CUB Retreat 2025: Liminal Loss and the Beauty of Our Community
"Adoption trauma is about liminal loss—loss that is vague, ambiguous, ever-present, and not publicly mourned. But it's also about liminal hope—an unspoken, against-all-odds hope th…
Adoption Trauma & Healing
11 Adoptee Tips for a Successful Adoption Reunion
Adoptee reunion guide: searching for birth parents, managing expectations, setting boundaries, and navigating complex birth family relationships."
TWICE THE ADOPTION MEMOIR: An Adoptee Twin Doubles Down on Her Adoption Story
Adoption Book Review: An Adoption Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood” by Julie Ryan McGue,, Available Feb. 4, 2025 | Memoir / Nonfiction
CUB Retreat 2024: A Transformative Experience for This Adoptee
As an adoptee, I recently had the privilege of attending the CUB (Concerned United Birthparents) Retreat 2024 in Kansas City, Missouri. Having attended two Untangling Our Roots con…
Six New Adoption Books for Eggcellent Spring Reading
Is it just me or does 2024 seem to be showing itself as the year of adoption books? Weekly, I find myself adding a new adoption book to my cart. Adoptee, adoptive parent, and first…
Adoptee Resiliency and My 10-Year Climb Back to Happy
Talk about adoptee resiliency, I see that the spontaneous combustion of my writing cabin, an event that seemingly took everything that day, was truly the catalyst for a new reckoni…
Adoptee Writing Residency Project (AKA Spartan Trailer "Somebody's Baby" Update)
Adoptee renovates 1952 Spartanette trailer where she was conceived to honor birth father and offer a writing residency getaway for adoptees.
Adoptee Life & The Outside In
But this time the adult me had embraced the 12-year-old me, still trying to prove she belonged. The same me that once wrapped Daddy's Lincoln around a gas pump, trying to get the c…
Dec. 22 & The Not Knowing
The Not Knowing had driven me to ask strangers in the street if they’d ever relinquished a child, to ask my mother if I looked like this girl or that, to weave a magical fantasy th…
Let's Talk Memoir Writing: A Sneak Peek at "The Power of Memoir to Heal Your Heart and Claim Your Story."
This year’s virtual conference is titled "Honoring the Past, Treasuring the Present, Shaping the Future." So it seems fitting that I will present a session on memoir writing titled…
The Adoptee Army Uprising at Pokagon State Park
Yet no matter how supported we feel online, it does not compare with being together in flesh and blood. A moment when we join forces to stand up for not just what we believe, but w…
"Parallel Universes" by David B. Bohl - An Adoptee Memoir to Remember
Like the sailboats dotting David’s life, his story glides across the page; a sturdy hull gracefully parting the sea of his dark past, propelled by resilience, telltales of truth le…
Attachment, Identity, Adoption: 10 Related Quotes by Dr. Gabor Maté
Dr. Gabor Maté is a well-known figure in the fields of addiction, stress, and child development. His work on these topics has given birth to many insightful quotes, many of which, …
Summer Reading: The Adoption Memoirs Inside this Adoptee’s Beach Bag
“Where better to read an adoption memoir than on the beach in front of my childhood home,” I thought, stuffing more books than I knew I’d be able to make time for into my suitcase.…
Eight Books That Healed This Adoptee's Heart
Books to help adoptees heal core adoption issues, including adoption trauma, abandonment, attachment, loss, grief, and identity.
United: The Healing Power of the Adoption Constellation
A piece on the healing power of the adoption constellation & a mini-retreat by the National Association of Adoptees and Parents (NAAP)
Claiming Your Voice Podcast Interview
The Day I Asked to Be Un-Adopted
“Please don’t be sad Mommy, but I figure I should live with Dora. She is not old like you, she has freckles like me, and she can give me a brother. See, I will be right there!” I s…
A Memoir About an Adoption that Never Happened.
A memoir about an adoption that never happened. It is a black market baby’s story about the parents who held onto her as tightly as they did her secret, and the mother who let her …
Healing the Child Within, ACE Scores & Please Hear What I Am Not Saying
From the Ashes
An excerpt from "Somebody's Baby" - How tragically ironic that all my worldly possessions, memoirs and keepsakes from my adopted life would burn to ash on the property of my birth …
Adoptees & Divorce
Articles about adoption and divorce, exploring how adoption experiences impact relationships and family dynamics.
In My Birth Mother's Shoes
At 19 years old, I created the same circumstances to put myself squarely in my own birth mother’s shoes. Do I keep my unplanned baby? The moment the plus sign appeared I knew what …
Fear, Anxiety & The Primal Wound
The Ugly Goat: The Importance of Genetic Mirrors in the Adoptee's World
What if I see things in that mirror that I don't like? Where does that leave me? Those were my fears, steeped in a mixture of insecurity and the unknown, driving up that long drive…