When I met Anne Heffron and hired her as my adoptee writing coach, I could not have imagined what she would bring to my life. I heard her say in a NAAP Happy Hour something to effect of “if you are worried what people will say about what you write, is it that good of a relationship anyway”? How did she know that was what was holding me back? She immediately removed the biggest block to telling my story. She empowered me.
Read MoreFor the past year I started showing up in the adoptee community as Lora K. Joy. Lora was the name my biological mother gave me but didn’t feel she had a right to put on my original birth certificate
Read MoreAs a pro-choice woman, this past week’s events in the Supreme Court are more than concerning. Amy Coney Barrett’s comments during the case to overturn Roe show just how little is understood about relinquishment and adoption trauma, especially from an adoptive mother’s perspective.
Read MoreSo much of my adoption healing work has been done by looking in the past at memories, experiences and feelings. I go back to that time or age and work on healing the wounds.
Read MoreMy biological mother was raised Catholic. She chose a Catholic adoption agency when she was pregnant. On the paperwork she stated she would prefer her baby go to a Catholic family.
Read MoreAs adopted babies we are pulled out of our natural families and environments and put into the arms of strangers.
Read MoreI have been alone my whole life – from the moment I was taken from my mother at birth.
Read MoreAt mile 18-20, I felt a sharp pain in my right calf. It was fast, for a split second, then it was gone. So, I took inventory of my body and decided to keep going.
Read MoreQuarantine 2020 allowed me the space to find this amazing adoptee community online. Listening to every episode of Adoptees On, I heard about Dear Adoption. I thought about what I would write to adoption and created this piece.
Read MoreThere is no end to this journey. I will always be adopted and there will always be healing work to do. But the only place to do that work is standing fully in my truth, in the sun, fully exposed. In the adoptee fog, I did not know what I did not know. The truth and realization were hard and sometimes painful, but they were the only way out of the fog and into the warmth.
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