RESTLESS HEARTS

Jo Willis is all too familiar with both the physical and emotional implications of adoption. She was adopted as a baby, and when she had children of her own, was gripped by an inexplicable sense of anxiety. She knows from personal and professional experience that the issues she faced can be resolved only by the knowledge and power that comes from whakapapa, or knowing your family story.

With Briggita Baker, who was also adopted, Willis has written Awoken, aiming to help lift the lid on a topic many people find too hard to confront. The book records and examines a multitude of adoption-related problems facing New Zealanders, many with the common theme evoked by the moving phrase “searching for our mothers’ arms”.

Willis, who lives in Hawke’s Bay, points out that adoption affects more than the adopted child, birth parents and adoptive parents. There are also the children, partners and friends of those who were adopted, their siblings and the families and friends of women who gave up a child for adoption. That’s an estimated 2.5