Adoption has never been just part of my story — it has been the thread woven through nearly every chapter of my life. It has shaped the way I see myself, the way I love, the way I parent, and the way I understand pain, loss, resilience, and healing. Some people know adoption from the outside looking in. I have lived it from the inside out. I have been the child who was adopted at a young age. I have been the mother who voluntarily placed a child for adoption while surviving domestic violence. I have experienced the lifelong grief and love that coexist inside that decision. And today, as a mother raising my own children and someone working within the mental health field, I carry those experiences with me into every part of who I am.
My life began with separation before I was even old enough to understand what separation meant. I was adopted at a young age, and while adoption brought stability and love into my life, it also planted questions deep within me that would follow me into adulthood. As a child, I didn’t always know how to explain the feelings I carried. I knew I was loved, but I also knew there was a part of my story that began with loss. Even when adoption is beautiful, it still begins with a child losing something first. That truth lives quietly inside many adoptees, even the ones who are deeply loved.
Growing up, I often felt caught between gratitude and grief.
I loved my family, yet there were moments where I felt disconnected from pieces of myself I couldn’t fully explain. I wondered who I looked like. I wondered where certain traits came from. I wondered if someone else in the world shared my smile, my laugh, or my mannerisms. There is a unique ache that comes from not fully knowing your origins. It creates questions about identity that can follow you throughout your life.
As a child, I learned very early how to read people’s emotions and environments around me. I became deeply sensitive to rejection, abandonment, and emotional shifts. Looking back now, I realize adoption shaped so much of that. There is a wound that can exist in adoptees even when they are cherished — a wound rooted in the fact that your first experience in life involved separation from the person who carried you.
For many years, I tried to ignore those emotions because I felt guilty for having them. Society often portrays adoption as only a happy ending, but for many adoptees it is far more layered than that. It can hold love and grief at the same time. It can hold gratitude while still mourning what was lost. Learning to accept that complexity became one of the most important parts of my healing journey.
But I never imagined that adoption would later become part of my life again in such a devastatingly personal way.
