I’m at it again, yall! I was invited to be a part of the Page & Palette Bookstore First Friday Author Round-Up in Fairhope, Alabama this Friday! I’ll be there with three other authors signing books from 6-8pm. This is my first appearance at a bookstore so I’m very excited about that. I’m also excited to meet the people of Fairhope. It’s such a beautiful and charming town. I stayed there many times before as part of my job and was lucky enough to stay at the Grand Hotel. The beautiful landscaping and scenery just blew me away and then the cute little shops downtown are unique and so friendly. I can’t wait to be a part of this. Since I’m in town, I’ll also be doing another appearance at Satori Coffee House in Mobile on Saturday from 10am-12pm. I have to admit, I love the coffee shop appearances because of the various people you meet that aren’t coming to buy a book that day. You hear the most interesting stories! Doesn’t hurt that I get to drink yummy coffee while I’m there! I will be staying with my birth mother while I’m in town and I’m sure she will be going to the book signings with me, if you’d like to meet her! I also want to thank Brooke O’Donnell with Millimedia for the public relations work that she has done in anticipation of my arrival. Millimedia has done a lot for me in Mobile, including getting me that TV interview last November, and I have enjoyed working with them. They also work with the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption that exists to find homes for children in the foster care system. Please check out that great organization at www.davethomasfoundation.org Please come on out and see me this weekend, I’d love to meet you and hear your own story! XOXO

What would happen if we DID rely on others to make us happy? Imagine for a moment that much like a puppet is controlled by strings, you can’t feel a positive emotion unless someone gives you that emotion. Think of the people that you have surrounded yourself with and think about whether or not they’re happy people. Do they fall victim to negative situations or do they take on a “determination to get through it” kind of attitude? If they can’t get through their own lives with a positive and happy attitude then why are they going to take the time to make you happy, too? To be fair to everyone, it’s not their fault if they don’t have the time or ability to make you happy because it’s not fair to expect that of others! Is there someone in your life that relies solely on you to make them happy and if so, how does that make you feel? It’s up to us as individuals to do what we have to do to be happy. The journey to being happy begins with loving yourself. You first have to dull the noise and distraction around you and focus on yourself. First, find yourself. Whether you have to journal or meditate, do what it takes to get to know yourself. Forgive yourself. Once you find out the root of what causes you pain, forgive yourself and others involved in the cause of that pain. Then, change the way you look at the world. Don’t look at the world and life as if it owes you to be good to you and treat you right. DNA and environment may have shaped you, but YOU decide what kind of person you want to be. Just because there are jerks in your family (adopted or biological) doesn’t mean you’re doomed to be a jerk or have to let them be jerks to you. Laugh at them. Laugh at them because you know they can’t pull your strings and control you, like a puppet. Adoptees notoriously have this issue of letting others’ actions make us happy or sad. Why is that? Because we never had control of our own lives. Others always determined what was going to happen to us, so we find ourselves a victim of the adoption, causing our sadness, our resentment, and our feeling of rejection. We spend our whole lives hoping that finding our biological family will answer all our questions and therefore, bring happiness back to our lives. That hope becomes our crutch. Very often, when we find our biological families, it doesn’t go as we planned and more pain and sadness are brought upon us. Once again, we can’t control the situation and because we relied on them to make us finally happy, we are crushed. If you’re an adoptee searching for your biological family, please take into consideration that you do have control over your own emotions. Do not rely on your adoptive family or your biological family to make you happy. Take back the control you lost once you were placed for adoption. You can and should be happy. If your biological or adoptive families reject you, know that it is THEIR issues, not yours, that causes them to act that way. So… journal, forgive, and change yourself. Only then will you find the happiness you desire. You do deserve it, and it’s in your power to do it. xoxo

Claudia Corrigan D’Arcy’s words have haunted me since I watched her rant on YouTube a few days ago. Her belief is that there is no 30 year old professional single woman who chooses adoption. I would add – that doesn’t also feel horror, regret, and pain for the rest of her life just like every other mother who chooses adoption. I actually DO happen to know of a lady who placed her child for adoption somewhere around the age of 30 and who told me that thoughts of her baby girl haunt her everyday and that she will search for her when she’s older. This lady had been through a horrible divorce and went through a “wild” period and ended up pregnant. She wasn’t even certain who the father was when she ran off to another state and literally picked up a phone book and found the first adoption agency in the yellow pages. As she was speaking to me I could hear a little complacency about her decision as I’m sure she had already convinced herself then it was the right thing to do and since it wasn’t something she could change now she focused on the future, when she would hopefully reunite with her daughter. I only tell that story to say the 30 something professional choosing adoption exists but is just like every other first mother out there, whether they’re 16 or 40 years old. I think this was Claudia’s point and I do agree with that! My point is, as an adoptee, it makes me feel good to know that these mothers, on the whole, want their babies. My first mother, somewhere deep in her heart and mind, wanted to keep me. She was influenced and told what to do by external forces and she was too weak or scared to say no! She wanted me. That makes me feel good. It hurts my heart for her, but I feel better knowing I was wanted and that she probably ran the possibilities and what-if’s through her mind everyday. I’m sure she still does it! Adoptees, don’t feel thrown away or unwanted. Your first mothers wanted you!!! No matter what the circumstance, she wanted you. The first mother that gives her baby up and NEVER wonders about that baby again or hopes that the baby was raised in a good loving family – she is the one that doesn’t exist.

Here is a plea to adoptive parents. Please, please, please, give your adopted child the space and freedom to be angry and upset and resentful without any consequences from you OR the adoptive family. I am very passionate in a just a few things when it comes to adoptees rights and this is one of them. When I think back on my own situation, it makes me more than a little mad when others told me I better consider my mom’s feelings more than my own. They seemed way more worried about how my mom was going to feel than how I was feeling! I guess because I brought it all on my myself (the reunion) that I deserved what I got? Maybe they assumed that because I was the one that searched that I had already dealt with any feelings I was having. Maybe they assumed that finding her was “getting what I wanted” so I should be happy and now it was all about my mom and dad. Why in the hell did I have to shove my own feelings aside AGAIN to put their feelings above my own? I was going through so many different emotions all at once and now I had to pretend that I was perfectly fine? I was responsible for making my mom happy and comfortable and not just at the time I found “Sara” but for years after that. Now, all that said, I understand why she was upset and jealous and scared and I didn’t want my mom to feel that way. I love her too much to want her to feel that way so of course I tried to make her feel safe and secure in the situation. But that was on me, MY decision to do that. What about my feelings and what I was going through? Those on the periphery didn’t understand my motives in finding Sara and that’s ok. If you’re not an adoptee, you won’t get it, so I have to let that anger go because in the end I’m only adding to my own pain. So adoptive parents, family, please take the adoptee’s feelings into account. You shouldn’t be mad at them for wanting to find their biological families and think that your feelings are more important than theirs. Everyone’s feelings matter, everyone in the triad has a huge emotional stake in this game of adoption. We have to, we must, work together to  protect all our feelings. Everyone’s feelings must be considered and understood. Please, give your adoptee the space to feel whatever emotion they want to feel. If the people in my situation had given me that right, I would’ve been more than happy to consider their feelings to the same degree.

I’m SO SO SO excited to have booked another book signing event! It’s been a long time since my last one, which was in November last year in the small Arkansas town where I grew up. I was so fortunate to have my a-mom with me at that event People were able to meet her and they enjoyed asking us both questions about the adoption and our feelings. I actually learned a lot about my brother’s adoption during that event! What a special and unique experience. I also had several events in Mobile, where I was born and reunited with my biological family. My n-mom and my n-aunt attended those events with me where again, people got to meet these “characters” in my book and asked us questions but these questions were about the biological family perspective. Although I do not have that privilege at this event, I’m still so excited to talk to people about adoption and hear their own stories! I truly do live for the feeling I get from these events. I’m so fortunate to have had these opportunities and I do know how lucky I am to know my own background and better yet, to have both my adoptive and biological mothers and family alive and in my life. If you’re in the Space Coast area, come and see me March 15th at Starbucks! Grab a coffee, my book, and a chair and enjoy a good read! When you’re done, submit your review (on my blog) and I’ll post it! Thank you so much, hope to see you soon! xoxo

From the moment I learned I was adopted (in the 4th grade) I became obsessed with finding out the origin of my physical traits. When I found my adoption paperwork that had one paragraph about my natural mother, it fueled my curiosity. All those years up until the time I met her, I only wanted a picture of her. I wanted to lay my eyes on the woman who gave me my appearance. I had bright blue eyes, curly blonde hair and a round face. The paragraph described the same features so I wanted to see if I looked just like her. I think it was this obsession that made me obsess over my own daughter’s features and it made me so happy to point out similarities between her and us, her parents. I loved to see that my baby looked just like me and had many of her father’s features, as well. I remember in her first few days, finding one small bump on each of her ears that her father also had. My heart swelled with pride. I’ve often stared at her pictures in complete amazement that she looked just like me. I loved it, it was comforting. I’m sure that is not unlike what other non-adoptee parents do but I felt happy that my daughter would never have to wonder, as I did. But it wasn’t too long after that I didn’t have to wonder anymore because I hired a private investigator to look for her. I told them not to contact her because I only wanted to know her name and see her face. Although they went against my wishes and did contact her, I was happy because I got to see her in person. I finally got to see the similarities! And I also was able to compare her photos to mine like everyone else does. I learned that as a baby I looked like my aunt and I also got to meet my cousins, one of which I looked just like when I was in high school. It was fascinating and comforting for reasons I cannot explain but it shouldn’t matter, really, who I look like. It answered my questions (which we are entitled to) but it didn’t change who I was on the inside or who I had been raised to be. They say it’s not the reflection in the mirror but your eyes that are the window to the soul. We’re entitled to know where we came from but it doesn’t have to define who you are on the inside.

No one that isn’t a mother can imagine the power and intensity that comes with a mother’s pride! It isn’t developed, it is inherent the moment that woman knows she is pregnant. What she can’t possibly know is just how strong that pride is for her sweet baby growing in her tummy. When mommy sets eyes on baby, the pride swells and is almost too overwhelming to handle! Then as that baby grows to toddler to adolescent to young adult and beyond, the pride grows right along with them. My a-mom is seriously one of the most proud moms in the entire world. I’m absolutely convinced of this. She has always bragged ad nauseam to anyone who would listen. She hasn’t eased up at all in our older ages, in fact, she is so proud of my blog that she actually prints out the posts and takes them around with her to show people! She was always that way, so happy to be proud of me. I think that is one reason I was so affected when I disappointed her so badly after dropping out of college right after high school and wasn’t following a good path. Seeing the pain in her eyes because I wasn’t giving her a reason to be proud really hurt me and shamed me. It truly hurt her that she wanted to be proud of me, as it is an inherent thing, but she couldn’t be proud of my behavior. It made me turn around my life because I wanted her to be proud of me. Most everything I did after that was to restore her faith and pride, and thankfully, I eventually did! Her pride was powerful. I needed it and didn’t know that until I had lost it. Now what is interesting is that I’ve seen that a mother’s pride spans all time and situations. As you all know, I have reunited with my n-mom (whom I will call Sara for the purposes of this blog). In the eight years since we’ve been back together, I have felt and witnessed her pride for me, too! From day one, she has been so proud to call me her daughter. I can see in her eyes, the pride she feels for me. Anytime we meet someone, even strangers, she is so happy to introduce me as her daughter. She loves to brag about my accomplishments to these complete strangers, because pride is inherent the moment you know you’re pregnant. I love it when someone is proud of me, who isn’t? And now I have TWO mothers who are so proud to call me their daughter and proud of the things I’ve done with my life. Because that means to much to me, my heart is double full for having both of these mothers in my life and I love them both. I bask in the light of their pride.