Adoption is a tradition in my family. My older brother, Jeff, was adopted when he was six weeks old (domestic adoption). Then I was adopted into our family when I was six months old from Vietnam. I was part of the historic Operation Babylift. Adoption runs in our family!
All my life, I wanted to be a mom. I was an aunt to my nephew and my friends’ children. I decided to seriously look into adoption five years ago. The research of adoption agencies led me to Holy Family Adoption and Foster Services.
To tell the truth the wait was long with feelings of hopelessness, but all of it faded away when I held my daughter for the first time. It was a right time and baby for me. I named her Ashlyn Jacqueline, which the middle name is after my mom.
As an adoptee adopting, I want to provide not only the best life for my daughter, but equally important is her truth and history. I wanted to have an open adoption with Ashlyn’s birth mother. My adoption had many mysteries to it as it was at the end of a war, and I did not want my daughter to grow up with many missing pieces to her life story. I will tell her in years to come her adoption story.
Thank you to Holy Family and Linda Shirely for guiding me on this journey of adoption.
