Twice the Family is your poignant memoir of identity, adoption, and the unyielding bonds of sisterhood, exploring the journey of being “chosen” while searching for belonging. Why was this an important book for you to write?

For me, this book was a greater challenge than writing my debut memoir, Twice a Daughter, the five-year saga about searching for my birth parents to gather family medical history. Twice the Family rose out of readers’ requests to know more about what it was like to grow up as a twin and an adoptee. Yet, for me, the book is more than that. It is a personal reckoning.

Twice a Daughter had a specific frame or timeline. While I provided the necessary backstory, it focused on the events surrounding my adoption search. Because Twice the Family is a coming-of-age story, it has a longer timeline: twenty-seven years. It opens with the births of my twin sister and me, and our subsequent adoption, and culminates with the building of my own biological family.

Choosing the events to include in this new book and tying those moments to the desired themes of love, loss, and family was a deliberate and challenging task. Telling the story and sharing my unique perspective as a twin and adoptee within the context of our family history was a delicate balance. My goal was for the reader to understand the struggles I faced within a loving family governed by the strict rules of Catholicism. While we were soothed by love and instilled with a strong sense of belonging, our formative years were overshadowed by my parents’ infertility and drive to achieve their goal of a big Irish Catholic family. As I matured, I realized some of my parents’ goals and values did not align with mine.

How did your adoptive family’s faith shape your understanding of being “chosen” and your identity?

Some of the foundational tenets of Catholicism are love is patient, love is kind, and love heals all. Also, love your neighbor as yourself. This belief system became ingrained in my siblings and me during our formative years at school, church, and at home. Also, the struggles my parents faced in building their big, Irish Catholic family through adoption, their years of infertility, and subsequent child loss due to stillborn death and sudden illness made a lasting impression on me. It was, however, my parents deeply held religious beliefs, their unrelenting commitment to family, and the strong examples they set about honesty, perseverance, and resiliency that influenced who I am and the person I have become.

I always felt as if I held a strong place in my family. Some of that “chosen” feeling arose from the stature of being the firstborn and a twin. I strongly believe that the adoption of my twin sister, myself, and our younger brother was not what set us apart from our younger siblings––my folks’ biological children––but what strung us all together. We were individuals and my mother recognized that and used it in a cohesive way. My mother is a very inclusive person. If she thought, you were the underdog in a given situation, she became your fiercest champion. I love this trait about her; it made her a faithful and reliable mother, neighbor, and friend.

What message do you hope readers—especially adoptees—take away from your story?

Parenting, whether it comes by way of adoption or not, is not a smooth easy road to success. As parents, we make numerous mistakes, and each child takes note, adjusting their behavior to accommodate it. When it is our turn to build our own families, sometimes we are successful at not repeating the mistakes our parents made. Often though, we make different errors, and so the cycle repeats itself. The point I wanted to make in Twice the Family is that family building, then and now, is no easy road. It takes commitment, but through shared values, love, and consistent efforts, parents succeed in building character among those they call family.

Were there moments during the writing process where revisiting your story became emotionally overwhelming? How did you navigate them?

There were chapters I intended to include in the book that happened so long ago that I knew I needed help with validating facts. Because I wanted a true accounting, I consulted with my twin sister and my mother. Together we revisited those key moments. Collaborating was informative and fun, and it enabled me to craft a true story. The result was one part family history, one part memoir, and one part nostalgia for a bygone era of society. Navigating the tough scenes and events meant the writing process slowed down due to the strong emotional impact of those moments. The aftermath of getting them down, getting them right, and polishing them was both exhilarating and draining. Slowing down and honoring those moments was an important aspect of the writing process. The outcome, Twice the Family, fills me with deep pride and satisfaction.

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