My Adoption Story

I wanted to talk today about my adoption. It is something that really defines me, how I look at things, how I make my decisions, my past, and my future. I was adopted when I was 4 months old through Catholic Social Services in Peoria, IL. I had been in foster care until then with a lady who called me Mary. My parents had tried to get pregnant for 10 years. I also have 2 brothers who are also adopted but not bio related. We always knew we were adopted and we just thought it was normal. It was something we talked about openly in our family. My mom's 2 best friends also had 2 children each who were adopted so we were familiar with it. When I was 8, we moved to Florida and it was really a culture shock from rural Illinois. Growing up I had 3 friends who were adopted. When I went to college I decided to search for my birthparents. Catholic social services made me jump through hoops and almost discouraged me from searching. Luckily my birthmother had started a file with her info in case I ever did search. I found her and found that I had 2 sisters and 1 brother. Then a couple months later I found my birthfather and learned I had 2 more sisters. It was a great experience . I still keep in touch with my birthmother , in fact she was just here for a visit in September.Here is a picture of the two of us. She is a wonderful person and when she was here I noticed a lot of similarities between us.

I wanted to share my story because I get a lot of questions on why we are adopting. So I want to answer them here. We did not have issues with infertility and I think that puzzles some people as to why we aren't just getting pregnant. I had a great pregnancy with Riley. Jesse and I actually had chosen to adopt before we got pregnant. It is something that I have always wanted to do. I just feel like this is the path God has chosen for me. It feels right.

Then there is the question of why we didn't choose to adopt domestically. Well I never considered it and I will tell you why. I was very angry with CSS when I tried to search. And what I found out about my adoption , was that my birthmother was told by nuns was that there was a family waiting for me at the hospital to take me home. They lied, nuns lied to her. I was put in foster care. That really made me mad that they would lie to her when she was obviously grieving. She told me that she had started a collection of letters and birthday cards at CSS for me and when she asked them where they were this is what they told her. " Any pain or guilt that you are feeling is payback for the choices you made in your life". The other reason we chose int'l was because of my mother's experience when she adopted my little brother. They went through a private attorney and met with a birthmother. They paid over 10,000.00 in medical expenses for her and were given a pager for when she went into labor. A month before her due date we got a page. Excited, my mother ran to the phone to call only to find out that the birthmother had had the baby and took off with it. It was heartbraking to see my mother go through that. But here in the United States the birthmother has the right to change her mind. This I believe is right, however, they should not be allowed to steal someone's money and dreams.

I did not want to go through this. So we chose to adopt from China and then from Korea. We have had such a wonderful experience with Korea, that we may change for our daughter if the wait times don't change.

So that's it. That's my story. It's something I feel comfortable talking about , so if anyone ever has questions please just ask.