With her sister’s permission, the novelist wrote a fictionalized account of her experiences leading up to the adoption plan.
“To Seek, But Not Find”
A Korean adult adoptee shares what motivated her to search for her birth mother—and the feelings she grappled with when she was unable to find her.
When Teens Find Birth Family Online
Got a Web-savvy teen on your hands? Here’s how to set safety guidelines for online birth family contact.
Letting Her Go: Chinese Birth Parent Search and Reunions
The first study on this topic provides fascinating insights about adoptees’ and parents’ motivations to search, search methods used, the initial reunion, and ongoing contact.
“How to Be His Mother”
Twenty-six years after placing my son for adoption, we found each other. That’s when I started learning—the hard way—how to be a mom.
Q&A: Bryan and Angela Tucker of Closure
After a lifetime of wondering who? and why?, an adoptee set out to find some answers. The award-winning documentary that follows her birth family search has already sparked thousands of dialogues.
“Seeing My Daughter’s ‘Happily Ever After'”
My daughter, Rubie, has the kind of life I’d dreamed of for her, and is where she belongs. I only wish I had known that sooner.
What Can We Learn from Our Kids’ DNA?
As genetic testing makes its way into the adoption world, our families discover its promise — and its limitations.
A Nation’s Buried Pain
Kay Ann Johnson spent more than 20 years listening to the anguished accounts of Chinese people who relinquished, adopted, and hid out-of-plan or over quota children in the face of the country’s One-Child Policy. In China’s Hidden Children, she shares their stories.
A ‘Lost’ Daughter Speaks, and All of China Listens
I went to China to find the birth mother who left me on a street corner. Instead, I became the focus of a nation’s buried pain.
Ask AF: Finding Birth Family on Facebook
My 11-year-old son has been saying he’d like to meet his birth family.
Ask AF: Birth Sibling Contact
When kids find out they have birth siblings, they’re usually interested in meeting. Here’s how parents can help facilitate the relationship.
“Our Leap of Faith: Finding Birth Relatives in Russia”
We made the trip, unsure whether we would even find Marina’s orphanage, and ended up finding the answers to her deepest questions.
[Book Excerpt] Postcards from Cookie
I can think of lots of reasons not to make this call: I should be working. I’m on deadline. I’m not ready.
“Pondering My Son Mateo’s Family Tree”
My son’s story started before I met him. His pre-adoption prologue is one I may never know. But of this I am sure: Mateo was born to be my son.
Summer Reading 2015
Everyone touched by adoption should check out these powerful memoirs, by a birth mother and an adoptee.
“Many Kinds of Love”
Being adopted, I have found, means being familiar with many different kinds of love, many varieties of connection. It’s a roller-coaster of sorts. There’s an immense amount of gratitude; yet an overarching sense of loss persists, and permeates every interaction, every decision, and every relationship.
“The Meetings of the Moms”
The day my mother met my birth mother.
“We Always Called You Jason”
Fantasizing about my birth parents, I never dreamed my strongest link to the past would be through a flinty grandmother.
Ask AF: Information in a Closed Adoption
Answers to your parenting questions.