Beneath My Breasts: My Thoughts, Three Days Post-Explant

Michelle Madrid-Branch / January 16, 2020 / Adoptee, autoimmunity, Blog, Breast Implants, Explant, Inspiration, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch

“Michelle, you’re back.” I heard the gentle words of my post-op nurse, Michele, waking me up after my 4-hour procedure, in Cleveland, Ohio. I recall that, in our early morning pre-surgery preparations, she and I had teased each other about the best spelling of our given names. Is a one-L or two-L spelling the best? We laughed and agreed to disagree.

I remember walking into the operating room and being assisted by another amazing nurse, Karla, as she directed me onto the table, positioning my arms in an extended position—outward from my body. The anesthesiologist began placing an IV in my left arm and instructed me to think of a beautiful and peaceful place where I would want to spend the next several hours, while under anesthesia. I told her, immediately, that my peaceful destination would be Butterfly Beach, in Montecito, California. Four hours later, in what seemed like four minutes, I was being nursed back to consciousness and away from my favorite beach, by nurse Michele.

The Transformational Power of Service

Michelle Madrid-Branch / December 19, 2019January 3, 2020 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

I host a podcast called Greater Than. I started this project to explore how people rise above tremendous challenges and find a greater way of being—discovering a purpose and a calling beyond their wildest dreams.

I’ve learned so much from listening to the stories of others who have gone through the toughest of times and, on the other side of pain, have uncovered the true meaning of life: serving.

When we look around us, as we approach the closing out of 2019, it seems that society has lost its way in the area of service. Greatness is viewed as having more than the next person: more accolades, more money, more strength, more power, more status. Greatness has never been about these things.

Adoptees, You are so Much More than Adoption

Michelle Madrid-Branch / December 5, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch

If you have breath, you have purpose. I love this quote! I don’t know who originally coined it, but I’m glad that they did because it’s true. If you are breathing, you are living, and that means you have a calling. A unique and individual purpose to carry out in this life.

We’re in the last month of 2019 and I want to remind you that you’re here for a reason. Finding that reason is what the journey of living is all about. Our ability to stay hungry on the hunt for our purpose is the challenge. So many things in life can dull our palates.

5 Things to Remember in Helping Your Adopted Child Through Self-Soothing

Michelle Madrid-Branch / November 6, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

I was a self-soother. As a young international adoptee, I would rock myself back and forth on the family room floor trying to re-connect with the rhythms of my birth mother.

It was instinctual. Like a lost animal in the wild, searching for its mother, the rocking was a primal ritual performed by a child looking for her home.

I don’t remember having an awareness of why I would lay there, rocking myself. I just remember that the behavior seemed to calm and comfort me. It made me feel connected to something real inside of me. Something I could not openly express.

Looking back, the rocking gave me a sense of control. When I rocked, I could feel my mum. It was the only time when I could feel her close. Rocking myself offered me certainty.

Living in the Skin of Adoption

Michelle Madrid-Branch / October 29, 2019October 29, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

I have my moments. Those times when I wish adoption was not part of my vocabulary. If you’re an adoptee, do you know what I mean?

There are times when I wish that I didn’t speak the language of adoption so fluently. I suppose, like every person of adoption alive today, I have my dark hours of doubt.

I’ve never pretended that I wasn’t adopted. What I have done is lessened this part of my story—skimming over my adoptee chapters. Many times, in the past, I’ve looked the other way…but, the skin still follows. I live in the skin of adoption and I know the challenges of feeling uncomfortable in that skin.

Adoptee-to-Adoptee: Stop. Recharge. Begin Again.

Michelle Madrid-Branch / October 10, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

Can I tell you something? When I first started writing this blogpost, it had a completely different energy. Initially, my thoughts were focused on writing the heavier side of adoption. My words were weighted. My heart felt burdened.

Maybe that’s because I’m feeling A LOT right now: preps for an upcoming surgery, planning for my recovery, and all the “mom feels” you can have when you’ll be away from your kids.

I could hear my self-talk whispering that I was “drained,” “depleted,” and “overdone.” Moving through the many layered emotions of this season has been demanding on my mindset and on my heart. Earlier today, in the middle of spiraling into limiting language, I heard an even louder voice that said—STOP!

When Adoptees Push, Please Pull

Michelle Madrid-Branch / September 12, 2019January 10, 2020 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Mentoring, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Motherhood, Orphan Advocacy

Why do I write so transparently about the adoptee experience?

Because I know that there are other adoptees in the world, right now, who feel isolated and are frustrated by this sense of isolation. That’s not to say that these same adoptees are not loved and cherished by their adoptive families, it’s just that adoption—for the adoptee—can feel lonely.

Who do you talk to? Where do you turn? How do you grab hold of emotions and questions that you’ve stuffed way down inside of you and bring them up to the light? Will you still be loved, included, if you do?

Fear of rejection is real for the adoptee. Often, our initial reaction to this fear is to push with all of our might away from the rawest parts of ourselves. Pushing is a protective mechanism for the person of adoption.

Three Words That Bring Me Back to Joy: No Matter What Life’s Jungle Offers Up

Michelle Madrid-Branch / August 30, 2019August 30, 2019 / Adoptee, Blog, Inspiration, Life Coach, loving well, Michelle Madrid-Branch

Ever had one of those days when you say these words to yourself: “It’s just all too much!” Do you know what I mean?

That was my day on Monday. My daughter was diagnosed with pink eye and I couldn’t find a sitter to stay with her while I went to the pharmacy. After all, who wants to risk getting pink eye?

So, my girl had to ride along with me to the pharmacist. The wait to fill her eye drop prescription was slow. Like, at a snail’s pace kind of slow. I found myself anxiously counting the seconds on the clock.

I had writing deadlines edging closer and meetings to attend. I was also scheduled, on Monday, for chelation IV treatment for heavy metal poisoning (not something I could reschedule). Back at the house, the family washing machine went on the blink. My daughter’s bunny needed hay, and my younger son needed someone to plan his birthday celebration. On top of that, I was solo-parenting for the week which makes the juggle even more complicated!

The Adoptee’s Need to Embrace Their Biology

Michelle Madrid-Branch / August 16, 2019August 16, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch

I’d like to share an important truth with you: adoptees have a biological story. They possess a birth history. A biology. The biology of who they are came before adoption was written into the pages of their biography.

Adoptees will feel this biology pulsing within them for all of their lives. No. Matter. What.

Their biology exists. It’s real.

It’s ever-present. It’s a fact.

It’s the genealogy of adoption.

Dear Inner Critic, Let Me Show You The Door

Michelle Madrid-Branch / August 2, 2019 / Adoptee, Adoption Advocacy, Blog, Foster Care Advocacy, Foster Youth Advocacy, Life Coach, Michelle Madrid-Branch, Orphan Advocacy

In college, I took a literature course on female African American writers. It’s where I was first introduced to the writings of my literary heroes, Maya Angelou and Alice Walker.

Both incredibly strong and resilient women, Angelou and Walker have known the battle of the inner critic.

It was during this time as a college student when I read a quote by Ms Walker that said, “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”

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