Etichetta: esperienza di adozione

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My day of reckoning with the Lutheran Church

What does it mean to be accountable?

Wow! What a day! 

On Friday 3 November 2023, I spent 4 hours in a mediated session with one of the organisations who accepted responsibility for my sexual abuse by my adoptive family. This was enabled as a direct result of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Sexual Abuse. My claim took approximately 2 years and on 8 Nov 2022, my claim was accepted by 2 of the 3 institutions that I had nominated: the Lutheran church and the Australian Department of Home Affairs (Immigration). A victim can elect if they wish to have a Direct Personal Response (DPR) or not in which the apology is given to us face to face. I chose to hear their apology directly.

The role of the Lutheran church in my sexual abuse is that they had assessed my adoptive parents and given them permission to adopt a child from overseas. This adoptive family went on to sexually abuse me over many years from as early as 5 years old until I was 14 years old. In August of 2020, I had finally been brave enough to report my multiple abusers to the police.

In April 2023, the police case against my adoptive father ended. He did a deal with the prosecutor in exchange for reduced charges, of which he then went on to plead guilty to only 1 of the 4 charges, that charge was termed indecent assault, the other 3 charges were related to the many instances across various years. He is now on the Sex Offender Registry for the next 8 years. The other males (family / extended family) whom I reported to the police were let off due to being minors at the times of the crimes and due to the difficulty of proving their intent at that age. One of those had already suicided years earlier.

Providing me firstly with financial compensation showed me in action that the Lutheran church took my hurt seriously. Apologising and listening intently to what I needed to say .. wow! If only my adoptive parents had done what I’d asked for years while I had waited and stayed in the relationship, hoping that we’d be able to deal with the past. I had asked numerous times over 2 decades to take us to professional help, to help the family heal. But they never did. My adoptive father apologised a couple of times in letter and in person, but that was it. Towards the end, when I asked for financial compensation he declined stating he “didn’t believe in blood money”. What we ultimately needed was something like this royal commission process that allowed me to be compensated as an action, followed by a process of truly hearing, listening, reflecting, and connecting.

I have given so many talks in my many years of speaking and advocacy, but within the first 5 minutes of meeting with the Bishop in this DPR, I was overcome with emotion. Sitting across from me was the man who represented the Lutheran church in Australia and New Zealand, Bishop Paul Smith. As a victim of sexual abuse from whites males in power, it was a daunting moment to speak up for myself to a man who represented so much. But he patiently waited and then listened as I managed to get myself back together to go through what I’d prepared to talk about. 

Lynelle & Bishop Paul Smith

My purpose for the DPR was to ask the very top level of this institute to understand the deep impact their failings had on my life, long term and to see if they’d be willing to learn from those lessons and not just give me a token apology.

I talked about the relevant parts of my story that related to their ongoing foster care organisation – Lutheran Care. I talked about the impacts of needing thorough assessment of prospective parents, conducting followups, keeping proper records and having processes that ensured they take their responsibilities seriously. We children have to live the lifelong consequences of their assessments of parents, we have no say, we have no ally to turn to should those parents be unsafe. We are so much more at risk as adoptees, at least fostered children get followed up on to check if they are safe.

When Bishop Paul Smith spoke, his apology was genuine, heartfelt and from a place of remorse that his institution had caused so much hurt. It really was healing to hear and see that acknowledgment in person. 

Karen, an executive from Lutheran Care Specialist Services was also present. She too offered her apology and all of us together went on to have a wonderful conversation about the many issues I’d raised. The mediator Franca was professional and sensitive, doing a excellent job of leading us through and helping to clarify where needed and to record any outcomes agreed upon. My support person SC was just wonderful. Leading up to the day, she’d been the one guiding me and liaising with the Lutheran church when I got frustrated at the lack of experience and communications. SC has been a guiding light, encouraging me to be true to what I needed. I so appreciated her being there for me through out this process!

I was actually expecting a token apology and had very low expectations of the DPR process but I have been pleasantly surprised with how much it truly helped me heal a huge part of the hurt. I felt seen, heard, validated and recognised for the hurt that had occurred due to the Lutheran negligence to do their role properly and thoroughly as an adoption agency. 

The importance of having chosen a male figure to give my apology, is the representation on so many levels of how powerful white men in my life had failed me in so many ways. The most recent being in April this year, when my adoptive father pled guilty. The magistrate at the sentencing probably didn’t know I was on the online portal watching and listening. The language and way in which the magistrate spoke was appalling and another experience of a white man in power minimising my experience and demonstrating more empathy for my adoptive father than for me, the victim. The experience of the sentencing was extremely traumatic, especially to hear my many years of abusive experiences minimised by the magistrate who said my adoptive father “must have suffered a momentary lapse in judgement”! He praised my adoptive father for saving the state money by pleading guilty, he said he’d never seen anyone so remorseful and even questioned the defence attorney as to whether my adoptive father had to be placed on the Sex Offenders Registry.

I’ve not been able to talk about this publicly until now, 7 months later because it traumatised me so much! It was another example of a powerful white man in Australia doing me harm and refusing to recognise the responsibility they hold to treat vulnerable people with dignity and respect. That magistrate in turn reflected my adoptive father who also failed to treat me with dignity and respect in my childhood. Thankfully, Bishop Paul Smith was a different white powerful man who took his role seriously and validated my pain and could hold a lengthy conversation that was meaningful, thoughtful and sensitive to deep trauma.

I also thank the universe I was sent to Australia by that questionable Vietnamese lawyer who facilitated my displacement for if I’d been sent to any other country in the world – I would never have the opportunity to have healing like this. Australia, for all its flaws in royal commission processes and outcomes, the process does actually offer a far better route for victims than the police and criminal route which actually causes further trauma for many and definitely no justice for the victim. My wish is to have a powerful process like the royal commission for us intercountry adoptees, as victims of illegal adoptions! But that is another discussion which I leave for later.

Sharing this hopefully gives you some insight into how powerfully healing the day was. I await the official letter of apology I’ve asked for as a followup. It will be framed as a huge memento signifying how much I’ve lived through, the courage it took to get to that day to face the highest in power in the Lutheran church in Australia, and share my vulnerability hoping that it would be respected, heard, and validated. I have waited a long time to have my day of reckoning and it has been worth all the work and effort!

Thank you Bishop Paul Smith, Karen, Franca, SC, Tim, and Kathy for ensuring my DPR went smoothly and was a success.

I now await to hear from the Australian Department of Home Affairs (Immigration) as to when they will meet with me. It has taken them 6 months to respond to my request. Time will tell when, where and how that will go.

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Adoption, abuse and exclusion from the Royal Commission

Adopted for 32 years and now free!

Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse: reports

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Searching for my family in Russia

This is the last in our blog series dedicated to Ricerca in adozione internazionale. These individual stories are being shared from our Carta di prospettiva that was also shared with our Webinar, Searching in Intercountry Adoption by Adoptee Experts

di Raya Snow born in Russia, raised in Canada

I was born in the city of Ivanovo Oblast, Russia 1989. It is located North East of Moscow with a population of 361,641. After I was born, my mother and father moved to the Caucasus of Russia, Derbent. After I turned 3, my parents got divorced and my mother and I moved to Stavropol, North of the Caucuses. 

Eventually, my mother met another man and we started living together in a two bedroom apartment. He was a very abusive and narcissistic man who would abuse both my mother and myself. I believe my mother one day left him, leaving me in his care. Not being his blood relative, he shortly dropped me off to my mother’s great-aunt’s place. This is where my journey really unfolded. 

My great-great aunt ( Elvira), was a religious older woman whose life revolved around the church and God. We lived somewhat happily together, but I would always wonder about my mother and her whereabouts. Sometimes my mother would come to the house to see me, but those were always incredibly short visits. Due to her never being around, the neighbours started to question my health and education. Elvira then thought to start looking for a forever home for myself. 

I remember, she would advise me to be on my best behaviour, to listen well, in order for a family to take me or to buy me off of her. Being only about 5 years of age, I was very excited to be able to visit other families with children, play with them, and get to know them. Deep down in my heart, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stay with them because some were far worse off than I was, living with my aunt. 

One day, there was a lady that came to the door, asking to speak to Elvira about a family from Canada wanting to adopt a little Russian girl. Elvira was so pleased about this news that she allowed the woman to take pictures of herself which she would then send to the family in Canada. The woman let us know there would be a man who would come in the following weeks to advise if the Canadian family was interested in the child, me. In the meantime, I was still going from home to home, to see if anyone showed any interest in purchasing me. 

A month or two later, there was another knock on our gate and as the lady mentioned, there was a man (George) who came to see Elvira and I. George brought us fruits and sweets which I would eat while the two were speaking intently. He let Elvira know that the Canadian family took an interest in me and was willing to pay a big sum in order to adopt me. She let him know the process would not be an easy one as all my documentation was lost in a car accident where both of my parents died tragically. 

According to her statement, I survived miraculously by the will of God. She then showed George the death certificate of my parents, leaving me, a little orphan in her will. George suggested we start the process by recreating new documents, stating my mother’s name and him as the biological father in my new birth certificate. 

Me, being this little girl, understanding that my mother will never return back to me, as she had left and I hadn’t seen her maybe for months, I felt a new adventure was about to unfold. George started coming by the house more often, gaining my trust and I his. We became great friends and I enjoyed having a “father figure” in my life. On the weekends, I would go over to his house and meet his wife and children, who took me in with open arms. 

A turning point was about to happen when Elvira spoke to our neighbours and let them know she was going to take the money and myself up West, to the Ural Mountains where the rest of our family resided. The neighbours were saddened by this news as I was a very malnourished little girl who needed attentive medical care, so they called George straight away and let him know the alarming news. George of course, called the potential family in Canada and let them know that they needed to save me and hide me while the rest of the documentation was being prepared. The Canadian family agreed and I was brought to a small city near Moscow, where the biological relatives of their family lived. There, I met my wonderful adoptive mom, with whom I gained an instantaneous attachment because of desperately wanting to feel loved and cared for. 

I believe I lived with the family in Moscow for about 6 months. While my documents were getting done, I started attending pre-school, spent time with relatives on the weekends, went to church on Sundays and welcomed a new package from my Canadian family every few weeks or so. 

It was sometime in June when George came back into my life again. This time, we were going to begin our travels to Canada. The process was a very tricky one, I had to learn to call him “dad” and he would call me “daughter”.  George let me know that we had to fake a bond, where authorities would not be able to question our relationship to one another. Our lives were at stake if any one of us did something questionable, I could be sent to an orphanage and he to prison. 

We first began our trip to Moscow, where we stayed at George’s blind father’s place for a few days before heading out on a Cargo ship to Turkey. I remember the ship well and I grew fond of the people in it. Once we reached Turkey, we took a flight to France which I don’t have any memories of, and from there we flew to Canada. 

Once we got off the flight, I could see in the hallway above me, there were many people waiting to greet their loved ones. My adoptive parents were one of those people, who were waiting with balloons and a cam-recorder for that very first hug. George and my adoptive mom ended up getting married and this “happy” ending lasted for a couple more years until George and my adoptive mom separated (finalised the divorce) and then she claimed full custody of me. 

Twenty-five years went by, I started on my search for my biological parents which I have found with great success. I had help through a friend of my adoptive mom who was able to help me find my biological mother on a Russian app. I have found my biological mother, who is still well and alive with a beautiful, big family who has been supporting her throughout the loss of her child, me. I have also reconnected with my biological father, whom I found through a Russian tv show and he had been at war in 1994 – 1996 between the Chechens and the Russians. After the war ended, he began his search for me, with no leading answers on my whereabouts or my biological mother from Elvira. 

This is a true story. It is a story of grief, loss, abandonment and also happiness. I would like to bring awareness that abduction happens, that childhood trafficking exists and it needs to be spoken about. Adoptees are lacking support in those areas as we are terrified to speak about our truths and what the truth might do to those surrounding us. 

This is a new era, a space to bring light to our journeys, to the eyes of our governments, our adopters, adoption organisations and our peers. Let’s start creating legal changes through advocacy and the support of our fellow adoptees! Together, let’s share our truths!

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Ricerca e Riunione nell'adozione internazionale

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Searching for my family in Sri Lanka

The following blog series will be dedicated to our Ricerca in adozione internazionale series. These individual stories are being shared from our Carta di prospettiva that was also shared with our Webinar, Searching in Intercountry Adoption by Adoptee Experts.

di Gabbie Beckley, born in Sri Lanka, raised in Australia

When I cook, standing in my kitchen, surrounded by the scents and smells of Sri Lankan spices, curries and dhals, I am transported back to one of my first memories of meeting my Amma in her small smokey kitchen back in the year 2000. I then fast forward to 2019, sitting in my younger sisters apartment watching her cook, being entranced by the smells, laughter and life coming from her kitchen in her home.

My life has taken so many unexpected twists and turns. I reflect upon the different versions of myself through my search and reunion with my family. I reflect at the past global climate when Sri Lanka was in the grips of a bloody civil war war and what life is like now amidst the current political instability.

I think of choices parents make for their children and the hopes and dreams we have for them. I know we all share a common thread, we want our children to be happy, healthy and content with life. I know that is what my Amma and Thatha want(ed) for me and my siblings and I know that is what I want for my children.

Yet the complex psychosocial strings that took me away from my first family and weaved a complex narrative in my second, continues to undo and reconnect as I attempt to parent my own and leaves me feeling some days like I have an understanding of what’s going on, yet most days, I struggle to make sense of it all.

My story is mine to tell, yet I am only one part of a multitude of layers, stories and connections. To tell my story is to honour my first family’s story. Our story is a love story of two people shaped by an extreme set of extraordinary circumstances that include war, love, poverty and hope. Then my second family who also experienced war, love, loss, trauma and hope; and finally the family that I have created, also has love, loss, hope and possibilities.

The way that I comprehend searching for my family is it has always been about finding out who I am, recognising the person staring back at me in the mirror and understanding who I am as a person and how I relate to the world. 

Searching for me is coming to understand it doesn’t stop when you have the answer  to your prayers, it’s then understanding and building relationships with the people who share your bloodlines and those that don’t. It’s accepting the choices that people made ‘in your best interests’ and placing those choices with the people that made them and not on myself.

Searching over the past 23 years has been important, life affirming and life saving. I have now know my first family longer than I haven’t known them — and for me that’s important milestone because it helps me understand the complex person within.

I know the trauma of that first great loss in my life has impacted my whole life. I want to bust the myth that love it s enough to conquer the hurt, pain and the trauma — it is not. 

Connection, meaningful connections and conversations, intentional understanding, acceptance, trauma informed care and a safe space to feel my feelings is what I have needed. Finding purpose and meaning in my life has come from reuniting with my family, culture and kin. I know what it is like to walk the walk and I know why it’s important to give back and assist others in their journey of healing.

Searching has never been the end goal, searching is part of the healing journey I take every day.

Coming Next: Searching for my family in Russia

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Ricerca e Riunione nell'adozione internazionale

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Searching for my family in Romania

The following blog series will be dedicated to our Ricerca in adozione internazionale series. These individual stories are being shared from our Carta di prospettiva that was also shared with our Webinar, Searching in Intercountry Adoption by Adoptee Experts.

di Sonia Marinescu, born in Romania, raised in Germany and the USA

It was 1991 in Timisoara, Romania when I was born. I was adopted from a Romanian orphanage two years later first to Germany then to America. Most would say I was fortunate. In some ways yes but my story is marred, and my adoption was not a rosy one. I eventually took my name I was born under and what identity I could but that is neither here nor there. What I am sharing in this paper is my search for my family.

At first, it was great. I found my birth mom. Vali Nas found her. It was costly. $700 American is expensive in Romania. It took a while and she did refuse a DNA test. My brother would write. A half-brother was found through a former adoptee. My birth father was the best man I ever had the fortune to speak with in poetry and words. I was soon supposed to meet him, but he passed. This resulted in my birth mom choosing to break contact. Especially after I mistakenly married a female. I have spent countless hours since trying to find my mom and I am hoping one day she will come back. 

Finding family is not easy. There are language barriers. Romanian is not a language I speak. I needed a translator just to talk to my mom. The emotions were the hardest. While she cried, I was confused. I did not know what to feel or how to react. I still do not. Now, I am using The Never Forgotten Children of Romania Facebook group. I am hoping someone I have not met will come around. 

Family is important to me and the hole where it sits is missing. All I can do is hope. But for what I found; it was certainly a whirlwind with limited support on how to even process the timeline. It was something I had to do on my own but luckily, I am used to this. My advice to adoptees wanting to find family is make sure you have a good one in place before you do. If it is chosen, that is still family. It is better to feel less alone while you search especially if it ends in rejection. 

Coming Next: Searching for my family in Philippines

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Ricerca e Riunione nell'adozione internazionale

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Alla ricerca della mia famiglia in Cina

The following blog series will be dedicated to our Ricerca in adozione internazionale series. These individual stories are being shared from our Carta di prospettiva that was also shared with our Webinar, Searching in Intercountry Adoption by Adoptee Experts.

di Shelley Rottenberg, born in China, raised in Canada, www.shelleyrottenberg.ca

I was adopted from Zhejiang, China to Ontario, Canada in 1996 when I was 8 months old. In one of my adoption documents, it says, “Our institution has looked for her parents and relatives by all means, but no trace can be found.” To this day, I still know nothing about my biological family. 

About 5 years ago I decided to act on my growing curiosity about my birth family. While I know the odds of finding them are very slim, especially because I don’t have any information to go on, I couldn’t help but at least try. The first step was a 23andMe DNA ancestry kit, gifted to me by my mom as a Christmas present. I carefully read the instructions in the box to make sure I did everything correctly, then sent off my saliva sample. My sister, who is also an adoptee from China, did one too. And then we waited. 

I remember being eager to get the results back because of the hope of having a DNA match with someone else in their database. At the time, the waiting period was about 6-8 weeks. Though after 2 months, instead of my results, I got an email with the subject line, “Your 23andMe Analysis was unsuccessful.” I was told that “the concentration of DNA was insufficient to produce genotyping results.” Luckily, I was sent a replacement kit and got a second chance to submit another saliva sample. Having followed the instructions correctly the first time, and without any further guidance on how to do things differently, I repeated the same steps and sent my sample once again. 

After another long 2-month wait, my heart sank as I read the same email subject line as the last one. Except for this time, they would not be sending me another replacement kit. The email explained that because of “the second low DNA failure” and there being “no additional steps that would increase the chance of success,” a full refund would be available to me. I was shocked and saddened by the news and confused too. I had done the exact same thing as my sister, yet she received her results back after the first attempt.

When I told a friend about the situation, she suggested I lightly chew my inner cheeks before spitting into the tube because buccal cells have a higher concentration of DNA. Determined to give it one last shot, I purchased another 23andMe ancestry kit with the refund they gave me and followed my friend’s advice. The saying, “third time’s a charm” held true in these circumstances because, after another 2 months, my third sample was a success!

All this waiting only heightened my anticipation, which probably contributed to my slight disappointment when I saw that I had no close relative DNA matches. It’s been 5 years now, and while I have over 900 distant relatives, all with less than 1% DNA shared, the number of close relatives is still zero. I have also since uploaded my raw data to GEDmatch and still no luck. 

Another search method I’ve tried is adding my information to a birth family search poster specific to the province I was adopted from. I did this 3 years ago through International Child Search Alliance (ICSA), a volunteer group of adoptees and adoptive parents. Their province search posters are shared widely on Chinese social media and in the past, they partnered with Zhejiang Family Seeking Conference and ZuyuanDNA for an in-person event. 

Getting my information added to the poster took about 3 months, partly because of the time it took me to make a WeChat account, gather the necessary information, and translate some of my adoption paperwork. The other reason for the timing was that ICSA’s update schedule for province search posters is three times a year.

Through the WeChat group for my province, I was able to connect with a woman from Zhejiang who wanted to help overseas adoptees. With great thanks to her, I was able to get my information on Baobei Huijia (Baby Come Home), a Chinese site run by volunteers to help find missing children. 

I learned of GEDmatch, ICSA and Baobei Huijia through the online adoptee/adoption community, which I discovered across various Facebook groups in 2018. Connecting with other adoptees and adoptive parents who are further along and more experienced in the birth family search journey has been extremely helpful. 

My mom has also been a huge help in her own efforts of searching for resources and information about birth family searching. Though most of all, her complete support for me throughout this process is what matters most. She hopes that I can find my biological family and relatives because she knows how important it is to me. 

We have discussed taking the next step of hiring a root finder or searcher. Though once I began to seriously consider this method, it didn’t seem like the right time. One searcher that my mom had reached out to in 2020 said that because of the COVID-19 pandemic, foot traffic was not as high as it used to be, and therefore paying for physical posters to be distributed in my city or province in China may have even lower chances of bringing about any success.

Also, the process of hiring a searcher or organisation seemed quite daunting to me because it is hard to know whom to go with and which services to pay for. Packages greatly differ in terms of how in-depth the search process is and prices can easily be hundreds of dollars. And at the end of the day, the odds of finding my birth family, even with professional help, are very low.

I do plan to go back to China one day for a heritage trip and would incorporate searching for birth family into that. While my active search efforts are paused for now, this is a lifelong journey, so I can pick back up whenever I want to. It’s nice to know that through my other initial search methods, the opportunity for a match is always possible, even without me doing anything. 

However, I do worry that by waiting to pursue additional active search methods, I might be making the process more difficult the longer time goes on. I don’t know if my orphanage has any adoption paperwork other than what I currently have and would hate for those documents to be destroyed. I also fear the possibility of birth family members dying, especially biological parents and grandparents. This thought crossed my mind when COVID-19 cases and deaths were high in China. 

On the other hand, I don’t know if I’m emotionally prepared for the can of worms that can come with more intensive searching and then a possible reunion. I know of adoptees who contacted their birth families, only to be rejected. Then there are others who have very complicated reunions and relationships. Though even considering the endless possibilities and the fact that I might never fully be ready, I still think searching and finding something unexpected is better than knowing nothing at all. 

My advice to other adoptees who are considering searching for their birth family is to make sure you have a solid support system to lean on during this process. I also recommend personally reflecting on your motivations for searching and what you want to get out of it. Lastly, do your research on search options and leverage the existing resources and lived experiences of others who are already familiar with this. I recommend joining the CCI Birth Parent Searching and Reunion Group on Facebook for any Chinese adoptees looking to start this journey.

Thanks for reading and best of luck to my fellow searching adoptees!

Coming Next: Alla ricerca della mia famiglia in Vietnam

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Ricerca e Riunione nell'adozione internazionale
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Cerco la mia famiglia in Colombia

The following blog series will be dedicated to our Ricerca in adozione internazionale series. These individual stories are being shared from our Carta di prospettiva that was also shared with our Webinar, Searching in Intercountry Adoption by Adoptee Experts.

di Jose Taborda, born in Colombia, raised in the USA

First journal entry by my adoptive mother

In the spring of 1978, I was born in Medellin, Colombia. Separated from my first family by adoption, I was brought by my adoptive parents to New Jersey and grew up with my younger adoptive sister in a Northern New Jersey suburb just outside of New York City.

I was lucky as an adoptee because my adoptive parents made a conscious decision to talk to me about my adoption from an early age. They attended a couple of workshops about adopting a child offered by an adoption agency prior to my adoption where they had been counselled to inform me as soon as possible about my adoption so as to normalise it for me. This advice informed their approach in terms of collecting information and artefacts of my adoption. This included stories of my adoption in Colombia in the form of journal entries written by my adoptive mother, a photograph of my first mother, and my adoption records containing identifying information about my first mother. 

Upon refection, it wasn’t just luck and good advice, my parents were compassionate people who made the decision to share what they knew about my origins with me throughout my life. They had the right instincts that led them not only to send me a dossier containing every artefact about my adoption while I was in college and I first expressed an interest in searching, but also to support my search when I began. 

 When I moved to New York City in my mid-twenties, I started searching. At the time, I had a Yahoo! Email account and noticed that it offered searchable interest groups. There was a group called Colombian Adoptee Search and Support (CASAS), which gathered many people like me: twenty-something Colombian adoptees who grew up around New York City and living in the area! I was shocked to find hundreds of people who were sharing resources about searching, so I started making connections and attending meetups and dinners in Brooklyn and Manhattan where we enjoyed sharing stories and Latino fare. 

Through these meetups, I had gotten the contact information of a private investigator in Medellin with whom I started to interact about my search. Because I had identifying information about my first mother, it took him two weeks to find her. A couple weeks after that, I had my first phone call with her. As one can imagine, finding my first mother within a month of beginning my search was all a whirlwind and very overwhelming. My excitement got the best of me, and I dove right into making plans for a reunion. Well, all of this came as a shock to my adoptive mother and sister, who weren’t as excited as me. They felt threatened by my news. I remember spending a lot of time convincing them that I wasn’t trying to replace them, but rather, it would be an opportunity to learn about my origins. They were not convinced that it was so simple. Searching for first family by adoptees may bring up many past trauma wounds for all members of the adoption constellation. I have heard stories of adoptees shying away from doing any searching while their adoptive parents are still alive due to the raw emotions around adoption that are very rarely acknowledged and dealt with during an adoptive family’s time living together. And when the possibility of a reunion arises, adoptees may find themselves having to reckon with these complicated emotions. This reckoning is not our responsibility as adoptees, but it may be an unanticipated and unwelcome reality that adoptees must face when searching and reuniting with first family.

Coincidentally, the film “Las Hijas” was going to be screened. It was timely that Maria Quiroga, a local filmmaker, was releasing the film profiling three female Colombian adoptees and their reunions with first family.  So I invited my mother and sister to join me. It was an interesting experience because the filmmaker handled the subject matter responsibly in presenting the reality of how complicated reunions between adoptees and first family can be. It helped to see this objective perspective on the emotionally charged situation that was playing out for us. It provided a context for our sensitive conversations, and it helped us to understand that we were not the only ones experiencing the feelings we were. Despite all of that, we continued to have conversations that required my soothing their frayed feelings around my upcoming reunion. 

One thing that stands out for me now sixteen years later as I reflect on my reunion as a young man, is that I did not pursue any mental health support to guide me on that complicated endeavour. In my local adoptee community, the discussion was more centred on the topic of search and reunion in my memory and not as much on adoption mental health issues. However, I acknowledge there is a high likelihood my antenna wasn’t tuned to that particular signal, so to speak. More recently, I have read a lot of highly-respected literature about adoption and mental health including La ferita primordiale by Nancy Verrier and Viaggio del Sé Adottato by Betty Jean Lifton to name a couple of outstanding examples. I am a regular listener to adoptee podcasts including Adozioni attivate with host Haley Radke and adattato with host Kaomi Lee among others. I have met many adoptees and I am lucky to live close to an adoptee organization called Also Known As, Inc. that hosts meet ups for transracial, intercountry adoptees. Wise adoptees and adoption professionals these days counsel adoptees who are engaged in reunion to set some boundaries that include having a third-party present during reunion meetings, not staying with first family right away, and pursuing therapy before, during, and after reunion. I did none of those things. 

All of this gathering of resources and self-education on the intersection of adoption and mental health has demonstrated to me that I took a very impetuous, uninformed, and quite risky path on my reunion journey. I stayed with my first mother and her family for three weeks at their home in an outlying municipality of Medellin. I do have very positive memories from my first visit in 2006 that led me to return in the two subsequent years. However, somewhere down the line some members of my first family started to develop expectations that involved money. It was not much at first, but, with time, their boldness grew. This expectation made me uncomfortable because I didn’t want to have to explain to any of them that I am a professional in a field that is not very highly-compensated. To them, I was just the more fortunate one who was able to escape their humble circumstances. No matter how difficult my personal situation was, they are right that I had many more opportunities in the U.S. than they did in Colombia, but I did not feel that it was my responsibility to have to provide for them. I wanted to just get to know them knowing that it would take time to develop a family bond. Truly, I faced hard feelings when they asked for money and that made things very confusing for me. While I know that my experience is not unique, I wished that it wasn’t part of my reunion story. At some point, I stopped contacting them because it all became too much for me. This is where an intervention such as adoption-focused therapy would have been helpful. 

Some years passed and I turned the page on my adoption by quite literally ceasing to think about my adoption and pausing all the actions I had taken to learn about my origins during my twenties. I turned thirty, I got married and became a new father, and I wanted to focus on my new family in Brooklyn. I was also in graduate school, so juggling responsibilities was the theme starting in 2010. Since that time, a lot has changed.

Nowadays, I am divorced, I am co-parenting a budding teenager, and I have settled into a career as a college educator. As I moved into middle-age, I became more introspective, and I found myself interrogating some difficult feelings that felt like depression and anxiety. When I realised that I did not have easy answers to that line of inquiry, I began searching for ways to remove barriers to happiness that had started showing up. It started to dawn on me that my adoption may be the cause of some of my bad decisions in life and the source of a feeling of malaise that crept in every now and again. I remember once sitting on a beach in the Rockaways with my best friend and confidant of many years and reflecting out loud that I should look into therapy for adoption to try to answer some nagging questions. 

About six months after that conversation in 2021, I got around to doing some basic internet searching and was amazed by what I found. There was so much work that had been done in the intervening years since I started my search. As I previously mentioned, I went down a path of self-education, I engaged in some adoption-focused group therapy, and I have been attending online and in-person support groups made up of adoptees since that discovery. I have learned so much about myself and adoption since I started to reconnect to my adopted-self. Some of it has been difficult, but I am very happy to have opened myself up to feel, meditate, inquire, grieve, and build community. It is cliche, but I wish I knew during my reunion and prior what I know now. 

In short, I hope that adoptees who are on the bold path of searching and reuniting with first family will take careful, well-informed steps. I know from my experience that there are no easy answers, and reunion may be when many hard questions rise to the surface. However, that search for the discovery and recovery of self and identity is worth it all because even if one does not find first family, there is so much to learn about oneself along the way. 

I hope that adoptees take the time to explore all of the particular intersections of adoption and mental health including, but not limited to, the Primal Wound theory, the post-traumatic stress implications of adoption, ambiguous loss, and the Adoptee Consciousness Model. Most definitely read the two books by Verrier and Lifton previously mentioned. Check out Damon Davis’ podcast Who Am I Really?, and the two others previously mentioned. Read JaeRan Kim’s brilliant blog La scimmia di Harlow. If looking for a therapist in the U.S., check out Dr. Chaitra Wirta-Leiker’s adoptee therapist directory curated on her website Grow Beyond Words. If one does not have the money to pursue therapy, there are plenty of books, podcasts, and support groups that could provide information and resources helpful in informing decisions around searching, finding, and reunion with first family. Just start checking out all of the amazing resources on Lynelle Long’s comprehensive treasure of a website Voci degli adottati internazionali. Search on Facebook for a group you can join that holds online support groups, or, even better, search for a local group in your area to meet up in person with adoptees. A great place to search for a local group in the USA is on Pamela A. Karanova’s website Adoptees Connect. 

The above is just a cursory glance at some of the most salient resources I have found that have nourished my soul as I step into more consciousness about my adoption on my journey of self-discovery. My greatest hope is that someone reading these words may find something in them to hold onto. 

Coming Next: Alla ricerca della mia famiglia in Cina

risorse

Ricerca e Riunione nell'adozione internazionale

Pubblicato su

Ricerca nell'adozione internazionale da parte di esperti di adottati

On April 23, ICAV will be providing a webinar on some of the complex issues involved in searching in various birth countries, but with specific knowledge of Colombia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Greece, Korea, and Sri Lanka.

Our webinar will be unique in that we are not only bringing our lived experience as individuals, but also presenting as a global resource, highlighting the adoptee led organisations who provide a formal search and support services. Our panelists hold the dual role of knowing intuitively how complex searching is as individuals having done their own searching and also having decades of experience in providing formal search and support services to the community.

ICAV knows intuitively what the latest ricerca (p231) conducted within the Korean adoptee community shows – i.e.,, that intercountry adoptees find their peers and adoptee led organisations to be the most helpful in their searches. There’s nothing better than those who live it knowing intuitively how to best provide the services we need as a community.

If you’d like to be part of our audience, click here to RSVP.

Our 8 panelists are:

Marcia Engel

Marcia is the creator and operator of Piano Angelo, a nonprofit human rights foundation currently based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her organization has a powerful mission: helping Colombian families find their children who were lost to child trafficking and adoption.

For fifteen years now, Plan Angel has grown a strong community with over 1,000 families in Colombia. The foundation helps these families search for their missing adopted children all over the world, hoping to one day reconnect them with each other. Marcia and her foundation have reunited hundreds of families and continue to support them after their reunion.

Linda Carol Forrest Trottatore

Linda is a Greek-born adoptee, adopted by American parents and found her biological family in Greece five and a half years ago. She is the founder and president of Il progetto Eftychia, a nonprofit organization that assists and supports, free of charge, Greek-born adoptees searching for their roots and Greek families searching for their children lost to adoption.

In addition to its Search and Reunion program, the Eftychia Project, in collaboration with the MyHeritage DNA company, distributes DNA kits for free to adoptees and Greek families. To date, The Eftychia Project has facilitated the reconnections of 19 adoptees with their Greek families.

The Eftychia Project also actively advocates on behalf of all Greek-born adoptees with the Greek government for their birth and identity rights, including transparency about their adoptions, unfettered access to their birth, orphanage and adoption records, and the restoration of their Greek citizenship.

Kayla Curtis

Kayla is born in South Korea and adopted to South Australia. Kayla has been searching for her Korean birth family for over twenty years. She returned to Korea to do ‘on the ground’ searching using posters, newspapers, local police, and adoptee search organisations. In the absence of having a reunion with birth family, she has built a meaningful relationship with her birth country and Korean culture and proudly identifies as Korean-Australian.  

In her professional life, Kayla works as a Senior Counsellor for the Servizio di sostegno all'adozione internazionale e alle famiglie (ICAFSS) at Relationships Australia.  

Kayla is a qualified Therapeutic Life Story Worker and has a Master’s in Social Work as well as extensive experience working in the area of adoption both in government and non-government, providing counselling, education and training, community development and post adoption support.  In this role, Kayla supports intercountry adoptees with searching and navigating this uncertain and complex process between countries, as well as offering therapeutic support to adoptees, on this journey. 

Jonas Desir

Jonas

Jonas is a Haitian adoptee raised in Australia who has spent many years assisting his fellow Haitian adoptees to search for their families in Haiti. He was adopted from Haiti at 6 years old and eventually was able to find his mother in Haiti. Today he is happily married with children and works a lot to help mentor other younger adoptees and help adoptive families.

Benoît Vermeerbergen

Benoît was born in Villers-Semeuse, France under “Sous X”. This means that his parents and especially his mother did not want to be known or found. His birth certificate literally only shows X’s as parents’ names. Growing up Benoît had a lot of questions trying to understand all of this. After his studies, he purposely began working for the ‘Population Services’ in the hope of discovering more information about his birth mother. 

During this process and the years that followed, Benoît helped so many other people in their search (for example, trying to find their biological birth parents), that he made genealogical research his main source of income. It has always been and will always be his greatest passion in life! 

Genealogy and adoption therefore are his field of specialisation. In the past couple of years he has also started working in the field of ‘DNA’. In 2019, he found his biological mother through this method. Today, he cooperates with a lot of genealogical and adoption related authorities and helps to invent and build many adoption related platforms. Although Belgium is his home country, he also has experience in doing research abroad, i.e. Australia, Mexico, and The Netherlands.

Rebecca Payot

Rebecca is the founder of the association Racines Naissent des Ailes and co-founder of Emmaye Adoptee’s Family Reunion. Adopted in Ethiopia at the age of 5, Rebecca is a graduate in early childhood psychology specialising in adolescents in identity crisis. She has worked for 20 years in international adoption in France as a consultant and speaker on quest of origins. She is the author of her first book entitled “The Quest of Origins, a Miracle Remedy for the ills of the adopted?”

Hilbrand Westra

Hilbrand is a Korean adoptee raised in the Netherlands and has the longest track record, working with and for adoptees in the Netherlands since 1989. Internationally, his name is well known and disputed at the same time by the first generation of intercountry adoptees because he dared to oppose the Disney fairytale of adoption. He is also the first adoptee in the world to receive an official Royal decoration by the King of the Netherlands in 2015 and is Knighted in the Order of Orange Nassau for outstanding work for adoptees and in the field of adoption.

In daily life, Hilbrand runs his own school in systemic work ed è un rinomato insegnante e formatore a livello nazionale e il suo lavoro ha suscitato grande interesse nel Regno Unito. Trascorre del tempo collegando il lavoro in questo campo tra i Paesi Bassi e il Regno Unito. Hilbrand è un confidente ed executive coach per leader e direttori nei Paesi Bassi e lavora anche in parte con il Ministero della Difesa e il Ministero dell'Istruzione, della Cultura e della Scienza.

Celin Fassler

Celin è stato adottato dallo Sri Lanka in Svizzera ed è responsabile delle comunicazioni e membro del consiglio di amministrazione di Ritorno alle origini. Back to the Roots è una ONG svizzera fondata nel 2018 da adottati dello Sri Lanka. Il suo obiettivo principale è quello di sensibilizzare alla complessa ricerca delle origini e di supportare gli adottati nel loro processo di ricerca. Da maggio 2022, Back to the Roots è finanziato dal governo svizzero e dai distretti regionali per fornire supporto professionale agli adottati dallo Sri Lanka alla Svizzera.

Sarah Ramani Ineichen

Sarah è stata adottata dallo Sri Lanka alla Svizzera ed è la presidente di Back to the Roots e potrebbe presentare insieme a Celin in questo webinar.

Il webinar sarà registrato e reso disponibile sul sito web dell'ICAV.

Se hai domande che vorresti vedere affrontate nel nostro webinar, aggiungi i tuoi commenti a questo blog o contatto noi.

Enorme grazie al Governo australiano, DSS per aver finanziato questo evento tramite il nostro Relationships Australia, Programma di piccole sovvenzioni e borse di studio.

Pubblicato su

Webinar per gli adottati internazionali nel Regno Unito

Il 30 gennaio 2023, un piccolo gruppo di adottati internazionali nel Regno Unito ha partecipato a un webinar per condividere i propri pensieri ed esperienze con l'organizzazione dei genitori adottivi, AdozioneUK.

In questo webinar incontrerai Sarah Hilder adottata dallo Sri Lanka, Joshua Aspden adottato dall'Ecuador, Emma Estrella adottata dal Brasile, Meredith Armstrong adottata dalla Cina e Claire Martin adottata da Hong Kong. Insieme rispondiamo ad alcune domande che i genitori adottivi a AdozioneUK chiedere.

Guarda il webinar e di seguito troverai un timecode, messaggi chiave e risorse pertinenti.
Nota: se visualizzi in Chrome, fai clic sul pulsante Ulteriori informazioni per guardare il video

Codice temporale webinar

00:20 Introduzione da AdoptionUK
01:03 Introduzione da Lynelle dell'ICAV
02:44 Sarah Hilder
03:35 Chiara Martin
05:34 Meredith Armstrong
07:39 Emma Estrella
09:39 Joshua Aspden
12:17 Come proteggermi dai truffatori durante la ricerca della famiglia – Linelle
17:23 Suggerimenti per avvicinarsi al lavoro sulla storia della vita – Meredith
20:54 Pensi che la vita sarebbe stata migliore se fossi stato adottato da una famiglia nel tuo paese natale?
21:27 Giosuè
24:56 Emma
28:00 Cosa vorremmo che i genitori adottivi sapessero quando iniziano un'adozione internazionale?
28:24 Chiara
32:25 Meredith
35:12 Sara
38:24 Emma
40:24 Giosuè
43:34 Linelle
45:30 Cosa ti lega di più alla tua eredità?
45:45 Sara
48:23 Chiara
49:30 Giosuè
51:07 Stai pianificando di visitare la famiglia affidataria, qualche consiglio o suggerimento per gestire le grandi emozioni che sorgeranno per l'adottato?
51:30 Meredith
52:24 Emma
54:25 Linelle
56:24 Jo finisce e grazie

Riepilogo dei messaggi chiave del webinar

Clicca qui per un PDF documento

Risorse rilevanti

Possiamo ignorare o negare che il razzismo esiste per gli adottati di colore?

Entrare in contatto con persone di colore non è automatico per gli adottati transrazziali

Risorse di corsa per i genitori adottivi

Risorse culturali per i genitori adottivi

Elenco globale di supporto post adozione specifico per gli adottati internazionali

L'importanza del supporto pre e post adozione

Risorse di ricerca e riunione

Pensieri per i genitori adottivi

Pubblicato su

Essere adottato

di Marcella Moslow nato in Colombia e adottato negli Stati Uniti; terapista del trauma

Le pesanti realtà che gli adottati devono affrontare sono sbalorditive e complesse. I vuoti che portiamo con noi sono enormi e non importa quanto amore riceviamo, spesso sembra che non sia abbastanza. La connessione e la sintonizzazione che cerchiamo, la cultura a cui abbiamo diritto, l'attaccamento per cui eravamo cablati ci vengono strappati, lasciando dietro di noi profonde ferite. Questo è devastante per il sistema di un individuo e porta nelle generazioni future. Siamo alle prese con la realtà che non solo ci è successo qualcosa, ma siamo anche stati privati di così tanto di ciò di cui avevamo bisogno. Il trauma può essere entrambi: ciò che ci accade e ciò che non ci accade.

Segui Marcella su Insta @marcellamoslow

Il suo nuovo podcast può essere trovato @adopteesdishpodcast

Pubblicato su

I soldi non compensano mai quello che ho perso come canadese delle Prime Nazioni

di Jen Etherington, nato come canadese delle Prime Nazioni e adottato da una famiglia australiana.

Sembra il pagamenti finali per lo scoop anni Sessanta ha iniziato a uscire. Ho sentimenti contrastanti su questo e sul processo.

Sento un senso di perdita di cultura, famiglia e paese. Non sto dicendo che non sono grato per i miei genitori adottivi e per tutto ciò che la vita mi ha dato qui in Australia, ma non significa nemmeno che non provo il senso di perdita per tutto il resto.

I miei genitori bio sono morti quando avevo 9 anni e quella speranza di incontrarli era svanita per sempre. Il mio partner ed io stiamo attualmente ascoltando Harry Potter e io piango perché posso relazionarmi con la perdita dei suoi genitori e come si sente, oltre al desiderio di conoscerli. Le persone da casa in Canada mi raccontano storie su di loro e sono così felice e così triste allo stesso tempo.

Vedo post di cugini bio su diversi eventi e tradizioni culturali e sono triste di non conoscere la mia cultura. Le persone qui in Australia si eccitano quando dico loro che sono canadese delle Prime Nazioni e chiedo della mia cultura e non ho niente per loro.

I miei genitori bio non avevano più figli perché non volevano che venissero portati via (o almeno così credo). Ho sempre sperato di avere un fratello perduto da tempo là fuori.

Sento un grande senso di perdita per il mio ultimo aborto spontaneo perché quella è stata la mia ultima possibilità di sperimentare una connessione biologica.

Ad ogni modo, il pagamento è stato di $25.000 e so che ci sono persone là fuori in cui questa somma di denaro aiuterà e farà la differenza, ma mi sento anche come se fosse una specie di denaro nascosto. Non credo sia molto per quello che è successo a così tanti di noi.

Ulteriori letture

$25.000 transazione per i sopravvissuti Scoop degli anni Sessanta, uno “Schiaffo in faccia”

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