Episode 191: Embracing Your Identity Outside of DNA (w/ Anna Bernacki)
The Forgotten Podcast
The Forgotten Initiative
4.9 • 532 Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2023
⏱️ 43 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s not uncommon for children impacted by foster care or adoption to desire to find answers, know where they came from, and understand the reason their life has looked the way it has. It can lead many children to question their identity or even wonder if they will ever find a sense of peace at all.
Anna Bernacki grew up in an adoptive home after being placed in foster care as an infant. As a teenager, she began to long for that special biological bond she felt would come from her biological parents. But after meeting her biological mother, Anna was disappointed to find that in her experience, that special connection she had longed for was still missing.
It wasn’t until Anna and her husband, Brian, were foster parents for six years and then adoptive parents to two sibling sets of two (four adoptive children in total!) that she would find healing and come to terms with the identity she carried outside of biological connection.
I really enjoyed my conversation with Anna and appreciated her openness about her story and experiences. I hope you do too!
Show Notes: https://theforgotteninitiative.org/anna-bernacki-191/
Join Team 3:10 (a generous donor has offered a matching grant up to $20,000 through the end of July!): https://theforgotteninitiative.org/team310/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Sharing the stories of the foster care community. This is The Forgotten podcast. All of that has led up to being the mom for these kids because of what they have had to go through. What I've had to go through has led me here to being here for them. |
| 0:26.5 | Hey, it's Jamie Cabe. |
| 0:31.4 | Welcome back to the Forgotten podcast, where we are highlighting the stories of the people of foster care. |
| 0:32.8 | With every episode, our goal is to help you better understand the foster care community. We want to bring |
| 0:38.6 | you hope and encouragement in your journey and help you support the agency workers, foster parents, |
| 0:44.8 | vulnerable adults, and children in foster care right where you live. If you want to learn more |
| 0:50.6 | about TFI, catch up on past episodes, read engaging articles, or partner with us |
| 0:56.2 | on mission with a gift of any amount, head over to the forgotten initiative.org. We are in this |
| 1:04.4 | together. Thank you for listening and engaging with us. We love having you as part of our family. |
| 1:14.9 | Okay, it is time. Let's do this. |
| 1:29.4 | Well, today on the podcast I have with me, Anna Bernacki, and I'm so excited to have her on the show, and you'll get to meet her in just a second. She grew up in, actually, she grew up in an adoptive home. She was in foster care, |
| 1:36.2 | placed in foster care as an infant, but really only experienced foster care a very short time, |
| 1:41.8 | grew up with a younger brother and sister who were also adopted by |
| 1:45.3 | different biological families. Since then, Anna is now married to her husband, Brian, for almost a |
| 1:52.4 | decade. That's big news. And you are foster parents for six years. Now you're adaptive pairs to |
| 1:59.8 | two different sibling sets of two. So I am |
| 2:04.4 | terrible at math, but what I'm thinking that means is four children. Correct. Yes. Do I have that |
| 2:09.9 | right? Yes. Awesome. Well, welcome to the show. Super happy to have you. Thank you. Thank you. |
| 2:15.4 | Yeah. Well, I would love to hear more about your story because although you spent |
| 2:20.6 | a short amount of time in foster care, in fact, you don't even remember your time in foster care. |
| 2:25.3 | Right. You still had a very deep desire to know your parents. And that kind of plays out a lot |
| 2:32.6 | through your story. And so wherever you really, |
... |
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