Episode 501 Podcast > Full Transcript
Lori Holden, Intro:
Welcome to Season 5 of Adoption: The Long View. 2024 is well underway, and today, we launch our final season, which will run monthly through the year. Today's guest is someone I made a bad first impression on, in my own head anyway, because of an assumption I made about her that turned out to be wrong. Jennifer Dyan Ghoston was very gracious with me anyway. And in an effort to further explore the blind spot my assumption came from, which may not be unique to me, I have invited her here to talk with us about same race adoption and other things.
Jennifer Dyan Ghoston is a same race domestic adoptee In reunion with both sides of her biological family. After a 27-year career in law enforcement with the Chicago Police Department, she retired in 2014 as a police detective. In 2015, she self-published her memoir, The Truth So Far: A Detective's Journey To Reunite With Her Birth Family. She credits her spiritual journey, which started over 40 years ago, for allowing her path to unfold in unexpected and meaningful ways. In 2021, Jennifer's continued efforts to be open, honest, and public about her lived experience, while holding space for other members of the constellation; primarily adoptees, has led to hosting the podcast, Once Upon a Time in Adoptee Land. She currently co-facilitates the Adoptee Voices writing group created by Sarah Easterly.
Lori Holden:
Good morning, Jennifer.
Jennifer Dyan Ghoston:
Good morning, Lori. I'm so happy to talk with you today, and I'm so grateful to Sarah Easterly, whom I also collaborate with, for bringing us into each other's orbits.
Lori:
Absolutely. Yes. Sarah's amazing. And congratulations to all three of you for this latest book; Adoption Unfiltered. I'm currently reading it right now.
Jennifer:
Oh, that's great. It's fun to start watching the reviews come in and see what it means out in the world. We've done it in such a private way for so long, and now it's out in the world.
Lori:
Yeah. So organized. So well organized.
Jennifer:
Yeah. We put a lot of thought into how to integrate the three viewpoints and the three voices and the three perspectives with a lot of different interviews.
Lori:
But let's turn to you. Let's start out – give us some context. Tell us the story about how you became a same race adoptee.
Jennifer:
So, I'm from the sixties, born in 1964. And first of all, I was relinquished at birth and then placed into foster care at 4 days old and would remain there for two years with the Smith family and permanently placed through adoption to the Ghoston family. And it was finalized by 1967. And I would consider my childhood a healthy one. I think that my parents were really great parents. They were old enough to be my grandparents. And at the same time, they knew what would allow me to thrive. And by that, I mean, a very good education, family and friends that would support me and just get me through childhood into adulthood in the best way possible. They did that.
Now, was I allowed to talk about my adoption, my relinquishment, any feelings I had around that? That was not provided. And a lot of that, I think, has to do with insecurities, particularly my mother's end. I think she felt that my desire to find my first family suggested to her that I wasn't happy or that there was something wrong with this situation that I was in with another family. I think the times would also suggest that a lot of times, parents were given these instructions that the child you are adopting is a clean slate. Just be great parents, and this child will be fine. So, I'll stop there.
Lori:
Your love for your parents is so evident in your memoir. And also, you have that passage In your book where you – you said it took a while for you to get your mother's blessing to search for your birth mom because of this blank slate, clean slate mindset that we had. Agencies were not preparing adoptive parents well for having ongoing about adoption, about adoptedness, about birth parents, about the developmental stages that adoptee is going to go through to try to figure out who they are, what were the earliest chapters of their lives before they entered into their parents' home?
So, your mom took a while to get there, but she did. What would it have meant to you to have your mom's permission to think about and wonder about your other mom all through your life if she had been given different guidance?
Jennifer:
Well, Lori, unfortunately, she never did give me her blessings. My mother passed in 2002, and I would not search until, like, 8 years later. I do know, and this might be what you're referring to, in the audio drama that I created in the telling of more of my story where the book leaves off. There is a saying with my son kind of talking about him having a conversation with her and her saying, “She should search,” meaning, I should search. So, I think that might be what you're referring to. But that audio drama; it's part creativity mixed with real life events. So, I never personally got her endorsement.
I think maybe if time had gone by, maybe that would have happened. But I think I was so stuck and being silent, just by fact of waiting 8 years after she died to search. I think I was stuck in this silence about searching and wanting to know something that really was deep down inside; very important to me. It took a while for me to kind of get there, like, unsilenced myself.
Lori:
Thank you so much for clarifying that. And what you're relaying is something I've heard from so many adoptees, especially from that era. But I think even from now, and adoptees in the future, if they don't have their adoptive parents’ either explicit consent or just the vibe that it's okay that their adoptive parents can handle their searching, their wondering, their wanting to integrate all of their pieces from their original parents, I think they have to, like you did. You had to squash down your own desires, because of the loyalty and the love that you felt for your mom. And it just makes me so sad for the bad guidance that everybody had that put adoptees in that position; to have to choose between their own needs and their adoptive parents' needs that came from a certain fragility.
Jennifer:
Yes. Yes. And I think my mother was from an era where that's what you did: you got married and you had children. And her friends were all having children, and she was not able to get pregnant. And that was a source of pain. And so, in her forties, she makes this decision: I want a child. I want to be a parent. And her solution was adoption. And I don't think she ever dealt with her pain.
Lori:
Yeah. That is something for adoptive parents to be mindful of too is that, as we say so often, that adopting a baby resolves childlessness, but it doesn't resolve grief from infertility. And so, that's a separate thing that adoptive parents need to be mindful of within themselves is not putting the burden on a baby to resolve everything. It's something that Dr Phil says that no baby should be born with a job: and that's a big job to heal a person.
Jennifer:
Yes.
Lori:
When I first met you, Jennifer, I made the mistake of assuming that you had been adopted by white parents. And I wonder if I'm not the only one who has faux pod like that with you. In fact, you were adopted by 2 black parents. People know a lot about same race adoption when white parents adopt white children and something about interracial adoption when white parents adopt children of color. What do we not always get about same race adoption by families of color? What would you like to shed light on?
Jennifer:
Well, first of all, it's not seamless. It's not like, “Oh, you got a black set of parents, so you're good.” I don't think that that's the attitude with same race white adoptees. I think it's pretty clear that, yeah, it's not seamless. And I often hear that black same race adoptees have it good. And I will say, and I shared this with you before we started recording, I Googled black same race adoptee, and what popped up was transracial; interracial black adoptees. And I thought that's really interesting; like nothing popped up about black same race adoptees.
So, I have to say that I think that, first of all, transracial interracial adoptees who – black who were adopted by white parents, they're in more spaces. They're more visible. So, it's not a stretch In my mind, for people like yourself and many others, because you are not alone. I have been approached many times, “Oh, I thought you're transracial.” But it would seem that yeah, if that's what you're hearing from, if those adoptees you're hearing from are black transracial adoptees, then your mind would go there. I don't think that's a stretch.
And one of the things that I have talked with other black same race adoptee is about is we just aren't as vocal in public places, which partly, I think has to do with the culture, the black culture. And I'll just use myself as an example. I was brought up that to think that certain things just remained in the home; a variety of subjects. This isn't discussed in the public. That isn't Is an information that other people outside of the home should know about, for example. It's a family matter. And I think a lot of black adoptees got that same message from their black parents.
And even today, like, I'm 59. And when I talk to other adoptees my age, they're not as quick to say be a guest on a podcast. I would say most of my same race, and I have a lot on my podcast, black same race adoptees; I invited them. I asked them to come on, and I'm not so sure they would have done it if it wasn't for me.
Does that kind of answer your question?
Lori:
Absolutely. And I think when we talk about interracial transracial adoption, the challenges that are top of mind are skincare, hair care, having the talk about police; some of the cultural things that white people don't get that black adoptees need. And so, if we take that away, I think there's a sense that, like you said, that you're all set. But, really, what I'm hearing is that that means that you come to the same place where I am with the adoption of my two white children; we're not all set. We have all sorts of still things for my kids to work through, things for me to work through because all adoptions are trans familied. Even kinship adoptions in some way have the substitution of one parent for another. So, there's still all of that, even when we take care of the cultural elements and the hair and skin elements and all of that.
Jennifer:
Yeah. Absolutely. I'm just wondering because I would say it was kind of taboo to talk about adoption, particularly outside of the home. Inside the home too, but certainly out in the public. Would you say that it was taboo for your kids to talk about adoption outside of the home?
Lori:
No. I think because – So, that's an interesting contrast. I think we did it so much in the home that they probably went out and were loud and proud about it in some parts of their development, and there was not a that kind of a taboo in our situation.
Jennifer:
That's good. Yeah. I think that's a really important message that it not be taboo.
Lori:
Yeah. And what I've heard, and you can correct me, that it's always a white person talking about race. So, thank you for giving me the space to do this maybe clumsily, but I understand perhaps that black people have not had such a positive experience with dealing with child welfare services, child protection services. And so, keeping it private is a protection mechanism that they needed to do to not involve outsiders who sometimes bring in their, not sometimes, but bringing their assumptions about what is and isn't a good parent and using power and authority to break up families, historically.
Jennifer:
That's a really good point. If I may say this: it's just coming up for me. My foster home didn't “qualify” (and I'm using air quotes here with you) to adopt me. I would later learn they wanted to adopt me; the two-parent home with five kids didn't qualify, and the Goldsons qualified because they didn't have any other kids. These are some of the things that I was told. They were well established. They were older parents. They have been working a while. They had a home, you know, a house, a single family in a nice area.
And I just remember these things being checked off, and I'm thinking but I have been in the foster home for 2 years, since four days old, and what qualifications, in my mind, is better than a loving home?
Lori:
Were your foster family were they black or were they white or were they something else?
Jennifer:
Black.
Lori:
They were black too.
Jennifer:
Yes.
Lori: Yeah.
Jennifer:
So we're talking the sixties.
Lori:
Mhmm.
Jennifer: And we're talking whatever social work looked like back then. And I'm hopeful that maybe things are looked at a lot different now because I think that was a healthy environment for me to be in, especially not having to deal with more disruption.
Lori:
Right. And how interesting for you to think about all the different trajectories your life might have taken had you been raised by your original mother, had you been raised by your foster mother and then the reality that you did end up knowing being raised by the Ghostons. All of those different scenarios playing out in simultaneously in your mind. I can see why you would write to flesh that out and then do your audio memoir as well with some playing with different scenes.
Let's shift over to how the stories you can tell about being a police detective for the Chicago police department and the stories that you do tell in your memoir. I'm curious, how did the professional life that you chose fit with the adoptee life that you were handed.
Jennifer:
Yeah. That's a beautiful question. I as a little person, I love doing puzzles. So I know the whole putting pieces together started early. And as I got older, I started to recognize the things that I enjoy. I definitely enjoy solving mysteries. I enjoy people. Like, you and I were talking, I'm just curious about people and what makes them who they are and how they think and look and feel about everything. And so I put all these things together. I love being outdoors, solving mysteries, and also being able to help people move through traumas, move through adverse situations. So, it only makes sense that policing and I would be a good match.
I think that as the years went on, I began to recognize that, yeah, this detective business has a lot to do with what I'm going to need. Like, I need to hone my skills It's solving things. And what better way? Like, I'm learning how to solve things, and this is ultimately going to be something that I do in my personal life; investigating my beginnings. And I think most adoptees are just detectives anyway. Like, it's in you to want to solve what's going on In your life.
Lori:
And you did put those skills to work, and you did find, piece by piece, the people in your family. And I loved how you told the story of how that happened. And throughout your memoir, The Truth So Far, and your audio drama, which is called Meant To Be. And if people want to hear that audio drama, they can go to the early episodes of your podcast, Once Upon A Time In Adoptee Land. But in those in your creative efforts, you share how Bonnie Upshaw and Jennifer Dyan Ghoston came to be and how they came to be integrated. Can you tell us a little bit about the intentions behind these creative efforts of yours?
Jennifer:
Yeah, I'm happy to. So, part of what I've been doing, I would say the last 5 or 6 years, is embracing my inner child. And let's just say, Bonnie was the name given to me at birth, so that's the name I've given my inner child who's about 12 years old. And so, I've been spending time with her over the years. And when I collaborated for the – It was supposed to be a theater play, but then COVID hit, so it evolved into an audio drama, as you say, that is at the beginning of my podcast.
I just remember sitting with Bonnie, 12-year-old Bonnie, and what does she like? What does she want to do? What how is she experiencing this thing called relinquishment and adoption? And I found she had very different views, very different opinion about it than 40-something, 50-something, you know, like, adult me had. And I just became a very good listener. And so, with the drama, my cowriter, he and I just kind of explored what she would say, what would be important to her. And she seemed to be far more attached to my original family and protective. And as an adult me, I wasn't looking at it like that. I wasn't experiencing it that way.
But when I sat with her and listened to her, and I hope this doesn't sound too woo woo, but I began to realize the first me needed to be integrated with the me that I know best. And that's what I wanted to accomplish creatively with Bonnie and Jennifer.
And I think it was accomplished because through, I guess, my life's journey, my life experiences, I've been very disconnected. For one, I didn't have a whole lot of information. But as I got to know through reunion, who's who and my birth family, particularly on my maternal side, it became a clearer picture to me about how I could integrate. And, ultimately, I feel like, and I'm still doing it, but I have done that over the last few years as it relates to embracing my inner child and how she likely can help the adult need. I hope that makes sense.
Lori:
Absolutely. And I am just loving hearing your intuitive technique for healing and integrating. You intuitively knew to find Bonnie to revert back to that curious, playful little girl, who all women have that little girl in us, and all men have that little boy in us, who is not jaded yet, is not bound by logic and can play, can explore, can do those things. And then the integrating that you were able to do with the playfulness and then the groundedness from adult Jennifer too, and the integration between Bonnie and Jennifer. Just the ways that you brought all of that out through play and curiosity, I just think that's a brilliant way to help integrate and seamlessly heal, maybe not seamlessly, but to bring all your pieces together in such a you-directed way.
Jennifer:
Yes. I totally agree. It was very cathartic; very healing. And we're talking the 1970’s when my inner child was 12. And I think that because she was silenced, this gave her an opportunity to have a voice. Yeah, me listening. And then even in the writing for the world to hear from her. Like yeah, I just think it was very healing for that time in my life when I was very silent about how I was thinking and feeling. Yeah.
Lori:
To also find your voice as well as the integration, yeah, to give that little girl back her voice.
Jennifer: Exactly.
Lori: So in in the bio, we mentioned that the start of your spiritual paths began unfolding about 40 years ago. I'd love to hear more about that, if you have something to share about that too.
Jennifer:
Yeah. I always like talking about my spiritual journey. I actually credit my mother, who was a librarian, and so I was surrounded by books as a little person. And she was very curious about spirituality. So I was brought up Lutheran. Christianity was, yeah, the religion that my mother embraced, and I as well. And at the same time, she was very interested in knowing more about or learning from spiritual teachers. And I just remember one book, Early One, was by Wayne Dyer. And so, I just, through the years, would read books by authors like him that were exploring just ways to, I guess, have more tools to get through this thing called life in the best way possible so that you're honoring yourself, you're honoring other people. You're just living a more holistic life.
And as life would have it, you know, there's losses, when my dad passed, a divorce; like, all these different things. And then certainly, a career in law enforcement where I am experiencing, on a daily basis, the traumas that other people have experienced. And I want to be clear that all traumas are not traumatic for me. But clearly, this is my field of work with people who have experienced horrific traumas.
And so, spirituality became even more clear to me that I have to be able to center myself, kind of put my oxygen mask on first every day, if I'm going to be of help to the people I'm serving. Yeah. So, I do think that spirituality has been a played a major part, a very big tool, in just living a healthier life.
Lori:
Yeah, I love hearing that because when I was reading your memoir, I was wondering how did you metabolize all that you witnessed, all that you absorbed from your work with the police department. And it seems like maybe you were wired for healing and integration; you had this in you. You had this inner knowing of how to rise, how to heal, how to metabolize hard things. So, thank you for sharing that with us.
Regarding your podcast, Once Upon A Time in Adoptee Land, what can you share with adoptive parents about some of the themes that are revealed to you there by you and your guests, who are primarily adoptees?
Jennifer:
Thank you for the opportunity to talk about the podcast. Yeah, one of the things I would say is that most of my guests have early on, quite a few, early on in life realize what tools were helping them heal. Writing is one of them, music. A lot of guests have expressed how they knew they had to find something to lean into healing, once they realize how hard it has been as an adoptee for a variety of reasons. And some people have had much harder times than others. I think that most adoptees are clear that they feel, or have felt, quite misunderstood by the adoptive parents. Either not allowing them to talk about it or to not feel silenced; like, that seems to be a reoccurring thing that I had to figure out a way, absence the support from my adoptive parents.
And I think we would all agree; most of adoptees would agree that we don't want to have to do this alone. We want the support of our adoptive parents to be able to have a safe space to talk about what's coming up for us.
And I put this in my book too, and I'm often talking about the fact that I identify with a lot of different things; as a woman, female, as a black person, you name it, as an adoptee. And every identity that I have, I have been able to be in those spaces, and I'm talking growing up. And it's important to be able to be in those spaces. And yet, as an adoptee, I was never allowed to be in that space, yet is something that's a part of my identity. And I question why would an adoptive parent want an adoptee not to be able to have that space to embrace that part of their identity. And only thing I could think of is there some shame about that, when you're not allowing a person to be in a space that they identify with.
Lori:
That is such a good question. And I'm thinking that two words are coming to my mind; real and only. And I think it is a challenge for adoptive parents to need to be the real parent, which also can mean being the only real parent. And I talk a lot in most of my podcast episodes. Thank you for give opening this door for me so I can include it in this one. And a lot of my written work is this shift from an either-or mindset about parents (this one or that one) to a both-and heart set (this one and that one). And this inclusive expansive space that is not such a stretch to cultivate, if we have a little bit of guidance around the real and the only; that framework.
I also want to say something else, Jennifer, to people who may be listening; adoptive parents who – and this is who I was early in my journey – Just tell me what to say so that my kids feel like they can talk to me about things. And I just want to say it's not about the words. You can say, “You can talk to me” as much as you want, but you can't fake it with your adoptee. They will know if those words are true or not. So you really have to be doing the inner work of creating that sense of expansiveness and inclusiveness and spaciousness for them to bring their actual feelings to you. If you aren't actually doing that, the words you say will not matter. Do you have any anything to say about that?
Jennifer:
I love what you just said. And what comes up for me is nurturing your own garden. You have to do that.
Lori:
And maybe what you modeled for us in integrating with Bonnie Upshaw, we, adoptive parents, can do too. We can attend to that little girl or that little boy who didn't get his dream, her dream to come true about having the kid that looks just like you; the mini me. If we can attend to that, maybe we can help that person heal and show up better for the actual child that we are raising.
Jennifer:
That was good, Lori. Yes. Because we all have an inner child. And are we giving that In a child's space to speak and, yeah, and to help the adult you? That's what happened for me for sure.
Lori:
Yeah. And that integrating can take place when we can find out what needs to be integrated.
When you had me on your podcast last Fall, you gave me the great favor of reading a passage from each of my books, And I, at this time, would love to return the favor to you and ask you if you would read something from your creative work for us.
Jennifer:
Oh, thank you. I'd be glad to. And, yeah, you were wonderful guest, and I appreciate you accepting my invitation. So, I chose, and it was kind of tricky, but because I know your audience are adoptive parents who really want – they want to be great parents. I know they do. They wouldn't be listening to your show if they didn't. And the title is so fitting; Adoption: The Long View. Like, I think you say adoption is not a one-time event. It is a lifelong journey, and that's so true.
So, anyway, I chose from page 34, and it's from chapter Cage Curiosity. Chapter 3. The bottom of 34, it says,
“Nurture and nature are sometimes pitted against one another. I believe that nurture is an opposite nature. They can go hand in hand, and I'm proof of that. At birth, we bring physical qualities over from a countless number of ancestors. And from there, the environment influences our personalities.
I had no reference point yet concerning my characteristics by nature or heredity passed down from one generation to the next, so I was curious. I wanted to know more about my nature. I consider it valuable information. People who are not adoptees are able to identify some of the reasons why they are the way they are because of inherited physical traits. The one thing I know for certain is my nature was positively influenced by my nurture, and that's what's most important.”
And I chose that because I think that subject – like, we could talk for hours; I think most people can talk for a long list of time about nature, nurture, like, all of that. How does that play out? And I want adoptive parents to understand that as an adoptee, there is a DNA part of me. There is a part of me that maybe is so different than my adoptive family; not good or bad, just different. And in the family, when that surfaces, I want my differences to be embraced because a lot of it has nothing to do with me; it just has to do with DNA and that I have another family that I shared DNA with, that are not here with me through the years, through the decade. So, that was important to me to just kinda let adoptive parents know that the adopted child has some inherent things about them that should be accepted and embraced and even encouraged. Like, it may be something about your adopted child is so far different from you and what you know and your even your aspirations, and just get curious about what that is.
Lori:
And this is a theme that I hear so often from the adoptees I talk with, which is see us for who we are. See us, who we actually are, not your projections and dreams and desires onto us. That is a gift.
And I love the passages that you chose because it's so well illustrates that, you know, I call it the either-or mindset because when we're in our mind, our brain is an organ that likes to divide and get things down to the smallest level, and we want to tease out, divide, nature versus nurture. But when we're in that both-and heart set, the heart is an organ that wants to unite and bring things together and find wholeness and integration. And when we can make that shift – it doesn't take a lot from an either-or mindset to a both-and heart set – we are going to be in a better position to help our adoptees find all their pieces, nurture all their pieces, integrate all their pieces, and see them for who they actually are. It's our work to do that so that we can show up in the way that our kids need us to.
Jennifer:
Well said. Yeah.
Lori:
Yeah. I would like to ask you the last question, which is something we're asking of all guests for Season 5. You will be the 1st one to receive this question. Jennifer, what do you wish that adoptive parents knew from Day 1 or today?
Jennifer:
I love that question. And what came up for me was an answer from one of my guest my podcast, Sophie P. Chupia Posey. And let me just give a little background: I asked her, “If you were in a room full of adoptive parents, let's say 2,000 of them, what would you say?” And these were her words.
“Being an adopter is an incredibly, almost sacred responsibility. It's a mission you have to step into with your eyes wide open. You can't adopt the challenge and expect it to be the solution to whatever problems you're dealing with, especially if it's in the relationship to infertility.
I get it. For some people, having a child is the most important, almost primordial thing. But if you haven't taken a hard look at yourself, like, am I really fit to be a parent to any kid; bio, adopted whatever. Think of that child as a human being who will be a part of your family, but won't (at the same time, for obvious reasons; it's natural) be more enriched by it.”
I just loved her answer because it wasn't it wasn't negative. It was just; this is what you want to think about. This is what you – Like, especially that line that your child is a human being who will be a part of your family, but won't at the same time, I hope that that's just, like, a statement to totally reflect on because, like you were saying earlier, and I've heard many adoptive parents say it, we just want to be, like, your only. Looking at it, like, we're your real parents (and certainly adoptive parents are; let me be clear) but we're not your only real parents.
Lori:
Exactly. That is such a powerful statement that you shared from your guest. I'm thankful to you for that. What it brings up for me, when you say sacred responsibility; those are the words that really stuck out to me. I think it's normal. It happened to me, and it maybe happened to other adoptive parents that at first, the baby you adopt is in service of you. It's to meet your needs. When you start to grasp the sacred responsibility, you also start to grasp that you are in service to your child. And you have that inner work to do to show up for your child in that space of sacred responsibility to them. So, thank you so much for sharing that.
Jennifer:
Yeah, for sure. And what I would add to Sophie's words, beautiful words, is that I think adopters have the opportunity, like this awesome opportunity, maybe the ultimate opportunity, to grow in compassion, empathy, and to continually extend grace to the adoptee.
Lori:
Beautiful. Beautiful. Continually extend grace. And when we do that, we get it back in return too.
Jennifer: Absolutely.
Lori: And we create a world of grace.
Jennifer: Yes.
Lori: Jennifer, do you have any closing thoughts you'd like to share?
Jennifer:
No, I think this has been a beautiful conversation, and I I'm just happy to be a part of what you do; the work you do. I think you do an amazing job in the community. And I know sometimes it's really hard because people have different opinions. And I think that people like, all of us, could just get better at accepting that we can have different perspectives and not fall out. Like, we just can. And I want to be a person that just stays curious and stays interested in learning what I don't know. Like, there's just so much I don't know.
Lori:
I think in that way, we are kindred spirits, and I want to thank you for coming and playing with me today and really fleshing out some of these really interesting ideas. I do want to just say once again that talking about race is hard. I am very clumsy at it, and so thank you. And thanks to the listeners for letting me play. Hopefully, suspending some judgment if I got some things wrong. But I think it's better to enter into these conversations than to not have them. So, thank you for being here this morning.
Jennifer:
I agree. And thank you to All your listeners for being here.
Lori:
Thank you. A special thanks to adopting.com for producing and sponsoring this podcast. Please subscribe, give this episode a rating, and share with others who are on the journey of adoptive parenting so that more people join in for real talk on the complexities of adoption earlier and earlier in their journey. You will be doing them, as well as me, a favor.
With each episode of Adoption: The Long View, we bring you guests who expand your knowledge of and ease with adoptive parenting. Thanks to each of you for tuning in and investing in your adoptions, long view. May you meet everything on your road ahead with confidence, curiosity, and compassion.