Dissolved Adoption: Shame, Isolation, & Painful Choices. An Interview with Adam and Allie Bryan
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The Bryan Family
Do you know someone who is adopting? Perhaps they are raising money and filling out paperwork. Maybe they have recently brought their child home. But what happens when an adoption ends? When the child that was welcomed into a family is moved to a new home, a new state? Adam and Allie Bryan talk about the often-overlooked world of dissolved adoptions.
From the journey to Uganda, the challenge of transition, and the pain of dissolution, Adam and Allie give voice to the heartache, social judgment, isolation, and love that has marked their journey through dissolved adoption. This discussion is provocative and eye-opening and will help you support adoptive families, no matter where they are in their journey.
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A Funny Photo
Here are three take-aways from this conversation with Adam and Allie
Move towards individuals and families that have experienced a dissolved adoption. These transitions can be full of a lot of pain. Give what you can: a meal, a gift certificate, a house cleaning. Each gesture matters.
Be aware that the family left behind will most likely need help beyond the transition. Adam, Allie, and their children are still in counseling, processing grief two years after the disrupted adoption. Ask families how they are doing and offer gestures of support beyond the immediate days and weeks after the transition.
Adoption can be beautiful, complex, and isolating. Allie and Adam talked about how they felt without resources, like they were silently drowning. If you have friends who have adopted, reach out, ask them how they are doing, provide a listening ear. They might be struggling and very much in need of a friend. Or point them to supportive resources, some of which are available in the show notes.
And this is a bonus, fourth take-away. Adam and Allie described a few people that responded primarily out of their experience: there was the family who had adopted that could not continue to be in relationship. The Facebook commenter who was shaped by her own history of abandonment. We are always responding to other people’s pain out of our own experience. If this episode was triggering, eliciting strong emotion, take a moment to ask the question of what personal experience you might be living out of in your response.