Adoption

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 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 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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By Tracy Mayo

1982

Northwest mountains of North Carolina                                                                    

Tracy is 27, Thomas is 12

The elderly chestnut, lone survivor of the blight, stood as a centerpiece of all that could be surveyed from the expansive front porch. Others of its kind had once covered these Blue Ridge mountains like a shawl over shoulders on a cool evening. The deeply furrowed bark belied the ease with which an exotic fungus had slipped into the cambian and felled its brothers and sisters, once giants of these forests.  

A singular sentinel—isolated, yet resilient. When weather was favorable, I would take my morning meditation in the rocking chair on the porch, facing the chestnut. In spring the flowing white catkins waved like streamers on little girls’ bike handles. Come summer the lush, saw-toothed, dark green leaves shaded the cultivated wildflowers beneath. Autumn equaled yellow blaze. But in late fall, when the burrs should have encased three chestnuts each, there were no harvests. The lone tree was sterile. Even so, it grew its canopy year by year, waiting patiently for a favorable wind to carry news of another survivor.  

Most weeks I spent my day off from our business tending to the ample vegetable garden, which lay between the chestnut and our log cabin. The ancient mountains, worn down now to lush rolling hills, grew a dark sandy loam that needed no amendments other than the occasional side dressing of composted manure. I worked in the partial shade of a four-foot diameter, ground-mounted satellite dish that provided live feeds of sports and the BBC. In early fall, with afternoon’s slanted light, the bountiful harvest brought the last of the corn, the first of the autumn squashes, more tomatoes than I could put up, and the final raspberry yield.

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By David Daniel

My birthmother rode into town on a Greyhound bus one icy February night. We fed her roasted hen, then sat by the fire as she unpacked her scrapbook. Tucked inside a see-through sleeve was a photo of her as an acned teen, leaning back in a hospital bed, cradling the newborn she would soon surrender. Sipping her tea, she handed me a faded certificate of birth—the original one with the original name, inked with imprints of two tiny feet. Come sunup, she ambled downstairs in a paisley robe, blond hair braided to her waist, and we sat in the kitchen eating eggs my wife had made. Outside, it was unseasonably warm, so she walked our kids around the block, and as she did, I sat alone by the blackened logs, eyeing my birth certificate once again—realizing that my real name was cleaved from me as early as can be. As I saw her off at the Greyhound that night, the penny finally dropped: I had sailed through life under a cover name and never even known it. 

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By Patricia Knight Meyer

I wake from a bad night’s sleep, full of tossing and turning in sweaty sheets. Menopause? Maybe? Most women would ask their mother, but for adoptees like me, that’s rarely possible. At 54, girlfriends say it’s good I still have my periods. Late onset of menopause helps prevent Alzheimer’s they say, so maybe I’m lucky.

I’ve woken up early because I’m also lucky enough to have an award-winning journalist, a pioneer in adoption reform, and a first mother, Lorraine Dusky, author of Hole in My Heart and Birthmark, waiting for me to call her. She’s beta-reading pages of my forthcoming memoir about being sold as a baby on the black market and is ready to give feedback. During my reunion with my birth mother, I’d asked about menopause, and she told me she could tell me nothing, having had a hysterectomy before 40. So I’m almost tempted to ask Lorraine, but I don’t. Boundaries Patricia. Boundaries. Of course, asking my adoptive mother wasn’t possible, as she’d lost her uterus to the tubular pregnancy that had led her to me. And well, she died long before I’d had menopause brain to begin with.

My adoptive mom liked to tell me how maudlin and bizarre I acted my 13th summer, the month my period came. “You locked yourself in your room. Watched TV day and night. Refused to see friends, and sat at the kitchen counter sobbing and eating fried pies. One after the other.” She said she was resolved to take me to a shrink, but lucky for me the day before the appointment, I began to flow, and suddenly her daughter’s fall into madness began to make sense. If the going out is anything like the going in, I might be in for something.

What I do recall about that summer was being upset that my best friend took another friend to Europe, not me. Thank God, we didn’t have social media back then. I can imagine how hard it would have been to watch them in their parachute pants, spikey hair, and Ray-Bans swinging off the Eiffel Tower. I also recall the summer of ‘83 being the summer I learned my adoptive parents didn’t know my birthday and had no birth certificate for me either. Unluckily, the attorney they used had decided to extort them out of $30,000 in exchange for getting to keep me, their paperless baby. How lucky for me they didn’t call the police and get me taken away, I remember thinking. In retrospect, even if I’d been invited to Europe, I couldn’t have gone. No birth certificate equals no passport, of course.

I end my call with Lorraine, which luckily goes well, by sharing that I am headed off to make the 1.5-hour drive from my birth father’s ranch in the Texas Hill Country to meet the couple renovating the 1952 Spartan trailer I was conceived in. Luckily, the trailer was still there the day I met my birth father, and the passion project of restoring her is now in full swing. Even on his deathbed, Pop lectured me, “Don’t drop the ball. She’s our legacy.” I agree. Today he’d be down-right proud of the plans I have in place for her. She’s going to be home to a non-profit adoptee creative writing residency.

Pulling down his dusty drive. I never forget how lucky I am to have found him. Yes, I was one of the few lucky adoptees to reunite and have not just a good, but a great, reunion.

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By Sara Easterly

As an adoptee-author whose work involves explaining behaviors to people who often misunderstand us, I love a good backstory. Gregory Maguire’s Wicked enchanted me, and an interest in understanding the developmental journeys for Darth Vader, Voldemort, and The Grinch led me to watching, with great anticipation, their longer character arcs unfold in various Hollywood adaptations. Even in fantasy literature and films, it’s engaging to ask questions like those asked by Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry in their bestselling book on trauma, What Happened to You?, to empathize with iconic characters’ early-in-life wounding and see them as well-rounded, hurting humans on a hero’s journey rather than one-dimensional figures used to propel the plot forward.

For these reasons, I was particularly excited to catch Warner Bros. Pictures’ Wonka and consider the mysterious chocolatier and his inner circle in new ways. Even though I enjoyed the film, I left the theater with more questions than answers and more frustration than sentimentality. That’s because, as is common in holiday stories ranging from Dickens to Hallmark creations, Wonka employed the orphan trope, along with a stereotypical happy ending with a mother-and-long-lost-child reunion—both of which lacked substance and depth.

In the movie, “Noodle” (played by Calah Lane) is a young orphan who befriends Willy Wonka while they’re held captive by Mrs. Scrubitt in a launderette. Within minutes of Noodle’s on-screen appearance, she’s labeled as suffering from “orphan syndrome.” Having just released Adoption Unfiltered, a book I co-authored in which I write extensively about the lifelong effects of separation trauma, I was interested in whether the movie might explore this further, beyond the insinuation that anyone separated from their parents is broken. I felt a momentary glimmer of hope when Wonka tells Noodle it’s her “orphan syndrome” making her mistrust others. But the opportunity to delve deeper into what might be going on for Noodle never came. Somehow, despite losing her parents as an infant, Noodle presents as perfectly adapted, the only emotional residue of orphanhood: yearning for her parents. But where was her anxiety? Her alarm? Her frustration? How could she so readily give her heart to Wonka—and others, without crippling fear that she might lose those she dared to love, as were her formative experiences as an infant?

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