Nine Years Later: Long-Term Birth Family Search & Processing the First Trip Home Experience - An Interview with Alyson Yost

Adopted Feels

A friend and podcast listener recently pointed out that many of our episodes talk about search and reunion, especially now that both of us have reunited. But of course not all adoptees who start a birth family search reunite, and not all adoptees want to search in the first place. In light of National Adoption Awareness Month, we wanted to expand the narrative to include the experiences of adoptees who search unsuccessfully over an extended period of time, and whose journeys are equally important. Hana chats to her old friend Alyson Yost, who shares generously about her birth family search, and offers some personal tools, guidance, and a longer-term perspective. Alyson Yost is a Korean adoptee from Hershey, Pennsylvania. She works as a Registered Nurse and she has two children who are 5 and 7. Since participating on GOA’L’s First Trip Home program in 2010, she has been actively involved in the adoptee community. She administers a few adoptee groups and pages on Facebook and she is active in her local adult adoptee groups “Korean Adult adoptees of Central PA” (Shout out to them!) and “Ta-ri”. Recently Alyson became a member of the advisory council for The Korean American Adoptee Adoptive Family Network (aka KAAN) and she has presented numerous times at their yearly conference, on various topics including adoptee milestones, parenting, relationships, stereotypes and microaggressions.