I'm Adopted

I'm Adopted Founded in 2015, I’m Adopted connects adoptees worldwide through stories, meet-ups, and community. We hear all sides of adoption. This is our only page.

You can visit our website at imadopted.org. This is our only official page for Facebook. Guidelines: imadopted.org/guidelines Founded in 2015, I'm Adopted connects adoptees worldwide through meet-ups, community, and stories. More more about our history and our team over at www.imadopted.org. For any enquiries please contact us at [email protected]

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I knew I was adopted before I knew what adoption meant. As a little one, I thought that it meant that I didn’t grow in m...
31/05/2026

I knew I was adopted before I knew what adoption meant. As a little one, I thought that it meant that I didn’t grow in my mother’s belly, which delighted me because the thought of it thoroughly disgusted me.

My adoptive parents were 35 and 39 respectively. My mom was actually older than my dad, and they brought me home just before she turned 40... The cut off age to adopt in the mid-60s in California.

I was born at Los Angeles County Hospital. When I was able to see my paperwork years later, I discovered that I spent 16 days in the hospital before I went into foster care. I was not sick, I was not premature. I often wonder what those 16 days were like. Did my birth mother hold me? Did she come down the hall and look through the glass to get a glimpse of me? I will never know.

Apparently, I stayed at two different foster homes over the next 40 days or so before I was brought home. Mom and dad had adopted a son 2 years earlier, and now we were a family complete.

Life was difficult and confusing. My mother suffered from multiple medical situations that created the need for her to rely on tranquilizers and pain medication. She was addicted throughout my entire childhood. My father was distant and closed off. I was not the daughter he was hoping for, and hardly a day went by that he didn’t let me know it. He could do it with a look.

I so badly wanted him to see me. To know me. He was the healthier of the two parents, and I knew he was the most competent. With mom’s addictions, this created a very difficult home life.

Mom and dad fought. Dad would clean the house of all her pills and insist she quit taking them. She would pack up the car, with me included, attempting to “leave” my father and carve out a life on her own. She would use heavily during this time. I still have trauma scars over things that went on during these escapes. Eventually, the credit card would run dry, and she would drag us both home with her tail between her legs. We would all resume our home life like nothing ever happened.

She was possessive, she was inappropriate, she made me her everything... The one responsible for her well-being. I took on my role very seriously and did the best I could.

Dad continued to detach. I never knew him, nor he me. I moved out as soon as I could and didn’t look back.

The next couple of decades, I worked hard to build a life for myself, but I couldn’t help but notice how different I was from my peers. I didn’t trust. I didn’t believe I belonged anywhere, yet so badly wanted to. Self-protection became my hypervigilant activity throughout my adult years. I continued to push the self-loathing, the feelings of worthlessness, sorrow, and despair down as deep as I could.

I was successful, and my smile told everyone I was doing great.

And then, 8 years ago, my life changed completely. Through DNA, I found out who my birth father was. Come to find out I’m half Mexican, coming from a large, loving Latino family. Twenty months later, my birth mother’s face I finally see. Sadly, it’s in pictures as she passed away in 2003. I come to learn all the amazing things about her and how she lived her life. And, I see myself for the first time.

I’ve been fortunate to meet both birth families on both sides now, and they have been gracious and very kind. None of them live close, so our relationships are through email and social media. With several of them, I feel a wall is up as I don’t think that they quite know what to do with me. It can be awkward, but I’m thankful for the connections I have made, and I keep them close.

I wrote a book about the whole thing, and it is published on Amazon. Writing my story was the best thing I have ever done in my entire life. It is what I needed to do to see what I so badly needed to see, but couldn’t until it was written. It’s called Fixing Broken if anyone’s interested.

I continue to find healing. I still struggle with trust and fully feeling like I truly deserve to be here, but I find that I stick up for myself in ways that I never used to. The baggage is still there, but it’s lighter and easier to carry as I continue to unpack and leave behind what was never mine to carry. 💔❤️‍🩹💖

- Barbara Medina (adopted from Los Angeles CA, now living in Minneapolis MN)

Take a look at our new Books page in the Resources section of our website. Thank you to everyone who has sent us books t...
31/05/2026

Take a look at our new Books page in the Resources section of our website. Thank you to everyone who has sent us books to include!

Our Resources section now features some early podcast additions (with a full directory coming soon) and will soon include community groups, websites with additional resources, written notes from selected authors as part of our Adoptee Notes collection, and adoptee creators you can follow.

If you have a resource you'd like to contribute, please visit the link below.

In the meantime, take a look at our new Books page and explore the Resources section on our website. We're looking forward to launching the fully developed Resources section for our community over the coming months!

For many adoptees from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Moldova, and mor...
30/05/2026

For many adoptees from Eastern Europe and Central Asia, including Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Romania, Moldova, and more, these early years hold powerful memories, even if some are only captured in old photos. These memories can also be complex.

I was adopted from an orphanage in Arkhangelsk, Russia, in 1994 with my brother. We grew up in New Zealand, and although I was just two years old at the time, I have spent years reconnecting with my bloodline. Along that journey, I discovered my birth family in Russia (met them in 2013), as well as relatives in both Ukraine and Kazakhstan. These connections have become an important part of who I am. I also wouldn’t be the person I am today without my parents who adopted me.

During the 1990s and early 2000s, tens of thousands of children were adopted from Eastern Europe and Central Asia. More than 60,000 children from Russia were adopted into the United States, and over 700 into New Zealand. Thousands more came from countries like Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and Belarus during this time.

Every story is different. But many of us share common threads of identity, culture, and reconnection that stretch across borders and generations.

I am also proud to have created this I'm Adopted community for those adopted around the world. Thank you for being part of it!

- Alex Gilbert (Born in Arkhangelsk, Russia, now living in New Zealand)

Do you have your own book? Do you run a community group like us? Are you a podcaster? Do you have your own social media ...
30/05/2026

Do you have your own book? Do you run a community group like us? Are you a podcaster? Do you have your own social media profile that is helping others in the community?

We are launching our new Resources section on our website for adoptees in our community over the next couple of months, and right now you can submit your resources to be added to the new page! You can find the link below!

Wilson was born in China and adopted to the United States at ten months old. Growing up, he carried many questions about...
29/05/2026

Wilson was born in China and adopted to the United States at ten months old. Growing up, he carried many questions about identity, family, and where he belonged. Over time, he came to realise that his story was not only his own to carry, but one that could be shared to help others feel less alone.

As Wilson often says, adoption is more than paperwork. It is a lifelong journey of discovery, connection, and understanding. Through sharing his experiences, he hopes to show that adoptees deserve to be seen, heard, and understood.

Writing Marked by Adoption gave Wilson the opportunity to put those feelings into words and share them with the world.

Today, Wilson joins us on the latest episode of the I'm Adopted Podcast, hosted by fellow adoptee Alex Gilbert. Released today, the episode follows Wilson's timeline and experiences, as told by himself.

You can listen for free on our website, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you Wilson, for joining us!

We want to hear your recommendations! What books about adoption have you read?
28/05/2026

We want to hear your recommendations! What books about adoption have you read?

27/05/2026

After becoming a mother herself, Valentina began asking more questions about her adoption and where she came from. Adopted from Russia to Australia as a young child, she started searching for answers later in life with only a small amount of information about those beginnings. Through her experience, she knows how important it is to have support around you when trying to find answers about those beginnings.

We shared Valentina’s story as part of the An Adoption Story series for the 2024 season. This is a moment from her story. If you would like to watch her full story, you can find it on Alex Gilbert’s YouTube channel, who creates the series, or on our page.

26/05/2026

After years of searching for answers about where she came from, Ekaterina then received a photo and video of her birth mother for the first time. Ekaterina was adopted from an orphanage in Syktyvkar, Russia, to New Zealand when she was around four years old. She has always only carried small fragments of memories from the first four years of her life in Russia. It wasn't until later in life that she began the search for her birth mother.

We shared Ekaterina's story as part of the An Adoption Story series for the 2024 season. This is a moment from her story. If you would like to watch her full story, you can find it on Alex Gilbert's YouTube channel, who creates the series, or on our page.

I was adopted by a couple in 1953. They were an older couple and had adopted a boy three years before. We were raised in...
26/05/2026

I was adopted by a couple in 1953. They were an older couple and had adopted a boy three years before. We were raised in a house where children were to be seen and not heard. I learned very early, by watching what my adopted brother went through, what not to do to endure their wrath. I grew up in a house where women were only good for one thing, marriage and family. Only men should have a career. I knew instinctively at a young age that my family was different. The parents on the street we were raised on had families with younger, loving parents.

I know now that this was the beginning of my hypervigilance. I couldn’t fight, I couldn’t flee, I was in a state called freeze. Soon, autoimmune diseases started. The body cannot sustain a constant state of hypervigilance without breaking down. As symptoms arose, a doctor told my mother she made me nervous. She called him a quack. He was right.

I was given a nickname in college, Fidget. I couldn’t stay still. Growing up, I was told I couldn’t do anything right. I married at 21 to a man who made me feel worthless. Again, I couldn’t do anything right. I finally grew a backbone when I had children, two daughters. I saw their father treating them the same way I was treated. I refused to let them have a childhood like mine. After putting myself through college and working my entire life to give them every opportunity I didn’t have, I divorced and remarried.

However, I never stopped studying health, spirituality, and alternative medicine.
I learned about generational trauma, trauma that is embedded in your DNA. My birth mother was 15 when she became pregnant and was 16 when I was born. She was sent away from her school, friends, and family to give birth far away so she and her family would not be disgraced. I met my birth mother when I was in my 30s. We had a wonderful relationship for ten years before she died.

This story has a twist that I am not sure she ever knew. I had joined 23andMe, and a second cousin reached out asking how we were related. I told her my story. When she heard my birth mother’s maiden name, she put the pieces together. She was my mother’s first cousin. My mother’s mother, my grandmother, had lived down the street. She had one daughter and was going through a divorce while dating my second cousin’s uncle and became pregnant. The uncle moved away, and my grandmother stopped divorce proceedings and returned to her husband, passing my mother off as her husband’s daughter.

My birth grandmother always lived with my birth mother. They were very close. I have met two of my half brothers and my birth father but do not have a relationship with any of them. Being adopted was not a happy experience. I do know that meeting my birth parents was the first time I realized that I was normal. I was exactly like them. That one realization gave me an entirely different perspective of who I was and what I could become.

When I first met my birth mother, I worked in real estate. Not only had she had a career in real estate, but so had my birth father’s parents. My birth mother and I looked alike, same height, weight, and face. We talked alike, had similar views, and similar mannerisms. I was her only daughter. Three boys followed. The youngest died of cancer before we met. It was when I too developed cancer in my 30s that we began a close relationship.

She shared that she feared that God was taking her children one by one as punishment for giving me away. She had never told her family about me. I only met my father once, although he and my mother had kept in touch all those years while she was still alive. He always loved her, and when I briefly met him, he had still never married. He is still alive at 91. I respect his desire not to have a relationship but text him on holidays and birthdays.

- Mary Dacey (adopted from New Jersey, USA, now living in Indiana)

25/05/2026

For Arna, learning the name of her birth mother Eugeine was the beginning of uncovering more about where she came from. After searching through the phone book and finding a number she believed was connected, she then decided to call through.

That phone call eventually led to Arna meeting her grandmother for the very first time, and seeing a reflection of herself in another person for the first time in her life.

This is a moment from Arna’s story as part of the An Adoption Story series by fellow adoptee, Alex Gilbert. You can watch her full story through his YouTube channel or through our page.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TUknCQw8f4, http://instagram.com/imadoptedOrg

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