February 2023

By Kathleen Shea Kirstein I allowed my son to hijack my homework. Like I have allowed those I love to hijack my desires, needs, and, sometimes, my beliefs over the years. My ugly mug was ceramic with a picture of a Christmas tree. I asked my son and daughter-in-law if anyone had any attachment to it. God forbid I would decide on my own because I might pick out something someone else might like. They said no, and my son asked why? Then he saw the hammer in my hand. “What’s that about? I told him about my writing class homework. Get an ugly mug, smash it with the hammer, pick a word from an emotional wheel that describes how it felt, and write about the experience. “Oh, I have this,” he said, producing a small firecracker. He went on to say, “ I think this will work better than your hammer.” I didn’t want to explore why my 38-year-old son had a firecracker so readily available. It was Valentine’s day. (I hate Valentine’s day.) We went outside. The air was crisp, not a cloud in the sky, and the shining sun made it feel warmer than the actual temperature. I filled the mug with water and put it into a container to keep us safe from exploding shards. My son lit the fuse, stepping away to maintain a safe distance. The anticipation was everything. I knew the blast was coming, yet I jumped a bit when mug exploded. It’s always interesting when I know something is going to happen. I plan for it to happen, even set the steps in motion, yet I’m surprised when it occurs. That was the goal. Blow up the mug. The explosion was small due to the contained space, yet still powerful enough to shatter the mug. “Wow, that blast was a little more than I expected,” my son said. I told him I knew what I was going to write and thanked him for helping. How did it feel to smash the mug? Realizing the ease with which I let others hijack my plans, needs, desires, and, yes, sometimes my beliefs, was an insight I was happy to acknowledge, so happy is the word I chose from the emotion wheel. Suddenly, I was thinking about my love of target shooting. Due to a shoulder injury, it had been a while since I spent time on the range with my pink-handled Sig Sauer Mosquito. I love the moment when everything is dialed in and all I hear is the sound of my breath as I steady it to take the shot. It’s quick, short-lived, but violent. Could it be I like explosions? It’s quick, short-lived, but violent. I never thought of myself as a violent person. I think of myself as the opposite. I thought about the mug as a metaphor for my life. My life has exploded four times. Three that I remember in precise flashback available detail. The first  explosion—the one I don’t remember, the one that happened on the day I was born—lives in my cells. It’s preverbal and developmental. Wendy was my name. My life/Wendy’s life was blown up and shattered moments after birth. And whatever life that infant was destined to live was taken away when I was sent off to the hospital, to the incubator, without so much as a pit stop into my loving mother’s arms. After all, Helena, my loving mother, was headed home to live a life without me. She was leaving Wendy to hang out in the maternity home for 43 days, relying on staff to keep the baby fed, warm, and safe until a family from New Hampshire would come and take her home. Wendy died on April 15, 1958, when the adoption/infant protection agency assigned her a new identity, a new name. With the bang of a judge’s gavel, Kathleen Ann Shea was born. Hers was the life path I would take. Click image to continue reading.

By Kara Rubinstein Deyerin People with misattributed parentage, DNA surprises, and unknown origins have a lot in common. Many of us learn about being misattributed because we are byproducts of the direct-to-consumer DNA testing phenomenon. We bought into the commercial enticing us to learn more about our roots, or perhaps we were gifted a test, and then we received the shock of our lives—we are not genetically related to one or both of our parents. Some of us grow up knowing we have a different genetic parent(s) out there, somewhere, but aren’t interested in knowing them. However we get there, when we start the process of reunion, we all end up in a very similar emotional space. One thing I continue to hear as I speak with people experiencing these new discoveries is “I felt all alone.” I can completely identify with this sentiment. While each of our stories is unique,  many common themes flow through them. We are not alone. United we can help each other heal. We can educate others about how deeply we are impacted. And we can elevate each other’s voices to change societal perceptions and laws to reflect our most basic right to know who we are. Untangling Our Roots is the first-ever summit to promote these principles and bring together adoptees, the donor-conceived, people with an NPE, their significant others, raising and genetic family, and the professionals who assist our communities–an event sponsored by Right to Know and the National Association of Adoptees and Parents. Click image to read more.

Q&A with Rebecca Autumn Sansom Nancy Verrier, LMFT, became so deeply intrigued by her adoptive daughter’s response to having been relinquished that she earned a master’s degree in clinical psychology and wrote her thesis about what she called the primal wound—the trauma of separating a child from its mother. Her book, The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child, published in 1993, is in its 15th printing and has been translated into seven languages. Its message resonated with filmmaker and adoptee Rebecca Autumn Sansom who, along with her biological mother, Jill Hawkins, PhD, have produced a powerful documentary starring its author and exploring the theory that the trauma of relinquishment must be acknowledged before healing can occur and examining the cultural shift the book kickstarted. Reckoning with the Primal Wound is the first feature-length documentary about relinquishment trauma that explores the perspective of both adoptee and biological mother and features, in addition to Verrier, psychologists David Brodzinsky, PhD, and Amanda Baden, PhD.  In September 2022, the film premiered at The Catalina Film Festival in Long Beach, California. It’s since been seen in dozens of screenings to enthusiastic audiences of adoptees and others, has been accepted into 20 film festivals. Here, we talk with the filmmaker about the genesis of the film, it’s creation, and its reception. Click image to read more.