Anna Sheffield & Kristin Cotterell Sheffield

In this deeply moving episode, host Anna Jinja sits down with Anna Sheffield, a young adoptee from Iowa City, and her mother, Kristin Cotterell Sheffield, to explore the layers of identity, belonging, and love that define adoption.  

The conversation flows between mother and daughter perspectives—offering both honesty and tenderness—as they recount their family’s adoption journey, challenges of transracial adoption, and the resilience built through love, faith, and storytelling. Listeners will hear not just the story of adoption, but also universal reflections on attachment, identity, and what it means to be family.  

Key Themes & Highlights A Mother’s Love and Vision: Kristin reflects on her lifelong openness to adoption, her struggles with miscarriage, and the powerful moment of meeting and holding Anna at birth. 

Growing Up Adopted: Anna shares her childhood experiences, including moments of bullying, the “grateful adoptee” expectation, and navigating identity in a transracial family. 

Attachment & Resilience: The mother-daughter duo candidly discusses Anna’s need for reassurance and how she would sometimes test her mother’s love, a dynamic familiar to many adoptive and foster families. 

Creative Legacy: Kristin recites a poem, “Prayer” by Walter Dean Myers, which she read to Anna throughout her childhood—a powerful reminder of beauty, worth, and belonging. 

Transformation & Hope: Together, they embrace the metaphor of the butterfly emerging from its cocoon, symbolizing the challenges and triumphs of growth, change, and self-discovery.

Why This Episode Matters For General Listeners: It’s a heartfelt story of resilience and the bonds that hold us together. 

For Adoption/Foster Communities: It provides authentic voices and lived experiences that resonate with adoptive families, adoptees, and professionals. 

For Broader Audiences: It’s about more than adoption—it’s about family, identity, and the universal search for belonging. 

Creative Content: Poem selected and read by Kristin Cotterell Sheffield

Prayer
by Walter Dean Myers

Shout my name to the angels.
Sing my song to the skies.
Anoint my ears with wisdom.
Let beauty fill my eyes. 
For I am dark and precious.
And have such gifts to give.
Sweet joy, sweet love,
Sweet laughter.
Sweet wondrous life to live. 

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