“I’m an adoptive mom.” Guest post and thoughts on Before I Saw You.

Posted on by Amy K. Sorrells

Today I’m thrilled to welcome Katie Powner to my blog! She is an adoptive mama and author, and she’s here today to kindly share her thoughts and perspective–as Michelle Thorne did from a birth mama’s perspective–on Before I Saw You.

Welcome, Katie!

Before I Saw You is written from the perspective of a young woman who considers placing her baby for adoption, who wrestles with the agonizing idea of setting her child in the arms of another woman. And I—well, I’ve been on the other side. The woman on the other end of the adoption process who has waited with anticipation for someone else’s baby to be placed in her arms.

I’m an adoptive mom.

Raising a child who was not born to you is not much different than raising a child who was, except that the child’s birthmom is always there, staring back at you. I see my daughter’s birthmom in my daughter’s dimples. In the curl of her hair. I hear her in my daughter’s voice. I thought of her as I read this book.

In Before I Saw You, young Jaycee is faced with making a decision no mother should ever have to make, but my daughter’s birthmom faced that harrowing decision in real life. Like Jaycee, she struggled to decide what would be best for her child. She knew she couldn’t guarantee a good life for her baby no matter what she chose, but what would give her baby the best chance?

I don’t wonder if my daughter’s birthmom thinks of my daughter, because I know she does. But I do wonder where she is and what she’s doing. I wonder what went through her mind the last time she saw her daughter…my daughter…our daughter. And as I read Before I Saw You and cried more than a couple tears, one thing kept running through my mind. The one thing I wish I could tell her.

And it’s this: I don’t know—will never know—whether I’ve made our daughter’s life “better,” but I’ve given her a good life. She is loved and she is happy and her life is good. What I do know, without any doubt, is that she’s made my life better.

About Katie:

Katie Powner lives in rural Montana and blogs about adoption and foster care issues, as well as family life, at Katie Gets It Write (link to http://www.katiepowner.blogspot.com). She dreams of being a published author someday and heartily recommends any words that Amy K. Sorrells writes ever. Learn more at katiepowner.com.

It started with the ash trees…a song and story of my heart, and book giveaway!

Posted on by Amy K. Sorrells

It started with the ash trees, the inspiration behind my new novel Before I Saw You. The bare branches of hundreds of dying ash trees in Indiana stuck out against the lush green of the rest of landscape, and the sight broke my heart.

If the emerald ash borer beetles haven’t reached your state yet, count it a blessing.

Researchers aren’t positive, but they suspect a barge carrying international cargo with bug-infested pallets inadvertently introduced the emerald ash borer to North America several years back. At first, the bugs claimed acres of trees in Michigan. But soon, the damage extended exponentially. The toll on the ash trees was quick and devastating and continues still today.

Some say ash trees will eventually become extinct in North America, but I hope they are wrong. Scientists are beginning to discover treatments to combat the insects, and the ash tree in our front yard is one example of their success.

So what does my heartbreak over ash trees have to do with a story about a young woman and an unexpected pregnancy, set against the backdrop of the opioid epidemic in Southern Indiana?

Click here to find out this and more in the rest of this blog post over at Tricia Goyer’s place!

On the Opioid Crisis and the Church: A National Emergency for Us All*

Posted on by Amy K. Sorrells

* Full article published in More to Life Magazine.

Tracy* sat on the bed in front of me, her eyes wild and darting around the room. She looked a mess, her long dark hair in dingy kinks and knots. Sunken brown eyes and a pock-marked face made her look more like forty than the twenty-something she was.

Most disturbing of all was the way she twisted and squirmed in the bed, as if fighting invisible cords threatening to tie her down.

Indeed, she was fighting something.

Before she was admitted to the hospital unit where I work, Tracy had been using over $1,000 a week of heroin, and ways she told us she’d been paying for it were unspeakable. As nurses, physicians and therapists, we were helpless in the fight to keep her pain manageable, not to mention treat the raging infection that caused her admission in the first place.

One might assume Tracy’s condition extreme, but hospitals are overflowing with opioid addicts like her whose hearts—literally and figuratively—are being destroyed.

Occasionally, we hear about stories like hers in the news. We catch a headline about a dozen people overdosing outside a local shelter. The evening news reports yet another city adopting a needle exchange program because if communities can’t control the drug use, maybe they can at least save an addict from contracting Hepatitis C or HIV or both.

What we don’t hear about so much is where the church is in the midst of the opioid crisis...click here to read the full story in More to Life Magazine.