I encounter many people involved in adoption, but rarely do I meet an adoptive mother who is herself adopted. Meika Rouda writes from that unique perspective. Her review of Mamalita appeared this week on thenextfamily.com. Here’s a short excerpt:

I usually don’t relate to adoption books because the narrators come off as whiny or like victims or the point of view is from some doctor or professor who studies adoption but has no first-hand experience. I rarely find someone I am rooting for. But I am happy to say Jessica’s book is of a different breed. The book is moving and smart and reads more like a thriller than a memoir.

Meika loved the book, and I’m grateful for the review. But I’m also posting the link because I enjoy Meika’s incredibly engaging writing style, and think you will, too.

Scroll through all of Meika’s postings for insight into her experience as an adoptive mom and adoptee. My favorite is dated May 31, 2011, where she discusses finding her birth mother through Google. As Meika writes, the process of searching for birth family has become simple, but the emotional impact of reunion remains.

I found my birthmom on Google the other day. It was not the first time I had Googled her but it was the first time anything came up. It was her wedding announcement published in a Pittsburgh paper 35 years ago, a few years after I had been born and given up for adoption.

The more I looked the more I discovered, including the names of her four children – my half siblings. So I Googled them and found their profiles on Facebook, their smiling faces posing with friends, their eyes the same as mine. I realized I could “friend” them and wondered what it would feel like to get an invitation from someone you don’t know but who looks like you. I was pretty sure I was a secret to them.

***

I had just exposed the majority of her life in one 10-minute Google binge. It was the first time in my life that she became a very real person with a job, a family, a home –and not some romantic character whose narrative I had composed in my mind. She became someone I could know.

Read the entire post to discover Meika’s response to her discovery. It may surprise you.

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Tags: adoption reunions, birth mother search, Meika Rouda

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 22nd, 2011 at 7:58 pm You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.