Stretched

Stretched:  One Family’s Story of Foster Care and Adoption 

Stretched is the story of how a search for the birth mother who gave me away led to my becoming a foster and then an adoptive mother, though my husband and I already had two biological children.  Taking in a 15-year-old Salvadoran girl and her infant son, my family found our lives transformed as we were plunged into the dysfunctional universe of the foster care system.  The story unfolds over four years in an intimate southern community of central North Carolina and crosses cultural divides as we endure multiple traumas—loss of parents, children, innocence, and trust.  Together, as a family, we slowly acquire the strength that comes with surviving and learn that sometimes love is hard work, and sometimes it doesn’t work at all.