Introduction and Episode Overview

John Dehlin [00:00:00] What happens when your church, in this specific case, the LDS or Mormon Church, shames and pressures you to give your child up for adoption in a teenage pregnancy? Hello, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. I'm here with my co host, Margi. Hey, Margi. Hello.

John Dehlin [00:00:20] And we are here today covering a story that I've heard hundreds of times in my 20 years doing Mormon Stories podcast, and that is the. The legacy or the history of the Mormon Church pressuring teenage girls, teenage women, to put their children up for adoption, especially when it's an unwed pregnancy. And on the one sense, I'm sort of, like, dismayed that it's taken me 20 years to really cover this story.

John Dehlin [00:00:54] I know that this is going to resonate with a lot of other people who have had similar experiences, but mostly, Margi and I are super grateful today to have with us on the show Mindy Tollefson. Hi, Mindy.

Margi Dehlin [00:01:07] Hi.

Myndee Tollefson [00:01:08] Thanks for having me.

John Dehlin [00:01:09] And this is. Did I get that right?

Myndee Tollefson [00:01:11] So the only thing that I like to clarify is I actually wasn't a teenager.

John Dehlin [00:01:16] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:01:17] I was 20 when I delivered her, so.

John Dehlin [00:01:19] 20. And you were. You're.

Myndee Tollefson [00:01:21] Okay, so I was pregnant during 19, so. Or when I was 19. So technically, teen pregnancy, but not a teen birth. Just because I like to distinguish that.

John Dehlin [00:01:30] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And. And just to give people a bit of a teaser, we darkly joked that a subtitle for this episode could be what?

Myndee Tollefson [00:01:42] The Mormon Church Stole My Daughter. Yeah. Which sounds pretty aggressive. But, you know, I mean, there's a lot of big feelings inside of me that kind of stand behind that, and those that are in my circle and know the story support that title, too. So it's kind of. It is aggressive, but it's warranted aggression.

John Dehlin [00:02:02] Well, we are. We, Margi and I and our audience are all so grateful that you're willing to talk about something so sensitive, so courageous. So thank you in advance.

Myndee Tollefson [00:02:12] Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to kind of be a voice for birth moms. It's not. Not easy. There's a lot of. A lot of us out there, and it's really hard for a lot of people to talk about. And I have been really, really blessed to have an incredible circle around me to help me to get to a place where I can talk about it.

John Dehlin [00:02:31] And we do welcome any of our birth moms, former birth moms, that are willing to please share your narratives in the comments. Maybe we'll do a panel of birth moms. Like, we've done a bishop's panel or Relief Society president's panel or a single women's panel. Maybe if there are enough birth moms who had similar experiences, they can email us and we can do a panel and get a variety of experiences. So anyway, we can jump right in. Other than to say, I think, Mindy, you prepared a little bit of intention.

Myndee Tollefson [00:03:05] I did, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:03:06] And so, yeah, we always love to give people a chance to share an intention on why they wanted to do this interview.

Myndee Tollefson [00:03:13] Yeah, sure. I mean, I've got it written down. I'll do my best to just kind of summarize it instead of reading it, but basically the. The main thing that I want to convey is that the church harmed both my daughter and me. And it was the institution that was very, very flawed, but it was executed by very, very loving people in my life. And it's, as often is the case with the church. And so I don't want, as I'm telling the story, I'm not trying to disparage anybody that was in.

Myndee Tollefson [00:03:44] I fully understand that everybody, those around me really had my best intentions in mind and really had, you know, what they thought was right. But it did turn out that the church put a very harmful person in my daughter's life and caused a lot of trauma to it. And it's an important piece to tell of it because there's some underlying messages with it. But I also am very, very, very aware of the fact that adoption is a very tender, tender subject with every. Anybody that's involved in it. And that a lot of people do have beautiful, happy stories. And so I don't want to minimize those experiences.

Myndee Tollefson [00:04:20] But I know as I started listening to Mormon stories, that hearing voices that resonated and stories that resonated with me and my story made everything feel more real. And so I just wanted to kind of be a voice for those that kind of feel unseen. And that's kind of the over overarching theme of being a birth mom is it's a very unseen, invisible pain. And so I'm just hoping to be able to help others feel seen, heard, and loved in this.

John Dehlin [00:04:47] Thank you for that. And is it, is it fair to say that there is an element of informed consent here for you in terms of maybe you not be giving all the information or all the accurate information and in a vulnerable state, you will probably undo undue influence or even coercion was.

Myndee Tollefson [00:05:10] Absolutely, absolutely. And it took me a lot of years to figure that out.

John Dehlin [00:05:14] And that's part of the systemic, institutional part.

Myndee Tollefson [00:05:18] Yep, exactly.

John Dehlin [00:05:18] Because anytime religion where it's allegedly God driven. Correct. Becomes inserted in something that's a. That's more power than if it's just humans trying to make the best decision.

Myndee Tollefson [00:05:29] Exactly. And that's where, you know, the people that were surrounding me and helping me and advising me and loving me were given. We're using the same information, you know, information from God to influence this decision. And it was all executed in love and support.

John Dehlin [00:05:44] Yeah. Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:05:45] Yeah.

Myndee's Background and Mormon Upbringing

John Dehlin [00:05:46] All right. Well, Mindy Tollefson, where does your Mormon adoption story begin?

Myndee Tollefson [00:05:53] So just to lay a couple of foundations for my childhood, we don't need to spend a whole lot of time there, but I was born and raised and Bountiful, Utah, and my dad, super conservative.

John Dehlin [00:06:05] Right. North of Salt Lake City.

Myndee Tollefson [00:06:06] Yep, yep. About 15 minutes north of Salt Lake City. I am the youngest of six kids I use. I. I was a very introvert, shy kid, and my siblings filtered life for me. Kind of gave me a safety net of taking care of me. There was never a time in my life that I didn't feel extremely loved by my family.

Myndee Tollefson [00:06:31] There was even this, you know, I'm the angel at the end kind of a thing, which, no pressure there, but. But, you know, I mean, I. I did always feel loved and a lot of big personalities in my family.

Myndee Tollefson [00:06:46] And so, you know, that kind of a. On the outside, an idyllic childhood, walking around bountiful through summers and, you know, leaving first thing in the morning and not coming home until night. And I don't know where we were, but we had a lot of fun, you know. And another important piece to know is that my dad was a seminary teacher through most of the schools in Davis County. And so between my siblings and my dad, I rarely went anywhere without people knowing who I was. It was always somebody's sister, somebody's daughter, even my grandparents. My grandmother was extremely well known. Grandmother, grandfather, they were instrumental in the Mormon.

Myndee Tollefson [00:07:30] I'm sorry, the Temple Square concert series. They were instrumental in even up and running. Very prominent in Salt Lake. And so even in the Salt Lake area, ran into people who knew me as so and so's granddaughter, too. So I was always kind of living in a shadow, basically.

John Dehlin [00:07:47] And for those who don't have the context of what it means to have a dad who's a church educator. It means that he's over the education of a high school.

Myndee Tollefson [00:07:57] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:07:57] With a bunch of multiple generations of kids coming through where he's providing daily religious education to 30 years worth of. Of high school students across four years. So he would become Very well known,

Myndee Tollefson [00:08:15] and he was a principal, and he went to multiple different schools. And so even today, I mean, my dad was an incredible teacher. I mean, he was the one that everybody kind of wanted and people to come up to me today, how's your dad doing? You know, and really, he made a huge impact in people's lives. And I mean, and for good, you know, I mean, he was an incredible teacher. And so many people just adored my dad. And my siblings were all, shall we say, very big personalities, so that when I came into school, I. I even had one teacher say, oh, my gosh, how many more of there are you?

Myndee Tollefson [00:08:50] And I'm like, I'm the last one, I promise. And I'm an easy one. I'm really easy compared to them. So pretty mild. And compared to my siblings, who are a little bit more rambunctious and out there in the world than I was.

John Dehlin [00:09:02] Which high school is this?

Myndee Tollefson [00:09:03] Viewmont is where I went. My dad was at Bountiful, Woods Cross and Vermont. So he. He was principal at Woods Cross the vast majority of the time, but he did teach at all of the other schools for from 78 to, what, 93. Okay, so a lot of kids.

John Dehlin [00:09:19] And you were born what year?

Myndee Tollefson [00:09:21] 74.

John Dehlin [00:09:22] Okay. And then I was gonna ask if it was an orthodox religious upbringing, but as soon as you say your dad was a ces, which means he was a church employee.

Myndee Tollefson [00:09:33] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:09:33] It would have had to have been an Orthodox.

Myndee Tollefson [00:09:36] Yeah, exactly. I mean, church was never an option. Church was just part of what our life was. The Sunday dinners we usually did. Family home evenings. On Sunday, every morning, we woke up to my mom. We sat around the table. My mom made us Orange Julius and toast and read the Book of Mormon to us every single day of our childhood. So we were, you know, I mean, there was a little bit of.

Myndee Tollefson [00:10:01] One of my favorite things is on Sundays, sometimes we could whisper over to our dad, can we go to Sizzler for dinner? And we'd have to go to the other city. We'd have to go up to Layton so none of his students would see him. But it was always just kind of our one little, like, little thing that we got to do that was a little bit edgy, but otherwise, yeah, fairly Orthodox. Clothes we wore, you know, tank tops, weren't allowed, longer shorts.

Myndee Tollefson [00:10:26] I remember a couple of times having to kneel on the floor to see if my skirt was long enough. My oldest sisters fought the battle to even be able to get our ears pierced. He didn't want our ears pierced. And we had to wait until we were 14 in order to do that. So. Yeah. Pretty orthodox. Pretty orthodox, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:44] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:10:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:10:45] So on the one hand, I was going to say, well, you know, how would a teen pregnancy even happen in a. In a home? That's. That's so orthodox. But the truth is, in a Mormon context, there's such a lack of healthy discussion about sexuality, about birth control, that I've heard that at least 10 to 20 years ago, teenage pregnancies were more common in states like Utah and Idaho than in other states.

Myndee Tollefson [00:11:15] Yeah, that's.

John Dehlin [00:11:16] I don't know if that's true, but I.

Myndee Tollefson [00:11:17] Right, I heard that, too. And so I was looking that up and I couldn't find anything to confirm it. But I do remember at the time that I of, you know, around this, in my high school years, that that was just kind of something that was out there, floating around out there. I. I can't find any data to substantiate it either, so. But at any rate, yeah, purity culture does definitely play into a lot of teen pregnancies and. Or in my case, early adult pregnancies, you know, and it is. Lack of sex education.

John Dehlin [00:11:45] It wasn't. It was a teen pregnancy.

Myndee Tollefson [00:11:47] I know. Okay, okay. I'll get over it. I'll get over it.

John Dehlin [00:11:50] It's weird. It's interesting that you keep fighting that, but it was.

Myndee Tollefson [00:11:55] I'm pretty sure I. I think I'll get into that in a little bit with. I know. It's just this little sassy thing that I have to be.

John Dehlin [00:12:01] That's fine.

Myndee Tollefson [00:12:02] It's fine. So.

John Dehlin [00:12:03] Okay, so. Yeah, so how. Let's talk about kind of how.

Childhood Sexual Abuse and Its Impact

Myndee Tollefson [00:12:08] So then. I mean, the one thing that I just. I mean, I do want to kind of touch on is that I did experience about three years that I know of of sexual abuse. It was, you know, about third to six.

Margi Dehlin [00:12:21] Great.

Myndee Tollefson [00:12:21] And at the hands of somebody I should have been able to trust. And it was, you know, obviously ongoing. I don't want to go into the details of it because amends have been made. There's a really, you know, I mean, it's. It's all good now, but I can't deny how much it did impact my story. So I just want to make sure to reference it and just know that it existed, you know, for what it was. And it was ongoing, and I wasn't able to tell anybody about it until my late teen years. And so there was a lot of.

Myndee Tollefson [00:12:50] Is when kind of a disembodiment happened for me that I learned to get out of My body for safety purposes. And that kind of set me up for some other not great things later down the road and you know, kind of an adult life of kind of learning how to become embodied again. So.

John Dehlin [00:13:06] Yeah, well, thank you for being willing to share that. And that's one of the most tragic things about doing Mormon stories is just how incredibly prevalent childhood sexual abuse is within Mormonism. It's just unbelievable.

Myndee Tollefson [00:13:21] Yeah, another, another great result of purity culture, basically. You know, I mean, around there's just a lot of oppression that happens with it with lack of education, lack of normative behaviors. You know, I mean, with being sexually abused, there definitely was, was some body exploring exploration on my part too. And so tons and tons of shame surrounding that, which I didn't learn until recently that that's a normative behavior, you know, not even just for sexual abuse victims, but also just for humans as a whole, you know, and so I had a lot of shame surrounding that even. And definitely, you know, I mean, I think that played in part with, and plays in part with, you know, the prevalent sexual abuse, unfortunately.

John Dehlin [00:14:05] And for those who are newer to Mormon stories, we've covered extensively, as has the news media, the LDS Church's history, long history of covering up child sexual abuse and protecting the predators at the expense of victims, which allows this to become so common. And I, I don't want you to feel like you have to shy away from talking about if and how the abuse you experienced, you know, contributed to the circumstances of the teenage pregnancy later, but I. Because maybe they did. I mean, there are likely lots of teenage pregnancies that happen without abuse.

Myndee Tollefson [00:14:51] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:14:51] But, but please feel free to talk about the, the connections that you think might be there.

Myndee Tollefson [00:14:56] Absolutely. Yeah. Because it did, it did lay a foundation because of I, I felt dirty and bad. And when you already feel dirty and bad, then what's, what does it matter? Go ahead and be more dirty and bad, you know, and so there was.

John Dehlin [00:15:10] Even if you were a child and were blameless.

Myndee Tollefson [00:15:13] Right.

John Dehlin [00:15:14] That's not how you experienced it.

Myndee Tollefson [00:15:15] Well, yeah, because one of the things that I, I mean I remember distinctly is like reading a friend magazine and reading, you know, all these faith promoting stories of somebody, a kid, not finding their favorite teddy bear for some reason. I have something about a marshmallow in my brain. I don't know what that one is, but you know, and that they prayed and they found their teddy bear and in the meantime I'm praying for this awful thing to go away and does God not love me? Because the only answer is, is either you did something wrong or it's God's will. And you know, when you're, when you're being sexually abused, I don't think that's God's will.

Myndee Tollefson [00:15:48] So the only solution is it's something I'm doing, you know, to make it so that he's not saving me. And so that's kind of an over. Excuse me, an overarching theme that goes through it too is that searching for God to be able to come in and rescue me, because that's how the church, you know, I mean, God is omnipotent, God knows everything. He's powerful, all powerful. He can do, he can move mountains, but he can't take away this awful thing that's happening to me. But he's going to help other kids find, find their teddy bear, you know, and so that definitely was a sudden, a subtle message that, or maybe not even so subtle that it was a me problem, not a God problem. So that definitely plays a huge foundation in, in my upbringing and, and my overall feelings towards myself, you know.

John Dehlin [00:16:36] And I guess. Would you have heard those typical law of chastity object lessons about the licked cupcake and the chewed gum?

Myndee Tollefson [00:16:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:16:44] And I'm guessing they wouldn't have had disclaimers, Right, that if you were abused, then you don't count as a, as a lick cupcake or a chewed gum. Right.

Myndee Tollefson [00:16:54] Yeah. In fact, even there's, I mean, I remember two talks specifically, I don't remember what age there were, but you know, one of them was called itself called masturbation self abuse, which just, I mean, I remember hearing that and just felt like I wanted to vomit, you know, I mean, it just was so sick to me and I didn't know why it felt so sick to me now. Hello. That's a terrible thing to hear. You know, and then there was another. I don't know, you probably can remember this one better than me, but there was, I think it was Spencer W. Kimball that said if their son, they'd rather have their son die. Right. Then come home from their mission having

John Dehlin [00:17:28] what's rather my son come home in a pine box than return without honor from his mission.

Myndee Tollefson [00:17:34] Right. And, and specifically around virtue and chastity on that. And so, yeah, of course I didn't.

John Dehlin [00:17:39] Better dead than unclean. They're prophets said. Yeah, and I've got a long list of quotes, but literally prophets have said, better dead than unclean.

Myndee Tollefson [00:17:47] Right, Right. Sin next to murder. And then when you're putting. And I. For a lot of years, I, I didn't feel the pressure of that. It was a me problem other than praying, right? But then when I got into young women's and for the strength of youth came up, I remember that lesson vividly. And looking back now, I know that it was one of my very first panic attacks that I ever had was in that Sunday school class where we were talking about virtue and chastity and I. And remember seeing the word masturbation and I was like, oh my gosh, sin next to murder, you know, and this is, I'm young at this point in time and not even just kind of even learning of what was actually happening, you know, putting words to it.

Myndee Tollefson [00:18:31] And already I'm, I'm dirty, already I'm terrible, you know, right from the get go at no fault of my own for just normal things that would have happened. And because I wasn't able to tell anybody that was happening until later, I'm fighting this battle as a little, little girl trying to figure out how to even make sense of this, you know, and the only way to make sense of it is that I'm bad.

John Dehlin [00:18:55] And the truth is, again, there's going to be a lot of Mormon kids because masturbation is so prevalent. There's going to be a lot of Mormon girls and boys that have to fight that message of, you know, pornography being evil and it's an extra murder and self abuse. I wonder if having a history of being abused as a child, sexually abused as a child, combined with the, the practice of, the normative, healthy practice of masturbation. I wonder if that compounds it and makes it.

Myndee Tollefson [00:19:27] Oh absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:19:28] More hard than just a normal kid, Mormon kid that might be.

Myndee Tollefson [00:19:32] I mean I've never been a normal kid, but I've talked to kids that haven't experienced it and absolutely I had, I was always had a great group of friends, you know, really, really good kids. I was always the wildest one in the group and I was very, very tame, you know, but I was very boy crazy, which, and again at the time I thought it was excessively, but now looking back I'm like, I don't even know that it was excessive. You know, I just had boyfriends starting in eighth grade and was constantly wanting a boyfriend and loving the validation of that and was likely extremely intense in those relationships.

Myndee Tollefson [00:20:08] And they were, you know, I was probably ready to get married and they were probably ready to be 14 in a relationship kind of a thing. And so there's definitely something that played into that, but it was, I don't even know that the shame I carried around. It was warranted even. You know, I was supposed to be the gatekeeper of these boys, you know, and, and the fact that I was usually the one wanting more than they did, I felt like a failure at that too.

Myndee Tollefson [00:20:36] And again, is that normal or is that result of sexual abuse? Who knows? You know, there's no way to parse that out. But the truth of it is is it did exist a lot. And I d. Really, really great guys. You know, they were really, really sweet boys and had some really, really great relationships, you know, that were. I felt loved by boys and, you know, and had a great group of friends and, you know, I mean, other than carrying around this invisible pain and the secret, I, I had a great childhood, a great teenage years. You know, it's just this living with this secret that's underlying, that's just eating

John Dehlin [00:21:13] me up, you know, we know secrets can be very toxic and unhealthy. Yeah. And again, on the one hand, lots of teens in and out of Mormonism experiment sexually. It's very normative and probably healthy. On the other hand, it's, it's always occurred to me that if a kid is a victim of abuse, sexual abuse, then it seems like it would be more likely for them to be more awakened to sexuality and, or potentially more inclined to believe that their worth or value might be connected to the ways that they might sexually gratify others. And again, I'm just guessing.

Myndee Tollefson [00:22:00] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:00] But I, but I did want to see whether you think there might be something to that.

Myndee Tollefson [00:22:04] Yeah, absolutely. Because if nothing else, it's. It turns on those feelings younger than, than your average kid, you know, I mean, so I was around 8 years old and so most of my friends were starting to even just like boys in sixth, seventh grade, you know, and here I am in third grade having some of these. And so definitely that's why I joke, you know, that I was probably ready to get married while these 14, 15 year old boys are like, whoa, she's pretty intense. And it was because I was probably four or five years ahead of them, you know, and in my development of sexuality as a whole.

Myndee Tollefson [00:22:36] And so again, there was, I mean, there was very few lines that were crossed as, you know, as I was dating through high school even, I mean, really good guys that we just had a lot of fun with, big circles of friends and had a really, really great group of core friends and larger groups. And it's just the shame that was the underlying. And I mean, I, I'm gonna say it a lot, but there's A lot of invisible pain with being a sexual abuse victim. And, and then on top of that too, carrying around the story is a secret, just adding to those feelings as well. So. Yeah.

High School Years and Church Involvement

John Dehlin [00:23:16] All right, well, let's, let's talk about kind of high school and what leads. What do you want to share about what.

Myndee Tollefson [00:23:24] So I mean, again, lots of, lots of church influence in there. I went to EFY several summers, loved efy, had lots of fun going and finding the boy that I wanted to have be the guy that I got to take home and write letters to and had a lot of fun with that.

Myndee Tollefson [00:23:43] So then fast forward to about 17 years old, the opportunity kind of presented itself for me to let my family know that I had been abused. And it kind of rocked my family. And just because it was so out of character and so surprising for me to be coming from me and my parents did honestly the very best thing they knew how and they put me in counseling right away at LDS Social Services.

Myndee Tollefson [00:24:17] And LDS Social Services is not very trauma informed, number one. But then, you know, we're talking in the early 90s and trauma therapy was very different then than it is now. And so looking back now, I know that this woman just totally re. Traumatized me and you know, dove in with no, no effort to gain trust from me and just, I mean, I don't, I don't remember how long I was with her, but I never liked it and I felt worse leaving than I did even coming, you know, going into the session. And so I don't know that it was helpful at the time, but it did, it gave a place for my parents to feel like I was being attended to in a, in a situation that they didn't know what to do.

Myndee Tollefson [00:25:04] They really didn't know what to do. And there's, you know, and again, my dad is a prominent person in the area and so I, it's not a story that I'm going to tell far and wide. And what's their primary resource is LDS Social Services, you know, and because I didn't have any other experiences with therapists at that time, I don't know if this was the norm, but it just was not comfortable or happy for me.

John Dehlin [00:25:27] And just to give never Mormons a bit of a context there, you know, what I Learned in my 6 years leading up to my PhD in psychology was that the Mormon Church for half century or more has always had a healthy, I'll say an unhealthy skepticism or sense of negativity towards the mental health profession. In past decades, psychiatrists and psychologists have, have been denounced as satanic or evil. And so I think the way that the Church responded, and that's because they would recommend things like sexual education or would say being gay isn't evil or sin, it's, it's healthy and normal according to doctors or masturbation is normal and healthy according to pediatricians.

John Dehlin [00:26:17] The Church didn't like that type of wisdom or evidence based counseling. And so what the Church would do is it would train and aggregate lists of Mormon or LDS Church approved therapists that would always counsel first according to the Church's desires and wishes and then secondly to evidence based on ethical professional guidelines. When in doubt, they would always side with the Church over the ethics of the profession.

John Dehlin [00:26:55] But then both youth and adults and children would be pushed by bishops and parents to these unethical therapists funneled. And even if your family couldn't afford a therapist and then the bishop would pay for the therapy, the bishop would only pay for the therapy if it was a church approved therapist. And so these types of therapists supported conversion therapy for gay Mormons and again would be part of this funnel to encourage the victims to forgive their perpetrators, to not report to the police.

Myndee Tollefson [00:27:37] Thank you. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:27:37] Because that protects the church.

Myndee Tollefson [00:27:40] And that that was a piece of it is that, I think that that's what the traumatizing. Thanks for, for bringing that up is that that that was the push from the get go is to get an apology before I was even ready to.

John Dehlin [00:27:54] From you. An apology from you, from the perpetrator. Okay. Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:27:57] Yeah. To, to work towards getting an apology and, and confronting the perpetrator. And that was not anything I was interested in. And it did, I was led to do that and it did not. That's not where the amends were made. They were made, met better or later in life. You know, and it, they. She did a lot of inner child work. But you know, now we know that you got to gain a lot of trust to be able to talk to that inner child. And there just wasn't a lot of effort into that. So just diving right in, how did you feel? How did you, you know, just reliving these terrible situations without any context, you know, in any way, shape or form. And again, you probably know better than me if that was norm for the times or if that was a worse situation in LDS social services.

John Dehlin [00:28:44] Super normal. But also the Church primarily wanting to minimize its legal liability and its legal minimize the risk of public exposure. And that's where the Boy Scout of America sexual abuse cover ups came out. Of this model as well as tens of thousands of girls and boys being abused within Mormon contexts outside of the Boy Scouts of America. That's why we have 50 to 100 years of really rampant child sexual abuse cover ups in the church. Partly where LDS social services and mental health professionals were part complicit in a system.

Myndee Tollefson [00:29:26] Complicit. And I agree that's, that's part of, part of what it is too is the complicit of it. So from there, you know, I mean, just as I've been kind of going back and thinking about it, the, you know, if I just am picturing this 17 year old girl that's finally bubbling up, this story that's coming out and I remember getting my patriarchal blessing around 18 at some point in time. And you know, I've been, I've been pleading with God to just give me some relief, you know, that please hear me, please help take some of this pain away and great, let's get a patriarchal blessing.

Myndee Tollefson [00:30:00] I'm going to get some direction in this. I'm going to feel seen and heard and loved by Heavenly Father at that point in time. And so I went into it fasting, doing all the things, had a great intention and hearing about some of the patriarchal blessings of people in my life that they have these miraculous, you know, I've miraculous blessings and telling all these personal things and I basically anybody could have gotten my patriarchal blessing. It was so generic, there was nothing in it except all of the basic, you're from this tribe, you will be a mother, you'll marry in the temple, you'll go on to blah, blah, blah, right?

Myndee Tollefson [00:30:41] Like there was nothing distinguishable for me and it was just another way that I'm like, God just doesn't see me, he just doesn't love me and he loves this friend a little bit better because their patriarchal blessing changed their life. And so what have I done? It's got to be me, it has to be me where the problem lies in this.

Myndee Tollefson [00:31:00] So that's, I mean, I just, I mean as, again as an overarching, overarching theme in there. And so what that creates is just this insatiable need to be good. I just need to be better. I just need to be better because I, I need relief. And apparently people tell me that God is where you get your relief from, but I haven't received that, you know, I don't know what that is. So it's just this, I, I mean it's just this push to be better than I am and I'm already a really good kid. You know, I mean, I'm not doing anything that's even harmful. I mean the, the biggest is boyfriends and I wasn't supposed to date before I was 16 and I had some boyfriends, you know, I mean, other than that, literally, I was a great kid that made great choices and had great friends and still felt like a terrible person. A terrible, terrible person.

John Dehlin [00:31:51] I'm so sorry.

Myndee Tollefson [00:31:52] Thank you. Yeah. And again, that's not anybody in my life that caused that. It just is kind of this when you hear the same messages over and over and over again and they're repeated without understanding the impact of it. There's, it's not anybody's fault except the church, you know, for spreading these messages and, and hammering them in to your head. You know, those, the nice standards night that we used to have as kids. And you know, I'm sitting in there beat red and sweating because it's just, you know, they're talking about things that I'm like, I don't want anybody to

John Dehlin [00:32:27] know that types of things would they?

Myndee Tollefson [00:32:29] Well, masturbation, sex, how you dress, you

John Dehlin [00:32:31] know that like in a church setting with everyone.

Myndee Tollefson [00:32:34] It was like a night that we all went back to the church and

John Dehlin [00:32:37] there was parents and kids, teenage kids with leaders. And then people were getting up to

Myndee Tollefson [00:32:42] the pulpit saying, saying be chased or it's the sin next to murder basically, you know, I mean, and don't even go near it. And so I'm kissing boys and really like boys a lot and they like kissing me, you know, kind of thing. And here I am. And that's, you know, I mean it, it was so benign when, you know how the rest of the world operates that it, it breaks my heart for that little 17 year old girl that was feeling so awful for doing things that were just normal, if anything tame, you know, when you talk about high school and you know, a little bit fast forward.

Myndee Tollefson [00:33:17] My husband grew up not a member of the church and talk about his high school experiences and I'm like, yeah, I was really mild in comparison. So, you know, I mean that's, it took a, it's taken a long time for me to remove that shame that I carried. That wasn't my shame, you know.

John Dehlin [00:33:34] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [00:33:35] So yeah, those are the main things from, you know, the high school years of what it is. It's just setting that up. And so then right after high school, in fact, we lived in a hotel. When I graduated from high school, we moved to Seattle and that was my dad Actually started teaching at UW as an institute teacher.

John Dehlin [00:33:55] University of Washington.

Myndee Tollefson [00:33:56] Yeah, yeah, sorry. And so it just lived north of there in Everett is where I lived in the Seattle area and immediately started going to a single adult ward. So I'm 19 years old, going to church with like, I think at that time they allowed like up to 32 to be in the ward. It might have been 28, but I. There was a couple of guys that I was hanging out with that I remember being almost double my age. And. Yeah, and here I, you know, I mean, it was a brand new single adult ward. I think it started, gosh, I don't know, like September when I moved there.

Myndee Tollefson [00:34:36] And I moved there July, it started September and I started going almost right away. So very new. Everybody was excited. It was a fun ward. It was super, super fun. We loved. We had lots of activities. I made some really, really good friends.

Myndee Tollefson [00:34:52] And in addition to this, sorry, my dad taught. We were about 30, 40 minutes from the Seattle area from is where we lived. And he taught an institute class at our ward building. So we didn't have to go all the way down to Seattle for the class. And so we went to that, I like, every, I think Wednesday or Thursday night, we went to that. And again, lots of really, really fun friends that were there.

Myndee Tollefson [00:35:19] And so shortly into moving into the ward and, you know, taking into consideration this heaviness that I felt of my patriarchal blessing was probably six months before I started going to the single adult ward. And God doesn't love me. God doesn't love me. God doesn't see me. He doesn't take these terrible things away from me, but he helps other people. What can I do? And so it's just kind of this darkness inside of me. And I basically. I mean, I saw a guy there that had. I just recently remembered that he'd only been baptized one month and you could tell he'd lived a much more colorful life that I had.

Myndee Tollefson [00:35:57] And more or less I was like, that one. That's the one that I want. And the notion going into it is like, you know, I can help this convert. I'm a good kid. I can help him. I can do. Do all the things to be able to, you know, like, help show them the ways of the church. This is my way to kind of move forward and build my own testimony and that kind of a thing. And so we started dating.

Myndee Tollefson [00:36:22] And we only dated about. Well, in total, I think it was about four months. But it was again, a very normal behavior that I felt so much shame about two months into our relationship, we had sex for the first time. And I would say that there was definitely some coercion in there, but I don't think in malice intent on his part. You know, I mean, he thought. Saw that as a very normative behavior, and I didn't. And just. It just was. And it was not like a regular thing. It wasn't. It just was just kind of this simple thing that boyfriend and girlfriend, two consenting adults, were having sex.

Myndee Tollefson [00:37:04] But my parents found out somehow. I don't even remember how it was. And it did not go well. I was grounded at 19 years old, and I. I obeyed the grounding, which is, you know, says a lot about who the good kid I am. I'm an adult, and I'm like, oh, my parents grounded me, you know, and it's worth noting.

Myndee Tollefson [00:37:29] So this is February, and on Valentine's Day Day, I had a family home evening at my house, and my now husband showed up at that family home evening on Valentine's Day because he knew my dad. He was kind of. Kind of quiet and shy. I seen him at church, and he's really super cute, but he's kind of quiet. I don't know that I had. If we had ever even talked, maybe said hi. But that night he came, and I'm still dating this guy, and we. There's just a magnetism between us. And he talked to me about my dog, like, tell me you love me by telling. By asking me about my dog, you know, and so love language.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:09] Right? Right.

Myndee Tollefson [00:38:10] I mean, that gets even bigger in the story. So he asked me about my dog. He told me he had two dogs. And he asked me if I wanted to play racquetball that weekend.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:17] And I'm like, sure.

Myndee Tollefson [00:38:18] I'd never even picked up a racquetball racket. Absolutely. I want to go play racquetball. And, you know, I mean. And we just were. There was just a magnetism from there, and. And so we actually started hanging out with. With this boyfriend of mine, too, and we all did things together, and there was, you know, a couple of other friends that were in the circle, and we decided to go on a trip, come down to Utah. For. There was five of us in a little hatchback Honda Civic driving from Seattle to here. And on that trip was the trip that I ended up getting pregnant. And it was also the.

Myndee Tollefson [00:38:56] The same trip that I. My husband and I had the connection point, he and I. I don't remember the timing of this, but he and I stayed up one night talking Literally all night long. And my boyfriend at the time came out in the morning and was like, oh, what's going on here? And it was, oh, hi, yeah, Troy and I are just talking at this point. And then somewhere. And one day around that was the day that I got pregnant. Pregnant, too. So having that connection with Troy, I came home and broke up with the guy immediately. And then. But I had this nagging feeling that I was going to be pregnant.

Myndee Tollefson [00:39:35] And it didn't make sense in my mind. And I mean, I'm telling you that it was probably less than 10 times that we ever even had sex. And it was not like I was out sleeping around. It wasn't, you know, like I was a promiscuous person. It was. I was having sex with my boyfriend at the time. And so about three weeks later, I found out that I was pregnant. And yeah, it was. It was.

Myndee Tollefson [00:40:05] Sobering is a good word. But it also was like, nobody thinks it's going to be them. You know, nobody thinks it's going to be them that it's going to happen to. I didn't have any. Any conversations about consent and what consent genuinely means. I talk about condoms. I don't let him decide whether we're going to have condoms or not. You know, I have a right to say no, even in the last second. I didn't know that, you know, it was. I'm supposed to be the gatekeeper of this guy. I'm supposed to be the one that's bringing him into the church, and I've already got him to this far.

Becoming Sexually Active Without Education or Support

Myndee Tollefson [00:40:38] I can't not follow through, you know, and there's no education or, you know, I mean, again, I just learned that more so recently in listening to podcasts and stuff, that there was. I don't want to blame him in any way, shape or form, but there was coercion in it because of a lack of communication between us, because a lack of understanding how we were approaching this adult thing that we were doing. And he didn't have it either. And so it. It wasn't.

Myndee Tollefson [00:41:06] It wasn't something necessarily I wanted to do, but it wasn't necessarily something he forced me to do either, you know, and so I found out I was pregnant.

John Dehlin [00:41:17] Would you have been taught to use birth control if you're going to be sexually active by your parents or church leaders?

Myndee Tollefson [00:41:24] It's complicated. I do remember sex ed classes in school. I was in my senior year. I was in a. A class about as Friends Friends Against Drug Dependencies fad. But we did talk a lot about sexual health in there too, and did a big report on STDs. And so that was the thing that was primary mind was STDs. And this is early 90s, so the AIDS epidemic is just finally, you know, it's just starting to kind of tone down slightly, but that's still very prominent and very pro front of my mind. So it was more about STDs than it was about pregnancy. Yeah, I'd never.

Myndee Tollefson [00:42:04] It's not like I knew how to use a condom, and it's not like I even was brave enough to go buy a condom. It was his responsibility. And there's no way I'm going to ask for birth control pills, you know, at that point in time. I mean, when my parents found out I was having sex, they grounded me either that's not very safe for me to go and have a conversation about this.

Myndee Tollefson [00:42:25] And so, yes, maybe, but not enough to make it so that I felt like I could have action, you know, it was. It was probably more so like, yeah, I know that information's out there, but no way to access it, you know.

John Dehlin [00:42:37] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:42:40] So I. The. I lived outside of the home for. With friends for like two weeks or maybe. Maybe it wasn't very long that I lived out. And during that time is when I found out that I was pregnant. And so I told my roommate first thing, and funny thing was Troy was actually on his way over to our house at that point in time, and my friends sent him home because I just found out. And your current husband? My current husband, yeah, he was. He was right there in the middle of all of it. And the timing of this is kind of mixed up in my mind just because I kind of went into a trauma state at this point in time.

Myndee Tollefson [00:43:15] But I did tell my parents. It turns out that I have had a blocked memory about how that was received. I had very much whitewashed it. Later, my sister was there too. She had lived with us for a short period of time, and she clarified how it all went down. And my brain is amazing and protected me for a lot of years. And.

Myndee Tollefson [00:43:38] And so when I'm retelling this, I have to also be conscious of that. I. I could have some blocked memories around this time period too. I. When my sister told me, I was like, man, my brain is so amazing. I love how much it protects me, you know?

John Dehlin [00:43:54] Did you want to say what she. Her memory was or did you not want to say?

Myndee Tollefson [00:43:58] I'd rather not. Yeah. It just was a little bit more extreme version of the reaction was negative.

John Dehlin [00:44:03] Negative.

Myndee Tollefson [00:44:03] Yeah. Their reaction was very, very.

John Dehlin [00:44:04] By your parents.

Myndee Tollefson [00:44:05] Yeah. I knew that because I was the good kid, that this was literally destroying them. You know, they had gotten through my tough older siblings that had run them through the ringer kind of a thing, and I was the easy one at the end. And so to disappoint with, again, the sin next to murder, I mean, that was a pretty big across to. To carry, you know.

John Dehlin [00:44:31] So other siblings also were not able or didn't want to live up to all LDS Church standards as teens.

Myndee Tollefson [00:44:39] Correct? Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:44:40] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:44:41] Yeah. So the last four of us are in a five year period of time, so there's two older sisters, and then the last four of us were in for just under five years. And so they kept my mom busy. Yeah, they kept her busy. And I stayed quietly on the outside, you know, and as I've said multiple times, I was the good girl. I didn't cause a whole lot of trouble. So knowing that I was really, truly disappointing my parents for something more than lying about wearing eyeliner, you know, I mean, this was a major, major thing. And, I mean, I had remembered the expression on my dad's face, and where I had remembered him in the room was not accurate.

Myndee Tollefson [00:45:22] Even so I had conjured up this whole other scenario, but it devastated them. And I. My brain didn't feel safe enough to keep that memory. So even when my sister told me that, I'm like, I have no memory of it until she said one little phrase that resonated in my body to go, oh, my gosh. Wow. And she wouldn't make it up anyway. I mean, that's just not who she is. So.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:47] Okay.

John Dehlin [00:45:49] So not a very positive reaction from your parents.

Myndee Tollefson [00:45:54] No.

John Dehlin [00:45:54] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [00:45:55] The love that I had around me in those first couple of days was my best friend, my sister, that was there. And then that night, I believe, is when I called Troy, my now husband, and told him. And he was the circle of support around me, too.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:11] Wow. Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [00:46:14] So the guy, the boyfriend, I had told him somewhere before I had told Troy before I told my parents. We went to Planned Parenthood in Seattle, and they were actually amazing for. To me. They were. They even pulled me out in the hall and said, are you safe in this relationship? And I, you know, I said that I was. And they said, you know, gave me a phone number quietly. And they were really, really amazing. And I don't know if you guys know this. Today is the anniversary of when Roe v. Wade was overturned, which is appropriate for an adoption story, too. Absolutely. Yeah. And there was and I mean, just for reference, there was no pressure for adoption or for neither adoption nor abortion or anything from Planned Parenthood.

Margi Dehlin [00:46:58] Yeah, okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:46:58] Yeah. They were very, very neutral and kind and despite what I, I went into it with a lot of fear of, oh my gosh, I have to go to Planned Parenthood. And they were just nothing but great to me at that point in time.

John Dehlin [00:47:10] When you say had to, my guess is your parents wouldn't have wanted you to go to Planned Parenthood, Right?

Myndee Tollefson [00:47:16] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:47:16] So when you. So why.

Myndee Tollefson [00:47:18] I wanted a confirmed pregnancy test.

John Dehlin [00:47:20] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:47:21] Just not an at home one. I mean, this was changing my life. And so absolutely I wanted somebody other than a pregnancy test at home.

John Dehlin [00:47:28] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:47:28] To confirm this for me. So that's where we went that day. We went to the mall, this boyfriend and I and, and purchased a ring and he proposed to me that night. And I pretended like that was going to be okay and I wore the ring overnight and then to work the next day I got home from work at like one o', clock, took it off and was like, this is not, this is not the way that it needs to go. It's not okay. I mean, now if, you know, he and I, it's like, how did that even, how did we even date, let alone, you know, do this together? And I mean, it just, we were not compatible. He was not somebody that I had envisioned having in my life at any, any long term, especially linked with a child, you know, or marriage kind of a thing.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:13] So that's a, an amazing point of clarity.

Myndee Tollefson [00:48:17] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:48:17] To have.

Myndee Tollefson [00:48:18] Yeah, yeah. When you, When, I mean, immediately I knew I had a child involved in this. You know, I mean, a lot of times I know young pregnant girls don't really, don't really see a child through all of this. They see this as a pregnancy kind of thing. And maybe this is why I like to distinguish it a little bit from being a teen pregnancy, is because I felt like I had a lot of maturity right from the get go of it, you know, and maybe that's where my sauce comes from on that one. And so it really did become about my child right away.

John Dehlin [00:48:55] Really quickly. Do you want to state what the Mormon Church's position was on abortion as far as you understood it at the time, or is that not.

Church Pressure Against Keeping the Baby

Myndee Tollefson [00:49:05] No, yeah, that's totally fine. I mean, it was. If you're going to talk about sex being the sin next to murder, it was murder. And so it's not an option. I mean, period. It's not an option. And thankfully, I know personally that that does align with me. And so that wasn't ever anything that I felt was taken away by the church. Like, that was a personal opinion of mine. Nothing I. I didn have anything against it. I supported, especially after going to Planned Parenthood. You know, I mean, I had had this preconceived notion of this being this bad, little dirty place kind of thing, and it was opposite of that. And it just. I mean, there wasn't even a sign that said abortion there. I mean, it literally was just, you need a pregnancy test. Do you need any other support? Yeah, that was it.

John Dehlin [00:49:48] So I want to make sure. I understand. Did you just say that you also believed abortion was murder?

Myndee Tollefson [00:49:54] No, sorry. I believed that it was wrong for me.

John Dehlin [00:49:59] For you?

Myndee Tollefson [00:50:00] Yep.

John Dehlin [00:50:00] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [00:50:01] It was. I felt like that was a personal decision that was aligned with the church and fueled by the church, but it started with my own personal conviction. You know, this was a child. This was my child right from the beginning of things.

John Dehlin [00:50:14] So for you, you never personally entertained.

Myndee Tollefson [00:50:17] No.

John Dehlin [00:50:17] The option.

Myndee Tollefson [00:50:18] I mean, of course it comes in your mind, and then it's immediately out.

John Dehlin [00:50:21] You know, you wanted to be. You wanted to have the child.

Myndee Tollefson [00:50:24] So for me, it came down to two choices. Keep her or parent on my own or place her for adoption. Those were my two options. Now, to add confusion to it, Troy and I started dating right after that, you know, for the very first time. To complicate the story a little bit more, so he was baptized into the church when he was 21 years old. 20, 21. And he was dating a girl at the time, and they were engaged, but their relationship wasn't progressing anywhere. So she had gone on a mission, and that's when I met him. So she was on a mission at that point in time.

Myndee Tollefson [00:51:00] He had loved her for five years, and, you know, she was a very integral person. And he couldn't fully let go of her until she came home, which was fair and valid. And I love to say that we were the right people, the epitome of the right people at the wrong time. You know, I mean, we had this incredible magnetism, but. And we tried getting together at that point in time. It lasted about two weeks. And then from there, he was just my best friend, you know, and stuck by my side. And I dated a couple of other guys in between, like, really fast, really quickly on trying to be like, can I find a.

Myndee Tollefson [00:51:35] A dad for this baby? You know, is that going to be a way that I can get out of the adoption side of things? You know, is that. Because I know keeping a Baby is. Is not aligned with the church at all. And I was working part time at the time. I had no education.

Myndee Tollefson [00:51:51] I knew my family would be complicated about it. They had come around to supporting me in words and the very best that they knew how to support. But their support came from. This is what the church is saying, and we agree with the church, you know, and there was a letter that came out, actually. Sorry. It was an Ensign article that came out while I was pregnant. I had her in December, and this came out in September of 94.

Myndee Tollefson [00:52:25] I put the pieces together. This just as I was kind of piecing the story together that September was also the month that I decided to actually go through with adoption. So to say that this wasn't influence influential is. I mean, I don't remember specifically reading this, but there's no way that that's just a coincidence.

John Dehlin [00:52:42] You know, for those who don't know, this is the Mormon Church's official adult magazine, correct? Called the Ensign. Yes, at the time.

Myndee Tollefson [00:52:49] And it comes out monthly.

John Dehlin [00:52:50] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [00:52:51] And the. And the. It's called A Guidance for Unwed Parents. And so, I mean. And it genuinely did feel like, oh, my gosh, is God seeing me? You know, I've been craving for God to see me, to help me through all of this.

Margi Dehlin [00:53:05] You're like, here it is.

Myndee Tollefson [00:53:06] Yeah, yeah, exactly that. I'm like, oh, I finally. The guidance that I need. You know, I've been asking for you to show up. Thank you for showing up.

John Dehlin [00:53:14] You know, so you said this is the October.

Myndee Tollefson [00:53:17] This is September.

John Dehlin [00:53:19] September 1994.

Myndee Tollefson [00:53:21] Yeah. So it wasn't a conference. Yeah, well, because conference talks come out in October.

John Dehlin [00:53:25] But I was always taught the Ed sign should be considered scripture.

Myndee Tollefson [00:53:28] Correct. Yeah, I did, too. Yeah, absolutely. I was. I was told that exact same thing, too. So I just kind of want to read some of the lines that are through it, if that's okay. These are the. These are the messages that framed my decision, you know, so the church had put out a letter. The First Presidency had put out a letter in February of 94. So I'm positive I had read this, too, you know, at that point in time.

Myndee Tollefson [00:53:53] And it says, we note with alarm the continued decline of moral values in society and the result number of children being born and by unwed mothers. So right there, I was told that my. I had no morals immediately. Every effort should be made in helping those who conceive out of wedlock to establish an eternal family relationship. Okay, so. So single parenting isn't an option. Right there. When the unwed person is unable or unwilling to marry, they should be encouraged to place a child for adoption and preferably through LDS social services.

Myndee Tollefson [00:54:28] Oh, another thing I want to talk about through this, I'll go through this, but I do want to come back to a disciplinary council that I had as well, too, that played into this. So there was, and it says right in here, in the category of sins, unchastity stands next to murder. Murder. Never in generations of ours have morals have been as loose as they are now. So these are the messages that I am hearing to. In order to make this decision.

John Dehlin [00:55:00] It's not kidding me. True. Like, I'm thinking of the 60s and the 70s and Woodstock.

Margi Dehlin [00:55:05] Come on, what the heck? Really?

John Dehlin [00:55:07] How could they? We're talking the early 90s.

Myndee Tollefson [00:55:10] Yeah, I know. When you look back in history, the 90s are pretty tame.

John Dehlin [00:55:14] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [00:55:14] There's no uproars. There's grunge music in Seattle, like, heaven

Margi Dehlin [00:55:18] forbid, a lot of flannel.

Myndee Tollefson [00:55:20] Right. Everybody was modestly dressed, even. I mean, maybe, maybe some belly showing, but it's not like highly promiscuous. And anyway. Yeah, I know, but this is that the moral values were such a decline, and I'm now a member of this, you know, I'm now part of this epidemic, is how I understood it. You know, that's what this is saying.

Myndee Tollefson [00:55:40] Yeah, exactly. With no morals. I mean, it says twice now. I've already read no morals. Basically. Let's see. Then it tells us that studies, and this one's funny because the study is like 1960. I went and looked up with, through the. The footnotes of this. I think one of them is, like, in these studies that they're old, old, old.

Myndee Tollefson [00:56:00] Studies show that pregnant teens who marry before giving birth generally have more stable marriages, do better financially and have healthier babies than those who do not marry or who marry after the birth of the child. So I needed to get married in the next nine months. Yeah, that's. I mean, that's what needed to happen if I wanted to get married. It couldn't even be when she's a baby. It needed to be before I was. Before she was even born.

John Dehlin [00:56:25] So if you wanted to keep the baby.

Myndee Tollefson [00:56:26] If I wanted to keep the baby, I need to get married now. So I did go and date quite a few guys. Like, Troy's not working out. You know, he's my person, but I don't want to get. I mean, I'm having to choose between him being ready and giving my child.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:38] It's like this desperation, this scarcity, you Know that where it's like, fix it, fix it. You're in this place of just.

Myndee Tollefson [00:56:44] Yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:45] And feeling it for you.

Myndee Tollefson [00:56:46] Yeah, thank you. And dated a couple of really desperate guys in there that weren't positive experiences too.

John Dehlin [00:56:53] You know, it's just not a good context for choosing a life partner.

Myndee Tollefson [00:56:56] No.

John Dehlin [00:56:57] The feeling of being rushed. Right. To find someone or else you lose your baby.

Myndee Tollefson [00:57:02] Yeah, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:03] Or like.

Myndee Tollefson [00:57:04] Or you're harming your baby. That's. That's the bigger thing, is that if I don't do this, it's not best for my child. And that's, you know, my whole motivation through all of this is I want what's best for my baby. That's the only thing I cared about. And so I'm reading this and it's like, well, I better get married if I'm going to be her mom. I better get married right now. You know. And so I'm pursuing. And I would say, you know, I had kind of toned that down. That was right in the initial part because I did know that this was, you know, that that was the case. But I mean, yeah, it's. I mean, that's asinine. You know that if you don't get married before, sorry, you're screwed.

Margi Dehlin [00:57:40] Right.

Myndee Tollefson [00:57:41] You know, and it's. They're in black and white, you know. Couple of other things it says is this might be this 1960 study, 3/5 of illegitimate children. Which, I mean, I know that's part of the times, but I hate that term so bad. Illegitimate. My child's legitimate, thank you very much. She's a very legitimate person.

Myndee Tollefson [00:58:00] So three fifths of illegitimate children and their mothers depend on welfare assistance for minimal. For minimal substances. The social consequences are even worse for single teenage households when the mother has not had the opportunity to prepare for the responsibility of caring for her families. Studies of family of equal economic levels show that even in the best conditions, children without fathers tend to receive lower grades, score lower on tests, and get in trouble with legal authorities far more than children with a father. Several studies show that these fatherless children are more likely to participate in gangs, commit crimes, start fires, use drugs, attempt suicide. Daughters and I, a soul to soul connection, was fairly certain that I was carrying a daughter. Daughters of teenage mothers have a greater likelihood of later becoming unwed teenagers. Teenagers themselves. Tell me that's not manipulative.

John Dehlin [00:59:00] So your kids are gonna be drug addicts, convicts, or prostitutes?

Myndee Tollefson [00:59:05] Yeah, there's no hope. There's no home for my baby if I. If I keep her like. And on top of that, too. You know, I don't have any schooling at this point in time. You know, I'm working part time. I live at home. And the father, I. I think he was a high school dropout, you know, I mean, he's not gonna provide a whole heck of a lot for us either.

Myndee Tollefson [00:59:25] So. Yeah, that's pretty manipulative. Okay, so then in contrast, what about placing children for adoption? Okay, are you ready for this one? This is. I mean, and the part that bothers me about this is now knowing that no adopted child goes without any kind of trauma. You know, I mean, they're. They are literally ripped from their caregiver right from the beginning. And that, that doesn't mean that it's going to hinder them their whole lives, but it is an immediate attachment bond that's broken. And so to not take that into consideration in any of this letter is. It's a big miss. Big, big miss. So children of adoptive parents, even when compared to general populations, have better economic environments, have parents who are better educated and more mature than the parents of the general population.

Myndee Tollefson [01:00:11] Other studies show that parents of adopted children generally have more stable homes and are likely to. To. Likely to not divorce than the general public. Less likely to divorce than the general public. When adoption is arranged through LDS Social Services, the baby will be placed in a home of an active Latter day couple. Latter Day Saint couple. Adoptive parents have been carefully screened and are considered worthy under the guidance. This is the one that gets me All. All. Not some. All children that are placed through LDS Social services have ultimately been sealed to their adoptive families in the temple.

Myndee Tollefson [01:00:50] That's in black and white. There's no choice on my part at this point in time. There's literally no choice because if I keep her, I am. She's damned to hell. You know, I mean, she's. Her chance of success is what, 2%? If I place it with a temple worthy family with a dad there, like she's just going to soar off and do amazing things that I can't do. And I kept saying, you know, I can't be the mother she deserves. I can't be the mother that she deserves. And again, she was my primary focus. I mean, all I cared about was her and what was best for her.

Myndee Tollefson [01:01:24] And it's in black and white. I'm gonna screw her up. I'm gonna screw this up if I keep her. But somebody else can do better than me, and that's what she deserves. She doesn't deserve little old me that screwed up everything. In life. And it's dirty and bad and.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:38] Right.

Myndee Tollefson [01:01:38] You know.

Margi Dehlin [01:01:38] Yep.

Myndee Tollefson [01:01:39] All of that. I'm a screwed up person at this point in time for what? We don't know. For having sex with a boyfriend as an adult. I think that just gives a good enough picture of, you know, what the narrative was around this. That of what I was making my decision.

John Dehlin [01:01:57] Can I ask one more question?

Myndee Tollefson [01:01:58] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:01:59] So I remember moving to Utah in 87. I grew up outside of Utah, but I was Mormon. But moving to Utah was the first time I had ever listened to sort of Utah Mormon radio. And every Sunday there was a radio station that played the sounds, the sounds of the Sabbath. And they would play kind of pop, Mormon, pop culture, religious songs. And I was into it. I loved it because, you know, I could listen to Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but I didn't know about Julie Diazebedo Hanks or Afterglow.

Myndee Tollefson [01:02:41] It was all the efy.

John Dehlin [01:02:42] All the. All the EFI singers. Any Gled Hill, eventually Kenneth Cope and. Yeah, so I remember that too. I will never forget when I would listen to the Sounds for Sunday, hearing this one song every single Sunday. Do you know what Is that Michael McClain? No, I don't know.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:03] It's from God's Hands.

John Dehlin [01:03:05] It's called from. It's called From God's Arms to My Arms to Yours.

Margi Dehlin [01:03:10] Do you remember that one?

Myndee Tollefson [01:03:11] Oh, yeah. It was formative.

John Dehlin [01:03:13] Will you talk about that? Because I. Yeah, I've tried to think about that. Now. I don't think it was a coincidence or just random that that song was played constantly every Sunday in Utah on the radio stations. It would seem to me that if the church wanted young teenage girls to give their unwed teenage girls to give their children up for adoption, that they would have a song like that commissioned and that they would instruct the radio stations to play that song constantly. Because in addition to the logical arguments that you just read from the church publishing in its literature, I found this song at the time when I listened to it to be inspiring.

Margi Dehlin [01:04:06] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:04:07] And emotionally compelling. Do you remember how the chorus goes?

Myndee Tollefson [01:04:12] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:13] Would you want to sing it or you want me to sing it?

Myndee Tollefson [01:04:15] You can sing it.

John Dehlin [01:04:16] It's like maybe you can tell your. So this is from the standpoint of the mother giving the child up for adoption. She's singing a song.

Myndee Tollefson [01:04:25] It's the birth mother.

John Dehlin [01:04:26] To the birth mother singing.

Myndee Tollefson [01:04:28] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:04:29] To the adopted mother.

Myndee Tollefson [01:04:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:04:31] And she says, may the song goes. Maybe you can tell your baby when you love her so that she's been loved before. By someone who delivered your son. And I said, daughter, from God's arms to my arms to yours. And it. You know, and you don't have to do this, but would you kiss her once for me? The first time that she, you know, falls and skids, you know, and when she makes, you know. Will you hug her twice as long when she breaks her mistakes and tell her that she's not alone? Yeah, sometime. That's all it takes.

Myndee Tollefson [01:05:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:05:13] When you hear that song, would it.

Myndee Tollefson [01:05:16] We're gonna get into the rough part getting here now. Okay? So I. I am a music lover. I played piano my whole life, and it was my. My catharsis, you know, I was angry. I had my angry songs. I had my happy songs, and so music speaks to me.

Myndee Tollefson [01:05:38] He also re. Put out a song right when I was pregnant, right around that time. That was also when Forgotten. His Forgotten Carols came out. And actually, Troy and I went to a performance of Forgotten Carols when. When we lived in Seattle, and I was very pregnant, I think. I mean, it was Christmas time. She was born in December. Forgotten carols are Christmas time. I keep going like this because my husband's back there.

Myndee Tollefson [01:06:03] So if that's. We see that. That's what that is. And we went to it. And I love Forgotten Carols. It's a really, really great message and all that. I don't remember it very well because as an encore, he sing that song, and I was very, very pregnant.

John Dehlin [01:06:18] And the song that I just. Michael McLean sang that as an encore to the Forgotten Carols. Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [01:06:25] And again, I'm searching for God. And it was a moment that was like, he sees me, he hears me, he knows I'm here in this audience. And this is exactly what I needed, you know, to be. To be seen and confirmation that, yes, I'm doing the right thing. Because this song, you know, I mean, the song. And it's speaking to me in a personal language that I actually can relate to and that I do know. And I.

Myndee Tollefson [01:06:53] It just felt really, really personal to me. And it was that thing that I was reaching for, and it was the fact that I was just that pregnant. It fueled me to get me through what I had to face ahead of me. I mean, I. I would say it was probably no more than three weeks before I delivered her that we went to this concert. And Michael McClain sang to me personally up in the. Up in the balcony, you know, and

John Dehlin [01:07:22] he was the songwriter for Families Are Eternal, the church video for Families Are Forever and Our Heavenly Father's Plan. You're not alone. And all I'm trying to highlight is there's this issue of informed consent that we talked about and of coercion. It's one thing if you're, like, given all the evidence, good and bad, told how it can be good or bad either way.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:45] Yes, resources.

Myndee Tollefson [01:07:48] But it'd be like prom. Parenthood was for me.

Margi Dehlin [01:07:50] Right.

John Dehlin [01:07:50] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:07:51] That. Here's. Do you. What do you need? What do you need right now? There's no ulterior motive, but what do you need? I don't know that anybody asked me that.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:00] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:08:00] You know, everybody was looking to help me out of the situation and to help me to want to do what was best. They knew my heart, that I wanted nothing but nothing more to. Than to keep this baby. I mean, from the time I was little, I never wanted to go to school. I wanted to be a mom. You know, I never really even said a career path. It was, well, maybe a teacher, because then I can be a mom too, you know? And so I. I needed. I. I did have support around me, but the. The only voice that ever said, you don't have to do this was Troy, my husband. He was the only voice around me that said, you don't have to do this.

Margi Dehlin [01:08:40] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:08:41] And it was a minor voice in all of. I mean, it weighed heavy on me, but at the same time, it was like, okay, if I don't have to do this, then will you marry me? You know, kind of thing. Because that's the only option.

John Dehlin [01:08:55] Yeah. Well, the point I just wanted to drive home is, you know, there's this idea that there's no such thing as drunk consent. You know, you can't consent if you're drunk or asleep.

Myndee Tollefson [01:09:05] Right.

John Dehlin [01:09:06] And a child can never consent because they're a child. I think you could argue that there's no such thing as consent under religious duress.

Myndee Tollefson [01:09:15] I would agree.

John Dehlin [01:09:16] Even if you're 19 years old, if you're told that God wants it, that this is God's plan, if God's chief songwriter is writing this song and sharing it at his concerts in a church context, and then the church's magazine is telling you what the right answer is.

Myndee Tollefson [01:09:36] Right.

John Dehlin [01:09:36] And your parents are all agreeing with it. My bishop, even if you're an adult, you could argue the social pressures, the coercion of claiming that. That God wants this. It doesn't allow for. It's coercive.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:50] And. Yeah. Oh, sorry. And I would add two other things.

Myndee Tollefson [01:09:54] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:09:54] The fact that you have had a narrative placed on you that you do not have what it takes for this child to feel love, which of course is like your initial thing. It's like you're. You're less than. You're the devalued.

Myndee Tollefson [01:10:11] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:12] I think that is a certain place to be when you're making this decision. Right. That you feel broken, that you're feeling, and then also that you're being told over and over again that love looks this one way. It is one way.

The Disciplinary Council and Disfellowshipping

Myndee Tollefson [01:10:27] Right.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:27] And that is to give your baby up.

Myndee Tollefson [01:10:29] Right. That's it. That's it. And that. And that shows unconditional love. And I probably in there that I didn't read. Is it also. I don't remember if it explicitly says. But basically, if you keep the child, it's selfish.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:41] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:10:42] And that was really the prominent message around was that it would. It would have been selfish for me to keep my baby. I do kind of want to go back and talk about the disciplinary council that I had too, because that was. That really form went and played into this as well, too.

Margi Dehlin [01:10:58] At what point is this.

Myndee Tollefson [01:11:00] It was very early on in the pregnancy. So I.

John Dehlin [01:11:05] You had had an un. An unhealthy relationship with bishops prior. I don't think you actually.

Myndee Tollefson [01:11:11] I didn't talk about that much. Yeah. You know, I mean that the, the relationship that I had with the bishop is that they asked uncomfortable questions. You know, I mean, the worthiness interviews and masturbation is a thing in my life and I don't align with the. For the strength of you, so. But I'm not going to not go to the temple to the baptisms for the dead. And so I, I've been lucky enough to have really great bishops in my life. Really, really, really good men. And. But it still is a grooming practice. I mean, no matter how you reframe it, no matter how nice the guy is, no matter what their intentions are, it is a grooming practice.

John Dehlin [01:11:48] And so, yes, for a bishop to talk to a teenage girl about masturbation alone in a closed office. Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:11:55] And add to that too, that I thought the things that I was doing with my boyfriend were wrong.

John Dehlin [01:11:58] Wrong.

Myndee Tollefson [01:11:58] You know, I mean, kissing and there might have been like, feeling things, but not, I mean, so benign, so, so benign, you know, that it just wasn't. It wasn't even reportable. But at the same time, I felt like I was withholding information too. You know, it was teaching me to lie and be uncomfortable. And I'm not somebody that lies. I mean, I'm a truth teller. And if I have a lie, my gosh, it Eats me alive, you know, especially because I had to carry a lie my whole life, you know that my whole childhood. I am against lying totally because.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:30] But in this case, there's a lie can be a boundary.

Myndee Tollefson [01:12:34] You're right. You're right. Yeah. Yeah. I wish I had realized it then.

Margi Dehlin [01:12:38] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:12:38] Not when you're telling the lie as a Mormon teen, a 12 year old. Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:12:42] You know, going into there. So some. Somehow the bishop found out. I am unclear about how that happens again. That was a memory that I had one way and my journals show a different way. So I trust my journals more than my memory, but it's not really relevant in that. But. So a disciplinary council was held, I believe, I mean, I would say within the first month of finding out that I was pregnant really, really early on. And my heart really breaks as I've been going back and kind of doing some work to prep for this. My heart really, really breaks for my boyfriend at the time because he's stuck in a situation that he's just brand new in this Mormon church that he knows nothing about.

Myndee Tollefson [01:13:22] He was non religious. He'd had a very, very rough. I mean, I said that he. I think he was a high school dropout. I mean that kind of gives a pretty good picture for what it was. And here he is thrown into this culture that is so foreign to him, you know, I mean, and I had a lot of anger towards him. Thankfully Troy knew him and kept me off of a ledge for quite a while with it. But, but going back and again I'm looking at this poor little 19 year old boy, you know, and he's been being put through this too. And I'm really grateful to have been able to go back and can revisit a lot of this so I can have just, I really just have compassion for him.

Myndee Tollefson [01:13:58] I really, really do. It was years of anger and it's truly just compassion for him at this point in time. So we were back to back and I don't know why they did that, but I went in first and I remember him sitting out in the hall, which is weird. Does not seem weird. And compare it for how they, how they run. I don't know why that even happened. But so we go in and the whole. There's three men in suits that are intimidating and they're older men, my dad's age or older, and one contemporary guy that's supposed to be my, you know, he's like, yeah, not, no, not my advocate. He was the record keeper of it. But he was somebody I Hung out

John Dehlin [01:14:40] with in social settings, like executive secretary.

Myndee Tollefson [01:14:43] Yeah, that's the word. I'm like, yeah, yeah. But he's. He's a friend, you know, I. I don't remember who he is now, but I remember just being super uncomfortable that he's there and he's asking all these questions, you know, or he's listening to this entire thing.

John Dehlin [01:14:55] The four men and you. Is that right?

Myndee Tollefson [01:14:58] As I remember it, yes. Yes. As I remember. Again, I. Do we trust my memory? No, let's listen to my feelings instead.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:03] Did anyone go in with you?

Myndee Tollefson [01:15:07] Just me in there with this four men.

John Dehlin [01:15:09] And you're 19.

Myndee Tollefson [01:15:10] I'm 19. And let's come back and remember that I had just recently, you know, two years prior, just recently told that I'd been sexually abused my whole life, you know, or for X amount of years in my life. And so this is very, very, very raw in me still, too. And I'm not comfortable talking about it. And they asked me if I'd been sexually abused. I. In this room, I. I'm not comfortable telling anybody, let alone in a room full of men in suits, you know,

John Dehlin [01:15:36] they're asking you that.

Margi Dehlin [01:15:37] Wow.

Myndee Tollefson [01:15:39] And then they asked me about masturbation. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie in this situation. I'm trying to get on God's good graces again. There's not going to be lying in this. They asked specifics of sex. How often? What do we do? You know, I mean, they checked all of the boxes of it, and it was humiliating. It's absolutely humiliating.

John Dehlin [01:15:59] They wanted details of the sexual acts, how often.

Margi Dehlin [01:16:03] I'm so sorry.

Myndee Tollefson [01:16:04] Thank you. Yeah, just. I mean, really, really, really humiliating. And what resulted from it is I was disfellowshipped.

John Dehlin [01:16:11] This means what?

Myndee Tollefson [01:16:12] It means that I was released from my calling as a Relief Society teacher, that I. I think I'd had it two months. And so that's pretty obvious that I did something wrong. When, you know, when you're in the Mormon world and somebody gets called and then released, you know, they've done something wrong, they've screwed up. And then I couldn't take the sacrament until an undetermined time. Time, you know, that it was X amount of time before I could take the sacrament. I couldn't pray in public.

John Dehlin [01:16:38] Those are public shaming, right? Because absolutely everyone else has taken the tray and the bread and the water, and everyone can see. But for you, what did it mean?

Myndee Tollefson [01:16:46] I mean, and. And to be fair, it wasn't a singles word. And there's a lot less people taking the sacrament. You know, I mean, it is a little bit more forgiving as far as that goes. I mean, whether they go to a parent word first and then come there, but it's not. I mean, the population, the number of people not taking sacrament is higher in this singles ward in particular than it is in a family ward, you know, so.

John Dehlin [01:17:09] Seems like it'd still be shaming.

Myndee Tollefson [01:17:10] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:17:11] What made you feel like you wanted to give that disclaimer? Like it seems you mean you would take it weekly and then all of a sudden you have to pass it on by every time it's passed to you?

Myndee Tollefson [01:17:22] Yeah, you're calling out that. I do like to whitewash things.

John Dehlin [01:17:25] No, I'm not trying to call you.

Myndee Tollefson [01:17:26] No, you're spot on. You're spot on. I really, really do. And that's actually something I've been working on recently, is to hold accountability where accountability is due. Because I, because I am a kind person and I don't want to be angry and I don't want to come off as angry, but I do want to tell truth too. And so you're absolutely right. And I hid my pregnancy. I hit it. And I'm one of the people that hardly even shows that I'm pregnant. And so I just wore baggy dresses and it just looked like I went wide instead of front ways and, you know, I mean, I wore regular jeans until I was six plus months pregnant and so could just get away with baggy shirts, you know, kind of thing.

John Dehlin [01:18:08] Also have to know that when you're told you can't pray at church, that can also be. Be very publicly shaming because either they or you have to proactively tell people. Don't, you know, don't call Mindy to pray, which immediately tells them you've sinned. Or the worst case, because oftentimes prayers are invite. People are invited to pray spontaneously. A Sunday school teacher relief study president might say, hey, Sister Tollefson, do you mind saying the prayer? And if you're disfellowshipped, what do you have to say?

Myndee Tollefson [01:18:41] You have to go. I need to go to the bathroom. Yeah, I can't pray. I mean, I, you find, I mean, for me, I found ways to either be late to class because they usually ask at the beginning of class.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:53] It can give you a lot of anxiety.

Myndee Tollefson [01:18:54] Oh, yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:18:56] You're, you know, wondering if someone's gonna ask or you have to always be.

John Dehlin [01:19:00] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:19:00] And it, it, it genuinely made it so. I hated praying in public.

Margi Dehlin [01:19:03] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:19:04] From there forward, you know, you also couldn't bear your testimony. And one of the things that was really frustrating about that to me is I'm supposed to be having this absolutely spiritual experience of growth, right? And one of the ways in the church that we're taught to. To continue to grow is to share our testimonies. To grow. And so I'm being shackled and shamed even in my growth. That's getting me there. You can't get up and talk. You can't. But the ir. The iron irony of it, and I mean, I'm jumping forward just for a second, is that I was cleared of disfellowship and could now pray and bear my testimony immediately after she was born. Like, as soon as the first week back to church, I could take the sacrament. And so this baby was my shame. Wow. Yeah. This pregnant belly was my shame.

John Dehlin [01:19:51] And I'll just one more thing I like, why, if Jesus is all about the atonement and forgiveness and repentance and being made whole, why would you want to take things like prayer and the taking of the sacrament away from someone when they need it potentially most? I mean, the logic is you have to be worthy, right, I guess, to take it. But that doesn't make sense because the sacrament's all about, right, Repenting of your sins. So why would they take it away, right, when that's what it's for?

Myndee Tollefson [01:20:23] I know. It did not make sense to me either, at the point, at the time. And then think about, like, so I'm a bad influence at church, right? That's the reason you can't do any of this stuff is because I'm a bad influence at church. Well, doesn't that just feed into that I'm not worthy to keep my child, too, because I'm a bad influence, and therefore I'm not worthy of my daughter.

John Dehlin [01:20:43] If you can't pray or take sacraments, certainly you can't be a mom to a baby, right?

Myndee Tollefson [01:20:48] And so then I'm supposed to be going home and praying. But if I'm not worthy to pray at church, then, yeah, am I worthy to pray at home? Am I gonna get inspiration? You know, I mean, that's. I'm not worthy, period. That's what the church is telling me. So, and so in the midst of all of this, like, you don't get more vulnerable than an unplanned pregnancy. That is literally the most vulnerable place that a woman can be in. And it is.

Myndee Tollefson [01:21:14] Until you've been in that position, it's not something that you can understand. It really, genuinely isn't. And so you're taking this young, wounded child and putting her in a position of needing to make the very most important decisions of her life with no support. Except here's what you do. You're looking for guidance, and here it is. That's all that you have in front of you, is follow this plan and you're gonna be okay. Yeah, you're gonna be okay if you do what we say. But it's your choice, right? It's your choice.

Margi Dehlin [01:21:46] Okay, I have a question. Up to this point. What is your relationship with the punishment you receive? Are you like, yes, punish me. I need to be punished for what I've done?

Myndee Tollefson [01:22:03] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I didn't feel like it was unjust in any way, shape, or form. I was worried about excommunication even. So I felt like, oh, I've got some really sympathetic bishops, you know, that. I didn't get excommunicated. I just got disfellowshipped. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because again, let's say it again, sitting next to murder.

Margi Dehlin [01:22:26] Yeah. Okay. And then my other question is, through this period of time, are you. Are there people that you. You mentioned in the beginning? Having a few people. I'm just curious. You're now shown, like, you know, you're pregnant. It's further along. You've had the. The hearing quotation marks. But are you able to talk to anyone and really share your heart with anyone during this time? I'm just trying to get a sense for how alone you feel.

Myndee Tollefson [01:22:59] Yeah. Thank you for recognizing that. Yes, I did. But again, it was just guarded. Like, I didn't feel like they. I could really, really express I wanted to keep this baby more than anything in my life.

Margi Dehlin [01:23:14] There was no place for that.

John Dehlin [01:23:16] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:23:17] There was nobody I could really say it to. I could say, I don't want to do this. I could say a lot of things that skirted around it, but it was not safe for me to say. I couldn't allow myself to really, truly want to get into the. The core. And again, being sexually abused, I. I was really good at being disembodied. I knew how to not feel.

Myndee Tollefson [01:23:41] And so I had that skill already developed so that I could just like, nope, it's okay. You know, and so I could have talked to my. My friend at the time. And I'm sure we did have conversations. I know Troy and I did have some conversations. My sister, who did live with us at the time, we had conversations too. I had another sister that lived here, lived a mile from us. In Seattle, we had conversations, too, but none of it was authentic. Down to my core.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:10] Right.

Myndee Tollefson [01:24:10] All of it was for me to just keep saying the rhetoric enough for me to start believing it.

Margi Dehlin [01:24:18] Right.

Myndee Tollefson [01:24:18] You know, and honestly, it felt like an Abrahamic sacrifice for me. You know, it really did. That if I'm looking for redemption, which I was, you know, I mean, I'm being disfellowshipped. I want to work my way back to this. If I'm looking for redemption. This is your path. This is your path. And I kept waiting, you know, for something to pop in, because how could a loving God. How could a loving God know my heart that I want nothing more than to be a mother and tell me that I can't. Tell me that I'm not good enough to be a mother. And how. I mean, that's not. That's not something that goes on that is taken in lightly, you know, I mean, I'm a very sensitive person, and so it's. Yeah, it's riddled around anything. And so I had to shield myself from those true feelings. I really, really did.

Margi Dehlin [01:25:09] Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense.

Myndee Tollefson [01:25:11] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:25:11] Let me just ask you a question. If. Let's just say, and I don't know if you can't answer this, but see if it's worth trying to answer. If you could go back and let's just say the message from the church would have been, you know what?

John Dehlin [01:25:26] You're. You're perfect and worthy. You know, these things happen. But you're. God loves you as he always did, and you're great, and you. You're. You can. You can raise your kid and the church will help you through it and your family will help you through it, or you can give it up for adoption if that's. You feel like that's what's best for you and for the baby and the baby.

John Dehlin [01:25:50] We will work with your family and you to help you raise a great kid, if that's what you want, or if you choose to get her for adoption, we'll make sure that the baby gets a great upbringing. If you had been presented it with those two. With those two choices, do you have a sense for what your instinct would have said?

Myndee Tollefson [01:26:07] Yeah. And that's such a fair question, because there was a lot of girls that were pregnant at the same time of me. Is that is what they received? You know, they did. There are work. I mean, I've talked to many LDs or not. Yeah, Both.

John Dehlin [01:26:18] Okay.

Margi Dehlin [01:26:18] Both.

Myndee Tollefson [01:26:19] Yeah. Both. Yeah. I mean, the being a birth mom and then starting to talk about it more and more. I. I'm kind of a magnet to these stories, you know, I mean, I hear a lot of stories from a lot of people of a sister, a friend, you know, whatever. And so it is. I mean, it's almost a joke now that I'll say something and then somebody will be like, oh, my gosh, I'm adopted. I'm like, it's crazy. I'm like, yeah, right. It is crazy, you know, because it just finds me. This story kind of does. But. So back to your question. I. I've learned now, and without telling too much going forward, that it is a very unsafe place for me to go and, and visit that. Too much. Yeah, because it is. I know. My true answer is, if I had been presented with that, I would have kept her.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:05] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:27:06] There's not a question in the world. I was waiting until the very last second for something to come in and intervene and say, you don't have to do this, Mindy. You really don't have to do this. And so at every point in time, I was looking to not follow through.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:19] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:27:20] So my answer, absolutely, there's no way I would have, however, is that. Would that have been in her best interest? Once we get going in the story a little bit more, it's just not safe. It's not a safe place for me to spend a lot of time. I've spent some time there.

Margi Dehlin [01:27:37] I understand.

Myndee Tollefson [01:27:38] And it takes me to a dark place and it takes my daughter to a dark place too. So. Yeah, it's a fair question, though. Very fair.

John Dehlin [01:27:44] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [01:27:44] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:27:46] Okay. So should we talk about the LDS Family Services and how you were told, yeah, this would go down and how you were told your child would be taken care of?

Reaching Out to LDS Social Services

Myndee Tollefson [01:28:00] Yeah. Yeah, let's get into that. So f. September, the same month that that awesome article came out, I reached out to LDS Social Services and for logistical purposes, it was. So we lived in Everett and it was down in.

Myndee Tollefson [01:28:19] In Renton. And so in no traffic, you're talking an hour drive, but, you know, I mean, Seattle traffic, it's. It could be a two hour drive down there. And so I only met with her in our steak center, like once a month kind of a thing. But sorry, the social work. I only met with her about once a month for those couple of months. I did talk to her several times.

Myndee Tollefson [01:28:40] She let me know of a group that was, that was meeting, but again, it was all teenage moms. And I felt much more mature than what the other girls going through LDS Social services was. And she did confirm that at that point in time too, that she wasn't sure. And she did recognize there was maturity on my part too. And she was fantastic. She was absolutely fantastic. The social worker was. So I.

Myndee Tollefson [01:29:06] We go through the process and she gives me three profiles to look at. And I just wanted to bring these to show like, what. What it actually looks like from the beginning. So we have this front page that literally it just says education, occupation, interests, health problems, physical characteristics. And so this is just like this outline. I don't know if you want to see it.

John Dehlin [01:29:30] So there's like three columns. Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [01:29:33] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:29:34] And what do the columns say?

Myndee Tollefson [01:29:35] It's just logistics. What's their job? What are their.

John Dehlin [01:29:38] The columns.

Myndee Tollefson [01:29:39] Yeah, and. Yeah, the columns. Oh, sorry. Husband and wife. And then what's going down here is just what do they look like? What are their careers? Right. So just basic information. It doesn't tell you anything other than brown hair, blue eyes. Okay, I'm brown hair, blue eyes. The father is brown hair, brown eyes. You know, so. Okay, that fits in there too. They're tall. The father was. Was tall too. You know, I mean, so just really simple things. And the things that I. That felt important at the time. And this just really goes to show. I mean, I'm saying that I'm mature, but I'm also. Also very immature too, you know. But the things that felt most important to me were somebody in the church. Okay. LDS social services. So check that's required.

John Dehlin [01:30:17] They LDS services would not adopt out a child to non LDS parents.

Myndee Tollefson [01:30:22] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:30:23] Is that right?

Myndee Tollefson [01:30:23] Correct.

John Dehlin [01:30:24] And not just lds, but faithful lds.

Myndee Tollefson [01:30:26] They were. They had been through a vetting process between bishop and. I mean, they've. They were supposed to have gone through a huge vetting process through this. Of worthiness and per. And were temple. Temple recommend holding. Temple recommend holding.

John Dehlin [01:30:43] Couple tithe paying.

Myndee Tollefson [01:30:44] Tithe paying. Yes. Thank you for clarifying that. Absolutely. And so it's really just superficial. And so the things that mattered to me was church music and animals. Like, those were the things that I cared about. Like, that just goes to speak of like.

Margi Dehlin [01:30:59] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:30:59] Where I was at emotionally. And so that was what was a lot through. This is just basically that they loved music, that they loved animals. And the interesting thing. So I got that this, this. It's one page and a little bit more from the mother or from both of them. One page about adoptive mother and father. Oh, other way around.

John Dehlin [01:31:23] Like bios.

Myndee Tollefson [01:31:24] Yes, that's it. This is all I had to make a decision on.

John Dehlin [01:31:29] Three pages of biographical information about the parents.

Myndee Tollefson [01:31:32] And it's It's, I mean it's, it literally tells you nothing. Like it doesn't tell you anything other than that they loved animals and music and were married. And that in fact, even when I was going through it, I recognized that it didn't say a lot about church. And so again, my social worker was very great with me and I said, can I correspond with them? Because the church was very, very, very, very close. Adoption like they, in 1994, when this was all going down, there was not such thing as open adoptions.

John Dehlin [01:32:03] What does those two terms mean?

Myndee Tollefson [01:32:05] So closed adoption means I don't know them, they don't know me and won't know anything about them. Open adoption is that you can have an ongoing relationship with the adoptive family. The birth mom can be. Have a continuous relationship. Sometimes in adoptions that'll get kind of cut off or slowed down around like 8 years old or probably in the church around baptism and stuff. And it kind of tapers off just because it kind of gets confusing for that age of kids. But some birth moms will be involved in their kids lives indefinitely, you know, as a special friend or something. That's not uncommon too. But.

Myndee Tollefson [01:32:39] And that was happening in the world then. But the church was extremely close, right? Extremely close. And so when I asked to have a correspondence with them because I wanted to know, it didn't. These didn't say much about how they were going to be as parents.

Myndee Tollefson [01:32:54] It didn't say much about their faith in the church. And that's the reason I'm placing with them is because I want to know what their, their church life is like. You know, I want to know what their marriage is like because those are what I'm not providing. That's the single most important thing. And so it, so I wrote, my social worker went to them and they wrote me back a response to that as well. And I don't know that it's worth noting just yet. Like what, what these actually say because that's, I think that's more relevant down the road. But I just.

John Dehlin [01:33:26] Well, if there are things that were important in your decision.

Myndee Tollefson [01:33:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:31] That end up not being true, it's okay to say the things that influenced you as a setup for being disappointed.

Myndee Tollefson [01:33:38] Yeah. So. So one of the things is, you know that he was an accountant and so stable job, some education.

Margi Dehlin [01:33:46] She.

Myndee Tollefson [01:33:47] It states that she's has a BA in English and literature, a minor in music, SL chemistry. So those are all right. Aligned with what I am and as a working professional mom. And there's no judgment on this, you know, I mean, but it's a teacher. A teacher job is one that's the closest you can get to a stay at home mom. You know, it's a teacher, a, A nurse. You know, there's several careers that in my mind at that point in time were, okay, you know, you wanted to

John Dehlin [01:34:13] give your child to a stay at home mom. Is that right?

Myndee Tollefson [01:34:16] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:16] Not a working. Working mom.

Myndee Tollefson [01:34:18] Not a working mom.

John Dehlin [01:34:18] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [01:34:19] Yeah, I'm. And understanding that I don't have control over that. But if you're going to have a job, then a teacher's a great job to have. You know, I mean, that's a really important job to have. And he's got a steady, great income. You know, those. Those are great. I wanted to. That was a big part of it, the animals. Because I. I do. We'll get there a little bit later, too. I really do believe in animals being an important part of growing up. And I know my soul of animals, and it comes from my mom's soul of animals, you know, until I'm assuming that that's going to be a part of this.

Myndee Tollefson [01:34:49] And music, the same thing, too. Those were important things and very formative to me. And so those were the things that I, I did kind of go on, but it was more like just how they talked about each other. And it says throughout there, my husband, my wife, you know, it talks about their struggle with infertility.

Myndee Tollefson [01:35:07] And so it felt very. It just felt aligned. And the other. The other ones that I had, the two other ones that I had were just. I don't even remember them, honestly. But so how it kind of went down for making the decision is. So once, once I had finally decided and I had these, I was like, I just want to kind of sit on it for a little while. And she reached out to the biological father to let him know that I had made a decision to place the baby for adoption. And again, this poor boy. I mean, it just breaks my heart.

Myndee Tollefson [01:35:39] He. I haven't seen him since then. I think he had called me once. He didn't know what to do, you know, and then there's this institution that's driving me, and he feels like it's me. He doesn't understand. I didn't understand that, you know, what it was. And so she called him and he said he wasn't going to sign papers.

Myndee Tollefson [01:36:00] And it devastated me. And he said, I'm gonna keep the baby. And I'm like, really? That's not gonna happen, you know. And so she put a lot of pressure on him. And I remember that weekend, it was a Friday or something, we had a family fast to change his heart and big family prayer. You know, siblings lived out of state, but we all organized it together. I'm sure my friends were joining me in it, too. And I remember during that, that this was the family that came to mind. And I'm like, there's my decision. I got the inspiration. And just because your.

John Dehlin [01:36:37] Your brain started thinking about this one particular family. So that meant God wanted this to be the family you gave your child.

Selecting an Adoptive Family

Myndee Tollefson [01:36:44] And the. And the feeling that I had was that the church had vetted these people. These, this. They were already good people. They'd vetted them. So all three of them were great choices. So that's why music and animals could be my primary things is because, yeah, we already know they're great people.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:00] That's right. It's like, all could work. All will deliver on the. But now it's just sort of specificity.

Myndee Tollefson [01:37:06] And now we get to the gravy. Yeah, right. Like, now we get to the things that I are the wishes, not the needs.

Margi Dehlin [01:37:12] That's right.

Myndee Tollefson [01:37:13] You know, the needs were already taken care of by the church. You know, they've. They've already gone through worthiness interviews. And, you know, if there's going to be a inspired adoption agency, it's going to be the church's adoption agency. You know, I mean, they have to go through bishops and stake presidents, and, you know, I mean, they have to get. Get many, many endorsements. And even the. The social service workers are going to be entitled to that. That same inspiration. And because they have the Holy Ghost too, you know, so I have this whole team of people that I can trust that it doesn't matter which of the three.

Myndee Tollefson [01:37:46] So these guys like music and animals. Cool. You know, let's call it good at that. You know, and the verbiage that they put in here just sounds like a cute, happy home of music all the time. And. And, you know, just sounds like a blissful. A blissful place to. To exist in there. So, yeah, so they. They popped in my mind. There's my answer. Right? And then that next Monday, over the weekend, that excellent Monday morning, he gave me a call and said, I'll sign the papers.

Myndee Tollefson [01:38:14] And I said, okay, you know, I appreciate it. And he's like, I just realized that you'll have me in court continually if I don't sign the papers. I'm like, you're right, I will. Like, you're absolutely right. And I did have more financial means than he did at that point in time. Not a lot, but more than he did, and much better familial support. And, you know, I did have an upper hand of power in that situation. Absolutely. And that breaks my heart for him because I did use that against him.

John Dehlin [01:38:41] It. Don't forget the power of the church.

Myndee Tollefson [01:38:44] I've got the power of my family, and I've got the power of my friends, and I have the power of the church. You know, I mean, I've got. I've got an army behind me, and this poor boy is just a lone soldier trying to fight an. An army, you know, And. And he was absolutely right. I would have fought for my kid. And he wasn't great. He would admit that he wasn't great at the time. He was. You know, I mean, he wasn't an ideal father for anybody at that point in time. But being pressured like that is so unfair. It's so, so unfair.

Myndee Tollefson [01:39:19] So he decided to. To sign the paperwork. So we did it that week, and actually, Troy even came with me and was the signature as a witness on his termination of rights of. Of the adoption. So, I mean, when I say he was involved in this, he was intimately involved.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:36] So unique.

Myndee Tollefson [01:39:37] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:37] Your story together.

Myndee Tollefson [01:39:39] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:39:39] Remind us why you didn't just marry Troy really quick.

Myndee Tollefson [01:39:43] Because Troy is the most committed person in the world, and he could not un. Undo his commitment to this girlfriend.

Margi Dehlin [01:39:53] See it through.

Myndee Tollefson [01:39:53] Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:39:55] You said that earlier.

Myndee Tollefson [01:39:55] Yeah. And he was driving her car, which felt like the unsurmountable thing to him. I'm like, just give her back her car. It doesn't matter. Let's just get married, you know? But it's just. I mean, he's just such a committed person that he just couldn't make the shift from one to the other. And, I mean. And that does play in a little bit later in the story, too, because it would make sense because we both knew that we were each other's person. But just the timing was just terrible. I'm pregnant.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:22] Timing is real.

Myndee Tollefson [01:40:23] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:24] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:40:24] I mean, he's got this girl that he's committed to, and I. I'm pregnant.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:27] Yeah. You know, and timing, all. All things can be really similar, and timing can ruin something.

Myndee Tollefson [01:40:34] Yeah. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:40:35] So.

Myndee Tollefson [01:40:35] And the fact that we stayed so close through the whole thing is. I mean, that's enough. It is enough, you know, at that point, you know, and of course, I was wishing all the way along, and I'm sure everybody in my life was wishing all the way along, too, because when you See us together, you know, that that's.

Myndee Tollefson [01:40:52] This is the real deal, you know, when it's the two of us together and he's not going anywhere. You know, I mean, he's there, he's supporting me, he's by my side. And the difference between when we were dating and when we weren't is just kissing. Otherwise we were still spending the same amount of time together, still doing the same activities. It was just. Just, you know, logistics, basically, when we weren't dating. And so it just. He wasn't ready in that situation. And again, I.

Myndee Tollefson [01:41:20] I don't know how God fits into all of this. I will. I still don't to this day, but I do. Looking back, I don't think it would have been healthy for anybody to have been forced into that. I don't think I would have believed that he truly ever loved me if we had not. If I had forced his hand in that, you know, that I wouldn't have. I already struggled with worthiness issues that I'm not worthy of this, I'm not worthy of that. And so feeling like he had to marry, I don't think would have been good long term for us. Right, right.

Margi Dehlin [01:41:50] So the power of. Of a choice, having it actually be a choice.

Myndee Tollefson [01:41:55] Yeah. And who wants to feel like their husband was forced into it?

Margi Dehlin [01:41:58] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:41:59] You know, I mean, that's not a very fun feeling. I want him to feel. I want to feel like he chooses me and he's choosing this.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:04] That's right.

John Dehlin [01:42:05] So birth dad signed the papers.

Myndee Tollefson [01:42:07] So he signed the papers and then, then we had the Michael McLean moment. God's arms, whatever that long title from My God, My arms to God's arms to God's arms, to my arms to yours. And I do remember having a mental shift once I had picked this family of no longer saying my baby and saying their baby and using verbiage that I was just a vessel.

John Dehlin [01:42:35] So before you actually delivered the baby, you started talking about the baby as if it was.

Myndee Tollefson [01:42:41] There's.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:42] There's some psychological distancing.

Myndee Tollefson [01:42:44] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to. I had to protect myself from that. I mean, I really. I. I am much too deep of a feeler and this is way too tender. And everything I wanted in life was to be a mom. Y. I couldn't. I had to make a mental shift. I had to. It wasn't an option. Yeah.

Carrying and Delivering the Baby

John Dehlin [01:43:03] Do you want to talk about what it's like to carry a baby and deliver a baby that you know you're going to be giving away?

Myndee Tollefson [01:43:09] Yeah. So where Do I start on that? This. Our. My daughter. Soul and I are connected, you know, and I. I've carried other children, and this was a unique bond that we had. It. It was something that our souls were just communicating the whole pregnancy. See, And I'll. I'll back up, too. But when she was born, it was a moment of, oh, there you are. I've been wondering what you look like. It wasn't. There she is. You know, whatever. It was just the soul connection. And so I had all kinds of conversations with her about why I'm doing this, what I'm doing, what's best for her.

Myndee Tollefson [01:43:51] And, you know, that it's. It was. It was a very spiritual experience and feeling her with me, and it was extremely connected. I was cognizant enough to know her due date was after Christmas. And I talked to my obgyn, who was a wonderful man, and asked if we could induce early because I didn't want to be pregnant over Christmas. I didn't want that to be clouded for the rest of my life. And so she. He agreed to it. And she was born before Christmas, and it was a planned time. My.

Myndee Tollefson [01:44:31] One of my oldest sister stepped in as my labor coach and was there with me. My mom and my sister were both there, and I wanted an epidural. I wanted to not feel anything. I wanted to just get this baby out of me and let's just do this. Let's just rip this band aid off

Margi Dehlin [01:44:52] and kind of white knuckle.

Myndee Tollefson [01:44:54] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:44:54] Like, getting into a state of survival of like.

Myndee Tollefson [01:44:56] Yeah, yeah, just get through. And I was dreading hours and hours of labor, and it turns out I pop babies out really quick, thankfully. So she was born in four hours.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:05] Wow.

Myndee Tollefson [01:45:06] So not bad at all. And again, this was kind of a favor that my social worker did for me because we were on dmba, the church's insurance for my dad. They had incredible OB coverage, even for children. And so the adoption agency, the LDS Social Services, didn't have to pay much for my pregnancy at all. So I was not okay. So traditionally, what happens is you give birth to the baby, and then they take the baby and it goes and stays with, like, this temporary couple because the. The adoptive family doesn't come in until they're 72 hours old. That's how it typically happens.

Margi Dehlin [01:45:50] Oh, is that across the board or just within lds?

Myndee Tollefson [01:45:54] I'm not positive. Interesting on that. I think. I think that it's across the board, but I don't. That's one I don't know. I don't have an answer for, but it was what was in front of me. And I'm like, there's, yeah, I don't want somebody else to have my baby. Like, I want my baby for these 72 hours. Like, that's not okay with me. Can I leave with her? Can I, you know, I'm going to go through with this, but can I leave? What can I do? Can it go to a friend and I can stay with a friend? Right. Like all these things and sounds like

John Dehlin [01:46:21] that might be to minimize the attachment that you form with the baby.

Myndee Tollefson [01:46:24] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:46:25] Maximize the chance the baby will get given to the right adoptive family.

Myndee Tollefson [01:46:28] Right, Exactly. Rip the baby away so that you can't change your mind is basically how it is. So I do think that there was laws involved in the 72 hours. I think those laws were to protect birth moms if I, it would make sense. Right. To give them time.

Margi Dehlin [01:46:43] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:46:43] To make. Making a choice with when they're not bleeding, you know, and, yeah, it kind of is resonating, if that's the thing. So anyway, she arranged with the social services for me to be able to stay in the hospital that whole 72 hours with her so that there was not this temporary period of time that she went there. And so I felt so lucky to be able to have that.

John Dehlin [01:47:12] When you sign the papers, are you told you're allowed to change your mind?

Myndee Tollefson [01:47:15] No, no, Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:47:17] Agreement.

Myndee Tollefson [01:47:18] So I know that, you know, going into it, that adoptions are not final until they are six months old. Tell the baby six months old. I knew that, but I had no clue how to have ever even fought it, you know, to fight that. That was not something I would have even had anything, any possibility of how to fathom. There was no guidance in that. There was. I was aware that that 72 hours was for me to change my mind. That's what it was. So, yeah, that, that must have been what it is because she did coach me on that and that I didn't have to sign the papers until the end of that 72 hours that was there.

Myndee Tollefson [01:47:55] But after that, it was done. As far as my mind was going and even going into it, I, I mean, again, Troy said to me one last time at one point in the hospital, I'll back up again in a second. But he was the only one that looked at me and said, you don't have to do this. I was like, the train's already left the station. Like, I, I, I, I can't back out now, you know, I mean, there's so many Other people at play. My hands are forced at this. And he's like, you still don't have to.

John Dehlin [01:48:24] So legally, you are allowed to change your mind after the baby's born?

Myndee Tollefson [01:48:28] Yes, in those 72 hours.

John Dehlin [01:48:29] But, but. But from the standpoint of the adoption agency and. Or the church, the guidance is that you shouldn't.

Myndee Tollefson [01:48:37] Yeah, the guidance. So the. The what was the norm? And I've never heard of anybody else staying in the hospital for those three days of. In all of the stories that I've ever heard. But the. What typically happens is that it does go to that person that I'm sure you. They're. They're aware that they could change their mind. But again, it's like that train's already left the station. Right. The momentum's already there. You are. You know, you're going to kill somebody's heart if you change your mind. You know, I mean, they're fully invested at this point in time. And so can you change your mind?

Myndee Tollefson [01:49:06] Yeah, girls do often. They really, really do. Often. But I'm. Let's not forget everything that's informing my. My situation. Like, here it is. This is right in front of me right now. And if I. If I crumble in this moment, I am just selfish and weak and bad still. And this is my redemption story.

John Dehlin [01:49:24] And you're still on church probation.

Myndee Tollefson [01:49:25] Right, Right, right. Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:27] I'm still disfellowshipped.

Myndee Tollefson [01:49:28] I'm still disfellowshipped. And this is my. Again, my Abrahamic sacrifice. Right. Like, this is my test, and if I want redemption, I have to follow through with this. If I don't want to be selfish, I have to follow through with this.

John Dehlin [01:49:41] It's almost like. To be forgiven.

Myndee Tollefson [01:49:43] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:49:44] For committing Jonathan. Do you want to say it?

Myndee Tollefson [01:49:46] Yeah. That's literally what it is. It was. It felt conditional.

John Dehlin [01:49:49] That. What?

Myndee Tollefson [01:49:50] Sorry. It felt conditional for a repentance process.

Margi Dehlin [01:49:53] This.

Myndee Tollefson [01:49:53] For me to. To give up my baby felt like the only way that I would be forgiven by Heavenly Father for. For the sin next to murder, for having sex, for having been irresponsible, for having consensual sex with my boyfriend. That was my only way to feel forgiven. And that's. I mean, that's why I've called it an Abrahamic sacrifice. You know, it's like I literally was just waiting for that moment of God to step in and say, you passed the test, you know?

Margi Dehlin [01:50:21] Yes. You were willing to give up that person you most loved.

Myndee Tollefson [01:50:25] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:50:25] That.

Myndee Tollefson [01:50:26] I'd never experienced those kinds of feelings before. So she's born. My first phone call was to Troy. He was there as quickly as he could, and he was there every waking minute that he could be, you know, outside of going to work. And he would come to work after, come straight there after work, bring me dinner, and was there until late at night. And we have pictures of him next to my bed now that are cherished. Absolutely cherished, of this beautiful, full, full circle that is coming.

Margi Dehlin [01:50:59] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:51:01] And was my biggest support. My dad came to the air, to the airport, came to the hospital one time, and then the biological father did come for about a half an hour. He came with his current girlfriend and his mom. And I don't have positive feelings towards his mom.

Myndee Tollefson [01:51:23] She was a huge dissenter as far as, like, well, it's pretty hard to give up now, too. Right. Like. And again, I just feel compassion for her, you know, that this train is moving and they have no control in the situation. They don't understand the coercion that I have. They don't understand the mindset. And I just kept saying over and over that it's what's best for her. It's what's what's best for her. And they.

Myndee Tollefson [01:51:49] Again, looking back now, my heart does break for what they experienced in the hospital for that short time, too, because it wasn't healing for them. It was traumatic for them, you know, and it was a short window. But he did hold her, and most of the time it was his mom that was holding her and then this girlfriend that was there on. In there, too. So I believe that was the first night. It's not really relevant, but.

Myndee Tollefson [01:52:16] So I had that whole second day of just being her mom. And I mean, I remember just aching to breastfeed her, but knowing that that couldn't be. I couldn't even give her the colostrum that I knew was so healthy for her, because I wish that I'd known that I could have even. You know, but there's nobody guiding me through that. It's. Everybody's trying to protect me. Protect me, protect me. And I so appreciate that.

John Dehlin [01:52:43] But protect the adoption, too.

Myndee Tollefson [01:52:45] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because you're right. If I had, had I breastfeed this baby, maybe I couldn't have.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:53] Like, connection is a threat.

Myndee Tollefson [01:52:55] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:52:55] To the adoption process, so maybe. Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:52:58] Yeah. And it was probably pretty risky for them for me to give me those 72 hours.

John Dehlin [01:53:03] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:53:05] And what happened on that day was probably one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had. My. My Mormon language at that time was that the veil was lifted, but it Was people kind of came and go, kind of came and went, but she and I just had conversations the whole time of, I saw her soul. She saw me.

Myndee Tollefson [01:53:31] I just asked her, please find me. Please know that I love you. Please know that I'm doing what's best for you, that I feel that's what's best for you. I've chosen this family. They're going to love you. They're going to take care of you.

Myndee Tollefson [01:53:47] And it was just this beautiful thing of our hearts connecting, our souls connecting. And the way. The way she would look in my eyes is. It's not just this normal birth experience. It was just this beautiful piece of heaven of a bubble wrapped around us.

Myndee Tollefson [01:54:06] And when Troy came after work that day, we walked around the hospital and people just smiled at us because they thought we were a couple carrying our newborn babies. And I couldn't make eye contact. The shame that I felt and just aching to have Troy to. To say, don't give her up. I'm here for you. We're gonna get married.

Myndee Tollefson [01:54:31] Let's just. I was just begging for that. He wishes now that he could have done that, you know? And again, it's not safe to go there emotionally, to even think about what would have happened if. But. But it was there. I mean, it was so prevalent on the front of our brains because we knew we were each other's people, you know?

Margi Dehlin [01:54:50] And that's so jarring, I think, like, what you're describing, walking around the hospital, what's being projected to you is, like, all this excitement and elation, this assumption of an experience, when in fact, it's the exact opposite for you. You're in, like, a place of what?

Myndee Tollefson [01:55:08] Of just despair.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:09] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:55:09] I mean, this is just walking around. I needed to walk around because. Yeah, you're supposed to. Right. And I'm not leaving this baby. She's not leaving my arms. Except to change your dice diaper, you know? I mean, she is with me 100 of the time and walking around, no knowing that I need to. And it's just. It is just a representation of what I don't get.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:28] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [01:55:28] I don't get this.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:29] You're losing that, too. Just another thing that you're.

Myndee Tollefson [01:55:33] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:34] You recognize.

Myndee Tollefson [01:55:35] It's. I. I'm. I'm a fraud. You know? I mean, this is. I'm still not worthy. And all these people don't even know how bad I am that I can't even keep my kid, you know? Okay. And so. So the.

The Day of the Adoption and Signing Papers

Myndee Tollefson [01:55:52] During that day, it was, you know, one of the jarring moments is the doctor came in and he. I mean, he was so supportive through the whole pregnancy, knew that I was placing, you know, he was. He was wonderful. He actually delivered my next daughter and was even more wonderful that time around, too. But he came in and sat on the bed and he's like, like, it's time to discharge you. And I was like, huh? I've only been here 24 hours. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I get more hours. I get more time.

Myndee Tollefson [01:56:22] And it was. I mean, I don't know, 30 seconds of panic before I could get the words out of, like, they said they're going to pay. The. So the adoption agency said they're going to pay. And the relief on his face, too. He was like, okay, I don't care if you stay. I just don't want you to get stuck with a bill, you know?

Myndee Tollefson [01:56:38] But it was. That's a representation of just how precious that time was for me and how lucky I felt to have that time. So the day comes and the third day comes. I don't think I slept a wink the night before. I just held her on my chest the entire time, just heartbeat to heartbeat and feeling her soul. And she was so, so peaceful. She was just a peaceful baby. That just was so sweet. And she had.

Myndee Tollefson [01:57:17] She had this birthmark on her forehead that was. It kind of went down into her eyes. And you can't usually see it. Maybe you can now because you can see it when I'm crying, but I have a birthmark on my forehead, too, and.

Myndee Tollefson [01:57:31] And I just felt like it was my little stamp on her, you know, and I've got a birthmark on my neck. She had a birthmark on her neck, too. And it just. You know, I could see that she was. I mean, all babies have blue eyes, but babies in our family, their eye color doesn't change, you know? I mean, they're blue, blue, blue eyes. And, you know, I could see what her eyes were going to be. She had all this big, like, black hair everywhere and just this beautiful baby girl.

Myndee Tollefson [01:57:55] And I loved her birthmark so much. I just loved it because I knew it was mine. And I know I knew it was going to fade. I knew that it was just this quiet little stamp on her. So that'll come relevant in a second. So the day comes, I give her a bath.

Myndee Tollefson [01:58:11] My mom and my sister and I had made a quilt for her for her to have when she was older, to feel the love that we gave her.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:22] That's beautiful.

Myndee Tollefson [01:58:22] So I got her dressed in this outfit and got her all ready. And social worker came in, says it's time. And I had to sign the papers.

Margi Dehlin [01:58:35] Wow.

Myndee Tollefson [01:58:40] And then walk my baby up where she had a car waiting. And as we're leaving the room, maybe just start screaming. She's just screaming the whole time. And I can't. I can't comfort her. And now looking back, I'm just like she felt. This is just wrong. It's wrong. Do not make me. Don't give me away. Don't give me away. And, oh, I go out to the car, and it's a big, black Tahoe suv. I can picture it. And at that time, I even think that the car seats were still in the front seat sometimes.

Myndee Tollefson [01:59:17] So I'm putting her in there, and she's just screaming, and I'm. I can't even help her in any way, shape, or form. So I just lay my head on her and near her heart one more time and kiss her.

Myndee Tollefson [01:59:38] And I don't remember. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder and said, it's time. And my baby's just screaming, screaming for me. All she wanted was me right then. And I'm still waiting for God to jump in. See, you did it. You got her to the car seat. You don't have to do this. You don't have to go through with it. You pass the test. You were forgiven,

John Dehlin [02:00:03] and you can keep the baby.

Myndee Tollefson [02:00:04] And you get to keep your baby.

Margi Dehlin [02:00:06] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:00:08] But instead, what happens? Door closes, and I'm hearing my baby cry still. And she goes on. Goes in. And I watch this black Tahoe drive away, and it's a circular drive, and I watch her drive away. And then she gets to the end and she stops at the stop sign and, like, come back. Come back, please bring my baby back to me. And my soul, half of my soul is driving away from me at that point. And I watch her turn right and then turn right again, and she's gone. My baby's gone. And I have to go back to the room to get my stuff. I don't remember anything after that.

Margi Dehlin [02:00:57] Yeah,

Myndee Tollefson [02:01:00] I don't remember anything of the hospital after that moment. I mean, I remember crumbling to the ground and then somebody helping me up. And then the next thing I remember is being in the car with my mom. And that was. We had about six hours. Get a drink real quick.

Margi Dehlin [02:01:23] Yeah, Mindy.

Myndee Tollefson [02:01:28] Because another thing that my social worker did for me is that she was going to arrange a meeting, and typically that never happened to let me meet the adoptive mom, but she wasn't coming in from a flight. They lived out of state. They were Washington state residents, but they lived out of state. I now know that it was for schooling, but they were still Washington state residents. And so she was flying in and. But her flight didn't get in and she couldn't get to wherever we were meeting at a church building. And so she didn't come in until about 6 o'.

Margi Dehlin [02:02:02] Clock.

Myndee Tollefson [02:02:03] So we just drove around Seattle and you guys have lived in Seattle in December and it is gray and rainy and the wipers are just going. And my poor mom just drove around for six hours with me just gut wrenching sobbing for six hours. And she tried to get me food, she tried to get me anything. And I cannot imagine what that was like as a mom. I cannot even comprehend how difficult that was for her to watch me go through this and feeling the feelings of. She knows what I'm giving up. I don't even know yet. I don't know what it's like to be a mother.

Myndee Tollefson [02:02:43] I only know I love this baby more than anything I've ever experienced in life. And so for those six hours, I mean through all of it, my mom was a hero. My parents were amazing in their support to me. Coerced by the church, but they were there for me and she was a hero that day. For me to just keep me down again. I lived in Everett, I delivered down in Woodinville and so I wanted to stay down in that area a little bit. So what's that about 40 minutes south?

Myndee Tollefson [02:03:16] South and east of Everett. So we go to the church building and where we're supposed to meet. And again I'm looking for confirmation bias, right? Like I have to have signs. I have to have signs. So there's nobody in this building and I see a tall brunette walk by and I film at the time, it's inspiration of heavenly father saying, that's your baby's mom.

Myndee Tollefson [02:03:41] I can look at that now and look at it and say logically, that was my baby's mom, you know. But at the time it felt like, like this comfort of like this is the woman. Several things that just as a little teaser that stand out to me now that I wish that I would have known. I don't know that would have changed anything. The adoptive father didn't come and the excuse was he had to work.

Myndee Tollefson [02:04:08] And that was very. That's very strange now looking back on it that if you've been waiting for this baby all along, aren't you both going to be here? Do you not have the financial Means for it, like, why isn't he here? Why isn't he coming to meet his baby?

Myndee Tollefson [02:04:21] So that was red flag that I wish that I'd felt. But at this point in time, I don't. I can't question anything, right? I can't question anything. No, there's nothing there. It's like, well, that's where. Move on, you know, I mean, any kind of ticking in my brain or scratching in my brain is gone. I mean, there's nothing. But confirm, confirm, confirm, confirm.

Myndee Tollefson [02:04:41] The next thing that happened is she. When I went in and I was like, just so you know, she has this birthmark, it's a pretty good size one on her forehead. It'll. It'll fade, you know, I don't. I have by a year old. You can't even see mine in pictures, you know, but it only pops up when I'm angry or sad or feeling big emotions. And she said, but it will go away.

Myndee Tollefson [02:05:04] It's like, yeah, yeah, it will go away. And thanks for that look. Yeah, exactly. And I just kind of left it and was like, okay, well, I wanted to hear. I love your baby. I love my baby no matter what.

John Dehlin [02:05:18] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:05:18] You know, I mean, I'm. And at the time, I even was like, what if she didn't have a thumb? You know, I mean, would it still be. Does she want this baby? And it. But I, again, I couldn't go there in any way, shape or form. Form. And so she had brought me a couple of gifts. I think we met for about 10 minutes, not very long at all. And she wasn't warm in any way, shape or form. And I brushed it off as it was just kind of an awkward situation, you know, And I didn't feel love from her. I heard expressions of love, but I was hoping to feel an outpouring of love.

John Dehlin [02:05:59] Love.

Myndee Tollefson [02:06:00] And I didn't feel that from her at all. I felt more love from my social worker than I did from her. And again, there's. There's no way for me to question any of this. I have answers for that now. But at the time it was. This is just how it is. And I mean, it could have been 30 minutes. I really genuinely have no idea. I just know that I was puffy faced and sore from having given birth and exhausted from sobbing for all these hours. And I have no idea what else was said during that at all.

Margi Dehlin [02:06:31] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:06:34] But her image of what she looked like is in my brain. I always knew what she looked like. And that again, for the church, that was. I. I don't know anybody else that got to do that at that point in time. So I knew that the social worker really treated me differently than she did a lot of other people too. Yeah. Okay, so move on. Any other wanted questions you want to go into that at all?

John Dehlin [02:06:58] I think that's clearly that required a lot of you to share that story and relive it. I mean, my only reflection is it's probably hard under any circumstance to give up a baby. I can imagine there are some scenarios where a mom just. Just really doesn't want the baby at all. Or maybe it's physically painful, but psychologically wanted to get rid of the child. But I just, I. I just have to imagine that when inside you didn't want to give up the baby, it then starts to feel like it's abusive.

Myndee Tollefson [02:07:40] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:07:40] If you weren't giving it up of your own free will and choice. And there is this middle ground where a mom wants to keep the baby, but inside knows that what's best for the baby is to give it up. Okay, well that seems like difficult, but maybe bearable.

Myndee Tollefson [02:07:57] Right.

John Dehlin [02:07:58] But if it's a scenario where the mom really wants to keep the baby and probably could be as good or better of a mom for that child.

Myndee Tollefson [02:08:05] Right.

John Dehlin [02:08:06] But then because of undue influence is giving up the baby in effect against the mom's internal will, it's hard to imagine something more difficult and, or abusive. I don't think I can think of something.

Myndee Tollefson [02:08:20] I, I have yet to find something. I mean it pretty is. I mean this is your most primal needs, you know, I mean this goes as deep as mother's love is the deepest thing that there is. You know, I mean not to diminish father's love, but I carried her for nine months, you know, I mean she, we had a soul to soul connection. We shared a heartbeat.

Myndee Tollefson [02:08:40] And you're right, it is abusive at that point in time. And it wasn't until, I mean, I'm gonna say the last five years that I realized I truly did not want to give her up because I had my myself convinced that I wanted to because it was survival mechanism on my part that I was doing what was best for her. And I did not.

Myndee Tollefson [02:09:02] Even when, even when all everything changed and came to light again, I still stuck to it. No, it was what was best. No, it was best. It was best. And you know, so much bargaining that I had made the right choice that I could not recognize that my soul was screaming to keep my baby. That to the depth of it that this just felt wrong. And it was, I mean, I couldn't put words to that until very recently.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:32] Yeah, you know, it have. Are you familiar at all with parts work?

Myndee Tollefson [02:09:36] I have done extensive parts work.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:39] It reminds me of like a part that's exiled.

Myndee Tollefson [02:09:42] Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have incredible protectors in me. I mean, they are. I've got some really, really amazing protectors inside of me. So.

Margi Dehlin [02:09:53] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:09:54] What a. One of the just observational note you can tell me if you agree is, you know, there are certain situations in life where there's just a conflict of interest and any ethical organization is going to recuse itself or not participate in any type of situation where there's a clear conflict of interest. And in a case like this, I can see all sorts of reasons why a religion or a church would stand to benefit from being in control of adoptions. And you know, anything from a church wants to have as many members as possible. And so if you can make sure that any, you know, any, any childbirth that happens always accrues to the benefit of active, faithful church membership, well, that's to the benefit of the church.

Reflecting on the Adoption Process and Conflicts of Interest

Myndee Tollefson [02:10:46] Right, right, right.

John Dehlin [02:10:47] But then even something a little bit darker is I am very sure that the top leaders of the church have children and grandchildren who are unable to have biological children. And I am willing to bet a million dollars of my life savings that close family and friends of top church leadership are going to get priority in the adoption process over marginalized, lower education, lower income, less connected members of the church. So that would be another incentive of the church to have a very vibrant, active, even pressure filled adoption program. It would be just a way for those who are higher educated, with more money, who are more in power to make sure that their kids who aren't able to have biological children are able to get as many adoptive children as they want.

Myndee Tollefson [02:11:47] Right.

John Dehlin [02:11:47] So for all those reasons, for me that would be a reason why a church or religion probably should get out of the adoption business and recuse itself. And I don't, I don't. That's just my umping of trying to be an objective but a critical observer of the story you're telling me.

Myndee Tollefson [02:12:07] And I don't, I don't disagree in any way, shape or form. I mean, the church benefits a lot from this on multiple levels because yes, you get, you get more members, you get wealthier members that are fulfilling their God's mission and being and multiplying, replenishing the earth. Right.

John Dehlin [02:12:23] And they're rewarded for the tithing and the devotion they're paying for the church. They're rewarded with children by the church.

Myndee Tollefson [02:12:30] Exactly. And, and, and like you're saying, there's a lot of religion institutions that do. I mean, Catholic churches has this. I mean, I, I agree. I don't know all of them, but it seems as though most do have adoptions within their circle of influence at some point in time. But I, I felt that even.

Myndee Tollefson [02:12:49] No, let me. I. At the time, I felt like I was. I trusted the system so much that it was like. But it's okay. It's okay. They need to be this way because then that way they can keep. Make sure that everything stays in house. And so the inspiration and the spirit of discernment can be within, not be polluted by the outside world, you know. And so in some ways, that gave me comfort during the time. But as I've deconstructed all of this going through is I have come to the same conclusion as you. You know, that it was absolutely. They have more to benefit from it than even the adoptive parents do, I think.

Myndee Tollefson [02:13:26] You know, and that's not fair to say with many positive adoption stories, but they still do benefit from it. And I think. I think it's worth noting about 10 years after this that I think it was 2014 that they stopped doing adoptions. And so my daughter was 10 years old and they just quietly stopped. There was no explanation. There was nothing. They just quietly stopped doing them.

John Dehlin [02:13:48] Yeah. And I'm sure there were legal reasons and financial reasons. Why? Because the best way to understand the church and sometimes is as a business. Right. But the only other question, conflict of interest, that really occurs to me is if we don't all agree, if society doesn't all agree that that abortion is murder, or in other words, that sometimes it's just that a fetus, a teeny, tiny fetus in the first month or two is not a human and therefore not a murder.

Myndee Tollefson [02:14:22] Right.

John Dehlin [02:14:22] And therefore it might be better for society and for the mom and for the biological dad that the baby's never carried to term. If there's a decent chunk of society that feels that way, doesn't see it as a murder, then the institution that has a heavy bias towards pressuring the mom to carry the baby towards term. Again, that's a religious conflict of interest because you're being pressured to keep and deliver the baby when there's a very reasonable choice, which is that you just decide, you know what, it's a month. It's just a little, tiny little cell, cluster of a few cells at this point. I just won't even go through all that torture.

Myndee Tollefson [02:15:08] Right.

John Dehlin [02:15:08] And it'll, it'll be just like a miscarriage or a right fertilization that doesn't really take.

Myndee Tollefson [02:15:14] Right. I prayed for a miscarriage. I prayed for a miscarriage. I mean, in those early months when, you know, in subsequent pregnancies, you pass that first trimester and it's a celebration. I passed that first trimester and it was dread.

Myndee Tollefson [02:15:30] It was dread because I knew that I had to continue through, you know, and so I, I absolutely agree. And, and there was a piece of me that was. I was producing a new member of the church, you know, and that's. I was giving my daughter to be a new member of the church. This is, this is only going to build up the kingdom of God of, of what I'm doing. And this is my part to rectify and my, for my repentance.

Myndee Tollefson [02:15:58] I was now producing a active member, you know, a good member of the church kind of a thing as a vessel through God. Right. And that's where the Michael McLean song comes through, is because I'm just, I'm just an incubator, you know, and that's when.

Myndee Tollefson [02:16:14] And when getting to the core me, that is the most opposite of who I am as a person to be an incubator. I embody mom. I am proud to be a mom. It's my greatest role in life. And my kids friends call me mom, you know, I mean, I am a mom in every way, shape or form. And so to take that away from me, from. It wouldn't have happened without that influence. It just is too how this is. I think another reason why I kind of rejected the teenage pregnancy notion too is because at 20 years old, how many Mormon moms are pregnant at 20 years old, when they are a lot. Right, Right.

John Dehlin [02:16:55] Least on this podcast.

Myndee Tollefson [02:16:57] And if they're married, then they're adequate moms. Right. But I'm not married, so I'm not adequate. And I had kids, same kids my age that were parenting children. And I mean, even in society outside of the church, how many 20 year olds parent their babies? So many. You know, I was capable and I could have gone to school, I could have done all of the things you know, that I needed to do to support my baby, but I didn't feel like I had that choice in any way, shape or form. I was less. It was the less than better option. It was the selfish option to do that.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:31] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:17:32] So no, I mean, yeah, it's.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:35] And it didn't save you.

Myndee Tollefson [02:17:37] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:37] You were also looking to be redeemed yes.

Myndee Tollefson [02:17:40] Thank you.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:40] There was no redemption in that.

Myndee Tollefson [02:17:42] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:43] If anything not valued, how valuable is that?

Myndee Tollefson [02:17:45] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:17:46] How beautiful is that? I've been within the church, no value

Myndee Tollefson [02:17:50] for you for that. And I'd been chasing this inspiration since I was an abused little girl asking God to take this away. And all of a sudden I have answers. God's speaking to me, you know, I mean, he gave me an Ensign article. He had sent Michael McLean to my life. You know, I mean, all these things that says God's here showing up for me. You know, he gave me the inspiration to have that name pop into my head, you know, that profile. And so I'm feeling for the first time this is working. This is working. I'm actually living the church now. I. This is what repentance is about.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:23] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:18:23] You know, this is finally being seen and valued that I now part of this atonement process that's going to give me redemption, like you've said, and I'm

John Dehlin [02:18:37] sure to some observers this whole story sounds fine in a religious context until what you just told us is that at some point the Mormon Church decides not to do adoptions anymore. Which then begs the question, well, why did you have to go through it all? If then all of a sudden, a couple decades later, they're like, ah, okay, maybe we'll get out of the business one decade. One decade. Then that kind of begs the question, will all that pressure and spiritual and religious and institutional corporations, coercion that really forced and forced you to go through all that, that, that caused you to have all that distress and trauma against your will?

Myndee Tollefson [02:19:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:19:18] All a sudden the church, it's like the garments today. It's like, ah, we changed our mind.

Myndee Tollefson [02:19:22] Right.

John Dehlin [02:19:23] Only like, what?

Myndee Tollefson [02:19:24] This was even quieter though, because I mean, even as I was googling to find this article, I had to dig. Yeah, I had to dig. And there's only one other article, it was in 2002 that even addressed un unwed parents or something like that, that like, it really just kind of got quiet. I mean, it still existed in the red book, right. And it still was. Marriage is preferable. But even that is like, I mean, you even. I mean in there, it was if you were unwilling or unable to get married. Right. Like that still is. That verbiage on it isn't even cool, you know. But was I unable or was I unwilling? I don't know. I mean, I just knew that this guy wasn't for me.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:04] And.

Myndee Tollefson [02:20:04] And we were terrible together. We weren't a positive couple in any way. Shape or form. And so I was neither unwilling or unable. It just wasn't, you know, and so,

John Dehlin [02:20:16] and mostly it was just, it was a factory. The, the, the Mormon Church/ LDS Family Services/ Michael McLean song/ Doctrinal pressures made it just like a baby factory towards adoption.

Myndee Tollefson [02:20:29] Yeah. And that is how it feels to me now is that I, you know, and, and again I do want to go back to being very, very, very sensitive to knowing that there are so many beautiful adoption stories out there and I know so many adoptive mothers that are just everything that I hoped my daughter had that are just do it right. You guys interviewed an adoptee recently.

Margi Dehlin [02:20:51] Beautiful.

Myndee Tollefson [02:20:51] I, I had a hard time listening to his though because of how his people parents were for him, which I guess I'm kind of jumping ahead a little bit there. But I really had a hard time listening and reconciling it. Actually I only listened to it like two or three days ago because it was hard for me to hear, you know, in preparation for this. So.

John Dehlin [02:21:10] But some positive outcomes doesn't justify an abusive system.

Myndee Tollefson [02:21:15] And even, I mean even if you're getting rid of it, just come clean and be like, yeah, because it wasn't just the church that was doing adoptions. Right. It was, it was world worldwide that there were things that were broken in a system. But my in the 90s was still better than the 60s when they just ripped their children away from them. Right. Or 70s was his, what his story was. And I had a nurse in the hospital that actually confided in the last day that I was at the hospital that said that was her experience too. And she didn't even know if it was a boy or a girl.

Myndee Tollefson [02:21:44] And she talked about how, she told me how beautiful my experience was. And so I just kind of had this narrative around me of like, like look how beautiful this experience has been and you know, that we had God's hand in it and it was just this faith promoting story of my daughter getting to go live happily ever after and she didn't need to be burdened with me anymore.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:04] So important. Yep.

Myndee Tollefson [02:22:06] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:07] Laying that groundwork for what you perceived at the time.

Myndee Tollefson [02:22:10] Yes. And I clung to that. I clung to and I would say, I mean I know that they'll have problems and things like I know that but you know, whatever. But in my mind there could they better be better than me, you know, they better be better than me because I know I'm going to be a damn good mom at some point in time. And so she better be, they better be better Than me.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:32] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:22:33] You know, and yeah, they better be able to provide this, provide that, provide this and give it to her now.

John Dehlin [02:22:39] Well, there better be a working dad who's active in the baby's life.

Myndee Tollefson [02:22:44] Right.

John Dehlin [02:22:44] And a stay at home mom.

Myndee Tollefson [02:22:46] Mom.

John Dehlin [02:22:46] Right, right. Because if it's not that, then then that's a ripoff.

Myndee Tollefson [02:22:50] Then it's subpar. I mean, then I should have kept this baby.

John Dehlin [02:22:52] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:22:53] Because I was going to be a good mom. I am a good mom. I, I, that is who I am. So I had no choice but to believe that it was, that it, she was living a great life, you know,

John Dehlin [02:23:05] and I guess I should say super faithful in the church.

Myndee Tollefson [02:23:08] Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

John Dehlin [02:23:09] That was very important and righteous and worthy.

Myndee Tollefson [02:23:11] Yeah, worthy. And so, and part of that definitely plays into as, as my story continues because.

John Dehlin [02:23:17] Let's go.

Myndee Tollefson [02:23:17] Let's go. So the main, that one of the overarching themes that that came from that is that I felt as though I needed to continue to be even more and more worthy because if she's got this perfect life, then I have to be ready. And we had promised each other in that little lifting of the veil that she was going to find me. I never had any questions of that. I didn't know when, I didn't know at what age, but I knew that we would be reconnected. And she promised me and I believed the promise, you know, and I know that sounds so weird to say and it sounds so Mormony in some, so many kinds of ways, but there's no denying that there, that this existed, you know, and, and I don't have an explanation for it now, but it happened.

Myndee Tollefson [02:24:02] And there was never a question. I always called her my daughter. I always was. There was never a time that she wasn't mine and there was never a time that had I received a phone call that I wouldn't have snatched her back up within a second, you know, or run to her rescue. I, she was my daughter at all times and she had a family who loved her and took care of her, you know, and so from my arms to their arms kind of a thing. She had two moms kind of a thing. And I had had no intention of ever being overbearing in that like I relinquished her to this whole experience.

Myndee Tollefson [02:24:39] And then immediately I dove into Troy and I dating. Our, the time that we got together, the very tightest was about three days after she was born. We have all of these heightened emotions of us and going through this experience with me, I mean, he's right there by My side. When I got home from meeting the adoptive mom, he was at home waiting for me with dinner. He brought turkey hot dogs and whole wheat rolls. And they were disgusting. But it was the sweetest gesture in the whole world, you know, that he was there to be with me and didn't know what to do. But he stood by my side and he called me and you know, I. I mean, we really let our love come. Come forward.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:24] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:25:25] Through all of those emotions. Yeah. And so my grieving wasn't the way that it needed to be. You know, I mean, I just poured my soul into him and. And he into me. And that lasted. I say that when we really started dating, that's what it was. It lasted like two weeks.

Myndee Tollefson [02:25:45] But it was the first time of understanding that there is so much depth to this because his girlfriend was coming home like two months later. And so we, you know, I mean, he really was like unc down of like, I do not know what to do. And so we broke up. Then I started dating around a little bit.

Myndee Tollefson [02:26:03] I was called to the Seattle YSA Youth Council Council that was run through the institute. And so I was the secretary for that and planned all the activities around the Seattle area. I was, you know, I mean, very, very active in the community and had. Was just ready to have. Have fun, you know, let Troy sort. Sort this out and I'm just gonna go on and date and find and just have fun kind of a thing. And I did. I really did. And then his girlfriend came home and he kind of dated her. I can't, you know, was dating other people. And then.

Myndee Tollefson [02:26:39] So at this point in time, we have been in each other's life a year, is that right? Yeah, about a year. And inseparable for a little bit. And just couldn't. He just had a lot of attachment issues with this girl. And I just was like, hey, see ya. So then I had another face promoting experience of like, this was really hard for me. I was ready to commit in a marriage. I had a lot of things making it so that I wanted us to finally start our relationship. It kept me from having to think about the hard thing that I'd done. And so I remember praying one time to either light a fire under him or to show me a direction that I needed to go.

Marriage, Family Life, and Doubts About the Church

Myndee Tollefson [02:27:20] And a name of a guy in our ward popped into my head. And so I'm like, okay, well I'm going to call them and see. And so he. I started dating this guy and he was a recent return missionary and he was ready to Marry me within about two weeks. Again, we're. My husband and I are. Troy and I are in each other's lives and this is one of his favorite stories to tell. But I was getting ready to go on a date with the other guy and he was, he was over at my house prior to it. I'm like, I gotta go get ready.

Myndee Tollefson [02:27:52] And so he, I walk him to the door and he kisses me. And I'm like, what are you doing? He's like, well, go have fun on your date. This isn't fair. It's not fair at all for you to do this. So anyway, long story short, we decided to break it off with everybody else at that point in time and just start dating each other.

John Dehlin [02:28:09] Other.

Myndee Tollefson [02:28:09] Well, that lasted two weeks and then we broke up again and just, we just had a lot of issues to, to work through. So a very tumultuous courtship. But it also played into my unworthiness because Troy, at this point in time, he was 28 years old, or. Yeah, he was 28, 27. 28. And I'm 19, I'm 20, 21 at this point in time. And he was still a virgin. He had joined the church when he's 21 years old and had morally himself made the choice without the church influence in any way, shape or form to just not go there. He wasn't opposed to sex before marriage until the church came in.

Myndee Tollefson [02:28:49] And then it just kind of like confirmed it for him that it's like, yeah, okay, that makes sense. He was absolutely okay with people living together first and what have you, but it was just a choice that he made. And so this girlfriend of his, he was close with the family, and I remember one very stinging moment that as he was trying to sort this all out, that she asked him, well, is she worthy to marry you? You know, and just really played into the shaming that I felt of, like, no, I'm not worthy of him. I'm really genuinely not worthy of him. And the fact that he couldn't let her go.

Myndee Tollefson [02:29:23] Now I understand his attachment issues, but that made me feel like I wasn't worthy, you know, and it made me feel less than. And so sadly, that's the feeling that went, that we started our, our marriage with, you know, about a year later was when he, he proposed to me about a year later. So in all, by the time we got married, we'd been in each other's lives inseparably for two and a half years. So for a Mormon marriage, that was like unheard of amount of dating Time, you know, that we, we were, you know, two years is a long time, two and a half years.

Myndee Tollefson [02:29:55] So we took out our, Received our endowments together. He never served a mission because he was. And this is, this is an important piece to his story that is on his own. But he, when he first got baptized, he owned a, a business. He owned a health club, and the church told him to sell his health club so that he could go on a mission. He's like, it's the way I provide for myself. And a mission never just appealed to him. And so he kind of just had this hanging over his light, his.

Margi Dehlin [02:30:23] His.

Myndee Tollefson [02:30:23] Himself. I mean, you know, as a man, that, that's your mission, is what you grow, talk on kind of a thing. And so for that reason, he almost always felt like an outsider. But then you could say, well, I didn't join the. He didn't join the church till he's 21. And it's like, oh, oh, okay, okay, so you got to pass on the mission kind of thing. But it did play into this that he wasn't as worthy of a priesthood holder as a rm, you know, And I wanted to marry a, A return missionary. Sorry, we'll do it for the number Mormons. I wanted to marry a return missionary, but because I felt so unworthy then that didn't need to be a requirement, number one, but number two, but he didn't join the church till he's 21.

Myndee Tollefson [02:31:03] So if he had, you know, like, it just kind of gave it a pass type of a thing. So. But it, it kind of played into this, him being not as honorable of a priesthood holder, you know, which is awful. I hate that, but it's the reality of it. So we received our endowments on the same day, and when we left, he was so quiet, and I was overwhelmed with like, what just happened. And he, you know, I'd ask him his experience. He's like, that was weird. That was really, really weird. I'm like, yeah, it was really weird. And then. But I had my family to talk to about it.

Myndee Tollefson [02:31:37] His family had warned him that he was joining a cult, you know, when he was getting baptized and had given him all kinds of, you know, anti Mormon literature type of thing. And he, you know, it just was like ringing a bell in his mind of like, that was weird. And he'd been to like, some big Pentecostal churches where they're speaking in tongues.

Margi Dehlin [02:31:58] Hated it.

Myndee Tollefson [02:31:59] And he's like, it felt similar to that to me. And I was like, oh, my gosh, can you Just not get on board, you know, I mean like I need you to be this priesthood holder that I deserve to be married to, you know, while at the same time going, I mean, but am I worthy of that kind of a priesthood holder? So anyways, there's, you know, that along with it too, but there's.

Myndee Tollefson [02:32:20] So we ended up getting married in the Salt Lake Temple. One of my grandfathers was a sealer in the temple and he was, he actually passed away the next year. But we got special permission from the prophet at the time for him to go ahead and do our ceiling.

Myndee Tollefson [02:32:35] It was a really special moment for my parents because it was the only time, time all of my siblings were in the temple together. One of my brothers left the church very shortly after that when he left it. So my wedding goes down in our family as a special day. And you know, it was a beautiful experience. And, and you know, here we are now all of a sudden, all of this don't do, don't do, but go ahead and have sex. Now I have permission to have sex. I was disciplined. I had all of this us with these worthiness issues. But we come home from the temple and everybody tells us to go into the bedroom and change together and we're like, this is weird.

Myndee Tollefson [02:33:15] And not to mention, you know, I mean he's, he's a 28 year old man and my parents, we would try to go on trips together and we had to have a chaperone with us and he's like, what do you mean a chaperone? I don't have to have a chaperone. I'm 28 years old, you know, and so stay away, stay away, stay away from the sex. Okay, now go change in front of each other.

Margi Dehlin [02:33:31] Each other.

Myndee Tollefson [02:33:31] And we looked at each other and like turned our backs. We're like, we're not ready for this right now. Just this real like timid school age kind of thing, you know, I mean just of no prep whatsoever for anything. So that was just kind of an interesting experience of that too going into it. So it took a big mental shift. And then again I just. These worthiness issues of me being worthy of him just always crept up, you

John Dehlin [02:34:01] know, it's kind of like you're carrying a Scarlet letter.

Myndee Tollefson [02:34:04] That is literally what I've called it.

John Dehlin [02:34:05] Yeah, yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:34:06] That there's no escaping the scholar Scarlet Letter. And in the meantime there's just this invisible pain. My family didn't want to talk about it anymore. Right. Like this is just put behind you. I'm no longer disfellowshipped I can hold colleagues. Let's just move on. Let's just move on. You know, and it's. And it's not minimizing the difficulty of them. My sister was there experiencing it with me too. You know, I mean, it was difficult on her. My dad was raised British, and so big emotions are very difficult for. For him, you know, and we're. We're a strong Mormon family, and so we just don't talk about it after that. And every once in a while, I'd pop it in here or there, and I just feel the tension in the room. And it just wasn't very safe for me to talk about it, you know?

John Dehlin [02:34:51] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:34:53] So.

John Dehlin [02:34:53] So to follow the adoption narrative and to make sure we hit on those major points, all this. Just a couple high level questions.

Myndee Tollefson [02:35:05] Yeah. Please.

John Dehlin [02:35:05] How many children did y'. All, biological children did y' all end up having together?

Myndee Tollefson [02:35:09] So we had two.

John Dehlin [02:35:10] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [02:35:10] We had two. Two more daughters. And.

John Dehlin [02:35:13] And you. You raised them Both as faithful LDs?

Myndee Tollefson [02:35:18] Yeah. So we went. So after we got married, so we waited three years, and I had our first daughter together that I raised. And having her sent me into a terrible depression. Terrible. Because it was the first time that I realized how much I'd missed out on. Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:34] You know, I mean, so it's like trauma. It's like, oh, doesn't that make.

Margi Dehlin [02:35:40] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:35:40] Because you were. What? Go ahead.

Myndee Tollefson [02:35:42] Sorry. Yeah. I mean, I. I was breastfeeding her and realizing that I didn't get to do that with my first daughter. I. The smiles that. Everything. Every single little tiny thing I missed, and I did not until your mom. You don't know. And I'd been an aunt since I was 12 years old. I loved kids. I thought that I knew what it was. And nothing prepares you for being a mom. And it was really, really difficult to go through that and to realize, holy cow, this is heavy, you know, But I got to be a mom now, so I just move on, put it behind.

Myndee Tollefson [02:36:16] And one of the smartest things. Things that I did was that I reserved her birthday as a day for me to fill. And so first daughter's. My first daughter's birthday, I had a box, an adoption box. I just put everything in there. And then on that day, I didn't go to work. I didn't do anything. He would take the kids, and I just got to spend the day feeling the feels. And I don't know how I thought of that, but it was one of the smartest things I ever did.

John Dehlin [02:36:41] You did that every Year, basically.

Myndee Tollefson [02:36:45] Yeah. I mean, there was. I remember one year I tried to work and then I went home. I just needed that day once a year to fill the fills. Yeah. But that also meant that that other 364 days, I just pushed it aside. I just pushed it out and just did my best to be good. So we moved to eastern Washington for Troy to go to school when. When our oldest was just a baby. And he busted his ass for seven years and finished his Bachelor's, Master's and PhDs in seven years. Yeah. And so I was more or less single parenting in him, popping in the very best that he could.

Myndee Tollefson [02:37:24] And he did animal research is what he was doing. And so he was gone for summers. He, you know, year round, caring for animals. His bachelor's degree or his master's degree was in grizzly bear. So he did have. Have some time off of that.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:39] But you can get a bachelor's degree in grizzly.

Myndee Tollefson [02:37:42] Well, in zoology. His master's degree is in zoology. But he worked with grizzly bears. I said that. Masters in Grizzlies and PhD in Mule Deer.

John Dehlin [02:37:53] She's being silly.

Myndee Tollefson [02:37:54] I know, but it's what we say.

Margi Dehlin [02:37:55] No, I was like, that's really cool. At the root, I was saying that's an amazing thing. You have an emphasis and really a focus on grizzly bears in particular.

Myndee Tollefson [02:38:03] Yeah. And so he actually went up to Alaska and studied grizzly bears for two summers, too. And one of the summers I was pregnant with our second. This second summer, I had two little babies, you know, that I was. I was raising. And so we, I mean, we just were working hard during that time. I mean, he's busy. We're cranking it out. He's a little bit older in life. He wants to get school done so we can get on to the next part of our life. And so that time of year, there was no room for church. That time of our life, there was really not a whole lot of room for church because he Sundays.

Myndee Tollefson [02:38:32] He needs Sundays to be able to stay on top of everything that he had in front of him. You know, I mean, it's. To be a dad. And he was working, working at all of the different animal places. Plus TA sometimes. Right. I mean, you've gone to school long enough to know that this is not just a small feat. And so I, I worked for the. The first little part part time. And then by the time our second baby was born, I found I ended up being like a. An apartment coordinator for the university housing. So I got some money, you know, Some stipend or whatever, but was able to stay home, you know, and be.

Myndee Tollefson [02:39:07] Be that. Stay at home, mom, and start living that dream out and feeling like I was finally getting blessed for my sacrifice. But it's confusing because we're not really going to church very much. We haven't had. We haven't paid tithing forever. And. And we don't have a recommend because Troy was freaked out by it, you know, and we're going through these motions of, like, still wearing our garments all the time, but not really going to church. And he took an evolution class about a year before his last year. And he came to me and we want to give me the best wife award sarcastically, for this moment.

Myndee Tollefson [02:39:42] And I'm so proud of. He came to me and he's like, you know, I don't know if I believe this. And I literally looked at him, I was like, nope.

John Dehlin [02:39:50] Oh. And just to give our never Mormons the context, the Mormon Church has been on record for over a half century that evolution is a heresy. The teaching of organic evolution is one of the seven deadly heresies, you know, of Mormonism. And so I was taught very aggressively that evolution is of the devil. And. And so he comes to you saying, I think I might believe in this evolution thing because I'm a PhD level.

Myndee Tollefson [02:40:20] Yeah. Scientist.

John Dehlin [02:40:21] Scientist, biologist.

Myndee Tollefson [02:40:22] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:40:23] You said what?

Myndee Tollefson [02:40:24] Nope. I looked right at him. I was like, nope, this is bait and switch. Those are my exact words to him. Like, I am not doing this. Nope. You. You figure this out. You're. We're Mormons and you figured this out. Yeah. I'm so proud of that now. But I was desperate for me. Right. Like, I gave up everything for this church, and I'm not gonna do this single mommy. Like, no. I had an opportunity to be a single mom. You're not going to take that away from me. And part of that single mom is that I've got a devout husband by my side, too.

John Dehlin [02:41:00] I have to say, one of the darkest things I've realized sitting in this chair is that this is one of the main ways the Mormon Church and churches like it, benefit from the shame.

Myndee Tollefson [02:41:10] Yes.

John Dehlin [02:41:10] Because once they can get you to think you did something close to murder in terms of awfulness, and it's only the church that made you whole.

Myndee Tollefson [02:41:20] Yep.

John Dehlin [02:41:20] Then you're going to want to give the rest of your life devoted to the church, doing everything it tells you, and then it gets almost a slave.

Myndee Tollefson [02:41:29] Right.

John Dehlin [02:41:30] To. To then build it up, give it money, give it time, give it all your efforts, Give It. Your devotion because it gave you a fake sickness and then told you that it healed you from the fake sickness.

Myndee Tollefson [02:41:43] It's literally a narcissistic system.

Margi Dehlin [02:41:45] So dark.

Myndee Tollefson [02:41:45] Yeah. To provide something to make a need and be the only way to provide the solution for it. Right. And. And then add to that the depth of my child. Right. The depth of what this truly, truly means for us. And so, I mean, it was. Yeah, it was an awful moment for me, but it was also survival for me, too. That it was like, no, I'm not being the mom that sits in those pews by myself. No, you figured this out. And then, I mean, we had a conversation, and I gave that beautiful apologetic answer of like, well, we don't really know what God's time is.

Myndee Tollefson [02:42:17] Maybe it. You know, a day isn't a day. It's 10,000 years. And maybe there, you know, maybe the beginning of life, Adam and Eve was. Was actually when they went from one caveman. Right, Right. Like, human spirit found all of those ways to justify it. And he just went, well, she's not safe to talk to. It's basically what happened in that experience,

John Dehlin [02:42:39] which kind of creates a liar out of him, potentially. Just like the church created a liar out of you with your bishop.

Myndee Tollefson [02:42:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:42:46] Pretend I don't want to speak for him, but potentially it makes a liar out of him where whenever he has a doubt or concern or learns facts, he's got to hide it.

Myndee Tollefson [02:42:56] Yeah. He was skeptical from the beginning. Like, one of the jokes that he always says is, you know, these poor little missionaries that were converting him, and he's like, hey, I've read the Book of Mormon, but I just got a question. Where's the elephants? Like, there's no archaeological evidence of elephants in the Americas. So I would like an answer for these.

John Dehlin [02:43:13] Why does the Book of Mormon have elephants when we know elephants didn't live in Mesoamerica?

Myndee Tollefson [02:43:18] Yeah, exactly.

Margi Dehlin [02:43:19] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:43:19] I mean, he's. Again, he's a scientist. He loves all of those facts, and he loves animals. And so give me proof. And so shellfied him immediately for him, you know, And I knew that he didn't really like Joseph Smith, but I just thought that that was one of the ways. Again, he was a lesser priesthood holder.

John Dehlin [02:43:35] I mean, he is a convert.

Myndee Tollefson [02:43:36] Right. And he didn't serve a mission. Right. Yeah. You're getting the feel of it.

John Dehlin [02:43:40] Right. So you're gonna have a bit of a. You know, you get what you pay for.

Myndee Tollefson [02:43:44] Right? Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [02:43:45] And both bond on that.

Myndee Tollefson [02:43:48] And in a family. I mean, my. My Family is extremely devout on all sides. You know, I've got siblings that are living the Mormon dream and here we are inactive and he's got questions about evolution. I'm like, no, this is not okay. This isn't okay. And so anyway, fast forward. He finishes school at record time and ended up getting a job and we moved to Florida. He was, was the first animal nutritionist at Busch Gardens down there. And so we moved to Florida, the Tampa area. And that's where he actually began his career was as an animal nutritionist there.

Myndee Tollefson [02:44:24] And all of a sudden we were in a ward that needed us. This, we like the third Sunday we lived there, we're dressed, we have the kids in the, in the car and we're on our way driving to church and I just looked over and I'm like, so we're doing this, huh? And he's like, like, I guess we're doing this. He was called into the Elders Corn Presidency almost immediately.

Myndee Tollefson [02:44:45] A new ward was built, was established. I, I mean within a couple, I want to say, the first month, even while we were there. And he was called as into the Elders Corn Presidency. I was called into the Relief Society Presidency. And we just went all in, all in. At that point in time we needed a recommend, so our tithing went back up to it. You know, we were finally getting more than $17,000 a year in student loans. You know, I mean, we finally were able to be on our feet, live in the grown up life. And we felt needed and we made these friends and had this beautiful family.

Myndee Tollefson [02:45:20] He served in the bishopric twice. I served as primary president, Young Women's President, Relief Society Presidency. He was a high counselor. So we lived there for seven years and we worked in every single auxiliary in all the leadership positions, you know,

John Dehlin [02:45:34] so, so you ended up behaving in the exact, in the exact ways the church would have wanted you to behave. My two, for the benefit of the church.

Myndee Tollefson [02:45:44] Yep. My two daughters got baptized. My, our oldest raised daughter, we remember the other day that she was the first baptized in this new ward building that we got and we had this badge of honor, you know, and, and made some incredibly beautiful friends in this ward. I mean this, this family. So it's just this beautiful life, you know, I mean, I was room mom. I was, I was running half marathons. I was healthier than I've ever been. The kids are happy, the sun's shining. I mean it really is just like living the dream at that point in time, you know, and I'm getting all these exposures of all these different people in the world, my worldview is adapting and changing.

Myndee Tollefson [02:46:21] I lived there during the Obama and Romney election and so the, this pride of being Mormon was just people would ask are you Mormon? And yeah, I am. You know, I mean I was so proud to be a Romney supporter there, but still had friends that were Obama supporters and have great conversations, you know. And I just, my worldview just really, really expanded by living there.

John Dehlin [02:46:44] Do you feel like. Go ahead.

Open Adoption Relationship Over the Years

Margi Dehlin [02:46:45] Can I ask you a couple quick questions about this time? So the first being so now with regard to your daughter that you've given up for are you. Is she integrated? Do you. Is she talked about. Is she okay, so she is now integrated. Like did it ever come up in. Did you serve in young women's? Like did you ever integrate anything and try to have it be self faith promoting or okay, so. So sometimes there was some integrated because the last kind of thing you said was it was in a box. And then once a year that grieving. It sounds like during this part over time did you feel like she was part of your life? You. You integrated more fully.

Myndee Tollefson [02:47:34] So I felt more like I was distancing myself from her and just pouring myself into my other little girls.

Margi Dehlin [02:47:39] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [02:47:39] So that's. But they were always aware of her. There was never a time that they remember just hearing about her. Right. So when, when they were younger, I would pull the box out and I'd show them the pictures. Mommy had a baby I see before gave her to another family. So it just really became like they just don't remember not knowing. And my cute youngest had this little phase of life that she thought it was so cool that she had a long lost sister. And so she would like tell everybody that she knew that they, that she had a long lost sister.

Margi Dehlin [02:48:09] Okay, thank you for that. Just wanted to kind of clarify and

Myndee Tollefson [02:48:12] I did like some. I loved teaching in church. That was my very favorite calling. And so sometime times I would integrate it in. When I was Young Women's president, I, I don't remember which direction I chose to go with it, but I do remember having trying to decide if I was going to talk to these girls about it because I only had eight girls when I was in Young Women's and so it was a very, very close relationship. And I really felt like this is where start. Some of my nuance started coming was when I was Young women's president and I got to see their needs and kind of cater the lessons more to them.

Myndee Tollefson [02:48:45] And the, the most radical thing I did in all of this. And this was, you know, towards our end, towards the end of our time, there is. They did girls camp on spring break and none of my girls wanted to go. The, my four oldest ones were seniors. And then I had my daughter and one girl wanted to go, one of the eight. And of them didn't have a conflict, but she knew that she wasn't going to go and my daughter didn't go. We did all kinds of fun things on spring break, right? And so I'm like, I don't want to go to. I don't want to do this girls camp.

Myndee Tollefson [02:49:18] And so I went to the bishop and said, none of my girls want to do girls camp. Do you? Are you cool if I don't do it? And he's like, yeah, I don't care. He was very, very good friends with us. And he, he's like, yeah, if they don't want to go, I don't see the point of doing all of that. Well, I got fully rebuked by the stake young woman's president, like pulled me into the primary room and was like, how dare you take this opportunity away, away from the girls? And I'm like, well, number one, it's one girl we're talking about. And, and my daughter and I would have to find a babysitter for my other daughter to be able to go to this because she's not there.

Myndee Tollefson [02:49:53] And I. And so she spends her, her spring break where, you know, and my family is my highest priority. And she was mad at me that I put my family and the needs of those girls above what the church was doing. And it was a pretty proud moment for me, like, but I was scared to death, Mike. I came out, my hands are shaking. I'm like, why is this woman having that effect on me? Because you respect authority, you know, because in the church you respect authority.

Myndee Tollefson [02:50:17] So another thing that happened while we were there is one of my very dearest friends in the church. She was my kids primary president. She left the church violently, like almost aggressively that she was posting. Like she went conspiracy theory down to Illuminati. And you know, I mean, she went, went deep and dark and.

Myndee Tollefson [02:50:39] But I, I was very, very close friends with her. And I kept saying, you know, I mean, you need to, if you want to have, maintain any of these relationships, please stop, please stop, you know, whatever. And one by one, everybody stopped unfriending her on Facebook. And this is like 2012 at this point in time. And so Facebook isn't that popular, but still around. And you have.

John Dehlin [02:50:59] She Was unfriended on.

Myndee Tollefson [02:51:01] On Facebook by everybody except performance. Yeah, except me and a couple. But eventually it became just by. I was the only one that didn't unfriend her. And so she and I had this moment. Like, I, I finally was like, you know what, let's just sit down. I want you to tell me all the things. Right. And she showed up with like a stack of papers like this thick and just started going and was like this.

Margi Dehlin [02:51:21] She.

Myndee Tollefson [02:51:21] I love her because she just doesn't ever stop talking and she's fun to listen to. But it's probably three hours of into our five hour conversation that I finally like, like started talking to her and she told me about the CES letter, she told me about Mormon stories. She told me sent me to Fair Mormon all the resources that were available in 2012 back then. You know, I mean this would have

John Dehlin [02:51:44] been, I think CS letter came out in 2013, so around 2013, 2014. Okay, so maybe it wasn't not to, not to nitpick.

Myndee Tollefson [02:51:53] Yeah, I remember something.

John Dehlin [02:51:55] Mormon stories was around in 2012.

Myndee Tollefson [02:51:57] Yeah. I didn't listen then, but it was. I read. Read some document that felt similar to.

John Dehlin [02:52:02] Okay, maybe it was a precursor to the CS that was up on Reddit before it.

Myndee Tollefson [02:52:06] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:52:06] Was released.

Myndee Tollefson [02:52:07] Yeah, it might have been something like that because I remember going through and giving all the apologetic answers that I just skimmed through and I was like, this is bull, you know, whatever. And then Mormon stories was, well, that was bad. That was bad stuff.

John Dehlin [02:52:20] I was still a member. I know, in good standing.

Myndee Tollefson [02:52:22] That's why she told me about it too, is because she was like, no, this guy's feeling faith promoting. Like, go, listen, go read Fair Mormon, go. You know, whatever. And I said, I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole, you know, and so that was kind of. And the things, because she had gone so extreme, the things that she was bringing up felt extreme too, you know, that it's like, if you're willing to talk about Illuminati, well then what you're having to tell me about Joseph Smith is just as crazy, you know, and nothing that she told me felt surprising to me at that point in time.

Myndee Tollefson [02:52:52] And it just felt like, like, you know, whatever. Poor Heather. Let's, you know, let's pray for her, you know, kind of a thing. And she went to the ultra conservative and I, I did talk to her before coming today and she's, she's like, please tell our story. It's so funny, you know, going into it. And so Anyway, fast forward 2014, we moved back to Utah.

Myndee Tollefson [02:53:15] It was, you know, I just felt like our girls needed a better schooling than what, what there was in Florida. The school, schools there were kind of scary and rough for them. And so I loved my upbringing here. I wanted them to have relationships with their cousins and aunts and uncles and, you know, whatever. And so we ended up moving back here 2014, and the same friend and I would get into arguments on, on Facebook on like Deseret news articles or KSL articles or whatever if I'd see her comment. And then we would just go back and forth. And I'm pretty sure one of them was your excommunication actually, which is kind of funny now to go back.

Myndee Tollefson [02:53:52] We were thinking through and I'm like, I am pretty sure that that was part of one of our dialects. It would be fun to go back and actually see it. And I mean they would go on and on and on and we would just write whatever. But still, like, I loved her dearly, she loved me dearly. And, and, and she planted seeds more and more and more because I did respect her. But it still was just like, oh, Heather's just being cursed crazy, you know, kind of a thing. So that was kind of a foundation for, you know, what was to come too. Just a funny little anecdote of it.

Myndee Tollefson [02:54:22] But. So 2016 happens and it's July. Oh look, I'm not even using my notes very much. Okay, so July 19, 2016. My girls have always known about their sister that's out there. Most of my nieces and nephews don't know know my siblings decided they didn't want me telling their, their kids about it. They didn't want to tarnish their view of me. And little by little, one or two found out about, about her, but it was about preserving my image. I was the favorite aunt and they didn't want to harm me. And again, it just, it just leads to the shame of it and that it's a hidden secret, don't tell anybody kind of a thing thing. So do you feel like you had

John Dehlin [02:55:11] left the Scarlet letter behind?

Myndee Tollefson [02:55:12] No.

John Dehlin [02:55:13] At that point?

Myndee Tollefson [02:55:13] No.

John Dehlin [02:55:14] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [02:55:14] No Scarlet.

John Dehlin [02:55:15] No.

Myndee Tollefson [02:55:15] Never left. It's.

John Dehlin [02:55:16] It's kind of like you were released. Study president, Young women's like you were all the callings.

Margi Dehlin [02:55:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:55:20] You were hyper performing, but you didn't feel like you left to be hint.

Myndee Tollefson [02:55:25] No. It was always there with me because it's the secret you can't talk about. It's always there. I'm not going to forget my daughter and so my daughter is a scarlet letter, you know, and Dirty little secret. Yeah. Oh, prior to. Sorry, I. This is an important piece, too. So on. On her 18th birthday, we still live in Florida, which is not relevant necessarily, but on her 18th birthday, I knew that we both knew that that's when we could find each other if we wanted to. That's what it was told. And so I was told to call the Seattle LDS Social Services. And so I called there, and it was actually my.

John Dehlin [02:56:02] My.

Myndee Tollefson [02:56:02] My social worker that I had had, and she remembered me, and she was like, oh, my gosh, I forgot your. Your dad was an institute teacher. Teacher. I remember your story so, so well. And she. We don't have an answer for this, but she did say to me, she said, I. I'm pretty sure that the adoptive mom called and was wondering about reunion for you, and I wouldn't be surprised if you hear from her soon. And I was like, oh, my gosh, that's amazing. You know, that would be amazing. And then all of a sudden, it's reality for my little girl. And. And I go home, or I don't.

Myndee Tollefson [02:56:34] I guess I am home, that I have a conversation with them. I'm now open to be found. I've gone to. They told me to go to like, adoption.org and put my information in there that says, hi, I'm here. I'm ready. Right. And I'm under the assumption that this is just a universal platform for how they advise people to go to. Because it's. Any adoption can go to adoption.org. so I just filled out a profile. I put her date of birth, her location, and you know what my name was. I knew that she knew that my name was Melinda.

Myndee Tollefson [02:57:05] I. I didn't do Mindy at all with that, just my. My given name. And so I just left it at that and was like, okay, well, she'll find me when she wants to find me. Unbedon to me. That phone call.

Myndee Tollefson [02:57:20] Maybe I'll tell that in a little bit. I'll tell that in a little bit. I'll come back to that one. So that was my path of. Of getting there. Of being found. So January 19, 2016, I wake up from my phone and it says that you have a message request from a Kennedy. And I knew that my social worker had told me that her name was Kennedy. And.

Daughter Kennedy Reaches Out

Myndee Tollefson [02:57:42] And it's. I open up the message, I'm looking at her cute picture, and it says, did you by chance give a child up for adoption with her birth date? And I'm like, In, in Seattle. And just my stomach drops and I'm like, is this actually her? Well, I was carpool for taking my kids to lagoon, and my year old yells up and is like, mom, are you ready? And I'm like, I need a minute, please. Like, hold on a second. So I do a deep dive into her, and I see my daughter for the first time. And she's standing. It's a picture that she, she's there, she's holding this newborn baby and a little toddler by her side.

Myndee Tollefson [02:58:17] And I'm looking at her and I'm like, is that her? Is that actually her? Because without meaning to, you create an image of what there, what she is, right? And she did for me too. You don't mean to, but it happens. And so I'm like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I need to get her out to get these kids to the lagoon. And I. Troy travels a lot, and I swear to you, all the big things happen when he's out of town. It is, it just happens. Yeah. And this one, he's at this conference and I don't ever call him during conferences.

Myndee Tollefson [02:58:51] I'll just send him a text and say, you know, if there's something, give me a call when you get a sec. Well, I called them and I left a message, and so he knows that this is a big deal. And so I get the kids loaded up and on my way to the, to lagoon, and he calls me and I'm like, I can't talk really, but 1994.

Myndee Tollefson [02:59:10] And he was like, what? And I'm like, yeah, I got a message. Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. And I'm like, I'll call you in 10 minutes after, you know, I drop you off kind of a thing. And he call back and he's like, what are you going to do? And I'm like, well, I'm messaging her back. I don't know what to do. And he's like, I'm getting on a plane right now. You know, I'm leaving the conference. I, I, I will get home tomorrow. So I message her back. She lives 90 minutes from me. She's lived now, remember I lived in Washington. I placed her when I placed her, they lived in Virginia.

Myndee Tollefson [02:59:40] I've since moved to Florida. And we live 90 minutes away from each other right now. And we. It's so fun to go back and look at our messages because it's like, hi, did you place a baby? And I'm like, yes, I Did on this date of birth. Is that you? She's like, yes, it is. Oh, my gosh. And then the exclamation points just keep getting more and more. It's like, oh, my gosh. By the end. And so, you know, we're chatting about

John Dehlin [03:00:00] it, and she lived 90 minutes from salt Lake.

Myndee Tollefson [03:00:03] From. Yeah, from Salt Lake Farm. Yeah, Salt Lake, Farmington area. Yeah. And so she's like, oh, we were gonna make a trek to Cabela's. I think she said, this weekend. And I'm like, okay, I don't know if I can wait till this weekend. So. And then she's like, how about tonight? And I'm like, on my way. And so I called Troy and told him my girls were out playing with friends, and so I called them home, and I was like, she found me, you guys. Your sister found me. She's got two babies. I don't know what's happening, but I'm gonna go up there. And they're like, oh, my gosh.

Myndee Tollefson [03:00:33] They were so excited about it. And my sister, I had called her, one of my sisters that lived here at the time, and she's like, I'm taking anyway. I'm like, I don't know. I can drive it. Thank goodness she had the foresight, because that was smart of her.

Myndee Tollefson [03:00:48] After I called Troy and I knew he wasn't getting home until the next day at best. Right. He still had to book flights and whatever. I'm like, I need a blessing before I go up to this. So I called my brother that lived locally and went over to his house, and he gave me the most beautiful blessing that I've ever received. And that still, to this day, is a little bit hard for me to reconcile, because it was the power of the priesthood at that moment. And that's one of those moments that I'm like, I don't have an answer for that. And it just felt the narrative worked around that one.

Myndee Tollefson [03:01:19] Right? But one of the things that he said was that she needs me in her life right now, and that this is going to be challenging and cling to the church is basically what it was. And I was like, all right, roll up your sleeves. Here we go kind of a thing. And so I'm telling you, that was the longest 90 minutes. Minutes of my entire life. The whole time, the flood of emotions is, is she gonna like me? Is she mad at me? Am I gonna recognize her? Am I going to, you know, what is this going to look like? I'm panicked. I'm like, what if?

Myndee Tollefson [03:01:49] What if what if. What? What if, you know, and my sister and my sister in law ended up coming to my brother's wife. And so they're just talking about whatever and I'm just wanting them to just shut up. I just. This is so big. You don't even know know. And so we pulled up to.

Myndee Tollefson [03:02:10] Sorry, we pulled up to her cute little house and like this moment of like, my daughter's right in there. This is my daughter. What if it's not her? What if this is a bad joke, right? What if this is, I mean, your brain's just going crazy and finally just jumped out of the car. And the depth of the motion of sending her away is only equal to, to the moment she opened that door.

Myndee Tollefson [03:02:34] And the overwhelming of like our souls recognized each other again. This was a soul connection again. And it was crazy. Our, the way our voices sound the same, the inflections are the same. We talk with our hands. As I'm sitting here doing this whole thing, we talk with our hands the same. She had never seen anybody in her life that mirrored her energy and enthusiasm and, you know, facial expressions and just, just this immediate of like there was just instant connection. There was none of those feelings. And I just said, I, if you have questions, I've got answers. She's like, I don't have any questions.

Myndee Tollefson [03:03:11] I don't have any. And I'm like, okay, you understand. I mean, this was whatever. And then the first question out of my mouth was, how do your parents feel about it? And she goes, so the dad left when I was nine months old.

Myndee Tollefson [03:03:25] What? Left when you were nine months old? This was a temple worthy couple. What do you mean left when you were nine months old? Okay, okay, moving on. Okay. There's explanations for this, you know, like, okay, that's a lot. And I said, well, what about your mom? And she's like, it's complicated.

Myndee Tollefson [03:03:42] This isn't what I want to hear. You know, this is not what I want to hear. I want to hear that she's supportive or that she's having hard time or, you know, let's just smooth this over. Like, I am, like I'm here.

John Dehlin [03:03:52] How about that? She had an amazing, amazing, perfect Mormon mom.

Myndee Tollefson [03:03:55] That would have been great too. That would have been really amazing.

Margi Dehlin [03:03:59] Like, dad left, can't control everything. But mom was really amazing. Childhood was amazing.

Myndee Tollefson [03:04:05] Right, right. But the thing to, to come back to, to remember is adoptions are final at six months. He was gone by nine months, 10 months at the latest. So make your inferences from that, you know, I don't. There's nothing to.

John Dehlin [03:04:20] So that maybe just in theorizing he stayed around so that the adoption could happen. So possibly. And you're not saying this. I'm speculating. One possibility is that the adoption system could have been manipulated.

Myndee Tollefson [03:04:36] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:04:37] So that this woman could have a child.

Myndee Tollefson [03:04:39] Oh, I see. Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:04:40] And that speculation. We'll see.

Myndee Tollefson [03:04:42] Speculation I do have from a credible source and again as speculation. Whatever. But a credible source has told us since then that adoption or I'm sorry, divorce papers were drawn up when they received my daughter. And so the divorce was in the works. All of us know that divorces don't happen in nine months. That they're brewing. They're brewing. And at a minimum, a bishop should have known.

John Dehlin [03:05:06] Well, Utah has laws about wait times.

Myndee Tollefson [03:05:10] You know, I don't believe they lived in Utah at that time because it was so shortly after the adoption. So like.

Margi Dehlin [03:05:17] So did your brain immediately go back to your memory also and remembering he didn't come.

Myndee Tollefson [03:05:22] Yeah, that one took me a minute. That one took me away. What?

John Dehlin [03:05:26] Good point.

Myndee Tollefson [03:05:26] What followed? Yeah, it did, but it took me a minute because it basically was just this fire hose of neat of information to process to make a 180.

Margi Dehlin [03:05:35] Got it. It kind of like you were in one reality and it created another one in that.

Myndee Tollefson [03:05:41] Yeah. And I literally needed to 180 everything. And it took. I mean it. Even still it's fire hose information. Like I'm trying to understand 21 years of not being anything that I was told that it was like the opposite of what I told it was. Was told it was.

John Dehlin [03:05:57] And even if these adoptive parents operated 100 in good faith with full honesty, you still want to know that your sacrifice went towards the then your daughter getting the best possible right upbringing.

Myndee Tollefson [03:06:11] Right.

John Dehlin [03:06:12] Even if that's not totally fair, it's still what you would have hoped for and wanted.

Kennedy's Troubled Teen Facility Experiences

Myndee Tollefson [03:06:17] The next day I found out that from the age of 14 to 17 she lived in. She was part of the abuse, abusive, trouble teen industry. She was in not one, but two separate facilities from 14 to 17 years old with extreme abuse happening to her during that time.

John Dehlin [03:06:35] So these are those Utah troubled teen wilderness survival wasn't wilderness.

Myndee Tollefson [03:06:39] Both of her were like just facilities. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:06:43] Where they're almost imprisoned and kidnapped.

Myndee Tollefson [03:06:45] She was in solitary confinement for having runaway plans. Oh, she. I mean, so just for chrono chronological purposes with just a couple of her stories that she shared with me.

Margi Dehlin [03:06:59] And these are, did she share these things that initial meeting or she was after.

Myndee Tollefson [03:07:05] She did her best to Just God to just gently ease you in. Ease me in. But you know, I'm asking. Tell me about your high school years. Well, actually, I didn't live at home. Oh. Actually I left home when I was 17. Her oldest daughter, she was pregnant at 18. So we can go back to her trying to find me. And she was pregnant. And so she was trying to find me. She went to LDS social services and they had told her to go to some other random website that she. She went on and waited for me.

John Dehlin [03:07:39] So you would have never probably known.

Myndee Tollefson [03:07:41] I still can't remember the name. She can't remember the name of it at this point in time. And you would think that the, the church would have something consistently of how to create reunions, right? Nope. Two random places that we both just sat and twiddled our thumbs. And thank goodness she is an incredible investigator because she ended up messaging all over Facebook. Anybody with the name of Linda that could be roughly around my child, 10, 15 year age range, and just messaged them.

Myndee Tollefson [03:08:09] I mean, just like she did me. Did you give a baby for adoption? I mean, she can't even remember how many people she. She messaged to try and find. I know, she's amazing. She is an incredible soul. She found one woman that said, it's not me, but I have access to some records. And so she kind of helped facilitate that and then was able to open up her sealed records, find my last name, and was shocked to find that I lived 90 minutes from her too. You know, I mean, that it was just this, oh my gosh, this is real kind of a thing. And I mean, when I watched through that front door, or even, maybe even back to when I found that message, both of us went trauma state.

Myndee Tollefson [03:08:46] You know, I mean, our brains are not working. Working from a very logical standpoint at this point in time. Then add to it this fire hose of information that I, I am doing my best to, to, to gather information. And I'm like, it's just. Some of it is just too sick to remember, you know, and she'll tell me something again now. And I'm like, what? I mean, we just had one last night that she. As I was talking through and talking through these stories and like, I want to make sure we're. I'm telling only your facts right? Because I don't want to be.

Margi Dehlin [03:09:16] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:09:17] Disparaging to anybody involved. There's always two sides of a story and there's always usually something in the middle of this. And so I'm, I'm just going to retell you some of her stories from her experiences. So the first, I mean, she had lots of caregivers obviously, because there was no husband at home. And so I could have been a mom in that situation. I could have had caregivers. Right.

Myndee Tollefson [03:09:41] At 6 or 7 years old, she learned what sex was and she started telling all of her friends that she had had sex with a 16 year old. And as her teachers at school were con, they're justifiedly concerned about this because that is sexual assault. When they called the mother or the adoptive mother, she came to the school and as they left the school she said, let's see, here's the quote. You can't be telling people that because what will they think of me as a mom?

Myndee Tollefson [03:10:12] And then it was buried. So her 6 year old daughter, 6, 7 year old daughter is telling her she was sexually assaulted. And she told her, you can't say that. That's not, that's not cool. That makes me look bad the next year. And when we go through all of my.

Myndee Tollefson [03:10:28] These are, this is part of the lies that were in these letters that I had received ahead of time in the profiles that I had received, that, that this woman was a school teacher. She was not a school teacher. She had gone on to a very high demanding job of stature and money and power and gone from home all the time. And so she had this plethora of caregivers. I don't know why it says over and over that she's a teacher in there. She probably could have been a teacher, I don't know. But there's no mention of changing career paths that, that is in this. None.

John Dehlin [03:11:07] If this, if, if this couple was in Virginia, did you say, at the time of the adoption? Do can we find out if they, I mean, would it make sense to find out if they were in grad school at the time?

Myndee Tollefson [03:11:18] They were. They were.

John Dehlin [03:11:20] So the mom might have been in grad school at the time.

Myndee Tollefson [03:11:22] Mom. I would, I would speculate that mom was in the career path that she went to. And I, it's pretty confirmed that that's the case and it was not mentioned in this. And it would have made a difference. Difference.

John Dehlin [03:11:35] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:11:36] I would not have adopted out to what that career path was.

John Dehlin [03:11:39] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [03:11:40] Because I was searching for mostly at home, stay at home.

John Dehlin [03:11:44] So if the mom was in law school or med school or, you know, PhD school.

Myndee Tollefson [03:11:50] Right.

John Dehlin [03:11:50] And you had known that.

Myndee Tollefson [03:11:51] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:11:52] You would not have approved it?

Myndee Tollefson [03:11:54] Not a chance.

John Dehlin [03:11:54] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:11:55] Not a chance in the world. I was told that she was going to always know that she was adopted. That the quilt that I was giving her was going to be for her. I had sent her letters. Nothing.

John Dehlin [03:12:08] So what did come of that?

Myndee Tollefson [03:12:11] When she was in second grade, she somehow. She doesn't remember how, but she did find out that she was adopted. And she didn't think bad or good about it, you know, just that it was. And she was kind of excited again, kind of like, my youngest, like, oh, I have a. A secret half sister. And so she. She's, you know, like, oh, I'm adopted. This is kind of a cool thing. So she told her whole class in the cutest way that she was allotted, which is like the cutest little story. Right. The next day, she had the woman by her side holding her hand while she had to tell the whole class that it was a lie, that she wasn't all opted.

John Dehlin [03:12:46] So the adopted mom forced the adopted child to tell her kindergarten class that she lied that she wasn't adopted when she was.

Myndee Tollefson [03:12:56] Yeah, yeah. Second grade, I think, is when. When it was. But at any rate, same. Same.

John Dehlin [03:13:01] What about the quilt?

Myndee Tollefson [03:13:03] She saw it one time in a chest and asked her about it, and it disappeared after that. I went. We actually just were talking last night about any of the other gifts that I gave her. I gave her some little figurines that she had, and she was like, oh, my gosh, I did have those. Those. And she said, I had no idea they were from you. And it would have made the world of difference to know that you had given me those. Never received a single letter that I.

Myndee Tollefson [03:13:33] Let me rephrase that. She is quite certain she never received a letter because she has a memory of having one later in life. But she. She can't say 100 sure that she didn't receive letters. And so. But she doesn't feel like she received letters. And if she did, they were not significant to her. Knowing her and knowing how she felt, it would have been significant if she had received them for how she was. You know, I mean, later when she started going through a lot of the other things, one of her friends reminded her that I cry on this one. That she loved her belly button because it was her last connection to me and that it was the source of food.

Myndee Tollefson [03:14:09] And so that was always a very special thing for me. So she felt that way about her belly button. Had she had a letter or any of these things, she would have cherished them. And that was hard for her to actually even hear that those little figures were from me. And she wasn't told that at all. So the Fact that she would be a proud adoptee was a lie that didn't exist in there either.

Myndee Tollefson [03:14:37] So let's see this. She just kind of lived in a life of uncertainty, of hot and cold unpredictability, eggshells, not sure. You know, I mean, kind of chasing the good mom and never knowing if the bad mom was going to show up kind of a thing. You know, I mean, one of. One of those kinds of situations.

Myndee Tollefson [03:14:58] When she got to 14 years old, she ran away. She had run away two separate times, but. But this time she ran away for two weeks. And she made her. Made her way during that two weeks from where she lived 90 minutes away to actually Centerville. And we didn't live in Utah at the time, but I had lots of family actually in the Centerville area. And we both kind of love to speculate that Centerville always did feel safe to her. She had an aunt that lived there, but that maybe our love was, you know, felt like it was present there too. It's a fun thought to think.

Myndee Tollefson [03:15:37] Think about. But she was caught for whatever circumstances from having been gone for two weeks. And as a parent, I'm thinking of that moment of like, oh my gosh, my daughter's been found. Right? And I can only imagine I would have been in the car trying to get there. She was sent to Farmington Detention center at that point in time. And the mother didn't show up. Up. And then she was transferred to her local police station.

Myndee Tollefson [03:16:08] The mother didn't show up, nothing. And she realized just recently that that was probably the last day she received a hug for at least a year. Any physical contact was that day. They told her at the police station that they were going to send her to one of these residential treatment facilities. And I don't remember who the guy was that told her, but basically like, get ready, these things don't work. This is going to be hard for you.

Myndee Tollefson [03:16:34] And knowing the one that she was going to as well. And she said the two Samoan guys came in to kidnap her as they did for these little trouble team things. She came out in between them. And that's the first time that she saw the mother right then. And she.

Myndee Tollefson [03:16:52] My. It was the first time my daughter ever told her off, ever. And. And when she, when she talks about her childhood up until that point, it took me a long time to actually believe her that she was literally doing nothing abnormal. Like she wasn't. She had. Had run away in these couple of stints, but there was no drugs, there was no what. You know, there Was nothing that was like beyond just normal teenage stuff, you know. And so she was sent to this first facility. She was there for about a month. And the heartbreaking thing about that is she was about less than a mile from my sister.

Myndee Tollefson [03:17:34] And my sister would actually would park in the parking lot of the facility she was at to go walk on a trail like three or four times a week.

Margi Dehlin [03:17:42] That's wild.

Myndee Tollefson [03:17:43] She was that close to the family. So she's gone for two weeks, she's in this facility and. And they are in the stalls with you while you're going to the bathroom. For a 14 year old child, she has to watch, they have to watch 100 of the time.

Myndee Tollefson [03:17:58] She ended up with gastro, gastroparesis, meaning like her entire inside shut down because she was so embarrassed to poop in front of anybody and ended up in the hospital for about, she thinks a month, but was in and out. She had a lot of other complications that came from that.

Myndee Tollefson [03:18:17] Plural, a pe. Plural infusion. Just a lot of health things that just really came from this one episode. Once she got healed from that, she went to another residential treatment facility that happened to be closer to where she was from. And so the mother had more influence on how that could actually happen. Usually they wanted to, the, the goal was to send your kid away. She wanted to, to speculatively keep her closer so she could have more influence on what would actually go down in that experience while she was there.

John Dehlin [03:18:51] And is it safe to say that during the time your daughter is sent off to these residential treatment facilities that this mother, the adoption mom, is a well known, upstanding, affluent, prominent member of, of their community?

Myndee Tollefson [03:19:10] Yeah, she has a lot of influence in that community. And so, yes, very much so. And that nobody even knew that she was gone. Like even her closest aunt didn't know that she was in these facilities. They told her that she had gone to live with, I think even the adoptive father and she had lived with him for a short period of time when things started to get rough, but not anything.

Myndee Tollefson [03:19:35] She's like, if you count up the amount of time that he was in my life, it was probably a year and a half total that he had any influence in my life, you know, and so she'd gone there. I think that's where they told, where she had told people where she was. They, she didn't even say that she was at a, at these residential treatment facilities. But I mean the stories that you've heard about those places are real. And like she did go in solitary confinement for a Month by herself at one point in time for having runaway plans. She spent a great. She said one of the times was a six month stint of being in like a detention where they literally could just sit at a desk for.

Myndee Tollefson [03:20:11] And have 20 minutes of school time and go to the bathroom every three to four hours. And they couldn't talk, they couldn't even cross their legs. They had to sit straight legged like this for the entire day just. And got in there for passing a note or giving high five like no physical contact whatsoever. I mean and you think about these poor kids and I mean those are the most formative years of how are you going to become an adult? This is when you need to learn all of these things and they are just trapped, trapped in these facilities.

John Dehlin [03:20:41] So a lot of these have been shut down because of abuse and investigations. We did one, we interviewed a victim of these residential treatment facilities for teens where all she did was have premarital sex and her, she was kidnapped with the consent of her parents, taken to these facilities and for months was treated like a prisoner.

Myndee Tollefson [03:21:04] Yeah, yeah. And it literally was a prison. I mean that they are locking the doors so they have no access. Access to in n out. And hers was an all girls one. And so they, they had like a tangent boys one that sometimes they would get to see each other, but I mean just complete lockdown. And what was available to them was even more shocking. Like they couldn't have electric toothbrush brushes because heaven forbid you masturbate with your toothbrush. You know, I mean razors were off the table, you know, and, and ironically

John Dehlin [03:21:36] the Mormon Church in Utah has a history of referring.

Myndee Tollefson [03:21:40] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:21:40] Troubled teens to these facilities.

Myndee Tollefson [03:21:43] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:21:43] So they were eager to take your child away from you when it was born and then likely were. I don't know if, if your daughter was raised LDS or not.

Myndee Tollefson [03:21:53] Yeah, I mean kind of. Yeah. Is.

John Dehlin [03:21:55] But, but in scenarios like this, the church would have also been eager.

Myndee Tollefson [03:22:00] Yes.

John Dehlin [03:22:00] To refer a quote, troubled teen away from the parents to these facilities.

Myndee Tollefson [03:22:07] Yeah. And, and, and, and again. And being fair, sending her to the first facility actually does make sense to me given the time, given the resources that were available at that time. If your kid, in that time period, if your kid ran away, it was, it was normal rhetoric to send them to somebody else, defer the parenting to somebody else that can do better. Right. So that one actually does make sense to me for her to have gone there. But to get that kind of a medical condition, it should have been an alarm, you know, that your daughter didn't poop for a month. And this is causing her to shut down inside.

Myndee Tollefson [03:22:40] This is not a good situation. And moving her to a different facility is not a better situation. You know, I mean, and it ended up being a worse facility at that too. And were lawsuits about from this facility too? I do think it's still operational, but there, I mean, they were part of this whole process too, what was going on with it. So, yeah, I mean, and little things like she just wasn't even taught basic grooming skills when she first met me. She was like, oh my gosh. My husband's. She was married. She's like, my husband's so ocd. He showers every day. And I'm like, most people shower every day.

Myndee Tollefson [03:23:14] And she's like, no, no, no, no. Like, he showers every day. Like, yeah, that's a normal thing. And she thought it was like normal to shower once a week kind of a thing. Just, I mean, basic things. Her clothes never fit her, her shoes never fit her. And it wasn't for lack of money. They had plenty of money because this woman was very, very professional. And so, I mean, just really subpar, basic needs weren't even being taught. And she did learn some of them when she was in these programs too. But I mean, she's learning them at those most critical years. I mean, 14. I mean, the difference between an 11 year old and a 15 year old and grooming is pretty significant, you know, and so she's learning these in that facility.

Myndee Tollefson [03:23:52] And you know, the life skills that she was denied learning by being in those facilities is. Is still haunting her today. You know, I mean, she's amazing and she is really, I mean, she is the scrappiest person I've ever met in my life. But she's had to be, you know, I mean, that's a trauma response from her is to be that way. So, yeah, let's see where we're at.

John Dehlin [03:24:15] Two quick things that I noticed. Number one is that. If you think about it like, okay, imagine a birth mom who is super poor, no education, no supportive family system, who lives in an unsafe community, and there's no way they could support themselves, let alone a child, right? But who wants to keep the kid? Okay, I can see a scenario where it's like, hey, I know you want to keep this kid, but there's literally, it's impossible for you to provide for the kid.

Myndee Tollefson [03:25:01] Right?

John Dehlin [03:25:02] I'm just not seeing that in your scenario. Your parents, your dad works for the church. Your parents are at least middle class, if not upper middle class, by the point that you're having a kid.

Myndee Tollefson [03:25:13] Yeah, I'm smart.

John Dehlin [03:25:14] Like I can fit. You have a good education. You have a good high school diploma. You're dating.

Myndee Tollefson [03:25:22] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:25:22] You're even living the church's standards, you know, with a, with the mess up. Why in the world could you not, with your parents support, have had that baby, kept the baby, and then with your parents support and, and ward, heaven forbid, ward support, Relief society support. You're connected to a thriving, healthy religious community. Why in the world could you not have had the baby, kept the baby between your family, you and the ward, taking care of that baby to the point where you could date, fall in love with your future husband, get married and then live happily. Okay, the kid didn't have a dad in the home for a year, year and a half.

Margi Dehlin [03:26:03] Right.

John Dehlin [03:26:03] But he had a grandpa and a grandma and the guy. Yeah, yeah. Like why, why in the world would the church not choose that scenario versus pressure you to get rid of the kid and then throw them into a super questionable environment that ended up being very traumatic, sounding nightmarish along with the trauma of all the displacement.

Myndee Tollefson [03:26:29] Right? Because part of the deal with an adopted child, when you, when you're parenting an adopted. Adopted child properly, you recognize that they're going to have attachment issues and you spend your life working on those attachment issues because that is the primary thing that you know about these. No, this woman did not do that. In fact, one of the times that. So she had a, A, a minute that she got out of the, the, the main facility that she was in that she had done enough things. Things to, to cross the T's and dot the eyes kind of a thing. So she got out for a minute and she had gone, gone to a friend's house, I think it was a guy even, and fallen asleep until 4 in the morning.

Myndee Tollefson [03:27:11] She's 17. This is a normal thing teenagers do. Right? I, I would be upset as a parent. That's what we do. But kids do those kinds of stupid things. Instead of handling it like a way. That is a good parenting. She loaded her up in the car, took her without saying a single word, drove her back over to the facility again, this is local now. And so she's right there.

Myndee Tollefson [03:27:33] Said that they were going in for a therapy session, walked her into the office of the, the counselor that was there and made some excuse about I'm gonna go get something in the car. And disappeared. The guy didn't even know that she was coming and dropping her off. There was no intake anything. She literally just dropped her off and walked away with. Without what it is for an adopted child.

Myndee Tollefson [03:27:55] I mean, I can't even comprehend what that felt like to her, to be abandoned by the one person that was supposed to show up for you. And, I mean, and for every story that I'm telling you, there's 10,000 more, you know, I mean, when she's talking about these minor infractions that she's doing, and I'm a terrible person because. Da, da, da, da, da, da, da. And it's just. She's just a big personality. She's animated. She's bubb. She's. I mean, she's fun. She laughs loud. I say loud laughter now, because that's my favorite. We can get rid of that from the temple. But I mean, she's.

Myndee Tollefson [03:28:29] She's animated. She's. She's all of these things and. And having to put into this little box, you know, and of course, she felt confined with it, and she's a teenager, you know, and so she just. I mean, these journals were just dark, dark, dark. And I.

Myndee Tollefson [03:28:46] I haven't been able to go with. Go through with. With her again. I mean, this was really pretty early on. It was probably within the first six months, and it was. It wasn't until I saw those that I fully believed how bad it actually was, you know, because, again, I wanted to be fair to the adoptive mom and be like, I mean, you were a teenager. Did you really know, you know, that kind of a thing? And we had one conversation that I did meet up with her one time after Kennedy found me, and I wanted to get some clarification about a few things, and none of it was denied.

Myndee Tollefson [03:29:22] None of it was denied. So she has a way of gaslighting her that she questions things. And to watch how my vibrant daughter just turned into this shell of a person. I mean, she just curls up and talks like this, you know, I mean, she just curled up into the power that this woman had over my daughter, which just sickening to me to. To see that, especially compared to how much life she had with me, you know?

Myndee Tollefson [03:29:53] Yeah, it was. It's just crazy. I mean, there's so many things to. That I can't even go into all of. I mean, I think that lays a good enough foundation.

John Dehlin [03:30:02] And I. And I'll just say I. I don't want to. Hopefully this won't upset you to say that maybe we can envision a world where the. Where the adoption mom wanted to be a good mom, wanted to love a baby, had every intention of being there for her. Daughter.

John Dehlin [03:30:21] And that something around the difficulties of adoption, the difficulties of how her life turned, made it harder and harder. And then she was embarrassed and she felt guilty that she wasn't ending up providing the situation that she thought she should and that she ended up not being the mom that she thought she would. And she ended up. Not that parenting ended up being a lot harder than she thought it would be. But then you're a person in the community and how do you manage your reputation? Like, there can even be grace to that scenario that this person maybe was in her own world doing the best that she could.

Processing Guilt, Grief, and Responsibility

John Dehlin [03:31:02] Sure, maybe. I think if we're going to do anything, be hard on systems, not people. Maybe that maybe the adoption mom should have never been put in that situation to begin with.

Myndee Tollefson [03:31:14] Right.

John Dehlin [03:31:15] Because maybe the baby should have stayed with her mom, who between the mom, the parents, the family, and the church, could have done a perfectly acceptable job raising that kid.

Myndee Tollefson [03:31:25] Yeah. And that's. I mean, where we talked earlier, that it's not very safe for me to go to. To thinking through if I could keep her. This is literally where it is. And. No, and I'm not saying anything. I'm happy to answer the question, but this is. This is where it gets messy and complicated.

Margi Dehlin [03:31:40] So here. That.

John Dehlin [03:31:41] I'm sorry, I didn't.

Myndee Tollefson [03:31:41] No, you're fine. I. I don't mind talking about it. I'm just saying I don't let my head go there very often because. Because could I have prevented a lot of these things? Yes. But do we know that. I mean, the. The biological father was not a healthy person subsequent from that?

John Dehlin [03:31:56] Right.

Myndee Tollefson [03:31:57] And we know he wasn't subsequent. You know, we. She. She's been in contact with him since then, and we know that he wouldn't have been good for her at that point in time, too. And so it literally is just something that. Once I started therapy, I started. I. My. The first podcast I listened to is Secular Buddhism and understanding the acceptance and the radical acceptance of things. And that it was literally surrounding this because what. What. What followed for me after this was literally just. Everything fell apart.

John Dehlin [03:32:30] Well, can I just say my point wasn't to speculate as to whether your daughter could have had a different life. It's that a. A church used undue influence, coercion, and a lack of informed consent to pressure you to make a decision. It probably had no business pressuring you. It's possible that things could have turned out worse for that daughter if she had stayed. We don't know. That's not where I'm saying it feels like you didn't have full consent.

Myndee Tollefson [03:33:06] Right.

John Dehlin [03:33:07] Full information. And the church had no business getting itself into the adoption business and pressuring you to give up your kid.

Myndee Tollefson [03:33:15] Yeah. No, no. And that is an extremely, really important point because so if I hadn't trusted this system so much to vet the family in any other circumstance, I am a hyper analytic person of. I overthink on everything. I'm a critical thinker on everything. And I put blind trust and them vetting these people for me. I didn't, I wasn't. I didn't even question some of these things that I go back and I.

John Dehlin [03:33:43] They're red flags because it's God's trust church.

Myndee Tollefson [03:33:45] Right, right, right. And it's God's will.

John Dehlin [03:33:47] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:33:48] This whole entire thing is God's will. Right. He put the name of the family in my head. Right. That he told me that this is the family to choose. And so I don't get any choice. So any red flag that I had was no. I defer to the discernment and the inspiration that the leaders have and that this system has a perfect system in place. So I trusted them to have done their job. Job. I found in. I was. As I was going through things the other day, this one almost sent me over the edge. And I mean, I've had probably, I think, at least six very, very scary breakdowns since this.

Myndee Tollefson [03:34:24] Since this time. Because the guilt that I feel. And even though the whole world and I. Every time I say guilt, I see it in your guys's face too. No, no, no. Don't feel guilt. Don't feel guilt. And I get that. But I'm gonna feel, feel it like you can't not feel it. I put her in that home. Period. And we understand all the circumstances, but that initial feeling to me is guilt and responsibility. I'm responsible for my children, period. Right. And so it tanked me many, many times. I mean, at least three times or. I'm sorry, at least six times that I can remember that I was in scary dark places from this.

Myndee Tollefson [03:35:02] And one of the things that I had to be really careful with the other day is I found a letter. Huh. From LDS Social Services dated November of, of 94, saying, let's let. I want to read word for word for this because it is so significant.

Myndee Tollefson [03:35:24] It says, this has been a very good placement and your baby is receiving a lot of loving care. You can rest assured that this decision you made to place with this family is a good one. I hope you are doing well and achieving Your goals, I guarantee.

John Dehlin [03:35:38] That's a form letter.

Myndee Tollefson [03:35:40] It's from the social worker maybe, but here's the problem with it. The father was out of the home when that letter was sent to me.

John Dehlin [03:35:47] For the evidence. It's a form letter, right?

Myndee Tollefson [03:35:49] Is it right? Yeah. I, I, I mean, are they complicit or lie?

John Dehlin [03:35:53] Or lie. It's either a liar or negligent.

Myndee Tollefson [03:35:55] It's one of the too.

John Dehlin [03:35:56] Yeah. Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:35:57] It doesn't matter in either way. And I mean, my, the therapist that I, that I've worked with used to actually work in adoption work, not with the birth mothers, but with, you know, on the other side of things. And her speculation from this is that it was negligence, you know, on their part.

John Dehlin [03:36:13] So the dad was out of the

Myndee Tollefson [03:36:14] home when, when they told me that this was a positive placement. And I can.

John Dehlin [03:36:19] Was the divorce finalized?

Myndee Tollefson [03:36:21] I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:36:22] Okay. Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [03:36:22] I don't know.

John Dehlin [03:36:23] But the dad was out of the home.

Myndee Tollefson [03:36:24] Yeah, he didn't, he left the home. My daughter Kennedy told me nine months. The adoptive mother, when that one sit down said 10 months. This was, she was 11 months old. So even if, let's just say it went to 11 months, he was on his way out the door. This marriage was broken by that point in time. And I got a letter from the system telling me, rest assured.

Margi Dehlin [03:36:46] Right.

Myndee Tollefson [03:36:47] Verbatim. Rest assured in this.

Margi Dehlin [03:36:49] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:36:49] And that, I mean, that to me is like, that's just a nail in the coffin, you know, I mean, let's put the, let's put the onus where it is at that point in time, and that's. Did you not do the home checks? Was he not present for those? Were you not paying attention? Or did you get the job done? Because 72 hours passed, six months pass, we're out.

Margi Dehlin [03:37:08] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:37:09] You know, and they're supposed to do these home checks regularly. And I have a, that's what's included in that is a couple of the home checks. And one of them is quoted that the birth or the adoptive mom says we like her quote. Like there's nothing about we, we're gushing about her. She's whatever, you know, I mean, it's, and then the other part of it, too, that's just sickening to me is going back and reading letters that she sent to me after the, the husband left the home. She's still saying in the letters, we this, we that, we this, and all of these. There's nothing, I mean, at least tell me.

Myndee Tollefson [03:37:42] Yeah, you know, at least tell me that I'm So sorry. I know that this was important to you, but we broke up our marriage and I'm going to da da da da da. Right. Don't hide it from me. Don't pretend as though this didn't exist. You know, I mean that's, that's point blank lying to me, you know, and leading to me. Me to believe something that carried me through for all of these years, you know? Absolutely.

Myndee Tollefson [03:38:06] So I mean that, that's. There's onus on both sides on that one too. And I, I've raised teenage daughters. I've raised two of them and I know they're not easy. They're not easy and so I do give a lot of grace for raising teenage daughters. But when they're not easy, you've done your parenting in place to be able to get through that time together and you've built a relationship and you come out of it on the other end of it being having a great relationship through that thing that you never want to go through again.

Margi Dehlin [03:38:40] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:38:40] At any point in time. Still to this day, I am willing to, to work through and work past the things that this woman has done if she were ever accountable.

Margi Dehlin [03:38:51] Yeah. I think that's important because I think both things can be true.

Myndee Tollefson [03:38:55] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:38:55] Systems.

Myndee Tollefson [03:38:56] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:38:56] Right. It can be what systems? Not people. But also how do we experience harm.

Myndee Tollefson [03:39:03] Right.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:03] Through people.

Myndee Tollefson [03:39:04] Right.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:05] In the systems.

Myndee Tollefson [03:39:06] Right.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:06] And so, you know, if anyone has been in therapy for any amount of time, like this idea of grieving and having real healing involves accountability of a person.

Myndee Tollefson [03:39:19] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:19] Of in order to move forward.

Myndee Tollefson [03:39:21] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:22] And so both those things are true.

Myndee Tollefson [03:39:24] Yes.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:24] And if you don't do the work of, of this especially, you know, I don't know of individuals who have received harm from caregivers or from. Of doing that. People don't heal. They don't. They're not able to kind of have this sense of self empowerment again and trusting themselves again and really being able to set right what. What actually happened there and what was theirs and actually what was never theirs.

Myndee Tollefson [03:39:54] Right. To kind of hold.

Margi Dehlin [03:39:55] Does that make sense?

Myndee Tollefson [03:39:56] Yeah, totally. And. And yeah, exactly. And so I mean, one of the first things I want to do is I want to go through her journals. Share with me anything that you're willing to share with me so I can understand what your experience is. At least sit down and say I didn't realize it was that bad when you were there. I am so sorry. You know, and I again, it was a lot of the times. Right. That was, that was definitely have been the narrative around her is to send your kid away if they're. If they're causing trouble. I mean. Right. It sounds. It's. I can't believe it still exists in today's world.

Myndee Tollefson [03:40:27] I really can't. But that was a very huge narrative around there. And so it's not even that that I have a problem with. It's awful that she went through these things, but she could have healed more. Had there ever been any accountability.

Margi Dehlin [03:40:38] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:40:38] Ever. Or an apology even. And there's not. It's deniability. She minimizes how long she was there. She minimizes what happened while she was there. And it's the same story of, how dare you tell these people this. The stories. How does that make me look? You know, and that's the. That's the overarching narrative that she has that it's her job to protect how this woman has screwed up.

Reunion with Kennedy and Rebuilding the Relationship

Margi Dehlin [03:41:03] So can I ask you a question about kind of. That's a little more present, so. More present. So do you feel right now with your relationship with Kennedy, that you are in a position to Mother still? Like, she needs a mom.

Myndee Tollefson [03:41:21] Absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [03:41:21] A mom energy, a mom. What it. What it can look like, what it can feel like.

Myndee Tollefson [03:41:26] Yes. She receives that from me, and Troy is her dad. She is an integrated part of our family. And it's that. I mean, the next part of the story kind of plays into that. It kind of goes into that. So she.

Margi Dehlin [03:41:40] And we did.

Myndee Tollefson [03:41:41] We kind of went through that. So right after she found me, the. She actually got in contact with the biological father.

Margi Dehlin [03:41:48] He.

Myndee Tollefson [03:41:49] We found him on Facebook very easily. He actually had sent me a letter or a message request just a few months earlier, asking if I knew anything about her and so I could have full access to her. He came down. He still lives in Seattle, and we actually had this beautiful day that we call the best day ever that when I saw him, he saw me, and we both just hugged each other and cried. And that was the first time we'd seen each other, you know, since the hospital room. And we got along, and so the next day, we planned. She was 21 years old.

Myndee Tollefson [03:42:25] The next day we planned 21 things that we missed out on together. And we went to McDonald's and ate lunch. We went, and he's taught her to skip a rock, gave her a piggyback ride, you know, I mean, we just did a bunch of really cute little things and just called it the best day ever. And it was magical. And we just serendipitously ran into different people, you know, in the community that she wanted to introduce us to, you know, and it was literally. I mean, it was the best day ever. We. We lit fireworks, we stargazed, you know, the whole thing. And the next day we woke up and he and I didn't like each other again. But it was just this beautiful moment of like.

Margi Dehlin [03:43:05] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:43:05] Of just getting to love our daughter together. And fast forward a little bit farther again, that I decided to take her on a trip up to Seattle to kind of do this pilgrimage for her. And I was able to somehow find the room that I had given birth in. And we had this other incredibly beautiful moment of just standing in the doorway. And again, that veil lifted. And you see in the movies where you've got, like, people going and watching a scene happening, that's literally what it felt like. Like, memories came out of just flowing from me of all of this. And the babies were both sleeping during.

Myndee Tollefson [03:43:46] I mean, it was a good hour or so. And so I could actually hold her hand and walk through and experience this all over again with her. And gratefully, she. Because she was pregnant at 18, she had gone to social services and been in that position of being an unwanted pregnant. And so she fully, fully never had any anger towards me. Fully understood. And I would try to explain something to her. She's like, it's okay, I get it. You don't have to explain it. I'm like, but I want to. And she's like, you can, but I don't need it. You know, I mean, there was never any anger towards that. That my.

John Dehlin [03:44:22] It's kind of mind blowing that she ended up getting pregnant and going to LDS Family Services a year earlier than you did.

Myndee Tollefson [03:44:30] Right. And isn't it ironic that the church told me that teen pregnancies, if I didn't place her.

Margi Dehlin [03:44:35] Yes.

Myndee Tollefson [03:44:36] Right.

Margi Dehlin [03:44:36] That's. That was one of the outcomes that was posed as like a nightmare or

Myndee Tollefson [03:44:41] a threat to you. Right, Right. And she was younger than me and had lived a much rougher life than. I mean, the things that they said weren't going to happen did.

John Dehlin [03:44:50] Like, she'd go to jail.

Myndee Tollefson [03:44:51] Right, Right. And she'd go to jail. That she would be with bad friends. She was with bad friends. She was. You know, I mean, there's the. I mean, literally everything in that top paragraph that said if I kept her is what happened.

Margi Dehlin [03:45:03] You know, I mean, that is to reckon with that.

Myndee Tollefson [03:45:07] Yeah. And I mean. And so I'm sure you can imagine what this did for my faith and God. Right. And my first dark night of the soul was while we were Actually, up in Seattle. And after we'd had this day at the hospital, no fault of hers, but she was like, do you mind if I go see the biological father again tonight? And I've just done the soul bearing, and I want to just hold her and hold. Hold. My. My granddaughter was two months old when I met her, so I just had this baby to hold to soothe my soul, and I just wanted to go home and just.

Myndee Tollefson [03:45:39] Just hold her, and she wants to go off with him. And. Holy cow. Like, I. It was an awful night for me. And we ended up driving home the next day, and we're driving up i90 and just getting over the pass, and I couldn't even talk to her. I couldn't even look at her. And I had to pull off, and I walked away from the car and literally just screamed at the top of my lungs, and this is not me. This is not me.

John Dehlin [03:46:02] Oh, you were driving with her?

Myndee Tollefson [03:46:03] Yeah. Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:46:05] And I pulled her off, like, call me pass.

Myndee Tollefson [03:46:07] Yes. No, call me pass. And not quite to the ski resorts yet. And I. I mean, I just had so much inside of me, and it scared her because, I mean, I just. I could not contain anymore. I just screamed and couldn't talk to her for, like, three hours for a totally normal thing, for her to go and see him while she's there. But it just hurt so bad, you know, to not. Not have her choose me in that moment. And it makes perfect sense, but it just was one of the first ones,

John Dehlin [03:46:37] you know, because she was gonna be coming back with you.

Myndee Tollefson [03:46:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:46:40] Leaving him.

Myndee Tollefson [03:46:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. Go spend some more time. But it just was. I was so fragile right then, and I needed her to soothe that wound, and I didn't. It just, you know, I mean, I was. Didn't have a choice because I say no, then I'm selfish, and then if I say yes, then I know where I'm at, too. And we're both just surviving together on this, but, I mean, we were able to talk that through. And by the time it was about three hours or more, and then I watched her trauma response to me being angry, and it wasn't healthy. It wasn't healthy. And there was a lot that was said in her trauma response, you know, to me being angry and how much it scared her of that she'd ruined our relationship kind of a thing.

Myndee Tollefson [03:47:22] Yeah. So that was very telling as it was, too. So she ended up getting divorced from that husband, and she moved in with us about a year later.

John Dehlin [03:47:36] Super quick question. Any idea how the adoption mom felt about her reconnecting with you and spending time with you, because I'm just going to say I would hope like I have kids now. You know, everyone struggles. I struggle when my kids are struggling. I just want anything in their life that's going to help them be healthier, happier.

Myndee Tollefson [03:47:58] Right.

John Dehlin [03:47:59] So I'm just trying to imagine ideally if I'm an adoption parent and I find out that my. And I know my kid's struggling, my adult child, and then I know that their birth parent or parents are going to now come into their lives with potential half siblings, with potential extended family and there. And there's a chance that those people will be a healthy, positive influence. I want that for my adult kid.

Margi Dehlin [03:48:24] Right.

John Dehlin [03:48:25] 100.

Margi Dehlin [03:48:25] Right.

John Dehlin [03:48:26] So I'm hoping that the adoption mom was super excited to have extra support and extra healthy people in the life of her adopted daughter.

Myndee Tollefson [03:48:36] And I hoped that too. It's not true. It's not the case in any way. She shape or form. She's incredibly threatened by me. Oh, incredibly threatened. As I said, I've only seen her one time since all of this and it was just a little sit down because Kennedy had wanted it because she wanted to feel like she had somebody to support her for the first time. And I brought Troy with me. That threw the mother off, off kilter because she's been single and I brought. Got my husband by my side who has been by my side from the beginning.

John Dehlin [03:49:11] Did she ever remarry?

Myndee Tollefson [03:49:14] Yes, for a short period of time. And it wasn't positive in. Yeah, yeah. It wasn't positive for Kennedy in any way, shape or form. And the divorce wasn't positive words said to Kennedy either. And I mean, yeah, so there was that moment and I did have, have like was able to ask her some questions. I probably came in fairly hot to be fair. Right. But it was like catch me up because last I knew you were married and you were a temple worthy person.

Margi Dehlin [03:49:48] I feel like that's fair.

John Dehlin [03:49:50] Right? I mean.

Margi Dehlin [03:49:51] Right.

Myndee Tollefson [03:49:52] I thought so too. I mean I'm like, I feel like I have some answers that are owed to me, you know, I mean I trusted you and you failed me me, you know, I mean, bottom line. And so tell me, tell me what's where this is. I'm mom to mom right now. Look, let's talk. And no, it was she reversal blamed on anybody that she possibly could. She minimized anything. Anytime Kennedy would try to say something, she minimized what it was. And I was like, but wait, we saw in your journals that it said right and so I could kind of stand there and say, I have. We have proof of this.

John Dehlin [03:50:28] That conversation is not going.

Margi Dehlin [03:50:30] It kind of feels like it for this. Did it kind of provide a real proof.

John Dehlin [03:50:36] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:50:37] Of like, oh, okay, so this person's not well.

Myndee Tollefson [03:50:41] Yeah. And she actually even. Like, even when Kennedy told me what her reaction was when she told her that she had met me, I didn't believe it. I'm like, nobody can be that. You're exaggerating. Like, I really feel awful. And it's understandable that I. It took me so long to try truly believe Kennedy. Like, it really made me sad that. That. That it took reading the journals, that it took me seeing her.

John Dehlin [03:51:02] You want to be fair?

Myndee Tollefson [03:51:03] Right. Right from the beginning, I mean, literally the first question I asked was, how do they feel? Because I don't want to step on anybody's toes. I. I want to be. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:51:13] And you care. And coming in with a sense of honoring that relationship. Not trying to.

John Dehlin [03:51:19] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:51:19] And everything. Every letter that I ever received. Received was from her is that she honored me, too. So let's work this out. You know, literally, just catch me up. I need to. Let's go mom to mom here kind of a thing. And there was not an opportunity for that in any way, shape, or form. If anything, she kept finding where my weak point was. And when she saw that it was the biological father, that. That was my. Where I had the most weakness in this. I had the least amount of support. I had the biggest amount of feelings. She kept going after it multiple times, and I didn't even realize it until I got away from it. I was like, what was that feeling? I'm like, oh, my gosh. Like, she found my jugular, and she kept poking at it, you know, multiple times.

John Dehlin [03:52:00] And so it was that the biological father wasn't doing well, or didn't just

Myndee Tollefson [03:52:04] saw that I wasn't comfortable talking about him, that I. I'm sure it looked like I was threatened by him, you know, because they had an immediate connection, too. And I had had this feeling of trying to protect him from him, but they had a connection, and, you know, I mean, they've settled into a better place now, too, but it was unhealthy at that point. You know, I'm obsessive texting, as it goes. Right? As it goes. You know.

John Dehlin [03:52:29] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [03:52:30] So, I mean. And at the time, I was not comfortable with how their relationship actually worked. And I was jealous because I wanted to be the only parent that she cared about. You know, I mean, I had.

John Dehlin [03:52:40] Okay.

Myndee Tollefson [03:52:41] I See, shallow feelings I had, you know, I mean, there was a lot of feelings about that I didn't want her. Him in her life because that's what I had, you know, everything that I had shot for. But at the same time, she's an adult. Do with him what you want to do. You know, And I wanted to be, you know, I mean, it immediately went into me that I needed to go in savior mode. I needed to go through and undo all of the damage that was done and I needed to protect her from all of the harm that that was done to her and could continue to be done to her.

Margi Dehlin [03:53:11] That so makes sense. I'm so glad you explained that because in many ways, you know, I know in your brain you probably maybe had an envisioning of her growing up, but the truth is, is in real life, you left her as an innocent three days old. Like. Yes. And then you're back with her as like the full adult. But then with all this, this you're finding out all this information of basically her being unprotected.

Myndee Tollefson [03:53:38] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:53:39] Like her not being advocated for, her not having the. So it totally makes sense to me just viscerally emotionally that, you know, there's this mama bear.

Myndee Tollefson [03:53:50] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:53:51] Kind of where it's like, yeah, I don't know about you and don't trust any of you. I do. I am going to trust me to care for you. So everyone stand back.

Myndee Tollefson [03:54:01] And I am operating from a place of guilt too. I mean, absolutely operating from that. You know, I mean, and I've. I've worked on that so that it's doesn't drive my actions at this point in time. But I don't know if I can ever get rid of that guilt. I mean, I would love to say I can. I'll keep working on it.

Margi Dehlin [03:54:17] But so did. Were you in therapy during this time? Did you find that processing all these

Myndee Tollefson [03:54:22] feelings so not really helpful. Not until. So what goes up must come down. And we just were in like a fantasy land initially. Like it just heightened. I ignored my other daughters to. For, by all intents and purposes, you know, I mean, she became my sole purpose. And relationships were damaged with those girls too. You know, I mean, they were 16 and 13. They still needed a mom. And she is, she is extremely magnetic and charismatic and fun and you know, when she's around, my entire attentions on her. If and it's not, then it's all my granddaughters, you know, and then, oh, you guys are old enough to figure it out.

Margi Dehlin [03:54:58] You know, this feels so real. Like I can see why this would be so tricky.

John Dehlin [03:55:02] Your daughters would be saying, hey, yeah, yeah, you're our mom now.

Myndee Tollefson [03:55:05] Hello.

John Dehlin [03:55:06] And you're gonna abandon us.

Myndee Tollefson [03:55:08] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:55:09] And my oldest, someone else that. That you abandoned, like, Right. That's not repeating the abandonment, Right?

Myndee Tollefson [03:55:15] Exactly. The oldest one was in the middle of her own mental health challenges.

Margi Dehlin [03:55:19] She.

Myndee Tollefson [03:55:19] She was battling anorexia at the time. I'm like, just eat, you know? And my youngest one is just. She's so sensitive, and she just became. She locked herself in her room, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, just come out of your room. Right. Like, it just felt like this impatience for not having enough in me to be able to just fix her, fix this, you know? And it's. I hate that that's what happened. It's not in my nature as a mom, but it was just truly a trauma response. Like I did. I was driven by my primal trauma. At this point in time, I have to un.

Myndee Tollefson [03:55:51] I have to protect her. And then in addition to that, to. To kind of come back to the. The church side of things is my. I just assumed that the reason why she was back in my life is because I needed to bring her back to church. Right? Like, she. She didn't get what she wanted. So I doubled down on church. I doubled down. I was in the Relief Society presidency. And I went. I prayed more, I read my scriptures, I more. I did all of the things because all I wanted was answers. I wanted answers for, how can God let this happen to my child?

Myndee Tollefson [03:56:21] How can this be possibly okay? Right. He didn't answer my prayers when I was a kid about taking sexual abuse away, but why didn't he answer my pleas when we had made a deal, Right? And we were raised with a transactional God, and if I give you my child, then you will take care of her. Right. He didn't follow through on his end of the day deal in any way, shape or form. And so this construct, this dogma that I had created, that had been foundationally my testimony, building experience, all of a sudden, I mean, it was kind of like Jenga pieces, right? Like, she would tell me about the residential treatment facility. She trumbulled out with this, you know, Jenga pieces.

Margi Dehlin [03:56:56] And then such a great visual.

Myndee Tollefson [03:56:58] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:56:58] It was just a matter of time before it all came crashing.

Myndee Tollefson [03:57:01] And then I don't even know what the final one was, but I. It just crumbled down. And I remember going to my bishop and being like, I need answers. Tell me how this can happen. And everybody I talked To And I was, I was in this state of like word vomit. They'd say how's Kennedy doing? Right. Like I can't contain all of these feelings. And so fast forward, she moved in with us to, to. For us to help get her on her feet through this divorce and it came to a head of. Of I was operating from a Mormon perspective and I harmed her with that Mormon perspective.

John Dehlin [03:57:40] I'm guilty of that.

Myndee Tollefson [03:57:41] Right?

John Dehlin [03:57:41] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [03:57:42] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:57:42] But that is, that is so how it works. I think those default settings, the conditionings actually that we work so hard to sort of question or when is the time that you're more apt to kind of go. Go back to the default when you're feeling vulnerable, when you're in trauma response, when you're in. Right. When you're not actually conscious.

Myndee Tollefson [03:58:04] Right. She's a 22 year old mother and she has to live by our curfew if she's going to live in our house. She has to go to church. You know, I mean just the whole purity culture stuff. Right, right, right. And so.

John Dehlin [03:58:16] And conditional love.

Myndee Tollefson [03:58:17] She wanted to date before the final. The divorce was final. That felt offensive to me.

John Dehlin [03:58:22] Right, right, right, right.

Myndee Tollefson [03:58:23] But I guess that's a normal thing.

John Dehlin [03:58:24] The next to murder.

Myndee Tollefson [03:58:25] Right? Yeah. And she's out there dating and like how dare you bring this into my home. You know, I have made all these efforts and you know, whatever.

Margi Dehlin [03:58:33] So now is the Mormonism becoming a wedge? Is it sort of becoming this barrier now she's in your life and the Mormonism is the barrier to you actually being able to truly connect and love her in a way that feels like love it.

Myndee Tollefson [03:58:48] I was loving her in a Mormon unconditional way and I didn't know how to Mormon condition away. Yes. Well, I'm saying unconditional because they said it was unconditional.

Margi Dehlin [03:58:58] Sorry.

Myndee Tollefson [03:58:59] Quote. Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:59:00] Quote unconditional.

John Dehlin [03:59:01] What they would warm and unconditional love means what?

Myndee Tollefson [03:59:04] Means that as long as you're doing everything that I'm saying, then I love you. And if you tell me that you're doing something different. Well, once you fix it, I love you no matter what, but fix it so I can continue to love you.

Margi Dehlin [03:59:16] Right.

John Dehlin [03:59:16] I love you unconditionally, but only if you're obedient to the church.

Myndee Tollefson [03:59:19] Right. I mean that's what the rhetoric is.

Margi Dehlin [03:59:21] Right.

Myndee Tollefson [03:59:22] I mean God's the same way with us. Mormon God.

Margi Dehlin [03:59:24] It's also. It's also like the parents experience is central.

Myndee Tollefson [03:59:29] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:59:30] So if I'm emotionally uncomfortable or having really uncomfortable feelings.

Myndee Tollefson [03:59:34] Yep.

Margi Dehlin [03:59:35] That is what is going to dictate

Myndee Tollefson [03:59:36] how this goes down? And she felt like a caged animal in my home. And I did not know why it wasn't working. You know, I mean, because our, my mentality is just come into our family. You're in right. Let me wrap my arms around you. You're part of this family now. And, and when she moved in, it was literally square peg, ground hole. Like this doesn't work. This does not work for us. And she ended up moving out and under circumstances again that I didn't agree with. And my second massive breakdown happened and I.

Myndee Tollefson [04:00:10] No third, because there was one prior before that too, but there was a moment again, Troy was going out of town because that's what he does during the big times and he was moving out, but he was scared. I actually scared him that time and I threw a brush at him and I don't, I mean I'm not a violent person. I'm a very chill person. And this was a trip that he couldn't not go on. And he actually called my brother to come and check on me. My sister in law came and checked on me because I was in a really, really bad state. And so during that conversation was when it was, let's get you in some, in some therapy at this point in time.

Myndee Tollefson [04:00:44] Like this is, this has gone beyond our prayers and our efforts. You know that this is going to break you. This is a third awful breakdown and I'm not feeling safe to myself anymore. And I'm certainly not safe to my girls.

John Dehlin [04:00:58] This must have been super hard for him and your daughters.

Myndee Tollefson [04:01:01] Yeah, yeah. And they're, I mean, and they're so amazing about it because they're so understanding of that. I didn't have a whole lot of control over my actions during that time. And, and I, I mean I even said often, please communicate with me, please communicate with me. And my older daughter had the capacity to tell me, hey mom, I need you to show up this way. Right? And absolutely, you know, I, I'll do it. But, but my younger daughter didn't have the opportunity, didn't have the language or the skills or the emotional capacity to say that. And so, you know, I mean you're, you're just doing what you do.

Myndee Tollefson [04:01:34] And I, there's so much in me. And so I, as she moved out and we ended up having, that was, I think it was fall January of 2018 and we didn't start rebuilding until 2020. So two year break and there was a lot we, we tried to stay in contact periodically Here or there, but it was messy and it was ugly. And the girls, my, our, our race daughters didn't want anything to do with her. She didn't want anything to do with them. And so it was just, just me trying to figure out how to continue this relationship and Troy, when he could come into it, but it was really her.

Myndee Tollefson [04:02:15] And I trying to figure out, how are we going to do this? Because I, I don't want to push her out of my life, but she's not safe and vice versa, right? Like, I want her in my life, but this is not working whatsoever. So I shifted over. Our older daughter ended up just went back to being mom, right? And I'm just going to deal with this as it deals, but these girls need my attention. Our other two daughters need my attention. And I've got some trust to build with them again, you know, I'll work on trust with somebody at a later point in time.

Myndee Tollefson [04:02:44] And so, so I focus on them. Oldest one graduates, she ends up against what she always said she was going to do, getting married at 19 years old. And she, you know where she gets married? In the temple. We're still all, all, all in for all intents and purposes.

Myndee Tollefson [04:03:04] During all of this, I. The really. One of the really cool things that happened is I started breeding one of my dogs that she came into my life right as things were falling apart with Kennedy. And so I decided to breed her. And by doing that, I could kind of go through the process of placing other living animals and new homes, homes and get it right. And so with each puppy I sent home, I got to heal a little bit of that birth mom in me of saying, look, I have good placements. I can still have good placements. And it was this moment of I was angry, angry, angry at God, you know, and this was a way that it still showed up that there might be something bigger than the God that I understood to be.

Myndee Tollefson [04:03:52] I'd gone to my bishop and asked him, you know, can you give me any answers? Can you give me any, any answers on how, why this is? And he gave me this stupid scripture that I hate more than anything of Joseph Smith in Carthage jail, where art thou Pavilion kind of thing? And I'm like, it's not the same thing. This is not the same thing. Like, yeah, he was dying because he was a martyr, right? And I didn't either believe or disbelieve at that point in time. But just this, this is a bull crap answer. This isn't working for me. And go to somebody else and ask for an answer.

Leaving the Church and Finding Peace

Myndee Tollefson [04:04:26] And she just. These platitudes that are just falling flat. And I had this one experience. I was in the car with my dad and we came. We were coming home from a temple ceiling of one of my nieces. And it was a two. An hour and a half drive and I was in the front seat with him and finally just opened up to him about how angry I was. I was just pissed at God, you know, how dare you do this to my daughter? And he's like, like, well, do you know what you need to do now? And I was like, oh, thank goodness somebody's got an answer.

Myndee Tollefson [04:04:57] And this is my, My dad that I could always go to that had an answer for everything, everything that was ever out there, right? And I go, and I'm just waiting on with bated breath of what is going to be his answer. And he looks at me or he's driving and he's like, I do you know what you need to do now? And then his answer is, you need to ask for forgiveness.

Myndee Tollefson [04:05:20] I'm like, from what? What did I do? What do I need forgiveness for? And I just. It was this crashing moment of like, he doesn't get it either. Nobody gets it. Those. All these people in the church that are supposed to have the answers and they don't get it. They don't understand what this is. And so I kind of consider that when the whole thing kind of fell down, right? When the whole Jenga piece kind of fell down, because I'm like, nobody has the answers for this, okay? So I get a chance to kind of heal this birth mom and me through puppies. My therapist at the time, she was like, had I known, I would have absolutely recommend dog breeding for an adoptive mom.

Myndee Tollefson [04:06:01] Just because, you know, I mean, I sobbed with this one. I felt joy with this one, you know, I mean, just all these really beautiful connections of people that are finding me and unconventional ways, and it's really, really keeping me from. Not nihilism is what actually that is, is. This is a piece that. It's like, there's got to be something else working around at this, you know, I mean, there's. It might not be the God that I knew that I was raised with. Maybe I still got it wrong, right? It's not the church's fault still. It's. I misunderstood. Let me reframe my relationship with God.

Myndee Tollefson [04:06:31] So our. Our oldest raised daughter, raised daughter ends up getting married in the temple and we. I'm just moving forward. And then. So we're living the Mormon dream. Again, you know, that kind of a thing. And then Covid hits, and I still. I'm. I'm recognizing. Well, let's back up. Before COVID I'm recognizing when I'm at church, I'm much more irritable while I'm at church. I'm sitting like this, and I come home with a migraine every single week, you know, And I'm just tense, and I'm realizing that none of this is working for me very well, you know? And I'd been in therapy six plus months or so and just was like, I'm not feeling any better.

Myndee Tollefson [04:07:08] And so I started medication, and we know how the church feels about medication, so there was shame. And I'm broken. I'm that broken that I need medication. Not that I'm in this terrible situation. It's that praying is not working for me. Reading the scriptures holy. Right? Like, I don't even care about the scriptures right now. I can't breathe at this point in time. I can't get out of bed at this point in time. And so I'm just a church going through the motions. It started frustrating Troy because he's like. Like, you're on the phone constantly. And I'm like, yeah, I am. I'm playing games because I am anxious as crap, and I don't even know what's wrong with me.

Myndee Tollefson [04:07:42] And so there was this lesson in Relief Society one time about mental health, and I. It was the first time I. I remember having a full panic attack at church that I'm looking around and listening to all these women, and I'm like, this is not a safe space for me, because I can't say I have ample experience with mental health. I am on medications. I'm in crisis right now. And this lady's talking about how her daughter experienced some postpartum depression, and she read the Book of Mormon, and now she's feeling better, right? And this is the same old story as the friend story when I was a kid.

Myndee Tollefson [04:08:16] Like, why is the Book of Mormon working for this girl with postpartum depression? And my child was ripped from my arms. You know, this isn't cutting it. I still don't matter to this God that I was raised with, you know? And so that really kind of framed going into Covid of, like, getting the space that I needed to not experience that anxiety was shocking to me. It was absolutely shocking to me. And he kept. My husband kept listening to church on zoom calls or whatever, and he'd come and show it to me, and I'm Like, I don't want to listen, you know? And it was.

Myndee Tollefson [04:08:54] And he was extremely conscious with COVID and ended up having another litter of puppies, which buys you eight plus weeks of not going to church without excuse. And so we got through that, and he's like, I don't want to go back to church. And I ended up having double surgery, double foot surgery during that time, too. And so then I had yet another excuse to not go to church, you know, because my feet had to be elevated 100 of the time.

Myndee Tollefson [04:09:22] December of that. Of 2020, my daughter. My youngest daughter accepted to sing in church for Christmas. Like, sing a solo. I'm like, dang, girl, you go. That's awesome. And so I ended up going to church to listen to her. And I. The discomfort I felt there was like, get me out of here. I cannot be in this. In this chapel anymore. And I'm like, I can't go back to church. It is not a safe place for me. And so then I am, like, trying to figure. I'm just kind of. Of putting it as, what work do I need to do to get back to church?

Myndee Tollefson [04:09:56] Is where it's coming at is. It's not the church's fault. It's what do I need to do to get back to that? So fast forward. So then my daughter comes, starts reaching out to me again, and we're just kind of. Kennedy. Yeah, sorry. She. She starts reaching out to me again, and we're trying to build a relationship again through both dogs and kids and, you know, all of that. And so she.

Myndee Tollefson [04:10:24] I am rebuilding, but the. My other two daughters want nothing to do with her. And I had listened to that secular Buddhism, and my motto was radical acceptance. Whatever she has to say, I just say, okay, and. And ride the ride is how I called it. Right? Like, there's no judgment on anything that she's saying or just doing. And I don't have to. I don't have to impose what I think is right anymore. And it was a learned skill for me to really. And she gave me the space to practice that skill, which was an incredible gift for it.

Myndee Tollefson [04:10:56] So fast forward a little bit more. We're rebuilding this. This relationship together. And then. So that's December. And then by June, my youngest daughter comes out as being queer. She is part of the community, and that rocked my boat as well. And we had a little moment of. I handled that revelation the very worst possible way that you can imagine. The only thing I said right is that I understand that changes your relationship with the church. And I'm here for you and that I'll go to any church that you want me to go with with you, but I understand that that's not going to be a safe place for you to go anymore.

Myndee Tollefson [04:11:39] And then botched everything else. But we had a moment of like, I wanted to sit down with her. I wanted to get all the answers. And when she left, it was a moment of if I don't fix something, I'm going to lose two daughters right now. And I cannot lose two daughters in this. And never mind that my. Our oldest raised is not going to church, isn't wearing her garments and I don't give a crap, right? Like, do what you want to do.

Myndee Tollefson [04:12:07] I don't really care if you go to church or not. But I'm not going to lose these two daughters. So then I got into like the. I need to figure out how I'm going to be an ally to my daughter, my youngest daughter. And I had the foundation of radical acceptance with Kennedy. And then. So then when it came to our. Came to our youngest is I'm like, I just have to apply this radical acceptance acceptance as well. You know.

Myndee Tollefson [04:12:31] So she. It took it. It was bumpy with that. I'm. I'm not gonna lie. I. I did not handle that as I wish I could have handled it better, but I handled it the best I knew and I made adjustments quickly is as quick as I knew how to. To make adjustments. So Fast forward to 2021. Kennedy and I are still rebuilding the. But it's not easy still. You know, I mean, we're working on it, but I'm still.

Myndee Tollefson [04:13:00] We only have about 10 conversation pieces that are safe. Otherwise it's just a matter of like, get bumping too much into feelings, you know, kind of a thing. And she's starting to confide in me more and I'm starting to get better at not asserting my rights and wrongs at these kinds of things. And then I found myself on my way down. Down in the car to Arizona, listening to podcasts that started out with canine reproduction and ended up with Mormon stories that I had heard about Natasha Heler. I have a lot of therapists in my, you know, in my circle surrounding circle and had been told about her. And I'm like, I want to find out what's going on in this. And so is she getting excommunicated?

John Dehlin [04:13:46] Is it okay?

Myndee Tollefson [04:13:47] Because the is fall of 2021. So I, I think, actually I think that this was right in that time frame because the first one I listened to was prior to the excommunication. The second one I listened to was the aftermath of it. And after hearing those, I all of a sudden like, I don't want to be part of an institution that is treating people this way and my daughter is now part of this community. And it started opening my eyes up and into the way that I had been harming Kennedy through all of this too. You know, I mean, these black and white judgments needed to not be black and white, that life exists in grays and not in blacks and whites, you know.

John Dehlin [04:14:28] And also, Natasha was trying to fight against the type of treatment you experienced as a teenage girl in Mormonism.

Myndee Tollefson [04:14:36] Right.

John Dehlin [04:14:36] And all the sexual shame and unhealthy teachings around sexuality.

Margi Dehlin [04:14:42] Right.

John Dehlin [04:14:43] That formed your adolescence.

Myndee Tollefson [04:14:45] Right. So she's talking about masturbation and that it's normative. And I'm like, what? Huh? That having sex is at an a 19 year old is okay with consent? What? You know, I mean, all of these areas of shame she's calling out and I'm listening to her. I'm like, what? I mean this is like a blowing my mind kind of thing. And all of a sudden there's words to things that I felt my whole life, you know, that I thought I was the only one. I thought I was the bad one. But there's this is. Lots of people are feeling this, you

John Dehlin [04:15:18] know, and being queer is, is okay as well.

Myndee Tollefson [04:15:21] Yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, I, I went to a lot of gay stories too. I listened to that one. I went to marriage on a tightrope. I went to Natasha's Mormon mental health. You know, I mean, I just kind of did a dive through all of that. And, and it should be mentioned too that during this time when Troy was trying to watch sacrament meeting and I was like, I'm not. The church doesn't feel safe to me anymore. We had to come down, have a sit down moment of is he going to tell me bait and switch now or am I, you know, how are we going to handle this? And it gave him permission to finally let his shelf break too. And.

John Dehlin [04:15:58] Yeah, because he, he was probably having doubts from the very start.

Myndee Tollefson [04:16:02] Right, right.

John Dehlin [04:16:03] And he just put those, he packed those down for you.

Myndee Tollefson [04:16:06] Yep, exactly. He's like, well, I married you. You said nope.

John Dehlin [04:16:10] So.

Myndee Tollefson [04:16:11] So as soon as he, he was the one, he introduced me to LDS discussions and he's like, I want. I mean it's really interesting. The temple one on Mason Masonic influence in the temple was the first one I listened to. He's like, you should Listen to it. It's kind of really interesting. And I listen. I'm like, what? Oh my gosh, what? And it took about a year of that from the time that I first listened to Natasha. And then kind of the. Kind of going down the deep dive of it of where I would say that my full shelf fully broke from there. Because it started out as the emotional abuse and I didn't care about his history stuff.

Myndee Tollefson [04:16:48] I never really liked history anyway. Turns out it was because it was cognitive dissonance for me that I couldn't make Mormon history history match history as a whole. And so I didn't really care. I didn't care about truth claims. I didn't care about the Book of Mormons. True. Because the church is harming people at a regular basis. Children are dying. LGBTQ kids are dying. There's women out there that are feeling the shame that I have felt their whole life. There's adopted children that feel like they're carrying a scarlet letter in lieu of their parent or not in, in addition to their parents. Right. And so I'm feeling the injustice of, of the, the emotional trauma that is being done.

Myndee Tollefson [04:17:25] And Troy, on the other hand, is going like, what? All these things that I always questioned, there were no elephants, you know, I mean, all these things that he'd always questioned, he could actually look into now without me being upset. And so he probably got to that a little bit quicker than I did because I was just so focused on the, on the emotional abuse that was, that was happening. And the final, final straw for me was is. Is hilarious. But I didn't know that Joseph Smith had a glass of wine the night before. And the two things that I felt

John Dehlin [04:17:57] the night before he was killed.

Myndee Tollefson [04:17:58] Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. The two things that I prided myself on is that I'd never tasted alcohol and that I'd never said the F word. Those are like the only two things that I never did wrong. Right? And so I found that out and I'm like, so that eight year old story when he refused the alcohol all is just a farce. Like that was just a made up story to make us feel guilty about not drinking. And so I'm like, I want alcohol. And that was like the, the straw that, you know, that was when the shelf actually broke.

John Dehlin [04:18:28] I mean, it, it's probably true that as an eight year old, he said no to the alcohol maybe because his own dad was an alcoholic. And there, you know, he saw calls being a problem in his home as a child. But by the. But that story was told to you withholding the information that by the time he was an adult.

Myndee Tollefson [04:18:49] Right.

John Dehlin [04:18:49] He and all the other church leaders were all not just drinking alcohol, but making alcohol.

Myndee Tollefson [04:18:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:18:54] Selling alcohol.

Myndee Tollefson [04:18:57] Distilleries and bars and, you know, whatever. And I'm like, why have I abstained from this my entire life? And I. I'm gonna try it. And I. I really tried it and had some fun with it, but in the meantime. So back to the adoption side of things. I realized very, very quickly that there was a lot of church truth claims that I. I had a lot of doubts, too. I didn't know. You know, I mean, I went Back to that 2012 with my friend that it was like, oh, my gosh, all the things she was telling me, me were true, you know, and that you weren't scary, you weren't of the devil.

John Dehlin [04:19:36] Meaning me.

Myndee Tollefson [04:19:36] You. Yeah, yeah. That Mormon stories wasn't just heretics. And, you know, the support that I felt from even listening to Mormon stories and all of these other podcasts of. I felt seen and heard.

John Dehlin [04:19:50] I don't feel evil.

Myndee Tollefson [04:19:51] I don't think you are.

Margi Dehlin [04:19:52] I don't.

Myndee Tollefson [04:19:53] I don't think you are at all. But my gosh, I was sure. Celebrating your excommunication. Oh, I'm so sorry. It's the 180. Like, that's the irony of it is how because. Because I had to hold on to the church so hard for survival. I was just rigid, rigid, rigid, rigid, you know, and so it wasn't you personally, but what you represented. I suppose so.

Myndee Tollefson [04:20:18] So anyway, through this is, I'm all of a sudden learning what radical acceptance is, and I'm learning what ch. True, unconditional love actually is. And I am able, thankfully, that my children have allowed me to come back and take accountability for my actions. And I, you know, I. They'll tell me a story and I'm like, I am so sorry for all the things I said and did while I was Mormon, you know, I mean, that's the only way that I can do it. Because if I had stayed in the church, I'm quite confident that I would not be speaking to at least Kennedy. But I don't know that my youngest would be able to have a relationship with me too, because I am a full ally now.

Myndee Tollefson [04:20:57] I mean, it's. If she's not going to be in the slush kingdom, why do I want to be there? You know, I'd rather just be wherever my kids are. That's where I want to be. And so because of that, then you know, I've been able to soften it around my other daughters too. And they've actually had reconciliation with Kennedy and have had a. I mean, we're very cohesive in a very healthy place. We both recognize that the savior complex that I have and the savior dynamic of savior victim is probably going to always exist in our relationship. And so when we get into tough times, it's a place that we really, really have to be careful.

Myndee Tollefson [04:21:37] And other than that, our relationship is quite easy at this point in time. And a lot of, I mean, we've both built back trust. We both have figured out a dynamic that works really, really well for us. There's been another time since then that I needed to have space from what was going on in her life and she respected that. And we've come back together after that. So it feels like we're in a very cohesive place with that, which is incredibly beautiful. And I am positive that had I stayed in the church that we wouldn't be at the, at this place. And so leaving actually just gave me permission to fully be me and be the parent that I knew that I needed to be for my children.

Myndee Tollefson [04:22:18] And the grandma that I have these two darling granddaughters that are my besties and you know, I mean, I just, they are a gift to me in my life at this point in time. And I, they love to see that I'm exploring and you know, my 11 year old granddaughter is, knew that I was coming, doing this interview and wants to know all the questions and you know, I mean she learned for the first time the sin next to murder thing. And she was like, were you really taught that, Mimi? And I was like, I was, I was.

John Dehlin [04:22:48] Well, it's in the, it's in the Book of Mormon.

Myndee Tollefson [04:22:50] Right, right, right. And it's every, every. I mean, I can't remember not ever hearing the licked cupcake, the chewed gum. There was one about a wedge in a tree that the tree would grow around it.

John Dehlin [04:23:02] It.

Myndee Tollefson [04:23:02] But it's always there. So what's the atonement then? What is the atonement supposed to be if the wedge is always there? You know, so I mean, just eventually the truth claims did was just like I, I probably listened to about 20 of the LDS discussions and I'm like, I don't need anymore. I, I don't need any more of it at this point in time. Not only has this institution done incredible harm to me and my children, but I don't, I don't want anything to do with it anymore at this point. In time. And as most people say, it's, it's hard. That's a really hard thing.

Myndee Tollefson [04:23:36] I wanted the church to be true. I wanted to find the place to find the answers I want. I went to the church for comfort. I went to everybody I could think of for comfort, for answers to make this make sense for what I experienced in life. And I couldn't get answers until I stepped away from the church. Church looked into other religious paradigms even, and not even, not even. I don't even.

Myndee Tollefson [04:24:01] I just love to learn about all of them, you know, I mean, Buddhism's beautiful, secular Buddha's beautiful, you know, I mean, do I want to become Buddhist? No. I don't want any organized religion. But you can find pieces of beauty in each part of it, you know, and there's so much out there to rebuild. Mysticism is so fun for me right now. Right now. I love astrology. Let's figure out astrology and have some fun with that, you know, and practice not having astrology determine all of my actions, you know, not outsourcing my authority to any other thing, but collecting authority to help me drive my, my choices, drive my decisions and, you know, and to just take ownership back and being 50 years old and trying to learn how to be an adult for the first time is not easy.

Myndee Tollefson [04:24:45] And I, I wish that I, I wish that I could have stayed in the church. But once you, once you realize the harm of it, you can't go back. You can't go back from it.

John Dehlin [04:24:55] So, and then irony of ironies, what, 10 or 15, 20 years ago, the Mormon Church gets out of the adoption business. And I just really quickly, I speculated that it could have been, you know, because of lawsuits. It also very well could have been that the church was afraid that it would be forced to allow same sex adoptions and it wanted to abandon adoptions before it had to even mess with discrimination claims of discriminating against same sex couples. Or it could have been a combination of those things or other things as well. Long story short is, are you just excited that the Mormon Church is out of the adoption business or is there some ambivalence or some pain associated with that?

Myndee Tollefson [04:25:46] It, it bugs me because there's no accountability, right? There's no accountability for it whatsoever. Of like, I know I'm not the only one that has experienced a difficult adoption. I'm not. You know, our story is very, very tragic and it's kind of like the, the extreme of, you know, what it is. I mean, there are worse things that could have been happening to her, but not, not, you know, I mean, it was awful.

John Dehlin [04:26:07] It was pretty bad.

Myndee Tollefson [04:26:08] It's pretty bad, right? And I'll, I'll every once in a while, watch, once in a while watch a documentary and call her and be like, hey, you don't have the worst adoption out there. This one was worse, you know, kind of thing. And I mean, it's kind of a joke. It's pretty bad. Right. And so I realized that there is, I'm on one end of the spectrum and there's a whole nother beautiful side of the other spectrum. And I, I have some very dear friends that are just incredible, incredible birth moms and, or, I'm sorry, adoptive moms. And if all of them were like that, if all of the adoptive parents were like that, then there wouldn't be issues. Right.

John Dehlin [04:26:42] But unless, unless the birth moms were pressured with undue influence and a lack of information to give up their kids. Because even if those kids went into healthy adoptive parent homes, there was still the coercion and the undoing influence.

Myndee Tollefson [04:27:00] Yeah. Yeah, thanks for calling that out too. And a big part of that too, is again, turning over my authority for them to have vetted these families. Had I not been in the church, I would have done so much more research. I would have demanded more information. I would have, you know, I mean, it was of my nature to know all the things. You know, it still is of my nature to know all the things. And so it's not, I wouldn't have turned my authority over for the, for who was going to be the parent to my child. There's no way I'd do that in a million years, you know, and so, yes, the undo, the undue influence that was played into that absolutely is a huge portion of it.

John Dehlin [04:27:41] And the deception that the information was, including the separation and or divorce of the adoptive parents, the different career and the different career was all withheld from you.

Myndee Tollefson [04:27:54] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:27:55] And you were deceived.

Myndee Tollefson [04:27:56] Yeah, that I was fully, fully deceived on that. And it, I mean, again, it is speculative that divorce papers were drawn up, but it's a very credible source that that information came from.

John Dehlin [04:28:05] And so they were separated.

Myndee Tollefson [04:28:07] Right, so. Right, exactly. At some point in time, he left at 10, nine, 10 months. And there's, there's, it's not, it's not a question of whether or not they were healthy when they received her.

Margi Dehlin [04:28:18] Her.

Myndee Tollefson [04:28:18] You don't all of a sudden get divorced in naa. So, yeah, so the, I mean, my gratitude comes from my faith deconstruction of that. It has allowed me to build beautiful relationships with my children. It's also allowed them to create relationships with each other again now too, and rebuild those kinds of relationships. And that she does get parents difference now, you know, and, and Troy's role in this has been monumental. You know, I mean, that he was there and he was, he held her before, you know, he held her. He was. Held my hand during all of it. He was there when I came home. So when she came back into our lives, there's nobody in the world that could be more invested in this than him, you know, and no other man that I could have ever been with would have been as supportive and as,

John Dehlin [04:29:10] as

Myndee Tollefson [04:29:13] emotionally invested in it as he was, because it was his daughter too. He was, he was. At that point, we knew we would get married. We just had to. It was just messy to get there. And he felt a lot of guilt initially for not having married me and had to work through those feelings of being able to have prevented this quote, unquote. You know, I mean, obviously we can't, like I said, we can't go back and question all of these things because it's not healthy. But at the same time, you kind of have to go through those motions. And so he had a lot to reconcile with too, of whether or not he could have even prevented this, which is heartbreaking to me as well.

Myndee Tollefson [04:29:53] So. And then the other benefit of the church not being in our lives is our, our relationship has gotten better too, because he doesn't have the threat of, of me saying bait and switch on him. You know, he doesn't have the threat of me clinging to the church for every, every answer, for every, everything. And he gets to have his wife back. You know, I mean that little by little, I was being pushed into a box from the church. And little by little since deconstructing, I'm finding myself again in some ways for the very first time, you know, and so we get to foster our relationship in a much better, much healthier way where we can talk about our beliefs.

Myndee Tollefson [04:30:34] We couldn't talk about them before because I wasn't a safe place to have those conversations with, you know, I mean, I flat out told them bait and switch. I flat out told him he doesn't get to believe other things. And so anytime church came up with us, I would hear other people have, you know, these great in depth conversations with their husband. And we could barely. I, I mean, I think we read the Scriptures together 10 times times in all of our life. You know, I mean, church and religion and thoughts on all of the big issues and theologies and all of that just weren't safe conversations for us.

Myndee Tollefson [04:31:06] And so now we can. There's no subject that's off the table. There's no action that's off the table. Like where does our own morality lie? What do our own boundaries with each other. What is, where do we, you know, is there any changes that we want to make in our life? There's a lot of different conversations that can have now that we, that were not, we were not able to have those in our relationship before.

Myndee Tollefson [04:31:33] So as a whole, just my whole family is, our little nuclear family is much more cohesive at this point thanks to not being part of the church. And it was the church that was making it my clean to the church is what was driving a wedge in my family.

Myndee Tollefson [04:31:51] So I had to be the one that left first. And actually I, I guess Caitlyn, our youngest daughter, was officially the one that left first when she came out. And then all of us kind of have followed suit since then. And we're really lucky because I know that's not the case for a lot of people and the church continues to drive wedges into a lot of marriages, but we're lucky on that part to have been been and we're on this journey together, all of us, and could not be happier outside of the church. And yeah, you, I always heard, you always heard that when you were in the church that, oh, I have so much more happier in peace.

Myndee Tollefson [04:32:27] And it's not the real peace I can attest to. This is what peace looks like outside of the church. This is what happiness looks like. And that fanged gold dangling carrot of joy in the afterlife and endure to the end is not any way to live life. This is how to live life is to live in the now and to cherish the relationships and foster the relationships and find accountability for the things that you've done and how you've wronged people so that you can continue to grow in love. And that's, I mean that's the bottom line and that's what actually, I mean that kind of is a good little wrap up of why I'm even here is, you know, because I want to be able to, to share and help other people see, feel, seen.

Myndee Tollefson [04:33:11] You know, I mean that's. It's a lonely world to be a birth mom. It's a very, very lonely un. It's an invisible pain to have a scarlet letter. And I hope that there's birth moms out there that are Feeling seen and heard and loved. And I feel free to reach out, you know, I mean, I would love to be able to connect with women if they want to do.

John Dehlin [04:33:34] How do they find you?

Myndee Tollefson [04:33:36] I'm very not active on social media right now. I've just made a transition from dog world back to human world. So you can find me on Instagram. Just look up my name. I am on Facebook too.

John Dehlin [04:33:48] It's M, Y, N, D, E E. Correct. T O L, L, E, F, S O, N. Correct.

Myndee Tollefson [04:33:53] Yeah. And I can give you a link to what my Instagram is so I have a more active dog account. But I'll give you my human one and maybe I'll start using my human Instagram again instead. So, I mean, I would love to be able to connect with others and there's big stories to be told in all of this, so. And lots of, lots of feelings, tender feelings that I would love to honor in these other women that are out there and adoptees and birth fathers too, because I also want to be accountable that there was a lot of coercion and pain that was done to the birth father in this as well.

John Dehlin [04:34:29] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [04:34:30] Yeah.

John Dehlin [04:34:31] Well, let me just say really quickly, we talked about maybe doing a panel of. What's the term of birth moms? Birth moms. So if, if many of you have had this experience and you found this episode useful or validating, I'm, you know, write us, leave comments on YouTube or on Spotify, send us emails@mormonstoriesgmail.com and we'll consider doing a panel.

Myndee Tollefson [04:34:59] Yeah, I'd love to.

John Dehlin [04:35:02] And hopefully the. Since the Mormon Church is out of this business, but hopefully someone at Mormon Church headquarters can pay attention to the scarlet letter aspects, the shame aspects, the sin extra murder aspect, the. The bishops interviews and the disciplinary councils and all that. Hopefully this can lead to some changes at church headquarters and in families and in wards and in stakes worldwide, even separate from the adoption stuff.

Myndee Tollefson [04:35:32] Yeah, but I think the adoption part of it is an important piece too, because it is only one of several options, you know, and, and in a lot of cases it isn't the best option, but the, the church still says to this day currently that it is the best option if you're not married. And I, I think that that's something that it's important to change the rhetoric around too, because it's not always the best choice.

John Dehlin [04:35:54] Right. Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes maybe a single birth mom who has support, a lot of resources or a lot of initiative or drive or family or even award support can do A great job being, being a birth mom.

Myndee Tollefson [04:36:12] I know many.

John Dehlin [04:36:12] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [04:36:13] I mean, my daughter's one.

John Dehlin [04:36:14] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [04:36:14] And she, she has been a single mom a lot of her life, and she's a damn good mom.

John Dehlin [04:36:19] Yeah.

Myndee Tollefson [04:36:19] And I, I'm so grateful she didn't place her daughter for adoption too. You know, I mean, we have this beautiful soul in our lives that belonged with her and are part of this story, too, and it wasn't the right choice for her. We won't ask if it was the right choice for me because it was the choice for me, me, you know, So I think it's okay to challenge that narrative too.

John Dehlin [04:36:42] So feel free to email me if you're interested in telling your story, but also leave comments really quickly. We could do this without the support of our donors, so if you're a donor, thank you. Our ad revenue is declining for whatever reason, so we do depend on the financial support of donors.

John Dehlin [04:37:02] So. And, and donors are always dropping off for one reason or another. So if you value this type of content, if you want to see it continue, please go to MormonStories.org and become a monthly donor. It's also helpful to subscribe to this channel or all the channels and to comment and thumbs up and like the episodes and share them. That's all super helpful. So.

Closing Reflections and Farewell

John Dehlin [04:37:25] Well, Mindy Tollefson, I just can't thank you enough for your willingness to come on, to spend this time with us and to tell such a vulnerable story. And I also kind of want to thank your family members, including Kennedy, both for being a part of the story, but also for their assumed consent in you sharing this story that involves them.

Myndee Tollefson [04:37:50] I have thanked them all so many times, all three daughters and my husband, husband for trusting me to tell the story in a way that honors them as well. And I, I, I, I have a bit of pride, too, because each one of my daughters, when I went to them and said, is there anything that you don't want me to share? All three of them just said, mom, I trust you. I fully trust you. And I mean, I just am so grateful that we've gotten to a place where it's no, I trust you, you know, and that's hard earned. And I could not be more grateful for their, for their trust in me and my husband for trusting me to come and tell his important role in this too. I'm really, really lucky to have such an amazing family surrounding me.

John Dehlin [04:38:35] All right, well, Mindy, thanks for coming on Mormon Stories.

Myndee Tollefson [04:38:37] Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity.

John Dehlin [04:38:39] And thanks for joining us today. Again, email us@mormonstoriesmail.com with any feedback and if you want to apply. We learned about Mindy through the application process, and we're always looking for new and interesting stories for our audience. So we can't accept every application. But we always want the best and the most interesting stories. So if you want to appear in Mormon Stories, all you gotta do is go up to the website MormonStories.org, click to apply, record a 3 minute video, fill out the form, submit it. And the video is the most important part because it lets us know that you understand Mormon stories, you understand our audience, and it gives you a chance to explain why your particular story is particularly relevant in this case.

John Dehlin [04:39:28] It's a story that I don't think we've ever told. Even though there's been a lot of audience members that have said, tell the story, tell the story. We needed to find the right person to tell it, and I think we did. But that only happened because people, we're thoughtful about our audience and because, Mindy, in this case, you applied. So if you think you have a story that would really resonate with our audience, please apply and we'd love to consider you. All right, I think that's it. Thanks again, Mindy. Thanks for joining us.

Myndee Tollefson [04:39:57] Thank you. I appreciate it so, so much.

John Dehlin [04:39:59] And thanks to Margi, my co host, and to Brooklyn and Julia for their help and the OSF board and to all our donors. Be good to each other, be kind to each other, and we'll see you all again soon on another episode of Mormon Stories podcast. Take care.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.