November 2005, I sat across from Zach, my relinquished son for Thanksgiving. To his left sat his biological mom and to his right, his adoptive mom. This was the first time since his birth in 1990 that all three of us were together. Pleasant time with everyone and of course that dinner was top in…

Robert Jeffrey Bilensky was born August 21, 1968 in Yonkers, New York. Born into a family consisting  of his two parents, Gerald and Nancy Bilensky as well as an older adopted brother. While still a baby, his family relocated from New York to Moraga, California. Against a seemingly idyllic backdrop of a rural small town…

Roslin Tamsine Real is an actor & trans-racial adoptee living in Redondo Beach, CA. The name on her original birth certificate is Lela Elizabeth Balli, after which her adoptive parents named her Caitlin Elizabeth Staebell. Upon learning more about her multiple birth names later in life, she decided to choose a name that inspired her…

Ruby Barnett spent her childhood dreaming of a life filled with sunshine and rock stars. Born in California in 1969, she stayed with her birthmother for an unknown amount of time (between three weeks and six months). She was adopted by a British couple, who’d lived some years in the US, and moved back to…

The 20th of September 1964 @ 5:28am. The day it began. My Life. It was my abandonment day. The day I was separated from All my biological family by my birther because the man she loved and just had their second child said to her you’re not the One. A healthy full term Baby Girl…

Samantha Shields grew up knowing she was adopted. Born in California during the Baby Scoop Era, she was adopted by a couple from Napa following a two month stay in foster care. From an early age, Samantha (Sam) failed to bond with her adopting mother, and when her father died shortly after she turned seven,…

My Oregon roots run deep.  I am a fifth generation Oregonian.  I was conceived in a small logging town in Oregon.  Born in Portland Oregon, and raised by my adoptive family on a farm in Oregon. My adoptive parents were  loving parents.  I look back and they really tried to support my interests.  I was…

Santana Dempsey was taken away from her biological mother Sandy at the age of three alongside her younger sister Gala for child neglect and placed into the foster care system. Their biological father Juan Manuel abandoned them months prior and has never been heard from again. Santana spent over three years in a foster home…

Sarah was born in 1965 in St. Louis after her first mother’s water broke on the ascent out of JFK, spending the two-hour flight in labor. Sarah would later find out that her first mother, Tilda, was also adopted. Tilda’s adoptive mother was on the plane and when Tilda gave birth, refused to let her…

Shanta Loecker (named “Pooja” at the Kolkata orphanage), was born in 1983, somewhere in Bengal. The narrative she learned as a child was based on a fill-in-the-blank petition used to buy & sell hundreds of babies by the International Mission of Hope Society from 1977 to 1999. The petition begins, “The child known as [insert…

Shepherd Frankel is adopted.  Raised with other adopted siblings he looked nothing like, he insisted his parents look for his biological parents. As that didn’t happen for young Shepherd, his thirst to find his roots continued to grow and when he was 22 he told his parents he wanted to find his biological parents. They…

Sinead Phelan is adopted. She was born in Dublin, Ireland in 1978 ,she was given to her adopted parents at 3 months old. She was raised with an older brother who was also adopted, and with whom she is incredibly close. She and her brother knew from a young age. In her teenage years, curiosity…

“Don’t we look alike?”, my white (adoptive) mom would boisterously laugh, putting another poor grocery store cashier on the spot. The woman looked at us confused but laughed along. We were often stared at in stores.. it could have been super uncomfortable, but my Mom would just break it up. My skin is brown, my…

Stephen Grochol is a Financial Planner in San Mateo, CA.  He and his wife just celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary and they have two daughters. He is a post-Baby Scoop and post-Roe v. Wade adoptee.  Born in Oakland, CA in 1974 he is the oldest of three.  One brother, adopted and the youngest is not.…

I’m a Baby Scoop Era, domestic, same race, relinquished/adopted person, born in 1964 in Los Angeles, California, where my original birth certificate is sealed and unavailable to me. I came out of the fog 2 years ago when a friend sent me the New Yorker article “Living in Adoption’s Emotional Aftermath.” I began researching and…

Mark Twain quoted- “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” Being adopted, your life is a mystery, it’s an endless battle of why and how and what really happened. Always questioning, how did I get here and why?  Why did I…

Adoptee+ Trishina Russ, an international adoptee born Ekaterina Trishina in Sevastopol, Crimea in 1991. I was relinquished 4 days after birth and spent 15 days in the maternity hospital before being placed in the Sevastopol Children’s Home. I was adopted at 18 months into a loving albeit nontraditional household in Cleveland, Ohio.I spent many years…

Hi, my name is Viergela, and I am Haitian. I am a 22-year-old college student, studying to become a child psychologist. Children are the future, and these early years are the building blocks for healthy-minded adults. I am also a singer and poet.   I grew up in an orphanage in Haiti, called Bresma. I…

I was adopted at 3 months by a couple who met the prerequisites of the1960s adoption story: married, Catholic, and with means.  Nothing else was supposed to matter, not the stillbirths of their twin sons nor the losses my brother and I felt re: our first mothers.  But these losses, I believe, begot subsequent family…

My name is Zara Phillips. I am an adoptee activist/author/playwright/musician I used to think that when I grew up, I would not be or feel adopted anymore. I found that was a myth of adoption. There is a lifelong impact to being adopted. I wish someone had told me. As a child, I would hold my…