5/2/10 (New York, NY) —I am very excited to get started. I won’t repeat myself by explaining what The Red Thread means or who I am. (It’s all in the bio.) But if you are an adoptive family, an adopted child or a family thinking about adoption, I welcome you to join me here.
This column is more about you than me. I will cover the topics you want to know about, and I’ll throw in a few real-life stories of American families who have been brought together through adoption, too.
When I was beginning the adoption process I wished there was a column like this, one that addressed the anxiety, the anticipation, the joy and, yes, the stories of real Americans who had gone through the process and come through the other side a family.
I am now the mother of a three-year-old daughter from Vietnam, and I can’t tell you how many parents reach out to me to find out how I got through the adoption process, what I did, and how things wound up. It was these families, who convinced me I needed to do The Red Thread, that a column like this was sorely needed. A column about the truth of adoption. It is hard. It is long. And it works.
My journey to adopt Maxine and build a family is in many ways exactly the same as yours, and, of course, entirely different. Just like every birth is the same in that all births share the anticipation, excitement, pain, ecstasy and exhaustion, so too does every adoption. My husband’s aunt, Auntie B., who adopted her daughter Ani, my niece, from Poland, has a line that’s famous in our family and all too true: “Going through an adoption isn’t all different than giving birth except the labor lasts a lot longer.”
Adoption may be the hardest thing you ever do, but it will be the most important and rewarding thing you ever do. If you’ve done it, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, have faith.
I welcome you to join me here, to ask questions, post your thoughts and stories. Most importantly, come along for the ride. It doesn’t get better than this.
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