I’ve been grieving some things lately that I wish I wasn’t having to grieve. And I’m being reminded in the most unfortunate of ways that grief is a complicated, unexpected emotion that shifts and changes and hits you out of nowhere whenever it feels like it.

A mom of three asked me this question as we were getting to know each other at a volunteer event. She and her husband were considering foster care but were uncertain of the effects on their children. Having searched the internet and found no answers, they had paused their efforts.

I wandered into church among my younger siblings and my parents just like I did every single Sunday morning. We were a spectacle each week – our large family, my younger siblings from different countries, the chaos that often encircled us.

Today is the start of a new adventure, and I want to tell you a story. My story. The story of how I got to this place of creating this space.

My life changed completely when adoption became part of my story. Adoption encouraged me to become more empathetic, compassionate, understanding, and mature. Adoption led me to a life lived intimately with trauma and its effects.

I wanted to share some thoughts with some strategies on what to do during the COVID-19 Pandemic– strategies such as how to Trust-Based Relational Intervention (TBRI) your home when you’re all stuck in it.

As a therapist, I had the opportunity to help many siblings and families heal from the brokenness that can seep into the adoptive family system. I still get this privilege through leading the adoptive sibling work at Hope Connection 2.0 – a therapeutic camp intervention that addresses the needs of every single member of the adoptive family.

Not one thing in this life has affected me so deeply or changed me so profoundly as the adoption of my seven siblings. Before adoption, my home was filled with two older sisters, a younger brother, and two parents. Life was simple, comfortable, and uncomplicated. After adoption, everything about life was different.