What does it mean to be loved, yet still feel the ache of what was missing?
I Was Loved, and This Still Hurt is a powerful adoptee memoir about growing up in a loving family while carrying the quiet questions adoption can leave behind.
Kate Triebe was cherished by the parents who raised her. She belonged. She was supported, encouraged, and surrounded by family. But love, as real and generous as it was, could not give her everything.
It could not give her the voice of her birth mother.
It could not give her the name of her birth father.
It could not give her medical history, biological mirrors, or the full truth of where she came from.
With honesty, tenderness, and courage, Kate writes about adoption from the inside. She explores gratitude and grief, belonging and separation, loyalty and longing, the search for birth family, the impact of records and DNA, and the deep emotional need to know one’s own beginning.
This is not a memoir of blame. It is not a rejection of adoptive love. It is a story that makes room for more than one truth.
A child can be deeply loved and still carry loss.
An adoptee can be grateful and still need answers.
A family can be real and still not hold the whole story.
For adoptees, this book offers recognition.
For adoptive parents, it offers understanding.
For birth parents, it offers compassion.
For families, counsellors, social workers, and anyone touched by adoption, it offers a deeper way to listen.
Tender, brave, and deeply human, I Was Loved, and This Still Hurt gives language to the feelings many adoptees carry quietly, and reminds us that needing the truth is not disloyalty.
It is part of becoming whole.
What does it mean to be loved, yet still feel the ache of what was missing?
I Was Loved, and This Still Hurt is a powerful adoptee memoir about growing up in a loving family while carrying the quiet questions adoption can leave behind.
Kate Triebe was cherished by the parents who raised her. She belonged. She was supported, encouraged, and surrounded by family. But love, as real and generous as it was, could not give her everything.
It could not give her the voice of her birth mother.
It could not give her the name of her birth father.
It could not give her medical history, biological mirrors, or the full truth of where she came from.
With honesty, tenderness, and courage, Kate writes about adoption from the inside. She explores gratitude and grief, belonging and separation, loyalty and longing, the search for birth family, the impact of records and DNA, and the deep emotional need to know one’s own beginning.
This is not a memoir of blame. It is not a rejection of adoptive love. It is a story that makes room for more than one truth.
A child can be deeply loved and still carry loss.
An adoptee can be grateful and still need answers.
A family can be real and still not hold the whole story.
For adoptees, this book offers recognition.
For adoptive parents, it offers understanding.
For birth parents, it offers compassion.
For families, counsellors, social workers, and anyone touched by adoption, it offers a deeper way to listen.
Tender, brave, and deeply human, I Was Loved, and This Still Hurt gives language to the feelings many adoptees carry quietly, and reminds us that needing the truth is not disloyalty.
It is part of becoming whole.
