My Adoption Journey: A Personal Story

Hi, Lovelies.

My birthday is today; October 13th. I’m turning 20, or as my roommate says 2 decades. So to celebrate, I wanted to tell you my adoption story. 

This is kinda a hard story for me to tell, so bear with me.

The Start

Most people’s story starts when they are born. But since I don’t know when I was born, I always start my story at the first biggest life event. The day I was abandoned. 

At age 3, I was abandoned on the streets of China. I don’t know the exact details, but basically my birth parents left me on a street in China and never came back. In the end, someone must have taken me to an orphanage. I was left with no name, no history, nothing. I don’t even know my real birthday.

A few things to know

China until 2016 had a one-child policy in order to lower the population. This was strictly enforced and it was exactly how it sounds. You could only have one child. Additionally, boys are favored over girls because boys carry on their family name. So oftentimes, the children that ended up being given up were girls. 

This eventually led to a huge gender gap where boys severely outnumbered girls and no longer had anyone to marry and continue the family line. Additionally, this led to less people entering the workforce. And in Chinese culture, children are expected to take care of their parents as they get old, but with only one child, this leads to a heavy burden and less care for the elderly. 

This is both a fascinating and horrible part of Chinese history that still impacts us now. I’m not going to go more into it, but I left some additional research at the bottom of this post if it interests you.

Back to My Story

From then, I was put into China’s foster system for about two years. I had a foster family who I lived with in a tiny one room apartment. Three people in one small room without even a toilet, just a hole in the ground. 

One day, I was told that I was going to be adopted. As a five year old kid, you’ve got no idea what that really means. In retrospect, I was really lucky that I got adopted so quickly and by an American family. But as that kid, it must have been so confusing. I’ll be honest, I don’t remember it that well, I was young and it seems my brain seems to choose to forget things that are stressful or traumatic.

My Adoption

So in October, my dad, Meric, my mom, Kathy, and two older brothers, Andrew and Adam flew all the way to China to adopt me. Hence why my birthday is October 13th, it was the day I was adopted. 

After going through the final adoption process in China, we flew back to America to become a family. Living in a new country is hard no matter how you do it. But imagine coming with a brand new family that spoke a different language than you. You not only had to adapt to a new culture with a new language and traditions, but you had to do it while trying to learn what it means to have a family.

Afterwards

Needless to say, I figured it out. Well, the language and culture part, I don’t really think I’ve got this family thing down, but does anyone really? Families are hard no matter how they come to be. 

I was really lucky and am truly thankful, but things don’t always turn out how you want them to. Just because I got adopted by a loving family doesn’t erase the past. 

I was left with severe anxiety and fear of abandonment along with other issues. This affected my relationships with my family. And my entire family had their own challenges to deal with, all of which make being a healthy family hard. Being adopted is hard and I bet adopting is hard. 

I think I’m going to end this post here. There is more to my story, stuff that I’m sometimes ashamed of. Therefore, I haven’t quite reached a point where I am ready to share it, especially on this platform. So I’m not going to. Because if or when I do, I want to do it authentically. 

Thanks for reading, Lovelies

I hope my story helps you in some way. And the best thing about my story is that this isn’t the end. There is so much more to come. Afterall, I’m only twenty y’all.

Additional Research

How China’s Adoption Market Led to Child Trafficking  | China Books Review
Chinese Adoption: A Complex Narrative of Power Abuse, Sexism, and Unintended Consequences | by Paper Bridges | Medium

Who We Are — China’s Children International