The inspiring story of a single woman who adopts two children from Ukraine who are suffering from trauma and PTSD.
Healing Emotional Wounds: A Story of Overcoming the Long Hard Road to Recovery from Abuse and Abandonment is a compelling chronicle of metamorphosis that gives testament to the power of love, encouragement, and resolve over the desperate circumstances of abuse, neglect, and abandonment. This unvarnished story recounts Nancy’s journey to adopt and parent Alyona and Alec, two six year old children from Ukraine.
The drama of the family’s first seven years reads like fiction, but Alyona and Alec’s stories are all too real. Alec was born prematurely to a substance-abusing mother, who spent the early part of his life swathed in a blanket cocoon almost devoid of human touch. Alyona was found on the streets at age four or five and returned to the orphanage by her Italian adoptive family after only six weeks due to her aggressive behavior. Though single and in her fifties, Nancy feels called to adopt these children. What she discovers once she brings them home to America from Ukraine is that parenting two children with a history of abuse and abandonment will be the greatest, most rewarding challenge of her life. But the real heroes of this memoir are Alyona and Alec, who emerge from the abyss of hopelessness to live lives of confidence, love, and expectation.
Healing Emotional Wounds affirms the hope of healing through commitment, hard work, extensive family and friend support, along with persistence and an unyielding resilience and focus.
Board certified in both pediatrics and public health/preventive medicine, Nancy M. Welch has been a public health director in Virginia since 1976. She also holds master’s degrees in health administration and business administration. Her most valuable preparation, though, for the parenting challenges of her two adopted children is having grown up as the second eldest of five children to parents who provided unending support, encouragement, and belief in the ability of each child to overcome any obstacle to achieve their aspirations. Nancy is an accomplished community speaker and public health spokesperson, having appeared in all media formats on topics ranging from community health assessments and public health response to local crises, health education, and medical school graduate classes. She has received numerous recognitions, including Distinguished Lynchburg College Alumni and YWCA Distinguished Woman.