Jeff Forney

I’ll take that Sweet Emotion anytime. 😜 @lihiorbach

Many thanks to @huckberry !Wandering the backroads of the SF Bay Area (hometown) with @a_souza_photo and @dane_vaughn was a nice way to recalibrate in a world that has gone slightly mad. I’d say the jacket fits just right. 😜💯 Stay safe, stay sane. #huckberry #flintandtinder #imready

Casting photo of Ima and Dada provided by Paz. 😜💯 #forneyfarms #kidstakingphotos @lihiorbach @loveleeor @paz.forney

Adoptee + Scott Hancock I always knew I was adopted. My parents were open about it and I never felt unloved. They made it clear that if I ever wanted to search, they would help me. My mother was pure love. But I didn’t look like anyone in my family. Not seeing myself reflected in anyone was confusing in ways I couldn’t explain. I’d chase my mom’s car when she left. I’d cry for no reason. I was terrified of losing the people I loved. I was given every opportunity to succeed and would sabotage all of them. I didn’t connect any of it to adoption. Nobody did. I grew up in Southern California — surfer, skater, that was my identity. At 15 my family moved to New Hampshire and I lost that. I adapted by becoming the party guy. The abandonment I felt when my first relationship ended was so intense it was hard to focus on anything else. When I graduated I had to choose a profession. How can you choose what you want to do when you don’t know who you are yet? Living away from my parents brought its own crisis — the separation anxiety was extreme. I avoided serious relationships until my 40s. It wasn’t until I got sober in 2016 — the same year I had a widowmaker heart attack and stroke — that the fog began to clear. I did DNA in 2018 and found my maternal family. My birth mother had already passed. Other birth mothers from that era have helped fill the silence. Through her I discovered my roots trace back to Locke, California, a town built by Chinese immigrants in 1912. Walking those streets was surreal. My birth father remains a mystery — a redacted name. Half of who I am is still sealed away. In 2025 multiple pulmonary embolisms led my half sister to tell me about Factor V Leiden — a hereditary clotting disorder in our family. Sealed records didn’t just keep my story from me. They almost killed me. It is cruel to send a person into life without their own backstory. Cruel to expect someone to build an identity, choose a path, love someone, know themselves — without knowing where they came from. Closed adoption and sealed birth certificates need to end. For some of us they aren’t just a denial of identity — they are a death sentence we didn’t know we were carrying.

Taking advantage of a beautiful place and a beautiful man to showcase all the LoveLeeOr pieces designed with everyone in mind ✨ #loveleeor #jewelrydesign #meaningfuljewelry #madeinlosangeles

Adoptee + Amy Raasch Growing up in Minnesota the eldest of five kids, I have “always known” I was adopted. Faced with difficulty conceiving, my parents adopted me, then had four biological children in quick succession. From my cradle days, they tell me I am “special” but are not sure how much I understand. At age 4, a woman in a grocery store fawns over my sister’s resemblance to my mom; me—not so much. “I’m adopted!” I blurt out. The summer after I turn 11, a woman with long, dark brown hair steps out of a dark blue van, strides toward the strip of grass I am busy reimagining as another planet, and tells me she is a saleslady. We talk a long time. She asks to see my mom. On my fifteenth birthday, Mom lifts the sweaters in her dresser’s bottom drawer to reveal a scattering of letters sent by the “saleslady”—aka my birthmother—with whom my mom has been corresponding all this time. My blood drains to my feet and flies back up, setting my face on fire. In a theatre workshop in L.A. in my mid-twenties, actors are encouraged to perform their own work. I find myself writing a monologue about this meeting. The workshop digs it but has questions. So do I. I agonize over a multi-page letter to my family (which I print on multi-colored paper and tie with ribbon), trying to explain something I hardly understand. Omaha airport, mid-February, almost two years later: a woman in a puffy, periwinkle parka and oversized glasses hands me a bouquet of pink, sweetheart roses. Her hands look like mine; her eyes: shaped like mine. Suddenly, it hits me: this is my first time in the presence of someone with whom I share blood. I could have been anyone or anything—hatched out of an egg; beamed down from another planet. As if in a sci-fi movie, a tractor beam grabs me and ZAP—I am mortalized. I am no alien. Twenty-seven years ago, the woman—my birthmother—had gone on a school trip, sat on a park bench, and split her suddenly too-tight skirt. The next day, she shares tortured entries from a red journal she kept in the months leading to my birth. (Cont’d 1st comment below)

Anytime I can get in front of this guy’s lens, it’s a good day. Many thanks brother. @michelson_ari @wilhelminalamen @majormodelsny @directionsusa @heffnermanagement

Adoptee + Yaron Hakim I’ve always known I’m adopted and didn’t hide it at introductions. Recently, I’ve felt a shift in how I tell my story. Instead of saying “but, I’m adopted,” I now say “and I’m adopted.” Not apologizing for the complexity and identifying with the word “adoptee” instead of “I was adopted.” This subtle identification is profoundly different. This is not something in the past, it is ongoing, never-ending. I was born in Bogotá Colombia. I don’t know the circumstances that lead to my adoption and the records I have are questionable or blank. I have found a cousin through DNA testing and together we are trying to trace the connections. I am an artist, a father, a husband, plant lover, and an adoptee. I grew up in Australia, England and Switzerland and now live in Los Angeles. My current body of work ‘Antecedents’ are portraits of birth mothers of Colombian adoptee’s in my community. Hybrid-plant figures guided by narratives and facts gathered during interviews. Hearing and sharing these stories has been deeply healing, allowing me to access questions and emotions I never could before. I once thought talking about the adoption directly in my art might be restrictive, but I’ve found that when we get specific, the dialogue and work become expansive. @yaronmhakim @theinnocentpeopleproject #adopteevoices #adopteestories #lifeinformsart #studiovisit

Not sure if I can put into words the amazing fellowship we have in our adoptee community. It’s bringing tears to my eyes as I write this now. It’s incredible how much power and wholeness I (we) can gather from a reality and group that largely went unnoticed in my earlier life, and it was there all along. So grateful to be on this journey of exploration and understanding with all y’all! Seeing Liz DeBetta’s one woman performance of ‘Un-M-Othered’, Kristal Parke’s film ‘Because She’s Adopted’ and Virginia McQueen’s live podcast interview were second to none-with our MC Damon Davis of the ‘Who Am I Really?’ podcast making sure the weekend flows without a hitch. Big thanks to @reinhardtsarah and @louisebrowne_la of the podcast ‘Adoption: The Making of Me’ for putting this together! Big love to all! @stevegrochol @kristalparkeofficial @stew_pak @virginiamcqueen @damonldavis @dr.liz.debetta @adopting__privilege #theinnocentpeopleproject #adopteevoices @theinnocentpeopleproject @themakingofmepodcast #migratingtowardswholeness #lovingcup @the_cedar_tavern_west

#TBT Throwing it back today to our dear friend, Jeff Forney, creator of the Innocent People Project (who will be in Austin with us coming up). He shares what many adoptees know to be true—the reunion honeymoon phase is not the reality. The real work begins after that fades, when deeper issues surface and are faced. It isn’t easy, and it can be incredibly hard on adoptees. #adoptees #adopteevoices #adopteestories #reunion #tbt

Tony, you did what?! Full episode available on You Tube Now!

Teenagers + 1 Soho, New York City 2026 @hiryanhansen