Thanks

Since beginning at TWU in the spring of 2016, so many storms and their rainbows have come my way. I’m a completely new and different person now, thanks to so many mentors and friends who helped guide me on my way. I would like to thank the members of my thesis committee for their guidance during my time at TWU:

Thank you to Dr. Bender for all your patience with me as I morphed from a wife and young mother into a determined divorced feminist. Your guidance has made me a stronger writer and a better human.

Thank you to Dr. Fehler for seeing something in me that I couldn’t see myself then pushing me headfirst into research about adoption. Without that push, I wouldn’t have taken the time to understand myself as an adoptee.

Thank you to Dr. Busl for inspiring me to ask different kinds of questions about the world, myself, and how I think about stories. Your love for narrative woke up the Wonder Woman in me.

Additionally, I'd like to thank the many wonderful people in the adoption community who have found me in the past few years and supported my work and all my big feelings as I set out on this journey. Grateful to social media and those who forced me to engage more often (you know who you are) because it led me to both Adoption Knowledge Affiliates and my marvelous aunt. An especially big thank you to those whose work is featured here in this thesis, as either case study or an artistic feature. It has been such an honor to engage with your material and share it as part of this project.

I would also like to thank my family and friends (there are too many of you to name) for following along as I worked through not only composing this thesis but putting myself back together as a fuller (but still in progress) human. I am very grateful for your love, support, and all the collective ears you’ve lent me over the last few years of my latest transformation.