BRYANT POND — Norway resident Carol Lilleqvist Welsh read passages from her memoir, “360 Square,” Thursday afternoon at the Whitman Memorial Library, discussing the importance of adoption in her life and how she overcame a difficult childhood.

Welsh’s memoir focused on her early years with her adoptive parents.

“Adoption has woven itself through my life,” Welsh told the audience. “I’ve been touched by it in a lot of different ways.”

Adopted as a child by a couple in Riverside, Conn., Welsh described her early childhood as happy.

“I grew up in a… I wouldn’t call it wealthy, but an upwardly mobile family who didn’t want for a lot,” she said. “My dad worked in New York City, took the train there every day. I was a tomgirl and always had pine pitch on my dresses.”

However, things changed for Welsh after she went through puberty.

“When I started to go through puberty and become who I really was, there was this whole complete turnaround,” Welsh said. “Abuse, and things that went on, and things that were totally intolerable to me. Me and my father just fought and argued, and eventually he threw me out.”

Welsh’s life changed again after she became pregnant as a teenager and was faced with a difficult decision.

“My first decision at that time was to try and do away with the pregnancy,” Welsh explained. “Abortion was illegal, but it was possible if you knew the right people, so you put the word out on the right street. I was unable to go through it, so my next choice was to put up the child for adoption.”

Despite the difficulties in that, Welsh said “it was the very best decision I could’ve made at the time.”

Welsh’s reading took the audience through several periods in her life, including the time she spent as a go-go dancer, the time she lived out of a hearse and the years she spent living in Amarillo, Texas with a female Pekingese dog named “Littlebit.”

“I was footloose and fancy-free again and decided I was going to see the world, and get out of Dodge, take risks and be an adventurer,” Welsh said.

Welsh explained how after she gave up her child for adoption, she was later readopted by family friends in Connecticut who motivated her to go to nursing school.

Later in her life, after settling down with her partner, Dick, having a child with him, and receiving her masters degree in human relations, she decided to adopt a child.

Even later in her life, she found her biological mother and the son she gave up for adoption and told the audience that she now has a great relationship with both of them.

“I’m involved in the American Adoption Congress, and C.U.B, or Concerned United Birthparents,” she said. “Both organizations work to change adoption laws so everyone can have access to their original birth certificates.”

Welsh said the road to getting her book written and published was lined with obstacles.

“In 2000, before I met my birth mother, I was having a meal with Dick and a friend of mine, and I opened a fortune cookie that said ‘It is time to write your book. Others will benefit,’” Welsh said, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I said, ‘OK, universe! I get it!’”

She said it took four years of “sitting down, doing outlines, changing that into drafts, editing, re-editing and re-editing, and finally getting it into a final format.”

Welsh said that despite her difficult upbringing and the troubles she has faced, she has learned many lessons from the families she’s had.

“My first adoptive parents gave me two gifts: the gift of love, and also the gift of rejecting me, so I would learn to face adversity and become strong and resilient,” Welsh said.

“My second adoptive family gave me the gift of unconditional love and the gift of self-worth. A lot of people would have reacted in a negative way, but somewhere in my makeup, I was determined that I was going to go out and do whatever I needed to make my life a good life.”

mdaigle@sunjournal.com