Essays, Fiction, Poetry

By Laura Jenkins

I first saw Wicked on stage in 2009, while my husband and I were honeymooning in San Francisco. Though it didn’t make me a superfan, I loved it enough to take family members to see it —on two separate occasions—when the tour came to town. But before the curtain fell for the third time, I found myself wishing it would hurry up and be over. I’d had enough. 

So when my daughter invited me to see the film, I hesitated. Did I really want to sit through it a fourth time? No. But since she and her kids were only in town for 36 hours, I went. And by the end of the movie, I was so overcome with emotion I sat on the verge of tears through nearly ten minutes of credits trying to understand why it affected me so deeply. Two days later I saw it again. Within the week I preordered my digital copy. What happened to the woman who said she was finished with Wicked?   

In a word, Elphaba.   

Cynthia Erivo took a character I thought I knew and cracked her wide open. I’d seen three brilliant actors play Elphaba on stage, but until the movie I’d never really seen her. Not only did Erivo’s intimate portrayal give me a deeper understanding of her story, it also shifted the narrative in a way that brought a great deal of clarity to my own.

The first thing that struck me when I saw Elphaba on an IMAX screen was her greenness. Of course I already knew what color she was. But seeing her up close made me think about why she was green: like me, she was the offspring of an affair. Her viridescent skin was a dead giveaway that she and her sister had different fathers. I don’t have statistics to back this up, but when people in monogamous relationships betray that commitment, they typically want to keep it hidden. And that’s pretty difficult to do with an accidental baby around—especially if she’s green. Children of affairs are, by nature, whistleblowers. We tell secrets by simply existing. Elphaba carried the stigma of her parents’ tryst on the outside. When I saw her on screen, it occurred to me that green is a perfect way to describe how I always felt on the inside—tarnished. Tainted. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have a gnawing sense I didn’t deserve to be here. My sister told me the truth about my biological father when I was 21, but I felt the immense weight of the secret long before that. Since I couldn’t get anyone to talk about it, I drew my own conclusions: there must something about me that was too awful to tell. Was I born innately bad?

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By Kristine Neff

I first recognized love, felt enveloped by it, gave it with gasping waves of pain, emotionless fear, and exhausted defeat a few months before I turned seventeen. I also, somehow, knew it would prove to be a position rather than a feeling or a state of mind. It was just suddenly there. Without a tingle around the edges to mark its beginning or a warning of its power to collapse my entire self. The slight fluttering of my twin daughters in my womb, at sixteen, stirred up a fire, like leaves in a burn pile in fall. The leaves slowly crackling on the surface, smoldering. But if something happened to cause these leaves to stir, flames would begin to consume them. As the embers would burn deeper into this pile of leaves, the fire would get stronger and stronger, out of control, but slowly, the more it was stirred. My body, mind, and soul were burning much the same as these girls stirred inside me. I was their host. Their protector. Their mother. Mom. Love would prove to cause more pain than the shock and fear caused by a long painful labor would. Labor—a ripping apart of these smoldering leaves to reveal a raging inferno.
My love for these two tiny babies wasn’t planned, it just simply was. The intense need to protect them, to make sure they were healthy, that I was healthy—the desire to remove anything from our lives that could have harmed them, or scared them, was overwhelming and all consuming. I knew that after I did all I could do, I would leave the hospital alone. After enduring the shock, pain, and silent agony of their birth, the only thing I’d have left of us, we three, who once were, would be love. Love was just there. It wasn’t a tool to get through it or a trophy to show off. It was what we had been through, what we endured, we three. It was me, making sure to have them as close to me as possible until time ran out, no matter what price I would later pay for these few intimate moments with them. Me, making promises and trying to ensure that those two little girls would somehow continue to carry the same beats of their hearts as mine; no matter how many miles, years, and closed doors, there would be between us. Love wasn’t mine to give them, or for them to accept. It was a bond we shared, a scar we share.

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By Maelyn Schramm

Transracial adoption isn’t easy. It isn’t glamorous. It isn’t romantic.
Transracial adoption is messy. It’s hard. It’s emotional.
The impact of transracial adoption is woven into every fiber of my being; every detail of my story; every stitch of the tapestry that shows my life’s journey.
I’m Maelyn, a 30-year-old Dallasite adopted from China at 14-months-old. My family includes two Caucasian parents and two Caucasian brothers, between whom I fall. Although my brothers are also adopted, their domestic and open adoption stories are far different than my own. After all, isn’t every adoption story unique? Isn’t every adopted child exquisite? Isn’t every adopted child’s journey extraordinary?
My story, my journey, includes ignoring my biological culture as a child through emerging adulthood. And then finally coming to terms with, embracing, and celebrating my biological culture, my transracial identity, in my mid-20s.
As a child and young adult, I didn’t dare come across as too Asian. I surrounded myself with Caucasian friends, I ate normal American foods (burgers and fries) and avoided any odd Asian dishes (sweet rice balls and many other dishes I did not know as I refused to indulge in them). I immersed myself in my Baptist upbringing. I put my foot down about learning Chinese and dropped out of Chinese school early on. I hid my good grades. I joined the middle school band instead of orchestra.
Despite their genuine and honest efforts, I rejected my adopted parents’ attempts to immerse me in Chinese culture, to expose me to Asian American friends, to explore who I truly am.
But then COVID hit and so did widespread Asian hatred. George Floyd’s murder, increasing racial tension in America, and all of the intricate, undeniable ugliness that impacted the non-white community overcame my thoughts and emotions. These current events snapped me into reality: I looked Asian because I am Asian. I was at risk of becoming a victim of Asian hate. And due to my Asian exterior—despite my lack of social identity—I dove into educating myself on my biological culture; I dove into embracing who I am: Chinese American.
The exploration into my Chinese heritage and adoption coincided with Asian American-Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May. I educated myself on Asian American history and its prominent figures. I reached out to Asian acquaintances. For the first time, I felt honored to be Chinese. For the first time, I felt like I found a community I belonged to, a community I rejected long ago.
As I said, coming to terms with my non-white identity was messy. It was hard. It was emotional. It was a journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance. I still consider the exploration of my transracial identity lifelong, ever evolving.

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By Carrie Anne Tocci

A few years ago, I subbed a fifth-grade class. Lemony Snicket, Harry Potter, and Matilde book clubs populated the classroom. These titles featured orphans. I’ve never considered that I was one. My story begins with my arrival to my first home, at two weeks old. But that’s before the shushing around adoption started.
The first shushing followed the Avon lady’s visit when I was nearly eight years old. Mountain-like, at the end of our handmade wooden table complete with tree knots, she sat in Dad’s usual seat, and I stood near my mom’s lap at the other end. Instead of packing up to leave after we ordered Sweet Honesty for me or Hawaiian Ginger for my nanny, she said something like, “You don’t look adopted.” Speechless, my mom froze. For the first time, not yet ten years old, I confront a reality: people outside of our immediate family know that I am adopted. A label stuck on with permanent glue though I suddenly feel impermanent. I came from elsewhere. But no one knows where. A closed adoption mystery to carry into adulthood.
Tonight, members of my Adoptee Voices writing group share that there are whole books about adoptee murderers. Jeffrey Dahmer’s name pops into my head, and I recall hearing he was adopted. A quick Internet search does not confirm this, though I remember the rumor. Even rumors around adopted people, infamous ones, are hard to place or confirm.
After the Avon lady’s visit, my mom wanted to protect me. That’s what I think today. This is my explanation for why she told me, “Don’t tell anyone you’re adopted,” shortly afterward. I recall hearing this request after I followed her to the basement, where she pulled warm clothes from the dryer. When I think back to this incident and its antecedent, the Avon Lady’s comment, my memories conjure my surprise. Italian-American like us, the Avon Lady was a respected women in our church who baked ziti and lasagna for parish events. Maybe she thought this cultural connection gave her the right to interject her observation. Back then, I didn’t know my true ethnicity. I considered myself Italian-American, not yet thinking of this culture as borrowed. My dark shiny hair, brown eyes, and olive-toned skin matched with my parents and their sons, my brothers, who weren’t adopted. Culturally, this is who I am.
As I grew, adoption popped up and remained subterranean. Obscured just enough to give me a scare. Maybe this is why when I see an unexpected shadow or movement of light in my apartment or on the street, I jump expecting a mouse or a rat. Then and now, I never know when adoption or an adoption-related event might pop out. I get scared easily. Sometimes, there’s humor in this. My screams sound pre-recorded, reminding me of an old commercial: is it live or is it Memorex? Or both? Sometimes individual screams stay inside–stuffed. Expressed or muffled, the track played is separation anxiety or fright that comes with the cool wash of isolation and abandon—a tightening—imagine an infant’s clenched fists, a face scrunched not yet warmed by tears. But there are tears of laughter, sometimes, too.
About 10 years ago, a friend and I took our best friend’s kids to a restaurant when she was away. Her eight-year daughter tapped my shoulder to playfully startle me when she returned from the bathroom. Poor girl. My piercing scream brought the chef out of the kitchen. Customers froze. She and her brother, both horrified and entertained. We still cry laughing remembering this scare.
I can now say that it frightened me when my mom told me not to tell people that I was adopted. She added, “Your Other Mother may want you back.” My mom doesn’t remember saying this; could this have been a tape inside my head? Was this her fear or my fantasy? But I have a clear recollection. No matter what was said, this is what I heard.

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By Kris Neff

You will change her name, you will give her a new birthday; erase her past.
You will smile at me, full of promises you don’t intend to keep.
You will tell me I’m brave; tell me I’m selfless, deny my grief, refuse my tears.
You will amend her identity, and replace mine with yours.
You will tell me I’m brave, tell me I’m courageous, while you hold your breath, your need to ensure there will be no reunion between us.
You will tell her I couldn’t give her all that she needed. Tell us, both, now we can have the lives we deserve.
You will tell me I’m brave, tell me I’m selfless.
But It will be you that others will perceive to be selfless; allowing me little glimpses; allowing me just a taste, never allowing me to quench my thirst.
You will see me in her, in her eyes; and her smile.
You will hear my voice every time she speaks.
She will never stop wondering.
I will never stop searching.
You will never find peace.
Eventually you will tell me I’m bitter; and need to let go.
With the swipe of a pen you will make her who you want her to be.
Not allowing her to be who she was; who she is.
Don’t forget about me, or your promises and your hope you took back.
Don’t forget that her smile is my smile too.
Remember it was my face that her eyes saw first.
It was me she was crying for as she was handed to you.
And her first breath of air was a breath of mine too.
You will hope I stay brave. Pray I stay selfless. While you deny my grief and refuse my tears.

By Tracey Ciccone Edelist

It took some imagination to see my dad in me. We look nothing alike, so I had to go beyond the obvious to find similarities: crooked teeth, hidden skin tags and blemishes, a propensity to worry, maybe cheekbones and chins—he hides his under a beard so it’s hard to say. I share more physical similarities with my blue-eyed, blonde-haired stepmother who has been my mom since my birth mother left one day when I was barely a toddler. We used to look at each other and smile conspiratorially when strangers commented on how much I looked like Mom.

I worked hard to see those bits of Dad in me, so when my eldest child did a consumer DNA test “for fun” and uncovered my birth mother’s secret about my paternity, I didn’t know who I was looking at in the mirror anymore. Within a few hours, we’d found photos online of women, sisters of the suspected DNA father, who looked like me and my children. Then I found a black and white photo of him from 1975. I would have been four. It’s a close-up shot. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat of a car wearing a wide-lapelled winter coat and ‘70s patterned scarf, smiling for the camera, his arm resting on the open window. I saw my eyes, my forehead, my face shape, my lips, my skin tone. That photo, and those of his sisters, my aunts, made it hard to deny what the DNA test had revealed.

The first time I caught my reflection in the mirror after looking at their photos, I jumped, and then I stared, unbelieving. I saw him and his sisters looking back at me, their features superimposed on my own. I had spent so long convincing myself my cheekbones came from my dad, so many years establishing that untrue story of who I was, and now, there were these unknown people who looked like me, presenting themselves uninvited in my face, pushing Dad away from it. For months, every time I saw myself in the mirror, and every time I looked at my young adult children, I felt an electric shock of disbelief zap through me, wrenching me into a surreal world that didn’t make any sense. I no longer knew who we were, who I was, except that I was now half Italian.

It took quite some time for my brain to adjust, for my synapses to rewire to incorporate this new information, to rebuild my identity from scratch. I began to write to help me process everything, to get the intrusive, persistent thoughts out of my brain and onto the page. The story below is a short piece of creative non-fiction that represents an unsettling that follows these DNA discoveries. The woman seeks refuge in nature. It grounds her, but the turmoil underneath remains and breaks through.

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By Ann T. Perri

When it first happened, I thought my DNA discovery broke me into a thousand pieces, but now, that’s not what I think happened. Instead, as one set of beliefs about identity peeled away, I expanded and reassembled.
Before I knew I was an NPE (not parent expected), many of my beliefs about identity came from my family, particularly my father’s family. To them, blood is everything. You put your family first and never betray them, because they’re your blood.
In my earliest childhood memories, in an Italian house with plastic-covered furniture and the scent of sautéed garlic always wafting from the kitchen, my grandma told me the story of her family, our family. I learned about her siblings, her no-good father, and her long-suffering mother. I absorbed it all and built my identity on that family lore.
My grandma would tell me how she waited generations for a girl to be born into the family, and here I was, her prayers answered. And best yet in her eyes, I was smarter than the boys in the family—just like she knew a girl would be with our blood.
She mapped out the person she expected me to be when I grew up. I would travel and attend college, yet I must remember that cleanliness was next to godliness and always that blood is thicker than water.
The only thing was—which we didn’t know then—was that I wasn’t blood. I didn’t share a single drop of their blood or a centimorgan of their DNA. I wasn’t like the men in the family because they weren’t related to me. But nobody knew that, except maybe my mother.
Decades after my grandma died, some saliva and a DNA test revealed my genetic truth. I was a middle-aged woman going through menopause with an identity that felt shattered with little warning. The pieces of my family stories left a debris field through my life. It was as SpaceX says when a rocket explodes, it’s a rapid unscheduled disassembly or RUD. And it feels like shit.

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By Bruno Giles

July 17, 1956 Switzerland

Today, my foster mom showed me something neat called the KinderPass. It looks like a small book, similar to the ones she reads to me at bedtime. Since I can understand a bit of German, I know it means “child’s passport.” The title is also written in French—”Passport pour Enfants”—and Italian—”Passaporto per Bambini.” I think I like the Italian the best! I’m not sure what this little book is for since I’m only 18 months old, but she says I’ll need it soon.
The book has no pictures and mostly empty pages. It has my birthday printed on it and states that I’m a citizen of Switzerland. I’m not sure what that means, but I hope it’s a good thing. I like Switzerland!

Medical Exam for Visa Applicants Aug. 25, 1956
Me and my foster parents went on a field trip today. OK, it wasn’t a real field trip, like to a park or anything, it was to a doctor’s office. It was just a short ride downtown. They said I had to get a check-up because some people at the American Consul wanted me to. They wanted the doctor to find out if I was sick or had some kind of disease. Contagious disease, I think I overheard them say. They figured out that I was disease-free, with no tuberculosis or leprosy, which is good because l don’t like leopards. They also said I had no obvious mental defects. 

And guess what? They gave me chocolate candy afterward! Chocolate makes me happy!

Airports, two months later.
I’m so tired, and mad too. My foster parents drove me to the airport and gave my little book and other paperwork, you know, the ones I told you about, to a lady who put me on a plane. My foster mother gave me a long hug, it kind of hurt me. They both waved at me a lot as the other lady took  me to show me the inside of the plane. I don’t know why but my parents seemed very sad. My mother said something was in her eye.

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By Danna Schmidt

Remember when you started as a file clerk three months ago, before this new promotion to judicial clerk? How could you forget?

Your covert efforts to locate your adoption file that first week yielded the holy grail of adoptee discoveries: a sealed kraft envelope with your name on it. Its mustiness still fills my nostrils like a rancid chamber of secrets, shame, and government regulation. When you held your birth file in hand and hugged it to your chest with a fierceness only adoptees could understand, my heart broke for you.

My heart still breaks for you. I recognized the glint of reclamation in your eyes and the slow trace of your fingertips along the file’s edges. It was as though you were measuring to see if its rectangular shape might fill the hollow circle within you. Having to tuck your origin story back on the shelf and walk away punched a new hole in you.

That was the day your longing lit an arsonist’s bonfire inside your belly from the raw spark of an idea. What if I stole my file? Would anyone even know…or care?

I see you now, typing your weekly court docket and orders as you sneak glances towards the adoption clerk’s vacant desk. You’re thinking, Now’s my chance…there’s no one in the courthouse but me!

If I could be your life coach, having lived that pivotal day plus forty years beyond, here’s what I would say: Do it. Don gloves, grab the file, use a letter opener to carefully pry it open, copy the documents, and reseal it.

Younger Self, it is that simple. Just make sure not to lick the envelope. (You won’t believe how little saliva it takes to unravel your DNA strand, shake your paternal family tree, and sign away your privacy rights to a genetic laboratory in 35 years’ time.)

Seriously. Take back what is rightfully yours. Heck, steal the file if you need to and sneak it back here later. No one will notice for decades to come.

I know you feel compelled to study the statute in your criminal code book that cites 18 years in prison for unlawful possession of government documents. Avoid that temptation, Miss Morality. Theft of sealed adoption documents is illegal, but do you honestly believe it is wrong?
What’s criminal is a closed adoption system that gatekeeps adoptee rights and traffics in government secrecy.

You should know that playing by the rules will mean having to wait 14 years for your information to be released to an adoption agency who will charge you $500.00 (plus a government services tax) to meet your birth mother.

I’m sorry to be the one to tell you that your birth father will already have died by suicide six years prior to that reunion. Your file contains no clues about his identity but if you make your way to Prospect Point in Stanley Park on the morning of April 16, 1992, and wait for the short gentlemen carrying a passport and umbrella to approach, your conversational efforts just might save him from himself.

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By Monica Stoffal

My mother once told me: If you think someone is going to be your friend, tell them the worst thing about you; a true friend must know your worst thing.
In December 1971, I was twelve-years-old and pregnant from the incest I’d experienced since I was five. On April 16, 1972, labor started with its vice-grip of contractions, bringing me to my knees just outside the hospital, where I pulled my mother to the ground as she tried in vain to hold me up. A kind stranger helped us to the hospital door. While the on-call doctor considered whether to give me an epidural, he said, “If this baby even lives, it will be small.” Eight hours later, a seven-pound boy was born—a boy I never saw or held. The adoptive parents and older brother were overjoyed.
I followed my mother’s advice for a while, believing that a true friend had to know my worst story.
I considered Robin to be that true friend and, when she shared her hardship story about growing up with an alcoholic mother, I told her my incest story. I was nineteen at the time, and Robin, who was eight years older, seemed trustworthy. I was naive about how hard my story truly was. Unbeknownst to me, Robin gossiped, telling her long-time friend, Colleen, about my childhood sexual abuse. I happened to be renting a room from Colleen, and when we had a disagreement, she accused me of sleeping with my stepfather. I was stunned. Not only by her calloused, out-of-nowhere comment, but by the shocking realization that Robin told someone else my hard story, something I rarely shared. After that, I kept my story all inside, hidden by my Cheshire Cat grin, my cool, aloof self.
Marriage, two children, college, a teaching job, gave me many years to stuff the story down deep enough that I realized I could live my entire life without ever telling it again.

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By Maelyn Schramm

My Dearest Biological Mother,
You don’t know me. Well actually, I suppose you do. You grew me in your belly for nine months. You held me in your arms when I was born. You cradled me likely with tears streaming down your face as you left me on the doorstep now 29 years ago.
You don’t know me, but I am your now thirty-year-old biological daughter, Alexia Maelyn Schramm. I write you to share my half of the story. I write to tell you I’m OK. I write because I love you.
***
Firstly, my story: a Caucasian, middle class American family adopted me. I grew up in North Texas, where I still live today. My parents—Tim & Denise—are still married. My older brother still pokes fun at me, my younger brother still annoys me at times. But I love them.
In fact, my family has grown! The oldest of us siblings married and has two sons—“The Boys,” as I lovingly refer to them. The Boys are sweet and wild and rambunctious. They make me laugh and give me hugs. They usually remind me of my brother, but sometimes I see a little of me in them too. I consider their childhood, and at times compare it to mine. I consider how the current me can love the version of themselves now, Little Them, to make up for the pain and hurt and longing Little Mae felt.
A little more of my story: my childhood was simple, yet sweet. I had friends—mostly Caucasian. I played sports (basketball, ultimate frisbee, volleyball, swim, track, and softball). I took art lessons. Water color was my favorite followed closely by sculpture. My dad’s mom taught me piano until I was seventeen-years-old, and I taught myself a touch of guitar and ukulele. I accepted Christ as a young age and plugged into our Baptist church’s youth ministry.
The latest of my story: I studied public relations at Baylor University in Central Texas, and minored in poverty studies and social justice. (I’ve always considered myself a social justice warrior). After graduating, I moved back to Dallas, where I nannied, then worked for several law firms, then worked front desk at climbing gym, then studied law, then stopped studying law, and then wound up managing full-time in the climbing industry—where I am today.
The last 10 years of my life have truly been a whirlwind, though I’m thankful for all of it.

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By Louella Dalpymple

I, Louella Dalpymple, am an avid learner, so when I became an adoptive mom, I immediately labored to read a wide array of adoption agency websites so I’d be fully armed to endear myself to my children for all eternity. Now that my adoptees are adults, I feel obligated to share “lessons learned” with the rest of you.
While it was a blow to my self-esteem to not contribute my genes to the gene pool, adoption provided me multiple ways to repair the damage from that blow, thanks to my two darling children. When I set out to learn everything necessary to be the best mom ever, I was surprised to discover that there wasn’t much to learn that I didn’t already know. I spent three whole hours (honest!) scrolling the feeds of several adoptive parent influencers to make sure I was up to speed. Adoption is one of those wonderful things that everyone already knows and loves because in adoption, everyone wins. The Republicans and the Democrats love it. The churches and the heathens love it. White people, Black people, Brown people, Yellow people – the whole rainbow of humanity loves adoption! (Maybe not the Red people). What’s not to love? When drug epidemics and earthquakes and wars and one-child policies hit, all the poor babies can make their way to better homes, American homes.
With my children successfully out in the world, living their own lives, I want to share with you 8 proven strategies (not yet patented, but I’m working on that) for what adoptees need from their parents. You might want to hang these on your fridge.

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By Dawn E. Packard

Have your clothes already laid out. Get up early before your family does. Make a cup of strong coffee, but you won’t really need it. You may never be more awake.
A little light makeup. No mascara. Some tissues in your pocket against need. Calculate again the time and distance from your hotel to the restaurant. Run a cloth over the boots you’ll walk in. Stand in front of a full-length mirror and know that this is how she will see you.
Discard any notions of eating. Don’t take anything to take the edge off. Fifty-three years is a long time to wait; you won’t want to miss any of it.
Swallow one last slug of the coffee you don’t need. Kiss your sleeping son and close the door softly as you leave. You will not return as the same person.
Walk to the restaurant and breathe deeply of the sharp winter morning air. Firmly tether your mind to your body. Stay present.
As you walk, gather all the selves you’ve ever been who’ve dreamed about this moment. The child who didn’t understand. The teenager lashing out at not-my-mother. The graduate, the bride, the new mom. You’re all going to breakfast together.
Take a moment to compose yourself before you grasp the handle of the door and pull it open. Run a hand through your hair. Arrange your scarf. Do your best to not look nervous.

Scan the dining room and push away tendrils of panic when you don’t see her. Remind yourself that you would’ve never come if she didn’t seem trustworthy. Believe that she’ll be there and try not to sag with relief when you spot her at a corner table. Maintain your composure.
Walk to the table projecting a confidence you do not feel and watch as she unfolds herself from the booth and rises to embrace you. Clench your jaw and swallow as you hug. She will smell warm and nice, like a baby blanket. Breathe her in. Calm your galloping heartbeat and savor this moment. You will never have another like it.
Order more coffee and some food you’ll barely touch. Pick at your toast as you will yourself not to stare at the woman who gave birth to you. Try to adjust to seeing your own eyes looking out at you from someone else’s face. It’s a weird feeling. Remind yourself to breathe.

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By Lori Black

I am still searching. I have been for quite a while. It’s tiring, this never ending need I’ve always had to prove my existence, but the need has not and will not leave me alone. My parents adopted me as an infant in the 1950s, when secrecy was an art form nigh unto gospel. My lack-of-information-wound has always festered at whim. In the year 2000, that wound split wide open when I acquired a life-changing piece of paper— my pre-adoption birth certificate, courtesy of a new law passed that year in my home state of Oregon. Since that day, I’ve met a few maternal birth family members, including an aunt. Aunt Mary knew of my existence and delighted in meeting and getting to know me, as long as I asked no questions about my beginnings. Believe me, I tried, eventually coming to realize that, of all the secret keepers surrounding my origins, she had to be in first place. Mary remained tight-lipped even after all the important players had passed away. Then she passed away.
So did my birth mother, after having declined to meet me. Through what she had shared with the adoption agency, I knew my father had been middle-aged at the time of my conception so he had likely passed away. Despite all of this (or perhaps because of it), the legacy of secrecy still churned within. Quietly, I demanded more. The year my birth mother died was the year I turned my attention to the pristine blank space on my pre-adoption birth certificate just above the word father.
***
The date is summertime. It is 2006, the year my birth mom dies.
Between the information on the pre-adoption birth certificate listing my birth mom’s home state as Nebraska and the information I’d gathered from the adoption agency years earlier saying both my birth parents came from a small town in the Midwest, I had a strong suspicion that I hail from Nebraska, at least conceptually speaking. But I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon, and the closest I’d ever been to a farm is a Christmas tree lot. Rural happens only on vacations, and I’ve killed marigolds with a single glare. Nebraska seems as alien and as far away as the moon to me. Yet such a confluence of rural biology and urban adopted upbringing has whetted the moth-to-a-flame instincts that I’m convinced I inherited. It compels me to journey to the heartland, privately hoping there will be clues about father.

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A poem by S.D. Kilmer, BPS

Long is this pain, 

The grief, 

And the unbelief.

The sorrow,

Without a yesterday 

    difficult is a tomorrow.

The impossible longing

For a place I have never known. 

A place never seen. 

A place I know I’ve been.

And yet, it was once home.

By Ari Spectorman

March 23, 2022 was our final day for the winter season at our home in Key West. The SUV was fully packed for the long ride home to New Hope, PA. My husband, Tony, and I biked over for one last dinner at El Siboney, a favorite Cuban joint a few blocks away. During dinner I went to the rest room and urinated nothing but blood. “This can’t be good,” I thought.
We quickly biked back home. Perhaps it was a kidney stone? There were no previous symptoms of any kind. But soon there was intense, painful pressure and I could not urinate at all. We rushed to urgent care in Key West. A quick CT scan revealed a mass in my left kidney. I needed a catheter inserted right away to release the pressure and was sent to South Miami by ambulance, a 3-½ hour slog. Tony followed soon after in the already packed SUV. I was frightened and worried Tony would be overwhelmed.
I spent a week in a South Miami hospital trying to clear all the blood clots through my catheter, while undergoing various tests and scans. The devastating news was not only a most likely kidney cancer diagnosis, but also the appearance of a suspicious nodule on my pancreas. We flew back home and arranged for a transport company to collect and ship the loaded SUV to us. We would pursue further diagnostic testing and a course of action once we were settled in our New Hope home.
An endoscopic needle biopsy at the pancreas confirmed our worst fears, metastatic kidney cancer. (Stage four, advanced, and metastatic all mean the same thing: a cancer that has spread beyond the original location.) I had a suspicious nodule in my lungs, two more in my peritoneum (a membrane in the abdominal cavity), and two on the pancreas. Three weeks later, on April 21, my left kidney was surgically removed at Doylestown Hospital.
I’ve always known I was adopted; it was not a secret. My adoptive mother, who only recently passed at age 90, always encouraged me to find information regarding my biological parents. Many years ago, I contacted the Louise Wise adoption agency and was told my young Jewish mother gave no information regarding the father, only that it was a single encounter. At the time of my birth, in September 1961, she had asked not to be contacted, so my records were sealed. I was not particularly motivated to look for my birth parents for most of my life. Unlike many other adoptees, I never felt incomplete, and it just never felt terribly important to me. I had a full life. Married when legally permitted in 2013, Tony and I first met in 1979 as freshmen at our university. We owned a Greenwich Village restaurant together, bought a home in Bucks County, PA, and later, I grew a successful financial advisory business over a 26-year period.
Eventually I did get around to thinking about my origins. I always thought my birth father was not Jewish—I have a tiny button nose and a somewhat darker complexion—maybe my father was from some exotic background? That would be interesting. In 2019, I joined 23andMe on a lark. 99.9% Ashkenazi Jew— boring! But no immediate relatives. Some months later suddenly a half-sister appeared using only the initials NF, from Morristown, NJ. She was born in 1958 and was also adopted via the Louise Wise Agency. She was looking for information about her family. I immediately wrote to her introducing myself. “I assume we share the same mother! I’m Ari Spectorman, from New Hope PA, who are you?” Within a week, not only had she not replied, but she removed all traces of herself from the 23anMe site. I scared her away, I guess. Perhaps because I’m gay and she is very religious? Being ghosted like this invites much speculation.

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By Radhika Eicher

For the longest time, I never thought I’d have a baby or even be able to have one. But in the summer of 2023, my life changed when I discovered I was pregnant. So many emotions ran through my mind as I took numerous pregnancy tests to confirm I was actually going to have a baby. Finally, after six tests, I was able to say okay, this is really happening. My husband and I couldn’t have been more excited that we would be bringing a bundle of joy into this world. My baby girl wasn’t even here yet, and already I loved her more than life itself.

I was adopted at 17 months old from India to a family in South Dakota. My adoptive family is great, but I still experienced adoption trauma concerning the loss of my birth mother, abandonment issues, and looking different from my adoptive family because of my brown skin. That trauma resulted in self-hate over the color of my skin. I also suffer from mental illness— bipolar disorder, depression, and anxiety—which I believe came from my birth parents and only worsened as I grew older. Now, I’m 27 years old and I still struggle with trauma.

I know many people believe blood shouldn’t matter but, being adopted, I believe it really does. I love my adopted family, but they didn’t look like me and we don’t share blood, and that affected me more than many people understand. I couldn’t wait for my daughter to be born because she’s a part of me. It’s so important to me that she’s my blood.

As an adoptee, becoming a mother is such a surreal thing. I get to give my baby the love I didn’t get to have when I was a baby being put up for adoption. When my daughter, Harriett, was born by C-section, the feeling I had when I first saw her is indescribable. When the doctors showed her to me, I instantly felt immense love in my heart. I couldn’t imagine how my birth mother had given me up because I couldn’t imagine doing that to my baby girl. She’s absolutely perfect. I can’t imagine her not being in my life. She’s changed me in so many ways and has helped heal aspects of my adoption trauma. I no longer have a desire to find my birth mother because she’s everything I need and more. Still, having been a mother now for more than a month, I can say my separation anxiety has kicked in. I hate leaving my daughter. That anxiety is another aspect of trauma I’ve faced for years. I’ve experienced it with my husband and now with my baby.

The connection I have with my daughter is so true, wholesome, and fulfilling. It’s grounded me to be the mother I am today because I want to be her pillar so she knows she’ll never have to doubt my love for her. She will know her mom will always sacrifice for her so she can be whoever she wants to be and go wherever she wants to go. I will make sure my daughter never has to question her identity and that she knows she is always loved and can count on me. I want to teach her so many things but most importantly for her to have self-love and self-worth. I don’t want her to struggle with that as I did growing up. I love that she’ll know where she came from and who is her mom and dad. I will never make her feel like she isn’t loved, as I felt growing up. Having been adopted at such a young age made me feel that my birth mother didn’t want me.
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By Lezlee Lijenberg

Dear Friend,

We may or may not have ever met but we remain kin. We may not share DNA but we are kin in the sense of sharing a common bond in the discoveries of our histories—the profound feelings of having lost a part of ourselves when we learned our father was not our father, perhaps we were told of a different birthmother or half-sibling popped up on our 23andMe family tree.

We are more alike than you think. We have been lied to and deceived by people that in most cases we held dear and loved unconditionally. These are the same people that pulled the rug out from under us when confronted with the revelations. Some of them denied us of the truth, while others were angry and resentful that the secrets had been revealed. Our stories follow a long gamut of possibilities and outcomes, but we remain in the same family of broken hearts.

In the beginning, many of us do not know where to turn or what to do. Our commonalities grow as we try to determine how to handle the situation. So many questions. How do we address it? How to share the information we learned weighs heavily on our hearts. At times fear takes hold and at other moments anger, tears and confusion replace the ecstatic joy of knowing that craziness did not win.

I do not take our relationship lightly. In fact, it is probably the most serious connection I could ever experience. It is irreplaceable because it is not a relationship of choice but one of necessity and survival. It is a bond created by decisions out of our control. Our relatives will never understand what has evolved between us because whether they want to believe it or not, they connected us without even realizing it.

People want to be a part of something. They want to be included and accepted. We are no different yet, as NPEs, we are facing situations of rejection and inclusion all in the same breath by people that have always been a part of our lives and by complete strangers. This is not a club membership we aspired to being a part of throughout the years. It is not a group anticipated to be an answer to hold us up when we are down, to pick us up when we falter or to celebrate with us when another cog in the wheel falls into place.

It is a club of united human beings coming together to share our experiences and through the accumulation of stories we help one another heal. Today I reach out my hand to you. Let’s embrace the moment because it can pass all too soon. For the moments of hurt shift and then, when we least expect it, return again. We have a sense of false security when we think we have a handle on all of the secrets. Then in a flash, the past hits us fully in the face and a new and strange feeling must be contended with one more time. Each feeling is different, and it appears there are no right or wrong answers. All we seem to have is ourselves to face the consequences and the results of the actions of the past.

However, I am here to tell you my friend, you are not alone, and you never have to choose a path of exclusion. You have thousands of NPE family members just like me that are here for you. We are a shoulder to lean on and a heart to listen. Most of us are willing and able to stand by you until the storms subside. We remain a life raft in the turbulent waves of your discovery and if you are drowning we will row you to shore.

With love and the heart of a lioness,

Lezlee

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By David B. Bohl, MA

Being adopted is one of those complicated gifts that just keeps on giving whether you like it or not. I am calling it a “gift” because I like to put a positive spin on things and because it has enriched my life—in relationships, in personal discoveries—once I understood how to deal with all the adversity/trauma attached to it. Once I knew how to navigate my own feelings about it all, it became easier to see it as something that made my life that much bigger, now that I was no longer letting it destroy me, as when I used drinking to cope with my inability to fit in.

But recently the gift reared its head again. What happened is that I experienced something called a misattributed parentage event (MPE), which became an unexpected twist in my journey of self-discovery, one that I thought I had already come to terms with. An MPE—most often discovered as a result of DNA testing—describes a situation in which the person one believes to be one’s biological parent is not in fact biologically related. This can result from adoption, sperm donation/IVF, an affair, rape, or incest. For obvious reasons, learning about an MPE is often a traumatic experience.

As an adoptee, I’ve always known that my biological roots were a mystery waiting to be unraveled. However, I thought I knew all there was to know and nothing could have prepared me for the revelation that the man I thought was my paternal genetic grandfather was not biologically related to me or my father. My half brother and I stumbled upon this truth through genetic DNA testing, a tool we initially used out of curiosity, but one that ultimately led us down a path of unexpected revelations.

At first, the finding felt surreal, almost as if I were living in a plot twist from a novel rather than my own life. Because I had always known that I was adopted, the idea of surprises regarding my genetic lineage was not entirely foreign to me—and yet this revelation still managed to shake the foundation of my understanding of family and identity. I didn’t know this grandfather (nor will I ever know the other one) but I couldn’t help but wonder what that was like for my biological father and if he was affected in any way. Was he treated well by the man he called “father” or was he perhaps neglected? Could that explain why he was unable to show up for me? Or was it his mother who only knew the truth and was perhaps deeply affected by it? The possibilities were endless, and I’ve found myself trying to guess something that was impossible to guess as it’s been the case with most of my biological story. The one thing I did know for sure was that this was a new reality that I had to grapple with in my own time and at my own pace.

One of the most challenging aspects of this discovery was navigating the implications for my family members, particularly my father’s living sisters. As I shared this newfound truth with them, I could observe the mixture of shock and confusion they displayed. This revelation changed not just my understanding of lineage, but also theirs, highlighting the interconnectedness of our family narratives. While we were all supportive and understanding of each other, I could sense the weight of this revelation as we collectively processed what it meant for our family dynamic.

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By Karen Stinger

I participate in a writing group for adoptees and NPEs.  We meet every week to share our writing and to discuss our experiences, healing, where to go from here, and everything in between.  It’s the best therapy I’ve ever experienced for this excruciating wound I’ve never been able to adequately explain to anyone who isn’t also adopted or from our community.  For us, togetherness heals.

Seven months ago in our writing group, we were given an assignment to break an ugly mug, feel our feelings, and then write about it.  I didn’t want to do it.  It would make a mess.  There would be broken glass.  I would only feel annoyed about it and then have to clean it up.  I just did not want to deal with it.  So, I didn’t. 

Those of us in the group who didn’t want to break something were challenged to consider the anger we felt and to contemplate ways we could move it out of our bodies and out of our hearts.  I have felt so much anger surrounding my adoption experience and for so many reasons.  Yet, I haven’t done much with this assignment either, other than write about it and share it with the group.  So, I’m sure it is no surprise, I’ve remained angry.

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