Tag: International adoption
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Anxiety Triggers
I had my first panic attack almost fifteen years ago. I had just found out that my then partner was pregnant. As happy as I was for her and us that we were having a baby, something inside of me which I had suppressed for my whole life, without being aware of until then, was…
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The Waiting Period for my Birth Certificate
I received another email from ICAB on June 28, approximately 15 days since I’d emailed a signed form requesting the retrieval of my birth certificate. This email had the subject: “Post Adoption Concern” which made my heart flutter since it sounded so serious and official. The content of this email basically said that ICAB has…
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Our Mothers and Families?
A followup on an intercountry adoptee (Yennifer Villa) project to hear from the mothers of loss in Colombian intercountry adoption.
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Self Care and Healing
Last week, I was fortunate and privileged enough to attend a 3-day Adoptee Self Care Retreat funded by the Australian Government for adoptees from the Forced Adoption era and for people who have been in State care. I want to share my thoughts of what I gained from attending as I found it to be such…
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The Truth of Intercountry Adoption
These past weeks have been frustrating to say the least! I received an official letter from the Australian Government – Minister Tehan’s office, Minister for Social Services, one of the Federal departments responsible for intercountry adoption. Our stakeholder community has been actively writing and contacting the Minister to request a review of the decision to…
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Voices of those impacted the most in Adoption
Paul Bonnell’s essay written to express his journey of intercountry adoption from Vietnam.
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A journey through space, a journey divided
By Sunny Reed, Korean intercountry adoptee. Intercountry adoptees speak often about the return to their birth country, a time defined by searching and finding. Lynelle’s recent post made me consider my relationship with Korea, the land that, over three decades ago, released me to a country made of dreams. We speak of “the return” as…
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Return to Birthland
Vietnamese adoptee Lynelle shares about her second return journey to homeland, a decade later and how things have changed.
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Starting a Monthly Intercountry Adoptee Pen Pal Effort
Desiree discusses her goal of starting an adoptee pen-pal program to help adoptees connect and share.
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Would Adoptees Adopt an Orphan?
Would Adoptees Adopt or Not? This is a compilation of responses from those with lived experience.
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Parenthood Made Me Better
One of the most memorable moments, forever ingrained in my memory, is the birth of my son. I remember the anxious months waiting for my beautiful son, developing inside his mother’s womb – feeling his small frame kicking about and waiting to be born. I remember staring at the ultrasound pictures and wondering who he…
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Expectations of Gratitude in Adoption
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in Abuse in Adoption, Adoptee Anger, Adoptee vulnerability, Adoptees Educate, Adoption Education for Adoptive Parents, Adoption Education for Professionals, Adoptive Country, Birth Country, Complexities in Adoption, Critical Thinking in Adoption, Gratitude in Adoption, Grief and Loss, Importance of Connections to Origins, Is adoption the best option, Lifelong Impacts of Adoption, Not Knowing in Adoption, Sense of Belonging, Therapy, Transracial Adoption, Trauma in AdoptionLynelle shares about the burden of being expected to be grateful in being adopted.
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Not Good Enough
I was an artistic child and I spent much of my free time drawing when I was a child. I drew my interpretation of Star Wars. I was not allowed to watch the movie because my religious parents believed it was evil to try and interpret the future. Our hired hand found my drawings in…
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What Intercountry Adoptees Need
Lynelle shares from dialogue within ICAV what intercountry adoptees need, having lived the experience.
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Cuts You Deep
Whilst studying for my undergraduate degree in History, I found the similarities of my childhood and reading the history of Nazi Germany opened up my old anxieties. The interrogation methods of the SS were like pages read out about my own childhood. My adopted mother acted like a Concentration Camp guard, always on the lookout…
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Degrees of Being Trafficked in Intercountry Adoption
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in 1993 Hague Convention, Adoptee vulnerability, Adoptees Educate, Adoption Education for Adoptive Parents, Adoption Education for Professionals, adoption reform, Adoptive Country, Australia, Birth Country, Compensation to Victims in Adoption, Complexities in Adoption, Critical Thinking in Adoption, Grief and Loss, Illegal Adoption, Illicit Adoption, Impacts to Biological Families, Importance of Connections to Origins, India, Is adoption the best option, Lifelong Impacts of Adoption, Origins Search, Politics of Adoption, Return to Birth Country, Rights in Adoption, Therapy, Transracial Adoption, Trauma in Adoption, What is an Illegal and Illicit Adoption?Lynelle writes critically about the lack of formal support for adoptees who have been trafficked via intercountry adoption.
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Yellow Snow
I grew up on a dairy farm in rural Minnesota. Minnesota is a state, located in the north central region of the United States and borders Canada. Most people do not know the most northern point of the lower 48 states is located in Minnesota. It should be no surprise to learn Minnesota ranks in…
