Breanna’s teenage mother attempts to hide her pregnancy, but when she goes into labor on her High School Graduation Day, her own mother forces her to place the child for adoption. Baby Breanna is fostered and then adopted, after remaining in the foster care system for 3 years. While her adoptive parents informed church members of she and her siblings’ adoption status, they never had an explicit conversation to define what it meant to be adopted. As a self-described “weird child, Breanna searched the pages of a dictionary she carried around with her. Reading the definition provided comfort, but thrust her into a world of fantasy as she aimed to resolve her belief that this situation – this family, was temporary.
After suffering sexual abuse at the hands of her mother’s boyfriend, Breanna leaves home after her senior year of high school. This decision severed the relationship with she and her adoptive family, but friends encourage her to engage in a search and reunion process. The information she receives from her adoption file and a Facebook search have her connected with her biological mother, overnight. Over the span of a decade, there has yet to be an official meeting with her biological mother, siblings, and other blood relatives due to fear and continued secrecy. In spite of it all, Breanna shares how she has defined family for herself, is using her voice to speak her truth, and is finally on the path to healing.
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RECOMMENDED ADOPTION RESOURCES
- Therapy for Black Girls
- LISTEN: The Black Adoption Podcast
- Black Adoptee Support Group on Instagram
- REQUIRED READING: Black to the Beginning Reads Bookshop - A carefully curated list of #BTTBreads...for the culture!
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