“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb…. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in […]
adoption
The Cost of Being a Transracial Adoptee
It did not rub off. The “dirty” skin I was teased for just a few steps away from my favorite spot on the monkey bars, this dark skin felt permanent. Frustrated and glaring at skin and soul both, my childhood heart detached from part of my identity. I did not return to recover it again […]
Teaching Our Children Belonging
In 2010, I went from never being a mother, to a mom of two toddlers in a span of a day. It has and remains, all these years later, one of the most horrifically beautiful adventures of my life. Journeying to motherhood was fraught from the beginning. I have known since I was 16 that […]
I am the Proud Mother of 49
Each morning I was greeted with lots of hugs. Little arms wrapped themselves around my waist and squeezed tight. Swarms of them came at once, their sweet voices proclaiming, “Good morning, Auntie!” One morning, as Mwikali moved in for her embrace, she peered up at me from under the folds of my t-shirt. Her big […]
An Open Adoption: Becoming a Hardacker
“All my problems started the day I became a Hardacker,” our daughter told our counselor. We laughed when we heard the comment. Our daughter is adopted and we have an open adoption with her birth-parents. We met them prior to her birth through an adoption agency and hit it off right away. They said we […]
The Day I Avoided Foster Ministry
I really wanted to get excited with Martha. But instead, I felt panicky. At the playground with our kids, she was telling me about a powerful sermon she heard with her husband. “The preacher pointed out that if every Christian family in the US were to adopt, there would be no children in the foster […]
When Other People Think Your Kids Are Apples
Today my kids got these . . . I don’t know . . . lip spreaders at church. You know the ones I mean? The plastic thingies that pull your lips away from your gums and make you talk funny like you’re at the dentist? As we walked out of church, my kids start chanting […]
Mothering with Lingering Leftovers
The little lines appeared on the stick in January. I think hers did too, just twenty years prior. :: She, my first daughter, was born in September. A week to the day before my twenty-first birthday. A week to the day before the twenty-one year anniversary of the day I met the woman who birthed […]