Through the Pages of Adoption with Author Allison Olson

You write about adoption and I know I'm excited to hear about your journey, because you probably have a lot to say on this and you're passionate about it. So thank you for joining me today and I can't wait to talk to you. Thanks for having me, kelly. I appreciate it. So let's start out by having you just introduce yourself to everyone.

Sure. So I am Alison Olson, I am adopted and I am an adaptive parent, and now I am an award-winning children's adoption book author. Yeah, and so just a little bit of background on how my adoption is different than my daughter's adoption. I think that's kind of important before we go into anything else. So I was born and adopted in 1979, straight from the hospital. So the words in the adoption world are it was a domestic infant adoption through an agency, but it was closed. That's the big difference. Back in 1979, most adoptions were closed. Nowadays, 90 plus percent of adoptions are open adoptions. And so our daughter equally a domestic infant adoption through an agency. Hers is open. And so the main difference between that is closed means that the courts have legally sealed my birth family's name from me, even as a 44 year old. I do not have legal access. It's terrible. I do not have legal access to get to those names. And so then open adoption, because people always think it's just the opposite, right, whereas that's not actually true. It's not a light switch, it's not closed or it's open. Think of it as like a dimmer Closed is totally off, but then open is a whole big spectrum, right. So it's from as little as you have the birth parents names all the way to you have such a strong relationship. They live down the street, you know birth grandma watches the kids every weekend, you know so, and then anywhere in between right and so we. It is very important to us this open relationship that we have with our daughter's birth family. We love them very much. They're like an extension of our family.

Oh, one of my very best friends. I love all my friends, so I can't say my best friend, but one of my very best friends. She just adopted. She has two kids and then she just adopted baby and he's so precious and so wonderful and I didn't really know much about adoption. There's so much to it that I didn't know and I learned and just seeing the whole process to, from her idea of we really want to adopt, like we really want to adopt to I think he's like seven months now Like oh cool, the whole thing is so amazing to see and I feel like I learned so much like experiencing it through her, with her. Yeah, and what a process and it's just. The whole thing is just amazing. Tell me about your journey and how that got you to where you are today, of being a writer and making these amazing books and being award winning. I mean, holy cow, talk to us about that.

Yeah. So I did not ever set out to be an author, so that, I will say, is probably the biggest thing. I was doing exactly what your friend went through, right. So we had done the home study, we had done all of that and we were, we were matched. So what happens there is the birth mom is the one who selects the family. So I know the reason I'm saying all this is because a lot of people don't know the way adoption really works, right, and we don't have a lot of education out there for for the rest of us to to learn Right and so. So birth mom had selected us and so, you know, I did what any parent would do we got the nursery ready, we were ready, right, and we were prepared. And so I thought, oh well, let me go out and buy the latest books on adoption, right. And so the one thing I do want to add we have an older daughter, we have an older daughter who is biological, and so we had some of the stuff, but I did not have any adoption books, right. And so went out, bought the highly recommended adoption books and remember, I'm adopted, so I'm reading these books and I'm going to be more open and frank on this podcast with you than I typically am, because, again, this, this is my passion. I could not believe these books and I do not mean that in a positive way. I could not believe what had happened between 1979, when I had received two books when I was a child and I still have them, actually have those books. They're more like factual books, like not I wouldn't say scientific, but very factual. You know, this woman was pregnant, she gave birth to you. These people adopted you, like this is how we're so. So it wasn't written in like children language, it wasn't like what you would typically find as like a children's book, but it was at least factual. So something had happened between 1979 and now to really change the adoption narrative out there and it was concerning to me. So what I saw it range from in these books were the child should feel very lucky, like the, the, the adoptive parents came in and saved them. That couldn't be further from the truth, right? Also, what I saw was imbalances so they would talk about, because these books were either. So a lot of them were written by famous authors that had no connection to adoption, right, and their publisher just said, hey, you should write a book about that and those were real clear that they that they weren't touched by adoption. Then there were some that were adoptive parents, but you didn't have very many that were written by birth moms, that were written by adoptees. Right Now we've expanded and there are some and I have a list of those on my on my website Definitely, definitely want to check those out, because when people have more experience with it and they're the ones really impacted by it, they're the ones that understand it a little bit better. So what? So you know, the books ranged from the most extreme one when you would open it up was you needed a home. We were there to give you a home, right Like little, cringe worthy, and every spread was like that.

You just like look what I did, I'm amazing because I saved you. And I feel like that would make the child be like almost like they did something wrong, blaming them maybe for being for not have not the quotations, not having parents. You know what I mean, kelly thank you.

That's exactly and that is exactly the damage it could do to a child, and what I call it is like the lucky narrative right, and it has lifelong damaging effects to an adoptee to to feel like they have to feel grateful for their life and for their being when none of that's even true, right. So so like, let's go with our, our example. So it's probably, it's probably very similar with your friend In our example. We wanted, wish for, prayed for her, our daughter, you know, a a child to to be part of our family. Her birth mom loved her so much and made this very difficult decision right. All of her extended birth family loved her so much. Even if she, so if she had stayed with them, she would have been loved With us, loved. If if her birth mom had picked one of the other hundreds of waiting, hopeful adoptive parents, she would have been loved. So like it's like, why is this not the story you know? And? And a lot of the books maybe not as cringe where it is the first one I described were imbalanced. So they would talk about the love of the adoptive parents. So I could always tell it was written by an adoptive parent. Right, the love of the adoptive parent, but then they would talk about the struggle of the birth bomb. And when you actually look at adoption, every, every side of the triad has struggle and every side has love. And so to me it was very choosy that they would only pick love for one you know one, the corners and then and then pick struggle from the others. So what I did with my first book, which was surrounded by love pointing the wrong way surrounded by love, was to how it be balanced. So to have the birth mom be an actual character that you know, that is illustrated, that is a main character in the book, because she's a main person in the life of this adoptee. And and to have her not only be illustrated, to have her represented beautifully she's beautiful, she's she's loving, she's kind this was important to me and to show all of the love from both of those sides to the, the adoptee, and to have the adoptee be at the center of it, and so so, basically, where I was at sitting in that nursery Reading these books and I kept throwing in them in a pile, I'm like, oh my gosh, oh my gosh. You know, I'm like there's got to be a good one in here, and that when I got to the end of the pile of these, of these bad books, you know I go, oh my gosh, I do not have time, but I'm gonna have to write a book, I'm gonna have to write a book, and that's where I was at with it. So. So it came from a place of passion of where I just thought about all of the other adoptees and I thought I I just cannot have my Sisters and brothers growing up hearing this message and the adoptive parents not not knowing any better, because they're looking at these lists online, top option books and they're buying those books and so. So that is where that's where my inspiration came from for the first book and then for the second book. It was realizing that there was very, very little education out there for people that are not adopted. So let's even go with your example. How do you explain your friends adoption to your kids? You probably don't know and you probably try, and you're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I can. And then you start explaining. You're like, oh, how do I say that? I never saw? I Never saw your friend pregnant and now she has a baby a guy I don't.

I don't understand this.

So, so yeah, that was that was my whole reason behind behind my second book, learning about my friends adoption because I realized. Yeah, what I realized was there are a Couple books out there like preparing a sibling for adoption, and there's one book out there that's preparing a cousin for adoption, but there were no books out there that we're teaching young kids that are not adopted about adoption. And so that's where, so all of my inspiration, all of my passion has come from. I want to change the adoption narrative out there From the lucky child to the loved child, and the only way to do that is Both with adoptees, so that they can, you know, build up self-esteem around being adopted and, like, understand it and feel confident in themselves In it. And then I also have to help educate the other kids, right, because what we do when we don't have books, like, like, like, learning about my friends, adoption is we put the onus on the young adoptee to do all the educating, and as adults, we don't realize that's what we're doing because we're not at school, we're not a daycare, and but the onus is all on them to help educate their friends. And so it's like, why not give them a resource they can at least point the friend to, and give parents a tool to where they can help? You know, like in your case, just open the book up and start talking with your kids about him.

Oh, You're amazing. First of all, holy cow, wow, kids learn so much through books, like I could go. I could talk forever about Just putting something in a book form for a child, a picture book especially. You know that's where they can really understand things, really grasp it, really Put the pictures to the words. There's just something so special about a book you have such a passion about it too and the fact that you did it from such a like a loving, experienced place. You know you were adopted, you have adopted. I feel like you shouldn't be Allowed to write a book on adoption if you haven't experienced anything with adoption. Oh my, gosh.

Thank you, kelly, I agree, you know, you know more with you, like someone told me to do it.

I would be like I know and immediately know, because I haven't been through it. I don't know these things. I've seen other people go through it. But you want me to write a book about, like Carpentry, I don't. I could, I could research it, but I have never built a dresser, so I will not be writing this book because it wouldn't be legit, you know. Yeah, and then adoption, something that just comes from your heart too.

So you can't, you can't just research that and and I'm glad you didn't notice it and there's so many intricacies too. It's like and and lots of you know the impact of adoption is. I mean, there's so many different people that that study that all the time, and so it's just like To not take in any of that research and just read a children's book. It's a little scary.

Yeah, so your books are called learning about my friends. Adoption Yep.

Mm-hmm, and then surrounded by love.

Beautiful illustrations. By the way, those are gorgeous books. So talk to me about how you Found and find that balance to put all this effort and work and everything into Creating these books, just all the work that goes into them, because it's a lot. You know how did you find your balance of that creative life? And this was your first time writing books too, so you know you have to learn everything about it, and also just being fully present with your children and Just the whole bag.

Tell us about your whole bag. Well, I am going to be honest with you. If anyone knows how to find balance, please come and tell me. I don't think I have it nailed down Because I know by the way.

by the way, for people to think I don't either, I don't know what I'm doing. We're just we're talking about it every week and just trying to try to learn and figure out how to fit it all in. Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, well, and my situation. So I work, I work full time, so this is in addition to that. And then I have a husband where his job he travels every single week. He's a pilot, so I do not have a lot of free time. So it's like waking up early, it's staying up late after, after the girls go to bed and stuff. I did this because it was that important to me, you know, and and I and just again going back to the balance thing, different times are different, so I would do a lot of work at certain points and then I would put it aside for a couple months and not do anything, and so, and there's different phases with books too, right? So when you hand it over to an illustrator, then they're doing a lot of work, and then it's the exciting part you just get like the best emails that have like like you're working on this, you know, but I will. There's one thing I was going to say as far as the journey of writing the story, yeah, was, I was so happy and excited to have our youngest at at home with us because we traveled for the adoption. Her birth family lives several states away and so and we were there for several weeks and all that. And then when we traveled back with her and it was it was my parental leave I actually wrote the stories. So, like the original, very, very rough, original stories of both of these books during parental leave, in the middle of the night we kind of made a separate bedroom for whoever was taking care of whoever had the night shift, that particular night where we had like a single bed and the bass and outright next to you and I would just lay in the bed, just stare at her, just in between the feedings and just like watch her coo and watch her sleep and I just I loved her so much and that's where I thought what story do I want her to hear? You know, we know her birth mom, her birth family, like what story do I want her to hear? And I got out my phone in dark mode, of course, because I can't wake up the baby and that's where I wrote both of these stories. So then it was, you know, a two year process of them learning how to actually make that into a book, etc. So so, yeah. So the balance is, if it's something that is a passion, it's just taking a couple steps each day towards it. I think if I had ever thought of it in as big a steps as what has happened now, when I look backwards, right, that I have two books and you know, and I'm proud of them, and they look nice and they want awards and stuff, you know, it's like that would have felt like too much, I think, in the beginning. Oh yeah, but I think, just thinking about, okay, I've got this story, now I need someone to edit it. Now I need to find an illustrator to, you know, create the beautiful illustrations, and then, once I would get those, I was getting all excited and like, oh my gosh, and then we've got to do this, and so so it's just kind of taking a few little steps each day that you can, and the days that you can't, just like letting it, you know, just letting it sit to the side because there was no time frame. You know, for me, the first book, I just wanted to get it done in time so I could read it to my daughter, which for her to start understanding adoption and her story, but otherwise it was like there really was no time frame. So I think, having the passion and then finding the moments in your life where you can do it that don't take away from the other moments.

Yeah, when you look at things as a big picture, it can be so overwhelming, yep, and if you just break it down to the next step, here's what I have to do. This is the piece right now, then we'll move on to the next piece, Exactly, and then, once you break it down, it's totally doable. Like, things are hard, but if you just think of it as a big clump, then most of the time you won't even start. You know, yep, but you just have to, you have to break it down. Anything in life you really can have to break down. I think that's why a lot of people, especially moms, don't start the thing they wanna do, start that passion project, because you don't have much time, as is, you know, whether your kids are small or they're older and you're driving them around everywhere and you don't really have the time. Then at nighttime you're just tired and you wanna go to sleep. You know, if you just think about it as a big picture, I'm gonna write a book. No, there's no way I have time to write a book. Then you won't start.

So you have to find those pockets of time.

And you have to make pockets of time and you have to just, you know right, make lists, write it down. I'll do. You know, give myself two, three years to do this, yep.

And be okay with things sitting on that to-do list. Right, that's probably the biggest thing, right. It's like before becoming a mom you would check things off a lot more on your to-do list. Number one becoming a mom just already adds things to the to-do list already. But yeah, I mean, I think that's the biggest thing is like, if there's something that you're passionate about, you just make a little bit of time each day forgiveness when you don't have time on different days, realistic goals you know we're already kind of pushed to the max with motherhood alone, and then you know if you add on anything else, right. And so I think it's just that understanding and that forgiveness and taking it slow.

When you want to write the books. You didn't think, well, I have all this time, I could just sit down and write some books. You were, like this has to be done, this is important, like this is a passion of mine, like it's a non-negotiable. These books have to be written because I want to help others and I want it for my own child. So you found the time and, look, you have two books behind you. Like what?

I know it's crazy. Well, when I first started, so I reached out to I know a published author she's my friend's mother-in-law, so I reached out to her and she started rattling off all of the things involved. So it's kind of like what you're talking about before, where it was like a little overwhelming. I thought, okay, okay, and I'm like trying to write down. And then she says, oh, but there are these, there are these great Facebook groups that you can join, that are authors that'll help you out, and so I joined some of those. And then I heard about a class that was offered it's self publishing made simple by April Cox, and it was like 12 week class. And I had big negotiations with my husband because, you know, we had Six year old and a baby at the time and I was like it's, you know, it's it's one day a week. And then later I come to find out it's like kind of two days a week if you want to come and ask questions and stuff. So I'm like, okay, and that was 12 weeks. So that was actually probably the most intensive of everything. And and then after that it was like just whenever I could Get to anything. But yeah, in the beginning I just thought, okay, I'm gonna take a class. And then it was like, okay, I'm gonna do these little steps that they tell me to do from the class. And then I had a paid extra to have Access to the videos as long as I wanted. That's so it's like you know, while I'm not, I did not progress as fast as other people In that class, but because I had all these other things going on. But it was good to learn about it and, like I mean it, just it prepared me for all the things like she had templates for contracts, walked us through how to evaluate an illustrator things I would have never known and I would never know would have never found my illustrator. So I know you were, you were talking about her before. She's amazing, she is from the Philippines and we would have never met. We met online I feel like I'm explaining online dating but she her brother is adopted and so there is an emotion that she could capture that the other illustrators I was working with just couldn't, because she had that background and so she understood the sensitivities and so so I just feel like, you know, I couldn't have done any of this without her. She's she's my partner through this, and so so that's been really cool to to find those connections through all this.

That's awesome. Oh, did you know that she, her brother, was adopted whenever you like met her like? Did you try to seek out I was?

hoping. I was hoping to only work with people that had a connection to adoption, because I knew from what we kind of talked about a little bit ago that when you don't, you just might not understand certain sensitivities. But I was just effort, I was just like literally interviewing different illustrators, right? So you give them, you pay for a sample and you kind of walk through one of the scenes of the book and and mine, since it has especially my first book has an owl narrator and then people. They had to be good at animals and people and she's good at animals, people and amazing at landscapes. So it was, so it's great. And then I'll go ahead and give you some of my little Easter eggs from the box I was like to put little secretive Easter eggs. So, in my first book. Uh, what she did, you know, and like she, you know, I saw. I saw it myself when I was looking at it. But she this was all her idea Was, when you see the birth mom, she always were. They all have particular colors that they wear, right? So birth mom wears pink, adopt a mom wears yellow, adoptive dad wears blue and anytime you see the child, she has all three of the colors. Oh wow, because of how important the impact is of all of those individuals, Hmm, that what is special?

like next, Look like an element to add. You know like exactly did she come up with that on her own to came?

up with that on her own, wow. And then for my second book, for the learning about my friend's adoption. One thing you'll notice is uh, the girl looks familiar. She has grown up From the other book. It's the same it's the same adaptive and she's telling her friend. And then you can see in here she has the little plushie that's like in my background. She has the stuffed animal from the first one. Oh, my goodness, yeah. And then also in the very, very end, wanda, the owl Flies by the window. Oh so lots of little ties together between between the books.

That's beautiful. I love that you've created those. That's amazing, and I'm gonna get your books for my daughter. I want her to read the one about my you know what learning about my friends adoption because still, like, we haven't really talked about it much Since then. It's just like you know. Okay, okay, I've accepted it. You know this is part of their family now, but it would still be nice to educate her.

I think it would be good because also it'll it'll help, you know, the, the young adaptive, as you know, I know only seven months old, but you know, as the child grows up They'll have fewer questions they have to answer. So in the book it's this little boy finds out that his friend is adopted. So he's excited, right, he learned something new. He's at the dinner table where we share all of our fun stuff for the day, right? So he's telling his family hey, like, I learned something about my friend. She's just like you and me like, but she said she's adopted, so I wanted to find out more. And then it flashes back to their question and answer. So it is literally the questions I received as a child and the answers that I would get. So so it is, you know, true questions that kids ask Young adoptees. And then the answers it's the littlest things, like, like, not the, not the big awards or whatever it's some. When I get a birth mom that reaches out to me and says that she feels Validated, that she's like in in a book, you know. And then, and one I had a birth mom tell me that she was buying the book for, for their collectively, their daughter for Christmas Because she, she loved the representation, all that and so and so that to me is is the most important thing you know get it, getting feedback like that yeah, that's why you did it right in the first place.

Exactly do it to. I mean, it's amazing that it's an award-winning book, but you didn't do it to be like I'm gonna be an author and get awards. That's just the extra perks that come along with it. Well, allison, thank you so much for joining me today. I love hearing how passionate you are about the whole process Of adoption and everything like. I love meeting women, especially other moms, who just have that like fiery passion about something and they want to create a book about it, they want to make art about. They wouldn't do something just seeing that that drive it's. I love it. It's like one of my favorite things to see people really Like have this thing in their life that they just, you know, go after and do and create and help people. So love talking to you. Thank you for sharing everything with me. It's been really nice.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

So tell us now, where can people connect with you online and buy your books and all the things? Where can they find you?

Sure. So I have a website and I do several different blogs on there. So if anyone is curious, you know what books should you? Should you buy for adoptive parents, or how do you find the books there's links out to to all of that. So that's our adoption bookscom and then my two books surrounded by love, an open adoption story and learning about my friend's adoption. They're both available on amazon. They're also available at berns and noble powells bookscom. That's a very local, portlandie thing, and and I would also suggest to ask your local library. Your library loves to get recommendations of books and they can easily buy it from from their end. I also do Donate to nick use if, if anyone reaches out to me about that.

I will put all the links to everything in the show notes so people can go there and just click on it, find your book and connect with you there too.

So that's wonderful. I'm also on social media at at kids books by allison olsen. It's the same thing, the same handle on instagram, facebook and tic tac.