Adoption Reunions Quotes

“Destiny is not always preordained. Life is about making choices. Our lives are the sum of all the choices we make, the bridges we cross, and the ones we burn. Our souls cast long shadows over many people, even after we are gone. Fate, luck, and providence are the consequence of our freedom of choice, not the determinants. When justice is served by following our principles, making good decisions brings us inner peace.”
― Judith Land, Adoption Detective: Memoir of an Adopted Child

“Adoption isn't just a childhood experience, it's a life-long experience.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“Adoptees deserve open records because deception and partial truths do not set us free.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“Adoptee rights are everyone's rights, and they deserve to be protected.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“Being adopted felt like reading a book that had the first chapter ripped out. You might be enjoying the plot and the characters, but you'd probably also like to read that first line, too. However, when you took the book back to the store to say that the first chapter was missing, they told you they couldn't sell you a replacement copy that was intact. What if you read that first chapter and realized you hated the book, and posted a nasty review on Amazon? What if you hurt the author's feelings? Better just to stick with your partial copy and enjoy the rest of the story.”
― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care

“If the system were designed to protect adoptees, why do so many have to fight for their rights?”
― DaShanne Stokes

“It's illegal to deny people their records due to race or gender. Adoptees deserve the same rights and protections.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“Blood can help make family, but family often transcends blood.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“I deeply understood that there is no such thing as an isolated act. This particular act had looped and wrapped and folded in on itself and other acts, pushed forward, pulled a hidden past into the present, and placed it in front of me as if to say: Isn’t this a fine moment? Who knew?”
― Patricia Florin

“Being denied their original birth certificates isn't just a problem for adoptees. It's a social problem, requiring social change.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“Here we go. The Harlequin moment when mother and child meet for the first time in twenty years. Spare me the drama, please. I had enough of that in the foster homes they dumped me in.”
― Murielle Cyr, The Daughters' Story

“I understood that this sister of mine was going to live somewhere else, away from us...This information did not make me thing of the baby as less mine. She was my sister, like my brother was my brother and my mother was my mother. The adoptive parents' claim on my developing sister did not negate mine, she was not a kingdom or a territory or a thing with a deed; she was a person. This baby girl would be both my sister and these other people's daughter, and my mom's daughter. there would be moments when one claim took focus-- as right now this baby girl was more Ours than Theirs, and one day she would be more Theirs than Ours, but none of those connections could completely erase the others. It would be easier, perhaps, if they could, if after she was gone we could forget this baby ever belonged to us. But that's not how people work.”
― Mary Anna King, Bastards: A Memoir

“Being adopted is complicated. It can be both a win and a loss at the same time.”
― Lisa Coppola, Voices Unheard: A Reflective Journal for Adult Adoptees

“Being adopted is complicated. It can be both a win and a loss at the same time, and when the “loss” part goes unacknowledged, the omission adds greatly to the complication.”
― Lisa Coppola, Voices Unheard: A Reflective Journal for Adult Adoptees