I appreciate your beautiful writing Mindy. This piece brought to mind my family's part in the story of adoption. When I was young my mother worked with the Catholic Social Service as a caretaker for adopted children. Newborn babies, or infants taken from parents due to neglect, were brought to our door regularly. We gave them names for their stay, and kept a list in our bible so we would always remember them.

Often they stayed for weeks, or sometimes just a few hours until a family arrived to pick them up. No matter how long they stayed, we fell in love with each one of the children. Looking back, I like to think that our home was a safe and welcoming place where they felt wanted. That we gave them a good start.

As a 6- yr- old I wondered how someone could give up (or hurt) such a cute baby, but never did I consider that the baby would still miss who and what they didn't know.

Now decades later, I understand why you say adoption is trauma.

As a psychic counselor, I see what I call the "energy" of ancestors, alive or dead, known or not, in the bodies and auras of the people I read. It lights up in my mind's eye as colors, symbols, stories, emotions. As pain and potential, like light and dark shadows, transferred spiritually. Your description of microchimerism sent a chill of recognition through me. Thank you for teaching me today.