Found: Adopted Friends Search for their Birth Families

by Trish Diggins, Sherri Craig-Evans

Lifelong friends – both adoptees – decided they would take a chance and search for their birth parents using online DNA kits and social media. It turns out, that was the easy part. What happened over the next five years was much more difficult – trying to forge relationships with a multitude of related strangers while navigating decades of invisible and unexpected emotional land mines. This is what they found.

Whether you're connected with adoption or not, "Found" is an incredible, unique human interest story that sends readers on a roller coaster of emotions regarding building relationships, family, friendship, pluses and pitfalls of online DNA searching and social media, parenthood, what makes a family, and much more. Written in an easy, friend-to-friend style, "Found" is an honest, raw, insightful and powerful look into the authors' hearts and minds. The book also includes several additional short stories of others that searched for lost family after hearing of the authors searches, and their own insight into their own experiences with reunion.

200 pages, Paperback

Published April 21, 2023

About the author

An award-winning designer, writer, creative director, branding guru & web geek, Trish has significant experience in the corporate, television, and web arenas. She is both an adopted person and an adoptive mother.

Trish's first adoption-related work was published in Adoption Today magazine about how her experience of adopting her child changed her thoughts about her own adoption. Since then, she has become an author of four adoption-related books:

• Found: Two Adopted Friends Search for Their Birth Families, with Sherri Craig-Evans

And three with co-author Kat LaMons

• "The New Crunch-Time Guide to Parenting Language for Chinese Adoption"

• "The New Crunch-Time Guide to Parenting Language for Haitian Adoption"

• "Ladybug Love: 100 Chinese Adoption Match Day Stories."

Trish also was editor for Vivienne Strauss' first book, "Little Birds Big Adventures: The Bird Collages of Vivienne Strauss" and has edited and designed more than 50 additional publications.

Reviews

[Linda Jean Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reunion Reality

As an adoptee who reunited with her "first families" 4 years ago, I find it interesting to read stories of other adoptees who have taken the emotional journey to find the information about ourselves most people take for granted. This book written by two women both adopted who have been friends their whole lives takes readers on the real roller coaster of emotions that searching for, finding, reaching out to and ultimately meeting your birth families involves. Anyone who has experienced reunion knows the reality is nothing like what viewers see on those reunion shows. Nothing can fully prepare anyone for this process, but an adoptee thinking about searching for their birth families would be better prepared after reading this book. The writers tell their stories honestly and since each has both positive and negative reunion experiences, not many possible outcomes are left out. The stories from other adoptees added at the end and the many discussions about the questions and feelings adoptees share are an added bonus to this fantastic book.

[Dana Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

DNA discoveries!

A wealth of information for those searching for biological roots. A guideline for not only adoptees but for all who uncover DNA surprises. It was serendipity that I've known Trish for years and while we are loosely connected friends, I had no idea we were travelling this DNA road. "Found" has been so beneficial by putting those feelings into words that mirror my own. So validating. Many thanks to both authors for sharing and helping all of us relate and be able to put words to our journey.