Mindy Stern was born in 1968 in New York City and adopted through the infamous Louise Wise Agency (Three Identical Strangers). The agency told her adoptive parents that Mindy’s first mother kept her for 3 months before realizing she couldn’t handle single motherhood. In 1992, Mindy began to search for her first parents, but due to sealed records, only received “non-identifying” information.  She learned her first mother gave birth to her at 23, the same age Mindy was when she had an abortion. Mindy paused her search for a few years, resuming it in 1999. She found her original birth certificate in the New York City Birth Index books. It only had her birth mother’s last name,  no father’s name, and no name for her. Mindy didn’t understand why she wasn’t named. When she finally found her first mother Gloria, she had already died: one day before Mindy’s 27th birthday. Gloria told no one about giving birth and had no other children. At that time, a Louise Wise social worker told Mindy the truth: she wasn’t with her birth mother for the first 3 months of her life. She had been in the NICU and then foster care. In 2018, via a DNA match, Mindy found her first father and his two daughters, her half-sisters. After getting over the initial shock, his first words were, “If I had known, I would have raised you.”

Mindy’s deeply personal writing about adoption, depression, and her 26 year search for truth and healing, has been read around the world. Her forearm tattoo says “no retreat, no surrender”, a reminder to keep fighting for herself, her dreams, and a world she believes in. In addition to personal essays, Mindy is a screenwriter and novelist. She co-wrote Sneakerella on Disney+, and her debut novel In Her Best Interest will be released one of these days.  #adoptee #adoptionstories #innocentpeople #forneyfarms #noretreatnosurrender @minster12 #mindystern