Research in Progress: The Experiences of Women Who are Adopted and Also Relinquished

My story is my story, but our stories, collectively, share themes and experiences that deserve to be studied, named, and added to the research record. That is why I am actively embarking on a study of the experiences of adoptee mothers who have relinquished their children.

I am excited to do this work and to use it to challenge and debunk traditional adoption narratives that have for too long erased the voices of first and birth mothers. I cannot wait to share more as this research develops. Stay tuned.

Adoption-Informed Therapy

The R3 Framework at the National Association of Black Counselors Conference

This month I had the honor of presenting at the National Association of Black Counselors Conference in Dallas, Texas. I shared the R3 Framework, my own three-part model for healing that grew not from a textbook, but from my lived experiences as an adoptee, a coerced birth mother, and a Black woman who had to fight her way back to herself.

What moved me most about that room was the recognition on people's faces. These were Black mental health professionals who understood, from both sides of the couch, what it means to carry unexamined pain and to still show up and serve others. The framework was born from my story, but the room reminded me that it belongs to all of us.

Joy and rest were the closing message of my presentation, and I meant every word: they are not luxuries we stumble into. They are things we have to fight to reclaim. I hope that truth landed and stayed

Abby’s Affirmations

"Bloom where you are rooted, not where someone else planted you."

So much of adoptee experience involves being uprooted and replanted — and being told to be grateful for the new soil. But healing asks something different of us. It asks us to go back to our original roots, to tend to them, to grieve what was lost, and to grow from a place that is truly, authentically ours. Spring is the perfect reminder: growth is not always fast, and it is rarely pretty at first. But the blooming? That is all you.

It Runs in the Family

"Hey There, Lonely Girl" by The Softones

This one is personal. As a teenager, "Hey There Lonely Girl" by The Softones was one of those songs that just soothed me. I did not know why it reached me the way it did. I just knew it felt like comfort.

Years later, after finding my biological family in 2017, I discovered that my biological cousin was the lead singer of The Softones. Family was reaching me through music long before I ever knew they existed. Even when I felt most alone, I was being held by something I could not yet name.

That is the kind of thing that makes you believe in something bigger than coincidence. Sit with this one.

Enjoy a music break!