Category: Open Adoption
-
Love Chaos Kin Is Going to the Movies
Love Chaos Kin, Chithra Jeyaram’s documentary about our family, runs in LA Oct 9 to 15, opens London Breeze Oct 21, and screens in nine more cities this fall.
-
Changing Views on Adoption
Six years after the guardianship papers, an adoptive mother traces how adoptee and birth mother voices changed what she thought she knew. From The Smudged Hyphen.
-
Same, But Different
“I want to color my hair blue too!” My youngest, all of six years, holds my hand and swings as she walks. One of her older sisters walks a little ahead of us. We are on our daily evening stroll around our development. The sun has not yet set, bathing us all in a golden…
-
My Motherhood, Explained
I notice the family at the table we cross to get to ours. I notice them because they turn in unison looking us up and down, right to left and back. I notice them as they try to reconcile the story of us, the story of me. I hold her eyes, just a smidge before…
-
Hands of Fate
I stepped off the plane into the chill, dry air of New Mexico, eight hours after we left that morning. Even as my husband and I made our way to baggage claim, my eyes scanned through the unread text messages and email messages from Amy. “Call me.” The message was cryptic and I felt a…
-
Three Different Mothers
Three daughters posted Mother’s Day tributes online — a scrapbook, a photo grid, a music video. Each one a different mother. An essay on being seen.
-
Where Angels Fear To Tread
Gigi and Grandpa E came into our lives in the spring of 2012. They are my older daughters’ birth great grand parents. I know it’s a mouthful. It started with one email that burgeoned into over five hundred emails and well over a thousand text messages over the course of thirteen years. Our relationship was…
-
Behind the Camera: Crafting Our Family Story on Film
Have you ever wondered what it is like to be the subject in a documentary? Here’s your inside look.
-
Why Can’t We Talk About The Money? – Adoption Edition
A few days ago, I was in the car with my older girls. I was driving and trying to make conversation. If you have a teen at home, you know these opportunities to talk are precious. Conversation veered to how old they would be twenty years from now and what life would be like then.…
-
The Truth Shall Set You Free
Collected in The Smudged Hyphen (2026). The ring lies on the ledge inside the shower stall. I remember to bring it outside when I am done. I wipe it dry and inspect it in the flickering bathroom light. Teal and silver, it is nondescript. I slip it on my finger, it is loose. I slide…