Teresa Matheny
Appearances
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators
She whispered to me and said, you know you still have a balance due to me.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators
When you get up here, you are going to have to sit down with Tara. You're going to have to pretend that you know nothing.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators
So Tara, you know, when we got into Detroit, I text her and was like, we're here. And she's like, yay, you know. And so her plan was for the following day for us to meet Tara and our birth parents in Port Huron at a restaurant.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators
She said, oh, I can't get a hold of her. She won't answer.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators
So then we go back into panic mode. I'm a mess, you know, crying, don't know what to do. We had not slept. We were running on fumes.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators
Julie Falkenberry. And so that name stuck in my head. That night when we were at our Airbnb, I sent her a message. I was like, hey, just kind of fishing, you know, hey, you know, we're with Tara Lee, you know, we're here in Michigan or whatever. And she immediately, you know, sent me a message back and was like, can I call you? But I don't want to call you alone.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators
I want to have my friend Courtney on the phone.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 4. We All Became Investigators
I had to. I had to. I didn't know what was going on. I had to know. They call me. I am in the dining room pacing around the kitchen table. I'm on the phone with these two women.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 7. Gotcha Day
And they got to meet us for the first time. And it was amazing. I know that it was scary, I think, for all of us because of this connection that we had had. And I call him Baby Boy because, like, obviously we had our name picked.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 7. Gotcha Day
It's snowing. It's freezing. We walked in with all of the victims through the front door of the courthouse. in a line, we were all together. And we all sat in the jurors box.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
Yeah. She's blowing Tanya's phone up.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
I think we still had a week left on our Airbnb, and we just said, keep it. Just, we're leaving.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
We're so excited. We get in the car. We get on the road. I mean, we were hit the road, dude. We were like out of there.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
And it's... He stayed in the slow lane like a grandpa.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
Yep. It's all our friends. I think we're waiting at our house when we got there, right? We had all of our friends there. My dad, yeah, he came down. My sister was there. It was great. Yeah, so that's kind of how it happened.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
We had never heard anything about this guy named Jay. He was introduced to us as someone that would be witnessing our birth father signing away his rights because that's what we were doing that night.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
You could tell that the birth parents loved each other very much.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
So then Tara jumps in. She goes, that's not true. That is not true. That is not what the doctors said. You are 40 weeks old. You know, and our birth mom just kind of cowers down.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
You've got vulnerable birth parents. You've got vulnerable adoptive parents.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
No, no, not at all. And we knew it was bullshit. We knew.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
Our birth mom is hooked up to the monitors. She is frantically trying to get a hold of her partner who doesn't have the phone. She's terrified. She's alone. She doesn't know us. She has no support there.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
And that's when I started recording.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
She whispered to me and said, you know you still have a balance due to me.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
She was like, just go to the NICU or whatever. And I'm sitting here looking at this human being, a woman who has carried this baby for nine months, has given this baby up for adoption and has no one there with her. It was heartbreaking. The most important thing to me at that moment was consoling her. And I asked her permission. I said, is this okay? Is it okay for me to go to the NICU?
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
And she said, yes. And so that's when I went to the NICU.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
And I saw his little face and he was just so sweet.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
His hand was as big as his body. He was just precious. He was five pounds, four ounces. He was a tiny little thing. And yeah, he was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. He was so sweet. He had like the cutest little nose. He was just perfect to my eyes. I mean, he was just, you know, he also seemed like he was very alert, you know, he was just, Beautiful. I don't know.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
It felt like he was mine, if that makes sense.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
I couldn't believe it. I was like, oh my gosh, like, this is real. Like, we have a son. Like, this is crazy.
The Binge Cases: Baby Broker
Baby Broker | 5. The Last Adoption
So no one knew about the FBI. So the hospital, they thought we were crazy.