Herstories, Histories, and Hidden Stories

by Taya Reed
There are stories written in ink.
And there are stories written in the body.
I came with paperwork.
A decree.
A new birth certificate.
A file sealed and placed somewhere official.
On paper, my story looks complete.
But if you have lived adoption, you know — the record rarely holds everything.
Some of what shaped us was never documented.
Some of what shaped us did not yet have language.

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The Hidden Story
When I think about hidden stories, I don’t just think about sealed records or missing medical histories.

I think about the way my body has responded to things long before I understood why.

The way grief sometimes arrives without a clear headline.

The way certain dates feel heavier.

The way belonging can feel both solid and slightly slippery at the same time.
If separation happens before memory forms, it doesn’t disappear simply because we cannot consciously recall it.

The nervous system remembers rhythm.
Heartbeat.
Voice.
Scent.

Even when the file is silent.

Years ago, I read work by Bessel van der Kolk about how the body stores what the mind cannot narrate.

That language stayed with me.

Not because it made adoption inherently tragic,
but because it gave context to sensations I had never fully understood.
It explained how something can be real even if it is preverbal.

How something can be carried even if it is unnamed.
The archive may omit rupture.
The body does not.


Living Between Narratives
Adoption history in this country has often favored secrecy.

During the Baby Scoop Era, thousands of mothers were encouraged — sometimes pressured — to relinquish.

Records were sealed.
New birth certificates were issued.
Privacy was framed as protection.

And perhaps in some ways, it was.

But protection can also create silence.

When records are altered or inaccessible, identity becomes something you assemble in pieces.

You learn early how to live between narratives.

The story of origin.
The story of upbringing.

You may be told who you are.

You may even feel deeply loved.

And still—there can be quiet questions.

Who do I resemble?
Where did this part of me come from?
What medical history do I carry?
Why was I placed?

These are not rebellious questions.

They are foundational ones.

When answers are incomplete, identity can feel like excavation.

Not because something is wrong with us.

But because parts of the blueprint are missing.

For some adoptees, the search becomes part of that excavation.

Not always for reunion.

Sometimes simply for coherence.

To request an original birth certificate.
To submit DNA.
To scan old documents.
To sit across from someone whose face mirrors your own.

Searching is often described as brave or disruptive.

But most of the time, it feels quieter than that.

It feels like wanting to breathe fully inside your own story.

And the search is not only external.

There are internal searches too.


The Layers of Grief
The moment you realize your grief is layered.

The moment you recognize that your sadness is not just for the person who died—but for the relationship that never had the chance to form.

Grief inside adoption can be complicated.

You might grieve someone you barely knew.

You might grieve a version of childhood that did not unfold.

You might grieve on behalf of someone else before you allow yourself to grieve for you.

And sometimes the first grief that surfaces is not even your own.

It is empathy.

It is imagining what relinquishment must have felt like.

It is sorrow for the choices that were not really choices.

And only later — sometimes years later — does another layer rise.
The grief of the child.

The one who did not get to be someone’s granddaughter in the way she might have.

The one who did not grow up hearing stories that anchored her to generations before.

When you are too young to register what is missing, the absence doesn’t disappear.

It waits.

Not in accusation.

In patience.

Waiting until you are old enough
steady enough
safe enough

to feel it.


Seeking Wholeness
It would be easy for me to turn this into an indictment or defense.

To argue whether adoption is good or bad.

But lived experience rarely fits into binary categories.

Adoption can hold love and loss at the same time.

Gratitude and grief.

Security and fragmentation.

The body does not require us to choose one.

It simply holds what was experienced.

What I have come to understand is this:
The absence of documentation does not invalidate lived truth.
The fact that something is not written does not mean it was not felt.

When adoptees are given space to speak beyond tidy narratives, something softens.

When first mothers are allowed to name grief without shame, something shifts.

When we stop demanding simplicity, integration becomes possible.

Integration is not about rejecting one family for another.

It is about allowing the full story to exist.

Even the parts that never made it into the file.

The record may say:
Placement finalized.
Adoption complete.

But the emotional process does not end with a signature.

It unfolds across decades.

Across seasons.

Across spring cleanings and unexpected memories.

The body continues its quiet work.
Not to undermine love.

Not to dishonor anyone.

But to seek wholeness.

Herstories.
Histories.
Hidden stories.
​
Some are stored in archives.

Some are carried in photo albums.

Some are held in letters written at thirty years old.

And some live beneath the surface — in muscle memory, in longing, in the way certain dates feel tender.

The archive may omit parts of our beginning.

But our bodies have been keeping the story all along.

And when we listen — gently, without rushing to fix or defend — we move closer to something steady.

Not perfect.
Not uncomplicated.
But whole enough to stand in our own narrative with both feet on the ground.


Taya Reed is a US Armed Forces veteran who served in the Gulf War. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor and Supervisor with over 15 years of therapeutic experience, currently in private practice at Sound House Therapy, PLLC. Taya's personal experience as a Baby Scoop Era same-race domestic adoptee has profoundly shaped her professional journey. Reuniting with both of her birth parents provided firsthand experience of adoption's complexities, shaping her into a compassionate and effective advocate and therapist for fellow adoptees.
Taya co-hosted the podcast "I Found Her" alongside her birth mother. Inspired by this experience, she created an adoptee-guided journal, which she plans to publish in 2026. Taya has presented at the Adoption Knowledge Affiliates conference and BIPOC Adoptees, and has served as a panelist for Adoption Mosaic. She has participated in multiple writing groups, including "Migrating Towards Wholeness: Rewriting Adoption Narratives in the Constellation" with Dr. Liz DeBetta and "Adoptee Voices" with Sara Easterly. In 2025, she was elected to the board at Adoption Knowledge Affiliates.
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