. It's 2024 and back in 2017, I posted this video on Mother's Day. Hey, I'm Ryan and I've never met my biological mother. I'm adopted. So every year around Mother's Day, I get this same sort of tricky

conundrum going on in my mind. So my birth mother's name is Julie and she left me a letter. So from the little information I know, it seems that when she got pregnant, unexpectedly, she didn't believe that she had the time or maturity to be a great mom. And she sort of implied that she didn't have the best upbringing and she wanted to make sure that her child had

every opportunity available. So she thought the best thing to do would be give me up for adoption. It's 2017, I'm almost 30, I'm really happy I'm here. I think when people get pregnant now and they don't want a baby, they don't have a baby, without wanting to get into the abortion debate, I'm really happy to exist. My parents, who I now call mum and dad, they were told they couldn't be parents and now they are so they're really happy to exist. My parents, who I now call mum and dad, they were told they couldn't be parents and now they are, so they're really happy as well.

I've heard a lot of stories where women who have given up kids for adoption feel really guilty and sometimes it seems like a cowardly thing and you see in movies the kid finding out and being upset, but as someone who was adopted, from my point of view it's it's the total opposite you've given someone the gift of life you've sacrificed your body your life for someone who in 12 months you know you you won't even know them so I'd love to be able to look my birth mother in the eye and just say how thankful I am for literally everything.

But there's one thing sort of stopping me. I'm scared that I might go looking for someone who might not necessarily wanna be found. She wasn't quite ready to be a mother when she had me, but I hope that she grew up, met someone, got married, and now has a family of their own. And her husband might not know about me. Her new kids, who are my half brothers and sisters,

they might not know I exist either. And you know, I don't want to be the skeleton in the closet. I don't want to create any awkward conversations or situations for her. She gave me my life and I feel like the least I can do is let her live hers. So if this video gets shared around enough and my birth mother views it, you know, I don't expect anything from you. I don't need you to do anything or contact me. I just wanted to say thank you for everything and I hope you have a great Mother's Day.

So that was in 2017 and earlier this year birth mother, Julie, she passed away. The more information that I've found out about her over the years, the more it was clear that she actually did not want to be found. I thought that maybe one day she'd change her mind or thought maybe one day I'd wake up and just go stuff it. I'm just going to go find her anyway. I thought maybe one day I'd meet her, but it wasn't to be. Now I don't know a lot about her, but let me tell you about the type of person that

she was. When I was born, I think I had some sort of complication and I had to go into surgery when I was a day old to have something fixed, which was pretty like routine, I believe. The doctor performed the surgery after surgery, he's chatting to the nurse and he said, "'Yep, this baby's gonna be fine,

"'but obviously very sore and just needs a lot of cuddles and just make sure his family, you know, does, you know, really takes care of him. And the nurse said, oh, he actually doesn't have a family yet. Um, cause he's, he's been placed into adoption and his mother's gone home. Um, I wasn't placed, uh, with my mom and dad until I was 10 weeks old. So you can imagine how hard it is to give up a child for adoption. But Julie, when she found out about the surgery, she actually came back to the hospital to like hold me and just take care of me for, and just sat there for a

few days and, you know, gave me the hugs and cuddles and everything you need. So you, I don't know Strong I don't know a lot about her but that's like I Don't know that that just feels like she's a really great person and I never thought she placed me into adoption because she didn't care You know I'm forever grateful that she placed me into adoption because she believed that that's what was best for me to have two parents, to grow up in a family home, to have

a better life than what she could offer. And I always thought that was really noble. Sophie lost the bet by the way. Since having my own daughter, Mabel, there's probably a time every single day where Mabel and I look each other in the eyes or I get a cuddle and I just think, oh, I always thought placing a kid into adoption would be hard, but like now that I have my own daughter, you just go far. It must have been so hard for her.

I found out about Julie's death about 20 minutes before I left my house to come here and do the 24 hour live stream for the Olympics. You probably couldn't tell anything was wrong, but if you go back and watch it, you'll probably notice there was a few mom jokes that like threw me around a little bit. And there was a few times where I was actually off

with the fairies thinking about it before I remembered, Oh shit, I'm on a live stream. Um, so I told Tony the day after the live stream wrapped up and I said, I didn't want to tell you cause I didn't think you would understand what it would be like to have a dead mom. And honestly, I think that joke deserved better than it got. You'll have to forgive me given the information I just gave you. No, I thought that was pretty poignant and a really good joke. And I got nothing.

And you're right, I don't get it. This is all, this is all so new to me. But I was like, come on, mate, I've actually just nailed a once in a lifetime gag and you've left me hanging. We've never had more in common. I know, I know. Her service was actually supposed to be a few weeks later when we were away in London, and I found out on the flight over that it had been delayed. I didn't find out until I went to her service that Julie's family actually delayed the funeral so that I could attend. That was really, really nice and I really appreciate that. I didn't realize at the time that that's why they'd done it, but it was really nice. And I got to meet a lot of her family and learn a little bit more about her.

And whilst I never got to say what I wanted to say to her in person, Mabel and I, we got to play some flowers by her ashes and, you know, say some nice words and stuff. So that was quite nice. What do Mabel say? She said, she said, Dad, a lot and was quite awkwardly in a pretty good mood. Like babbling and like all these new people. It's kind of nice, I think.

Yeah. And Julie's mum was there. So that would have been my biological grandma and Mabel's great grandma. And she, in a really like somber moment, just kept telling her great grandma where her nose was. I think you need those kinds of moments in it. A hard... Yeah, but it was like some really tough moments. And then her to just, I'm like, stop telling, she knows where her nose is, sweetie. It's attached to her face has been the whole time. She's a hundred years old.

She knows where it is. I've spent a lot of my life feeling like a little bit of a burden because when Julie found out she was pregnant, it was a pretty tough time in, in her life. She was living in a share house, working during the day, studying at night, trying to make a better life for herself and being pregnant, as you can imagine, is a unexpectedly pregnant is a huge inconvenience to say the least. And she knew that she didn't have the resources that she wanted to raise a child. She's like, Oh, if I want to, if I'm having a child, I'd, I'd want two parents and I'd

want a house and I'd want all these things. And that's why she, she put me into adoption. I've read that a lot of birth mothers live their lives with a lot of guilt, with a lot of shame, and a lot of birth mothers have a fear that their biological children will like hate them. You know, you've seen a Hollywood movie. how could you do this to me and why? All I ever really wanted was to tell her how much I appreciated what she did for me and for her to say that that's okay.

She made this decision to give me a better life, but I've always felt a lot of pressure to then go and have a better life because she I've always felt a lot of pressure to then go and have a better life because she went through all this pain and made a huge decision for me and I feel like I've always had to do something to make it all worth it. I felt like I needed to be worth the hustle. If I graduate from college, then maybe she would be proud and I'd be worth it. If I played volleyball for Australia, maybe she'd be proud and I'd be worth it. If I had my own house and my own children, maybe she would be really proud.

If we made this really great show together, you and me, Tony, we make people laugh, we make people happy, and maybe she'd be proud and I'd be worth it. I just wanted her to say that she was proud of me and that I was worth the hassle. I tell my daughter Mabel that I'm proud of her every single day. She doesn't even know what it means. And by the time she does, it'll probably will have said it so many times. It'll probably have lost all meaning. It feels really weird to grieve someone that you didn't know. I was chatting to a therapist and they said, oh, you're not grieving the person.

You're grieving the chance to meet them. You're grieving the chance to thank her. You're grieving the chance for her to meet Mabel. You had a chance and now you don't and that's something you're allowed to feel sad about. There's a huge difference between a small chance and no chance. There's a huge difference between I haven't met her yet and no I didn't. So it may not be the end of the story that I wanted, but after attending the service, meeting her family, saying some nice words, there has been a sense of closure in something that's been a pretty big part of my life.

Since posting that video, I've spoken to thousands of other adoptees. Since posting that video, I found my biological father and his family has become my family, which has been so nice. I was having dinner with my birth father, Joel, who lives in London with Tony. He said he'd pay for dinner and Tony said, boy, you skipped the first 30 years, so it's probably the least you can do. boy, you skipped the first 30 years. So it's probably the least you can do. I'm also now part of the family. Yeah.

Yep. Or was it, don't abandon the bill like you abandoned Ryan. Choice words. Yeah, something like that. It was, it was quite funny and she got a better laugh than I did with my joke about the dead mom. It's the timing, mate. Yeah.

Which you're not great at. I'm not great at. The family who adopted me, also known as my family, they're awesome. I have great relationships with my mom and dad. I have all the cousins and aunties and uncles and grandparents and nieces and nephews coming around to my house for Christmas. In the house that I live in with my beautiful and caring and supportive wife, Bridget, and my gorgeous, hilarious, cheeky, nose pointing out Mabel and my life is is pretty grand. My birth mother Julie made

a really hard decision to give me a better life and my life is is pretty incredible full of laughs and loving people and I really want to thank Julie for making the selfless decision that she did and making the great life I have possible. May she rest in peace. Thank you for sharing that with us. You're welcome. I need a tissue because I think there's snot in my mustache. You look so good. Thank you. You look good. Thank need a tissue because I think there's snot in my mustache. You look so good.

Thank you. You look good. Thank you for saying that. What's on the show tomorrow, Tony? We're going to draw Secret Santa tomorrow. Okay. I wonder who I'll get. Um, look, I obviously we are who we are and we love each other. And you've just made a joke about what's on the show tomorrow and stuff. And like, I guess it's the part of life, isn't it?

That things just keep happening. And sometimes your birth mother dies and you have to do a 24 hour live stream. This is just life and people experience that every day. Yeah, every day. Um, no, no, no, no, no, but I think the, the fact that you have stream. This is just life and people experience that every day. Yeah, every day. So get over it. No, no, no, no, no, but I think the, the fact that you have been through something like that, your whole life has been something that you've been thinking about and now to have kind of an answer, but like you said, maybe not really the answer that you wanted. Like,

well, we love you and you're never a hustle to us. And I can't imagine a better person to have in my life. And as you said, like, thank you to Julie, because, like, thank God that she did something so selfless. And now we all get to have you in our lives and in our ears and get to like share our lives with each other. And I like can't imagine not having you as part of my family. So I'm really grateful to her as well. Well, thank you for saying that. And thanks to people that support the show and for, for listening today. It's a, yeah, an important part of my story.

So thank you for listening. Love you. Love you too. Bye. Love you. Love you too. Bye. Love you, Sophie. Sophie, you're not part of the Secret Santa. Sophie has cried and drowned in her own tears and washed away down a river. She just tumbled out.

Thanks Sophie for that.