How Does Reuniting with Birth Relatives Create Trauma for Adoptees?
Julie McGue, who is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin, chats with Irene about finding out who you are, where you belong and making sense of it all.
They also explore the complex topic of adoption viewed through the lenses of trauma and loss, the stigma, shame, rejection, and betrayal often associated with adoption, Julie’s family’s profound journey to wholeness following the passing of her youngest sister Susie, how our responses to brokenness can shape the trajectories of our lives, and more.
Tune in to hear this powerful interview brimming with meaningful insights that will surely expand your knowledge about adoption and familial bonds and touch your heart!
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
- Why Julie and her twin sister Jenny were put up for adoption.
- The challenges and logistics of Julie and Jenny’s closed adoption.
Adoption viewed through the lens of trauma and loss. - Why adoption is often surrounded by stigma, shame, rejection, and betrayal.
- Julie’s 5-year quest with her twin sister Jenny to find and reunite with their birth relatives.
- Uncanny synchronicities Julie discovered in the search for her birth relatives.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS JULIE:
- Why did you initially experience rejection from your birth mother?
- How do the ways we deal with our brokenness determine the people we become and the course of our lives?
- How do those who help us champion our struggles coax us into developing a blueprint for identity and belonging?
- Why do you believe it is important to seek support or counseling to help us heal?
- How have you found your relationship with your sister and your writing to be healing salves since your husband transitioned?
Julie McGue’s award-winning debut memoir titled, Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging, is currently being considered for a TV Pilot.
💛 Get the two chapters that were cut from Twice the Family: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/by6idd517h56hx9ohmh11/Julie-McGue-Pre-Order-Package.pdf?rlkey=35kfv1pwr3mfch6xt3xtjwwxe&dl=0
GRIEF AND REBIRTH LINKS
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Julie McGue: How Does Reuniting with Birth Relatives Create Trauma for Adoptees?
Would you like to expand your knowledge about adoption and familial bonds? Be sure to tune in to my interview with Julie McGue, an American writer, a domestic adoptee, an identical twin, a mother, and a grandmother. You’ll learn about the complex topic of adoption viewed through the lens of trauma and loss.
You’ll find out about the stigma, rejection, and betrayal often associated with adoption. You’ll find out about the five-year quest by Julie and her twin sister to find and reunite with their birth relatives. You’ll love the meaningful relationships that Julie and her twin sister now have with their birth relatives. Join Julie and me for a special, touching interview.
I hope this finds each of you very well. I am speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey. I could not be more delighted to have the pleasure of interviewing American writer, domestic adoptee, and identical twin, Julie McGue, who writes about finding out who we are and where we belong and making sense of it through her three remarkable books and other venues.
Julie’s award-winning debut memoir titled Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging is being considered for a TV pilot. Her book titled Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship is a thought-provoking collection of essays. Her newly released memoir, Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood, is a profound exploration of familial bonds. Julie’s work has graced various prestigious platforms. Her essays can be found in several anthologies. She also shares her insights through her weekly blog and a monthly column in feature newspapers.
I’m looking forward to talking with Julie who splits her time between Northwest Indiana and Sarasota, Florida, about the complex topic of adoption viewed through the lens of trauma and loss, the stigma, shame, rejection, and betrayal, often associated with adoption, her family’s profound journey to wholeness following the passing of her youngest sister Susie, how our responses to brokenness can shape the trajectories of our lives, and more. This promises to be a powerful interview brimming with meaningful insights that will surely expand our knowledge about adoption at familial bonds and touch our hearts. Julie, welcome.
Thank you for that very warm, exhaustive introduction. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Julie McGue’s Adoptee Journey and Family Struggles
I like my audience to know the caliber of the people I’m talking to. When they are learning from you or becoming enlightened, they know you know what you speak. That’s why I like to tell people who you are before we even begin. Let’s begin because you have so many important things to teach us and share with us. Let’s start with your story. Why were you and your sister, Jenny, put up for adoption as infants? How did your adoptive parents’ difficulties building the dream of having a big American family lead them to adopt you and your twin sister, Jenny?
We did not know until we were in our 50s why we were placed for adoption, which has to do with the closed adoption system in the United States. No information was passed between my adoptive parents and my birth parents, which is very different from the system that’s in place now. We did come to find out that our birth mother was an unwed mother and our birth father chose not to marry her. Given what the climate was in society in the 1950s and 1960s, she had no recourse other than to place us for adoption.
My adoptive parents were an infertile couple for 5 or 6 years at the beginning of their marriage. Also at that time in society, there was such a huge emphasis and push on family building. If you didn’t have a baby within the first year or two of your marriage, you were considered a failure. My parents tried for a long time and then chose to try for adoption.
My mom loves to tell the story that she doesn’t know why she did it, but she checked the box next to “twins.” One day, she was teaching her class at a Catholic grammar school and she got a call to come to the office. They asked her if she meant to check that box for twins and she said, “Yes, I did.” They said, “Come down to Catholic Charities in Chicago because two girls are waiting for you.” That is the beginning of our story.
You had what’s called a closed adoption. Can you tell us about the logistics of that? Are adoptions still closed or is that no longer done?
Back in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, closed adoption and private adoption were the only vehicles to adopt a baby. It protected the rights of the adoptive parents and the birth parents, meaning both could parent or not parent without any interference by the other set of parents. There was no contact whatsoever. No information was exchanged, meaning I didn’t know if I was Irish or German. I had no idea what my birth parents’ eye or hair color was. Nothing.
In the 1990s, open adoption became the norm in society, meaning the birth parents had more control over who the adoptive parents were going to be and they could also establish a plan of contact. That varies. You can have contact all the way up until you’re eighteen years old with an exchange of phone calls and letters or no contact. It’s something that’s mutually agreed upon as opposed to the adoption agencies thrusting the state laws on everybody.
It feels like they’ve become enlightened that adoptees need to have their information and not have it so close. I got a kick out of your story about how stern the nun was with the parents who were in charge of your lives.
Any of us who have gone to private schools, whether it was Catholic or not, knows the fearsome nature of those in charge. You go up against them once in your life and you realize, “Not again.”
Understanding Adoption Stigma and Adoptee Trauma
Could you please describe the complex topic of adoption, which you talk about so beautifully in your books, viewed through the lens of trauma and loss? Why is adoption often associated with and surrounded by stigma, shame, rejection, and betrayal? I understand it but I’d like to know your point of view.
A loss is baked into the whole equation for everybody who’s in the adoption triangle. For the birth parents, it’s not having the right to raise their biological child or have contact with them in the case of closed adoption. Certainly for the adoptive parents, although all those years of infertility led to a lot of insecurity and shame for them also, they were not able to parent or conceive and carry their own biological child.
Also for adoptees, we have the shame and stigma of our birth parents giving us away. We could put nice language around it and say we were placed and it was the right choice for everybody, but to the adopted child, it does feel like you’ve been given away. That loss of identity, which we didn’t get with closed adoption, and then the lack of belonging that we have with our birth parents is the big trauma.
Nancy Verrier is a very famous person. She’s the one who coined the term the primal wound. The primal wound for the adoptee is the severing of ties between an adopted child from the very beginning. One of my daughters had her third little boy. I watched her cuddle and snuggle with him. That skin-to-skin contact that pediatricians are saying is so vital and important to this child’s well-being. Back in the day, my birth mother never saw us and never held us. She was advised against that. It was probably a traumatic experience.
The primal wound for the adoptee is the severing of ties from the very beginning. Share on X
I will offer a caveat, though, that because Catholic Charities had a firm policy of adopting twins or multiples together, I grew up with a full sibling. I’m very cognizant of how special that is. I never had to wonder who I looked like. We’re identical twins. She was right there. Her mannerisms were my mannerisms. We shared similar thoughts and ideas. My experience was as beautiful as it could be given the circumstances because I had my twin.
Adoption Family Dynamics and a Heartfelt Loss
There’s that issue of abandonment, but you’re not abandoned because you had your sister. How was your family? How many were adopted? How many were naturally born? Could you tell us about your youngest sister, Susie, with her special needs and the heartbreak of her sudden death?
My twin sister and I were the first. My parents kept their names on the list. Two years later, they adopted a little boy. They were very proud that they had this little family of three, and then my mom kept getting pregnant. Fortunately for her, she was able to carry full-term three biological children. In between there, she had a stillborn, which I deeply remember as thirteen years old. The idea that a child died before they were born was an impactful event.
The youngest sister, Susie, my mom must have contracted rubella when she was pregnant, probably from volunteering in the school system or something. My sister was born with cataracts. She had surgery. That being what it was in the day, she lost her lenses and her eyes and was legally blind. Unbeknownst to us, she also had a heart problem.
When she was three and a half, she got a virus that seemed like it was a cold and it went to her heart. She died very suddenly. I was 16 at the time, so she would’ve been 13 years younger than me. It thrust our family into a dark place. My mom had been taking her to the doctor. When she passed, there was a lot of trauma around that event for my mom.
I remember in your book, you talked about how people thought your mother had murdered her.
There was an accusation because she was so well cared for to have died so suddenly. We need to talk about that because that wasn’t something any of us knew about until I started writing the book. My mom was in a dark place. She went through depression. She removed herself emotionally from the family, which was in itself a very traumatic event.
Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood
She wasn’t present emotionally. My sister and I were doing a lot of parental chores, grocery shopping, and caring for the other kids. It was hard on my parents’ marriage, but because of their shared values, strong family values, and their deep faith, they pulled through it. My mom got some help. The rest of us didn’t get any help.
It wasn’t a thing to do.
Talk therapy was not a thing. There was no family counseling. My mom got help and put on some antidepressant medications and she came back to us. It took a good couple of years. Certainly, we continue to celebrate and honor her on her birthday and her day of death. I think, and I do say this in the book, that she was a change agent for our family in her small short presence on this earth with us. We all became incredibly sensitive to anybody who had special needs, a handicap, or an older person. I like to think that that maybe was her purpose to teach us to be more compassionate, observant people.
Coping with Emotional Abandonment and Family Bonds
In a way, she was surrounded by little angels for all of you. When you compound your feelings of emotional abandonment, I know that it brings you closer to your sister. How did you deal with that? Your mother, during that period, you bonded with her and she left you again.
It was like a slap to the other side of the head. We had our first mother, our birth mother, who physically and emotionally abandoned us to another family, and then the woman who was raising us who we loved and who cared for us stepped away too. The double whammy of that was tough. It’s interesting. One of the things I tried to do in the book Twice the Family was to put a lens for the reader on what life looks like through an adoptee’s eyes. We see things differently.
For example, back in the 1960s and 1970s, corporal punishment was a big thing. You got a swat, a slap, or whatever. It wasn’t sitting down, being quiet, and taking a time out. It was some physical experience to be punished. That didn’t sit well with me. I did not do well with that. I had some inner thoughts that I share in the book about, “I wonder if my other mother would treat me this way.” The lens of being an adoptee is part of the book.
That is a fascinating story. You also make a statement that I’d love you to speak about, which is that each of us regardless of who we are and where we come from carries within us our own brand of brokenness. Can you explain that to us?
I wrote that and it came out on the paper and I thought, “Where the heck did that come from?” That is another conversation about what our subconscious is mulling about and how when we write, those beautiful thoughts come out. I do think that that’s true. None of us get the perfect life. We don’t get the perfect set of parents and a set of circumstances. It’s called upon us through the help of others to make the better of our situations and see the upside of it. I believe that that’s the recipe for leading a productive and healthy well-being kind of life.
We don't get the perfect set of parents or circumstances. It’s called upon us, through the help of others, to make the best of our situations. Share on X
That blends right into my next question. How do the ways we deal with this brokenness and how we handle other vulnerabilities, false traumas, and failures determine the people we become in the course of our lives? You speak to that also. What about the choices we make?
It’s about the choices we make. If we look around and find the support systems that we need. For me, it was always my twin sister. We shared a room. We had a lot of conversations. If you don’t have a twin sister, possibly, you have another sibling you’re close to or an aunt, or maybe it’s a healthcare professional. We have to draw on other people to receive care and support. Somebody very famous, I can’t remember who it is, said that we draw courage from each other. We are called to do that. We need to reach out to other people to ask for help. In turn, we must offer help to people that are in need.
Some people aren’t so fortunate to have someone outside their situation help them, validate them, or point the way. Our audience knows my story. I had a very dysfunctional childhood. I had one aunt, not even a blood relative, married into the family who told me, “Honey, you’re fine. It’s them.” That validation made so much of a difference. I was abandoned also.
One of the things that took me a long time to use as a label for myself, and you used the label abandoned, is the word orphan. I never once thought of myself as an orphan but I was. I lived in an orphanage for three weeks before my family adopted us. We have to be careful with those labels, applying them to ourselves before we’re ready to deal with them. Certainly, you were abandoned and so was I, and we overcame that.
The 5-Year Adoption Search and Reunion
They had so little compassion and empathy, and it still pervades our world, unfortunately. I want to talk about your adoption search because this is fascinating. At the age of 48, Julie is prompted by a health scare. You were sent for a breast biopsy. You realize the importance of knowing your medical history, which was impossible due to those closed adoption laws at that time.
It was my impression that your husband wanted you to find out your origin and prompted you to investigate. This launches you into a five-year quest by you and your sister, Jenny, to find and reunite with your birth relatives, which included obstacles, rigid state adoption statutes, and misinformation. Why does this feel so familiar like it’s all still going on? Tell us about your story and what you went through. It must have been so heartbreaking, frustrating, and daunting. We all thank God, it looks like you’re fine.
The first thing was my husband putting the screws on me to get at this because, between my sister and I, we have six children. It was about me but it was also about passing on some medical history to our children. My sister said, “Let’s do it. Let’s try to find this.” We did not have our adoption papers. My parents still held them, which meant that we had to talk to them first.
When we were children growing up, my parents always said, “We’ll help you whenever you get to that day.” Inside, I probably had a good idea that it wasn’t going to go as easily as that, and it didn’t. My mom was not happy about this. It was her fear of losing that coveted role of mother or mom that she so fought for with all of those infertility issues, etc. She was not happy. She didn’t draw a line in the sand but it was clear that she was not happy about it. Our first pass was to an adoption search agency that couldn’t get very far. We came to realize our birth mom used an alias, which was entirely legal back then.
That’s even harder. You did not know your real mom’s name.
It turned out that we ended up working with an intermediary service through the state of Illinois, which was sanctioned by a judge. They opened all of the records through Catholic Charities and my birth mom’s real name was in there. She had an unusual name so she was easily found. Unfortunately, I’ve got a health scare, my mom’s not happy with me, and then my birth mom comes back and says, “I don’t want anything to do with this.” We had a lot of obstacles to get through.
How did you get around that obstacle when your birth mother didn’t want to and was like, “I got my life. I didn’t even tell anyone what happened.” How did you get around that?
We circled back to the health issues. The doctors all wrote letters and said that at the very least, she has to provide the medical history. We did send it to her and she sent it back. We had the health history, which started the whole thing, but we didn’t have our birth father’s name so we couldn’t get his side of it. Fast forward, time passes about six more months and she has a change of heart and contacts the intermediary. Everything rolled out from them exchanging cards and letters.
She told me what I thought was my birth father’s name. It doesn’t turn out to be the right name. I don’t want to ruin the book for the readers, but let’s say I do find everything that I need. I don’t have direct contact with everybody. The most beautiful thing, which makes it a good story to read, is that I found a brother and a sister that I didn’t know I had. They don’t know about us. Once I got into a conversation with my half-brother, we realized that our paths had been crossing in time for a while, waiting for us to figure out how we were connected. I’ll leave everybody with that.
We’ll leave everyone in suspense. They have to read the rest of the story.
Anybody that has any kind of spiritual leanings will say, “This is truly a Godwink moment,” all of those things.
That was the next question I had for you, some of the uncanny synchronicities you experienced while you were searching. Do you want to share any of that or should they wait to read the book?
They should know that there is a connection with my brother, and that connection with my brother ends up pulling my adoptive mom back into the scene. She’s happy. She forgives all of these things ever happened and realizes that maybe she could even exchange a letter with my birth mom. A lot of beautiful things happened. It took five years of hard work to get that done. We sit in a better place fifteen years later.
That’s amazing. Do you regularly see your birth relatives? Do you have close relationships with them?
I text message a lot with some aunts and uncles. I have a first cousin that I see a lot here in Florida. My birth mom is in a senior center, and not in great health. COVID caused a lot of issues with us seeing each other in person but we talk about all the major events and holidays. She’s 92 and my adoptive mom is also 92.
That’s wonderful. Has your adoptive mom met your birth mom?
No. They’ve exchanged letters. Geographically, it would be hard to get them together up here.
Journaling as a Tool for Healing
I’m sure your birth mom is very grateful to your adoptive mom in many ways. It’s a beautiful thing. The other thing you talk about is how journaling added meaning and depth to your life and also healing for you since your late husband, Steve, transitioned. I’m sorry about that and for your pain. I’ve experienced something similar. Would you like to talk about your journaling, how that’s helped you, and why that’s so important to you? That led to your book, right?
Yes. I had a lot of teenage journals and journaling I did off and on as a new wife and young mother. I used all of that as source material when I was writing Twice a Daughter, musings about what a teenage girl thought about. Also in Twice the Family, I used some of that material. What was interesting for me in writing this next book, Twice the Family, is that the last five chapters are about my romance and relationship with my husband. I was writing those two years after he died and I was dreading it. I didn’t think it was going to be easy. It wasn’t easy. It was exhausting, but it was beautiful because I relived those very precious moments of new love. Writing about them was tremendously healing.
Interestingly enough, a lot of the stories that I wrote about, my kids didn’t know. The book turned out to be a family history of my life but also their father’s life. I would encourage any reader or your audience to write, whether it’s for publication, posterity, or others because others do learn from our stories. Memoir is one of those big genres that we like to get inside other people’s lives. We’re all a little voyeuristic. We like to see how people handle adversity and how they react to situations because we learn from what they do and how they act.
Healing Journey Through Grief Support and Counseling
That makes total sense. It’s very understandable. Did you go to a grief counselor? What support groups have been helping you now that you’re on this healing journey with your grief? Can you share that with us? The premise of this show is that we should all go for healing.
I’ve got three little tidbits about healing. When I suffered this devastating rejection from my birth mom, I turned to Catholic Charities again. They have a post-adoption support group in Chicago. That social worker instituted these workshops about every 2 or 3 months. It was adoptive parents, birth parents, and adoptees in the same room.
That experience of being able to listen to the brokenness helped me understand my birth mother and all the obstacles that she faced in society, in relationships, and in making contact with my sister and me. That support group is ongoing. I still participate. It’s important for those of us who have gone through the whole cycle successfully and dealt with struggles to give back to the rest of the community.
When my husband died, I joined a support group with other widows. We meet only online. It’s a tremendous tool for all of us to share our experiences. There’s something about not feeling alone in the misery that you feel that is very uplifting. The third point is one of the things that came out of the grief support group was the idea of using a medium to heal even further.
There’s something about not feeling alone in your misery that is very uplifting. Share on X
Tell us about that.
I have used the medium several times. She’s very good. She has become a little too famous so I can’t get into her whenever I want to. I met with her about a year after my husband passed away. I was nervous about it. He believed that once you died, you died and that’s it. Part of me was like, “Is he right or am I right?” I turned out to be right. He showed up front and center. She asked him a lot of questions and validated that he was exactly who he was, laughing that he was thrilled to say I was right. A lot of healing came out of that. I continue to use mediums when I have some questions about things.
The other thing that I used a medium for goes back to the book Twice the Family. I collaborated with my mother and my sister on some of the chapters, especially the ones dealing with Susie’s death. I could tell from talking to my mom that I wasn’t getting the whole story. There was something I didn’t know. I met with the medium. I said, “My sister died. This is the situation.” She said, “Your sister’s here with us. She wants you to tell this story and that you’ve got to ask more questions of your mom. You need to ask her about the police.” We won’t say too much about that because it unveils in the book.
I didn’t know anything about the police. None of my siblings did. I went to my mom and said, “Is there something about the police that I don’t know about the story?” Reluctantly, she spilled everything. She told the whole story and I could tell she probably would’ve gone to her grave without sharing all of that. She felt better that she was not carrying this burden or this secret. The medium is present in my life. I will always be seeking their advice and counsel for healing. I don’t have any problems with that. Some people may. It’s up to you whether you believe in it or not.
I interviewed so many mediums on this show. A medium saved my life when my husband transitioned. He came through for 40 minutes and I didn’t even believe in any of this. I want to share with everyone a quick story because you’re prompting a story of mine. I went through this accident and had all this stuff happen to me. Two months after he passed, I was led to a medium. It changed my life because he came through for 40 minutes with information he could not possibly know.
The other thing that happened was I didn’t know who to share it with. Now, it’s a little more accepted, but at that time, it was like, “You’re crazy.” I couldn’t tell anyone in my world except I had a sister-in-law who was spiritual and we thought she was crazy. We weren’t talking to her when Saul transitioned because we thought she was cuckoo.
When I heard from Saul through this medium, I thought, “Who can I call?” I called my sister-in-law and she said to me, “Thank goodness you called me because two weeks after Saul died, he contacted me.” I said, “He contacted you?” She said, “Yes. I said to him, “Why are you contacting me? We weren’t talking when you passed. He said, “I know because I thought you were crazy, but you’re not. I’m on the other side and you’re the only one who’s open. I have messages for Irene.” It’s a very similar story. Your husband and my husband both said, “We thought it was crazy but I’m glad I can contact you.”
The medium has been helpful to my children. My youngest one was very close to her dad. She was younger, in her mid-twenties, when he passed away. She sent me a picture. She was having a coffee with a business associate. It’s been three years since he transitioned, but on the lid of the coffee cup was a little shamrock. That was the name of his company, Shamrock Company. She knew that he was part of this business conversation.
The Importance of Seeking Support to Heal
She was giving her messages. She was giving her signs. How wonderful. Why do you believe that it is important to seek support or counseling to help us heal?
We’re not naturally born with all the tools to do this on our own. There are so many gifted people out there who are and have that training. We should take advantage of it because it will accelerate our personal growth and transformation like nothing else.
I could not agree more. Do you have a special offer for our audience?
I put together a little bundle of things, a couple of chapters that didn’t make it into the book that I loved, and some very special pictures. That will be available to your audience.
Twice the Family: Digital Photo Album
What is Julie McGue’s tip for finding joy in life? You’ve certainly known all sides of the emotional experiences.
My biggest tip for everybody, and this is going to be hard, is to sit back and listen. Listen compassionately. Listen hard. If you do not understand the shoes that someone else wears, please try for a second to share that perspective with them instead of injecting your own judgment or opinions. Listen.
That’s beautiful. Does that help you to find joy when you’re doing that?
Yes, it does. In that little pause of trying to listen hard, I learned something about myself because I try that hard.
That’s beautiful. Thank you because you’re educating and enlightening us with all these meaningful insights about adoption, familial bonds, grief, loss, faith, belonging, the unique bonds between siblings, and so much more. I can see why educating those within and outside the adoption world gives you pleasure and great purpose. I want to thank you truly from my heart for this very special interview that I am sure has opened many minds and touched many hearts.
If you do not understand the shoes that someone else wears, please try for a second to share that perspective with them. Share on X
Thank you. I love following you and your shows.
I am grateful. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. As I like to say, to be continued and many blessings.
Thank you so much for having me.
Guest’s Links:
- Julie McGue’s Website
- Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship
- Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood
- Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging
- Connect with Julie McGue on Facebook
- Connect with Julie McGue on Instagram
- Connect with Julie McGue on LinkedIn
- Connect with Julie McGue on X
- Julie Ryan McGue on Goodreads
- 💛 Get the two chapters that were cut from Twice the Family: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/by6idd517h56hx9ohmh11/Julie-McGue-Pre-Order-Package.pdf?rlkey=35kfv1pwr3mfch6xt3xtjwwxe&dl=0
Host Links:
- Connect with Irene Weinberg on Instagram
- Connect with Irene Weinberg on Facebook
- Connect with Irene Weinberg on TikTok
- Good To The Last Drop!
- They Serve Bagels in Heaven
About Julie Ryan McGue
Julie Ryan McGue is an American writer, a domestic adoptee, and an identical twin. She writes about finding out who you are, where you belong and making sense of it. She is the author of two published works: Twice a Daughter: A Search for Identity, Family, and Belonging (She Writes Press, 2021), and Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family, and Kinship (Muse Literary, 2023). Her third book, Twice the Family: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Sisterhood releases in February 2025. Julie splits her time between northwest Indiana and Sarasota, Florida.
