“I was in the middle of the table. I had my adoptive family on one side, and my biological family on one side. Like, emotionally, it just felt like I was in two different corners essentially. And neither corner loved me any less.”

When Nate Schiffer traveled with his family to the Philippines for vacation at 17 years old, he didn’t expect the chance to meet his birth family. But here he was, in their single-roomed home — comprised of three walls and a blanket covering the opening — in an alleyway between two buildings in the city. They directed him to sit on a metal folding chair beside a small table. His biological siblings and biological parents sat feet away on the pallet bed they all shared, and his adoptive family stood near the doorway opening because there wasn’t enough room for everyone inside.

One of his first thoughts was, ‘This could have been my life. I could have grown up in this room.’ It wasn’t a thought of whether that would have been a good thing or a bad thing — but the thought kept sweeping through his mind, that his life would have been entirely different.  

His birth mother made him an entire platter of Filipino spaghetti and lumpia and put it before him.

“That’s one of the biggest things I remember — my biological mom and my adoptive mom were both right next to each other, watching me eat,” Nate says. “No one else was eating. But I understood the symbolism…”

My Birth Family Found Me

Ever since his birth sister found him on Facebook two years earlier, Nate had been talking with them regularly, putting together the pieces of his story he wouldn’t have otherwise known. He learned that his birth family still lived in poverty. That when they placed him for adoption, his dad had been sick and couldn’t work. That his birth mother was severely malnourished when she was pregnant with him — and so was he inside her womb.

“They decided that they wanted to give me a chance,” Nate says. “Even though they’d have to give me up to the orphanage almost immediately to get care.”

So as he shoveled down bites of spaghetti and lumpia in the humid, typhoon-season air, he knew what an important moment it was.

“For my biological mom,” he says, “it probably felt like the first time she was ever able to feed me.”

A Family of Filipino Adoptees

When Nate was adopted by Rachel and Dave Schiffer in Springfield, Oregon at 2 years old, he became part of a large family that would soon include four other siblings adopted from the Philippines. There’s his older sister Mimi, Sam and Joe — his younger twin brothers — and most recently his little sister Jessa, who joined their family as a teenager just a year and a half ago.

At an early age, Nate’s parents explained to him and all of his siblings that their adoption stories were an open conversation. They could at any point, whenever they were ready, look at their birth certificates, adoption papers and more. No question was off the table.

So when Nate got that Facebook message from his birth sister when he was 15 years old, his parents helped him navigate it as best they could.

“At first I was very overwhelmed,” Nate says. “But because my parents are so awesome, they were very supportive. They were like, ‘If you want to talk with them, great! If you don’t and you want to wait, great!’ They didn’t force anything.”

Nate decided to continue the conversation. After verifying with his former orphanage caregiver that this was in fact his birth family, he began to ask questions: Why was I placed for adoption? What do you do now for work? Do you still all live together? He learned about what their life was like. That they had photos of him up on their walls. And that every year they celebrate his birthday.

He also learned some difficult parts of his and their story, including that they had another child after placing Nate in the orphanage — a son they were able to keep and raise.

“As a teenager, that was something I struggled with. Like, why was I the one out of the five of us?” Nate says, acknowledging himself as the only one of his birth siblings that his parents placed for adoption.

But through the years of wrestling with this question, as Nate learned more and grew to know his biological family better, he found resolution and understanding.

“I stepped back, and I understood their situation,” Nate says. “They loved me so much that they wanted to give me a chance at life, even though they knew they would have to give me away to receive the help I needed to survive.”

Not Unwanted

When Nate first walked up to his biological family’s home, they rushed out to hug him — his biological sister, brothers, nephew, aunt, mother and father. And he saw their full range of emotions.

“Everyone was crying, there was so much raw emotion,” Nate says. “I saw the pain and the happiness in them.”

He saw the love they had for each other, and how it extended to him as well. And as he learned more about their life and the difficulties they faced — now and 15 years before when he was born — he understood more about the decision they had made all those years ago.

Nate’s biological father’s job was to sell ice cream, and they stretched this income to try and support the whole family. Each day’s earnings were used to purchase the next day’s food. So when he suddenly got sick and couldn’t work, the effects were immediate — and the family started to go hungry. His biological mom was malnourished, and they knew that Nate, in her womb, would need medical care and proper nutrition to recover.

“Everyone was crying, there was so much raw emotion. I saw the pain and the happiness in them.”

Nate’s four older biological siblings, 8 to 12 years old at the time, remembered their mom being pregnant with him. And they remember the excruciating decision their parents made to place him in the orphanage to someday be adopted.

“Either grow up super impoverished, get aborted, or get adopted. And I think I got the best option out of all three of those,” Nate says. “That’s kind of how I was able to process it, and it helped me eventually become grateful for what they did, and not have any other emotion other than that — because it was kind of the only option.”

Adoption can be complex and difficult in a myriad of ways, and for everyone involved. And that day, Nate got to see first-hand what this meant for his biological family. 

“I got to experience that it’s not just hard for the adoptee, but it’s hard for the biological family to give up their kid,” Nate says. “Sometimes people forget about how hard it is for the biological family. But they didn’t just do it because they didn’t want me.”

Proud to Be an Adoptee

Nate knows that these topics of gratitude, of birth search, and meeting birth family are complex topics for adoptees, and that his story is a rare one. His experience opened his eyes to how important it is for adoptees to have the chance to explore their history, if they choose — just like the choice and opportunity he had.

“To see where I came from and the people who share my blood helped me feel proud to be an adoptee for the first time in my life,” Nate says. And now, Nate feels passionate about helping other adoptees process their own adoptee identity, whether through learning information about their past, adoption-competent therapy and counseling, or even birth search.

This summer, Nate will serve as Holt’s new adoptee camp director, traveling the country to help facilitate camp for hundreds of youth adoptees — and he’s eager to share his story.

“Adoption is loss, and as an adoptee it’s hard not to speculate about why you were given away,” Nate says of his parents’ decision to relinquish him. Not every adoptee will have the same chance that Nate did to ask these questions and finally get the answers he was seeking. But he says it’s important that all adoptees have the chance to process through their adoption stories — whether or not they ever meet their birth families.

“I know that [my story] is very rare,” Nate says. “There’s a lot of kids that do not have the same story.” But he knows his story has given him the perspective and experience needed to walk with other adoptees as they process their own adoptions.  

Because for Nate, being able to meet his biological family without doubt and without resentment made all the difference for him — sitting at that small table, eating spaghetti and lumpia in a room with both his adoptive and biological families. 

“I visually saw myself between both of them, and I knew that they both loved me. I just felt super loved, and super lucky,” Nate says. “Even though it was a sad situation, I was more just overwhelmed with happiness.”

And now, he feels a completeness and a connection that he didn’t expect to have, but is so grateful for.

“I’m glad that I met my birth family. It helped me feel more completed and filled in the missing pieces of my story,” Nate says. “Having a connection with my birth family means the world to me.”

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

adoptee support

The post The Room I Would Have Grown Up In  appeared first on Holt International.

In 1975, the Vietnam War had worn on for decades. But by April of that year, the conflict had reached a turning point. North Vietnamese troops were closing in on the South, and the fall of Saigon, which would effectively end the war, was imminent. In April 1975, U.S. President Gerald Ford issued an order called Operation Babylift.

Between April 3-26, more than 3,000 Vietnamese orphans, many fathered by U.S. military personnel, would be airlifted to safety and united with adoptive families in the U.S. and other western countries. During this effort, three Pan Am flights were chartered by Holt International to safely evacuate children from Vietnam into the United States.

Here is the story of one child whose life — and destiny — were changed by Operation Babylift.  

On April 4, 1975, a 21-year-old Vietnamese woman named Ho had reached a turning point in her life. Ho was the single mother of a 5-year-old daughter, Thuy, whose father had been a U.S. Marine serving in Vietnam. In the days leading up to the fall of Saigon, Ho had heard rumors from a brother, a North Vietnamese army general, that all “Amerasian” children would be killed at the end of the war. Since Thuy was an Amerasian child — half American, half Asian — Ho set about trying to save her. She turned to another brother, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, and he was able to forge exit papers on Thuy’s behalf, claiming that she was an orphan with no living parents.  

On April 4, Ho brought Thuy to the Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon and put her on a C-5A military cargo plane bound for the United States. But shortly after Thuy boarded that plane, she was removed from it, as the flight had too many passengers. Thuy was scheduled to travel the following day, April 5, on the next Operation Babylift flight out of Saigon.

As it turned out, the change in travel plans likely saved Thuy’s life. Shortly after takeoff on April 4, the C-5A plane — with more than 300 passengers on board — suffered a mechanical failure and crashed near the Saigon River. Sadly, 128 people died, including 78 children. In the chaos, Thuy’s mother was told that her daughter had perished.

The next day, however, Thuy flew to the U.S. on a chartered Pan Am flight alongside another 324 infants and children — including survivors of the C-5A crash.

Thuy was not on a Holt-chartered flight and did not join her family through Holt. During the Babylift, many organizations and agencies evacuated children. But Holt was unique in that local staff only evacuated children who were already in the adoption process with families in the U.S.

Thuy did not have an adoptive family waiting for her when she arrived in Portland, Oregon, in April 1975. Instead, she first stayed with a foster family.

“My parents had been in church one day when they heard about Operation Babylift,” says Thuy, now 51. “They had agreed to foster a 6-month-old, and their friends from church had donated a ton of baby items, including a crib and diapers. But when my mom came to pick me up, she was met by a 5-year-old girl!” Undeterred by this change in plans, Thuy’s foster parents, Jenny and David Williams, decided to not only foster Thuy but to adopt her — giving her a permanent home in Oregon.

Adapting to Life in the U.S.

Thuy’s first weeks in the U.S. were anything but easy. The emergency evacuation and rushed adoption process of Operation Babylift left little time for adoptive families to learn how to support and care for children who had faced trauma or were simply experiencing culture shock. “For the first two weeks in America, I would eat nothing but rice, even though my parents tried to get me to eat other foods,” Thuy recalls. “My parents didn’t speak Vietnamese, and I didn’t speak English. My mom got a Vietnamese translator, but I wouldn’t speak to her.”

In time, however, Thuy began to assimilate to her new life in Portland. She was fascinated by the simplest of things, like learning to use a flush toilet or by the concept of tap water. (“My mom says I flooded the bathroom once or twice with this thing called ‘running water,’” she recalls.) Thuy became enamored of American TV and pizza. And when she started school shortly after her arrival, Thuy made friends and learned to speak English. She learned to play kickball and soccer.

But mostly, Thuy learned to feel safe in her new environment. “In Vietnam, I lived mainly with my grandparents, and I remember feeling loved,” she says. “But I also remember being hungry and scared.” With a war going on around her, Thuy heard bombs and gunfire, and witnessed people being shot to death. She even believed that her mother had died, based on the information in her exit papers. As a result, Thuy wanted nothing to do with her Vietnamese heritage and vowed never to return to her birth country.

Instead, she focused on her adoptive family — her parents and two younger sisters, Michelle and Becky; her school friends, who’ve become lifelong companions; and playing sports, such as soccer. In high school, she even landed a spot on a Junior World Cup soccer team.

Thuy grew up in a predominantly white environment in Portland, but says she faced no racism from her family, friends or community. “I’ve heard the horror stories from [other biracial] people involved in Operation Babylift, who were treated badly in homes and in schools,” she says. “Some kids had it really hard. But I’m so thankful for my family and community, because I honestly didn’t learn about prejudice until I joined the military.”

In 1990, after one year of Bible college, Thuy decided to enlist in the U.S. Army at the age of 20. She had always wanted to join the military to honor her birth father — a Marine — and to honor America. “I love America, I always have,” she says. “I’m aware of the privilege of being here.” For eight years, Thuy worked as a tank mechanic, stationed primarily in Baumholder, Germany. She was happy to serve her country but admits that her military career was tough. “I was working in a very male-dominated profession, and I had every strike against me. I was female, half Asian and half Black.” Thuy was the target of racism for the first time in her life.

In 1998, she decided to leave the Army and return to civilian life. Thuy became a sports coach, public speaker, mentor and missionary, eventually leading some 30 humanitarian trips to impoverished countries around the world. She focused her outreach on helping kids who’d faced trauma — in the U.S., in war-torn countries and in refugee camps abroad.

Returning to Vietnam

In 2001, Thuy’s life took an unexpected turn. Thuy has a biological cousin, My, who also fled Vietnam during Operation Babylift. My grew up in Portland, not far from Thuy, and the two girls formed a deeper connection after high school. In 1999, My decided she wanted to search for their birth relatives in Vietnam and eventually met someone who could help her — a Vietnamese-American woman who spent half the year in America and half in Vietnam.

One day, this bilingual friend asked to see the girls’ immigration papers in hopes of getting some background on their birth families. When looking over Thuy’s papers, she read the first page in English, which stated that Thuy’s mother had died. But delving deeper into an additional 50 pages, written in Vietnamese, she found an address in Saigon. The next time this woman traveled to Vietnam, she went to that address and discovered something remarkable: Thuy’s aunt and uncle still lived down the street, and her mother was still alive. There would be an opportunity to meet them!

“To be honest, I didn’t want to go back to Vietnam, but My was adamant that we go,” Thuy says. Eventually she relented, and in 2001, Thuy and My returned to their homeland. When they arrived at the airport, the girls were greeted by their birth mothers, as well as some cousins, aunts and uncles. Thuy’s grandparents, who had been her primary caregivers, sadly had died.

Thuy was 31 at the time and had no memories of her birth mother, Ho. “I basically had this stranger grabbing me and hugging me all the time!” Thuy says of her mother’s embraces. For so many years, Ho thought that Thuy had died.

Thuy and My stayed in Vietnam for about 10 days during that 2001 visit. While My enjoyed the experience, Thuy found it difficult. She visited her mother’s house — a tin hut with no running water or electricity, located in a small village two hours outside of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon). “Seeing her in such poverty was a gut punch to me,” Thuy recalls. Confronting her past, with all of its trauma, was heart-wrenching as well.

“When I came back from Vietnam in 2001, I was really more damaged than when I first came here [in 1975],” she says. “I never wanted to go back, but when I did, I saw the situation I could have grown up in, or actually have died in. It was really hard for me.” Visiting Vietnam also brought back a flood of memories for Thuy, of being hungry, being alone and feeling like an outcast as a biracial child. “I felt I wasn’t wanted or good enough to be me,” she adds.

Shortly after returning to America, Thuy — at the strong urging of a concerned friend, Jody — enrolled in a Christ-based healing program called Imago Dei. Over the course of five years, Thuy peeled back the layers of her trauma, dealing with issues of abandonment, food insecurity and war.

Then in 2009, Thuy and Jody went to Vietnam and returned to the places she once lived. Thuy walked down the alleyway where she saw people killed, and stood in front of her childhood home. She prayed over these places, and over her sadness, insecurities and trauma. Finally, Thuy and Jody went to the airport in Ho Chi Minh City, where Thuy had boarded a plane on April 4, 1975. “I began bawling, thinking I could have died that day,” she says. “I began thinking I could have been left in Vietnam and had a horrendous life. Many [biracial] kids that were left behind became prostitutes, street kids or complete outcasts. I could have grown up like that, or I could have died, from malnutrition or something else.”

As Thuy prayed over the turns her life had taken — being placed on a different flight, growing up in America with a loving family, friends and opportunities — she asked God why he had saved her. “I suddenly saw an image of an angel taking my hand and walking me down the steps of the first plane and up the steps of the plane the next day. I heard a voice saying, ‘I’ve always been here. I’ve had a purpose for your life, and I love you,’” she says. “It was such a powerful moment. I finally felt the weight of my past leave my shoulders, and I cried.”

A Second Chance

Thuy has returned to Vietnam several times since that trip in 2009 and has developed a relationship with Ho, now 69. “To be honest, I had to learn to love my birth mother,” says Thuy. “But I’m thankful she wasn’t selfish and wanted the best for me, and I’m grateful for what she did.” Since their meeting in 2001, Ho has been learning English so that she and her daughter can better communicate, and Thuy has helped her birth mother financially. Ho now lives in a house that she loves in Ho Chi Minh City and has worked as a nanny for the past five years. “She’s doing really well,” says Thuy, who hopes to make another visit to Vietnam to see her birth mom as soon as Covid-19 restrictions lift.

On the other side of the family tree, Thuy has never met her birth father. But in 2020, Thuy discovered through Ancestry.com that she has seven half-sisters, one of whom lives four hours away in Medford, Oregon. Thuy has become very close to this sister, Siane, and has learned that her birth father is now in his 80s and in poor health. Thuy has seen only one old photo of her birth dad and has no plans to meet him at this time.

On April 24, 2022, however, Thuy did connect with another important part of her past. At an event presented by Holt International and the Pan Am Museum Foundation, in honor of the 47^th anniversary of Operation Babylift, Thuy met some of the passengers who were aboard her flight out of Vietnam. They included other adoptees, flight attendants and medical professionals who were with Thuy on that fateful day. Also in attendance was Al Topping, Pan Am’s director of South Vietnam and Cambodia in 1975. Topping had helped organize Pan Am’s Operation Babylift flights out of Vietnam, in addition to another evacuation of almost 400 families shortly thereafter.

While Thuy had met other Operation Babylift adoptees at a prior event in Vietnam, this was the first time she was in a room with people who shared — and shaped — her destiny. “It’s hard to describe what that was like,” says Thuy, who found the evening so emotional. One of the highlights was talking with Topping, whom she describes as “a hero and so humble.” His actions saved the lives of so many people — including her own, she adds.

Looking back over her life thus far, Thuy recognizes that she’s been given a second chance, and as a Christian, she feels God has a purpose for each of us. Thuy’s purpose has been to be a sports coach, a mentor, a sports missionary, a good friend and family member. She has started a nonprofit called Breaking Boundaries, which takes kids from rural parts of America to Africa to do community service projects. She is also the general manager of the Uganda Women’s National Lacrosse Team. In June, the team will travel to the United States to participate in the World Lacrosse Women’s World Championship — making it the first women’s team from Africa to ever compete in such a competition.

As Thuy says, “My purpose in life is to have a positive impact on others — and so far, my life has been quite a journey!”

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

adoptee support

The post When Life Gives You Second Chances appeared first on Holt International.

In early 1975, as the Vietnam War neared its end, 7-year-old Mark Slavik was living in an orphanage in Saigon. Within months, the North Vietnamese army would take Danang and begin closing in on the southern part of the country. In April, as shelling began in Saigon, the United States and other western countries began orchestrating a mass evacuation of children living in orphanage care. Between April 3-26, 1975, over 3,000 Vietnamese children were airlifted to safety and united with adoptive families overseas during what came to be known as “Operation Babylift” — including three Pan Am flights chartered by Holt International.

Mark, however, was not on any of the Operation Babylift flights. Although he, too, traveled to the U.S. by Pan Am flight, he missed the babylift by three months — joining his adoptive family in January 1975.

“It was winter, and I had never seen snow before. … I remember the airplane landing,” Mark recalls of the flight to LaGuardia. “I was asleep when my parents came to get me, and I remember getting off the plane. … Driving to upstate New York, I kept waking up in the car and I remember seeing snow everywhere. It was the coolest thing, just to see snow.”

Although not a part of Operation Babylift, Mark was later invited to share his memories of living in an orphanage during the Vietnam War for a 2009 documentary about the evacuation. A picture of him at 7 years old — smiling in sandals and shorts and holding a card with his name on it — also became the cover image for the documentary.

“She said, ‘Wow, that’s a great photo. … It’s so powerful, a photo of this orphan standing there with his name plate,’” Mark, now 55, says of the documentary filmmaker who asked to use his photo. “I felt honored that she used it.”

“It’s so powerful, a photo of this orphan standing there with his name plate. I felt honored that she used it.”

Most of Mark’s memories from his time in Vietnam are vague and sensory. As he shared during his interview for the documentary, he remembers classroom activities at the orphanage, making Christmas cards and playing in the yard. He also remembers a distinct smell.

“Whenever I smell oatmeal, it just reminds me of the orphanage because that’s what they fed us most of the time,” Mark says. “It’s funny because oatmeal is still one of my favorite breakfasts and whenever I smell it somewhere, it just brings me back.”

Mark doesn’t have many memories of Saigon or life outside the orphanage walls during the Vietnam War, though his story is closely intertwined with the historical context of the time. Like many adoptees of that era, Mark is half Vietnamese and half American — born to a Vietnamese mother and an American U.S. Air Force Major stationed in Saigon during the war.

After he traveled to the U.S. in 1975, Mark spent the rest of his childhood in a small hamlet in upstate New York. “I had the greatest adoptive parents,” Mark says of his mom and dad, Mary and Andrew Slavik. “They were down-to-earth people. They took good care of me. I was the only child, so I was spoiled.”

Mark says he had a happy childhood and a wonderful life with his adoptive family. But like many adoptees, Mark also grew up wondering about his past and his biological family in Vietnam. Although vague, he does have memories of the time before he came into orphanage care. He remembers the Vietnamese countryside. He remembers relatives. And he remembers his mom.

Mark’s Birth Family Search Begins

Mark was in college when he began his search for his birth family — with encouragement from some newfound friends.   

“I met some Vietnamese students at the college I went to. … They said, ‘Hey Mark, have you ever thought about looking for your mom?’”

Mark’s friends told him they have relatives in Vietnam who could help him find her, if he wanted. Fortunately, Mark was able to locate some basic information about his birth mom — including her name and last known address. Mark passed this information on to his friends, who shared it with their relatives back in Vietnam.

“It took a while — maybe six months or so for word to get back to my friends at the college,” Mark shares. “They said, ‘Hey, we did find your mom. She’s still alive.’”

At the time, Mark was about to graduate from college. The Gulf War was just beginning in Iraq, and Mark had plans to join the Navy. Mark’s girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife), Sang, was Vietnamese and already planning a trip to Vietnam to visit relatives. Since Mark couldn’t get away, she offered to visit his mom on his behalf.

Mark had complicated feelings about connecting with his birth mom. But he decided it would be okay for Sang to visit her, and he wrote his mom a letter for Sang to deliver.

“When Sang returned, she brought back photos of my mother and her family,” he says.

Mark learned that his mother was remarried — and that he had two half-brothers. His wife also brought back a letter from his mom. With conflicted feelings, and immersed in his naval career and family, Mark over time grew less and less engaged with his birth mom and learning about his birth family. “After a while, I became disengaged from the whole thing,” Mark says. Mark’s wife, however, returned to Vietnam each year. She would visit his mom and bring her gifts.

Five years after they first reconnected, Mark learned some sad news. His mom had passed away.

“She died of cancer. And so that was it. … I felt bad I never met her,” Mark says.

Finding His Father

After Mark learned his birth mother passed, he mostly closed that chapter on his life. In 2001, he and Sang divorced. He married his current wife, Hanh, in 2002, settled in Washington state, became a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, and in total has five children — including his wife’s son who he adopted. In 2014, after 24 years of faithful and honorable service, he retired from the Navy and began a career in military healthcare.

Mark says he feels proud to be a naval officer, especially as an Asian-American. “To me, it is a great achievement to have that status — to show that someone with a similar background can achieve anything — because in Vietnam,” Mark says, “Amerasians are looked down upon and cast aside. I had to rise above that. I had to put those stereotypes aside and be the best — and individuals with similar backgrounds as mine can be the best. I’m living proof.”

After he retired from the military, he started to reflect on his early life again. In 2018, his wife suggested that he do AncestryDNA to learn more about his genealogy.

“I always had this thought, ‘Who is my real father?’” Mark says.

Years before, in the early 2000s, Mark had requested his adoption file from Holt. He received all kinds of information — including an interview with his birth mom about why she chose to relinquish him for adoption. But unlike with his mom, his birth father’s name was not in his adoption file.

Mark was skeptical that the AncestryDNA test would help him.

“Then I bumped into another Amerasian here locally who found her dad with the help of a man out of San Diego named Paul. …. He had access to these databases where he would take your DNA and match it up with other DNA to track down your biological family,” Mark says. Encouraged, he decided to move forward with the DNA test.

“I ordered the test, spit in a tube and sent it back,” Mark says. “About a month later, I got the results back. No surprises — 50% Vietnamese, 17% Northwestern Europe, 11% Germanic Europe.”

“It was great. I was crying. Because you know, here it is. My biological family who I always thought about but never knew wants to connect and be part of my life.”

He also learned he was 10% Irish, 8% Scottish and 4% Welsh. The results, however, yielded little information that would help him narrow down his search for his birth father. He had connections with a number of distant cousins, but no immediate family.

“Paul said it can be done, but it will take a while until we get a hit from someone,” he says of finding his father’s identity through his DNA results. “He said just keep an eye on the account since from time to time close family relatives may show up.”

Then, in the late summer of 2018, Mark got a message through AncestryDNA from someone named Jason.

“He had information regarding my mom — or our mom,” Mark says. “I looked at the section in the AncestryDNA that identifies DNA matches and Jason showed up as a half-brother. I was like ‘Wow!’ So, we connected and I visited him and his family in October 2018.” Months later, Mark learned that he also had a half-sister on his mom’s side.

“It was interesting and very heartfelt,” he says of meeting his siblings, “because I grew up thinking I don’t have any brothers or sisters. But apparently, I did.”

Mark learned they all had different fathers and his mom had relinquished all three of them for adoption, though both of his siblings joined adoptive families in Vietnam and later immigrated to the U.S. He was the only one who was adopted by a family in the U.S.

“While it was great that we found each other from our mother’s side, I still had no clue regarding my biological father,” Mark says.

Then Mark got a message from Paul — “He asked, ‘Have you checked your ancestry account? You have a close family match, on your father’s side.’”

The match was with a first cousin, a link around which Paul was able to build out Mark’s family tree on his father’s side.

“And [within the family tree], there was a man by the name of Harrold Miller,” Mark says. “Paul said, ‘Ok, we need to get ahold of the military records to see if Harrold Miller was in Vietnam between ’66 and ’67.”

After contacting the military office in St. Louis that held information about retirees, Mark and Paul were able to identify one Harrold Miller in Saigon during those years. It helped that the man they were looking for had a uniquely spelled first name — with two r’s in Harrold.

“He was in Saigon from ’66 to ’67 so that’s the man,” Paul told Mark. “That’s your dad.”

Sometimes a Blessing

Sadly, Mark’s birth father had passed by the time he learned who he was. But he was able to learn a bit about his father. “He retired as an Air Force Major, or ‘O-4,’ which is the pay grade for officer ranks in the U.S. uniformed services,” Mark shares. “I was a Lieutenant Commander in the Navy, which is the same pay grade as my biological father, O-4.” Mark also learned that while his biological father was retiring from the Air Force at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Texas in 1975, Mark was on his way to the United States to unite with his adoptive parents in Castle Creek, New York. “We were separated by 1,700 miles,” he says.

While processing this information, Mark also learned that he had a half-sister in the U.S.

“I was like wow, Paul, what do I do? We got to this point where he was like, ‘You’re either in it or you’re not,’” Mark says. Nervous about his half-sister’s reaction, Mark asked his wife to contact her first to break the ice. He didn’t want to scare her off.

She was surprised, to say the least.

“Basically, she said, ‘Thank you for the information. Let me get your phone number and get some time to think about this and I’ll get back to you,’” Mark says. “I understood.”

As time went on, Mark didn’t hear from his newfound sister.

“I told my wife, ‘Well maybe she just wants to move on. She doesn’t want to look back on this, which I totally get. Sometimes this stuff is a blessing. Sometimes it’s not.”

Two months later, Mark got a Facebook message from his half-sister saying she wanted to connect.

“It was great,” Mark recalls. “I was crying. Because you know, here it is. My biological family who I always thought about but never knew wants to connect and be part of my life.”

Several months ago, in October 2021, Mark happened to be traveling on business to Springfield, Oregon, near Holt’s headquarters in Eugene. Realizing how close he would be to the agency that united him with his family back in 1975, he decided to stop by.

“I thought, ‘That would be cool to visit the place that took care of me during my short time back in Saigon,’” he shares.

Meeting with Holt staff, Mark shared how much he loved his adoptive parents, both of whom have now passed, and about his life and family. He gave permission to share his story with other adoptees and adoptive families.

Although sorry he never got to meet his birth parents, Mark feels thankful that he found his siblings — and their bond continues to grow.

“Even though [my father] passed away, I still want to maintain a close relationship [with my sister],” he says of his half-sister on his father’s side. “She agreed to that and said, ‘Well, I have a little brother to pick on now.’”

From a boy in an orphanage holding a name plate in wartime Vietnam to growing up with a loving family in a snowy hamlet in New York to a career in the Navy and a beautiful family with five kids, Mark feels very blessed by the life he has led.

“I’ve had a great life,” he says. “I was very blessed.”

A Final Word from Mark:

“When I was on active duty, I attended this junior officer symposium where we got to meet various commanding officers. … It was an opportunity for junior officers like myself to meet these commanding officers and talk about their leadership, but also how they deal with life every day when they wake up, whether it was personal or professional.  I met one commanding officer who gave me some rather profound wisdom. To this day, I live and practice it. He said, ‘Mark, if you want to be an effective leader — maybe someday you’ll have your own ship or command somewhere — leading by example is just one piece, but you’ve got to do this. You’ve got to do things right the first time, every time and all the time.’  I sat there repeating what he just said inside my head — then I finally got it.  For whoever reads this, ‘Do things right the first time, every time and all the time. You can’t go wrong by this.’”

In partnership with the Pan Am Museum Foundation, Holt is proud to present a special event in honor of the 47th anniversary of Operation Babylift, the evacuation of children living in orphanages in Vietnam to adoptive families. Adoptees, parents, volunteer flight attendants and medical professionals who were involved in the evacuation will come together in Garden City, New York, on Sunday, April 24, 2022.

Tickets are $75 and include food and complimentary beer and wine (and a special price is available to adoptees!). Purchase tickets here.

Did you know our team provides support to all Holt adoptees?

Every adoptee has a unique and complex life experience. Our team strives to support all Holt adoptees, by providing help with birth search, citizenship and more.

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The post Finding the Family He Never Knew appeared first on Holt International.

To the birth mother of my son,

Twenty-three years ago you brought a beautiful baby boy into the world. For reasons only you understand, you were unable to care for him. That’s okay; I’m the last person who would judge you. Over the years, others have asked why you could not care for him. It’s really none of their business. I think it shows how much they do not understand about life.

I want you to know that he is loved and has been raised to the best of the ability of my husband and I. We tell him that his beautiful skin color, hair and eyes are your gift to him. My mother is Latina, so I have similar coloring, although he is a bit darker. I remind him that many people pay a lot to have hair and skin color like his.

Our son is sincere, sensitive and creative. This draws others to him. We used to call him our “Ecuadorean ambassador.” When he was four, we took him to a Christmas parade. One of the volunteer clowns asked if she could hold him. She looked at his sweet face and said, “He’s a gift.” She said this having only just met him and knowing nothing of our adoption story.

He notices details about others and feels what they feel. In first grade he was sad because a special needs boy earned an “eat with your friend” pass for lunch, but no one wanted to sit with the boy. Our son sat with him and considered him his friend. He likes to listen to the stories of older people’s lives, and what growing up was like for them. The older people at church love this about him.

Our son loves music. When he was little, he’d use anything to tap out a rhythm that was always impressive. We enrolled him in drum lessons. More than one music instructor told me that they’d wish they’d had his talent when they were his age. He lost interest in drums and changed to guitar. He plays with the praise band at church. We’ve encouraged him to use his talent to help others worship. I’m in awe when I hear him play, because music is difficult for me to comprehend, yet it flows naturally for him.

The baby boy you gave birth to is very much loved. I hope you can feel joy on his birthday.

Our young man is starting to work in the culinary world. His fine motor skills, creativity and respectful nature seem to make him well suited for this. The academic world was difficult for him. He has anxiety under pressure, and learns at his own pace and interest. He’s fascinated with people and history. He cares little about knowledge for the sake of knowledge. He is definitely a free spirit.

We’ve tried to teach both our children about the world by experiencing it. A goal of ours was to get them to all 50 states; we’re up to 44. As you can imagine, Alaska and Hawaii will be last. We seek unique aspects of each place we visit. In Boston, we followed the Freedom Trail and watched the reenactments of the battles of Lexington and Concord. In Minnesota, at Lake Superior, we toured lighthouses and an ice-breaker ship. Some of our favorite memories are beach combing at low tide on the Oregon coast.

We found the most wonderful group of adoptive families in Oregon. This group gets together annually at a campground for a week. The families represent every imaginable adoption combination you could imagine. It feels like heaven on earth. No one questions why a child and parent don’t look the same. Every family accepts that we are all children of God. I wish you could see the joy in our son’s eyes, and in the eyes of all the families.

We can never thank you enough for the tremendous blessing you have given to us. We are eternally grateful to you, and to our God, who makes all things happen for good. The baby boy you gave birth to is very much loved. I hope you can feel joy on his birthday.

Lu Adair | Adoptive Mom

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The post To the Birth Mother of My Son appeared first on Holt International.

The adoption agency suggested that I write you a letter. And while I know I’m supposed to keep this brief, I just can’t. I have so many things to share with you. Did you ever have a friend who you only saw every now and then but you loved each other so much that time and distance didn’t matter? And that when you finally did see that friend you had a laundry list of things to share with her? That’s exactly how I feel right now.

Mom, I’m really happy. I graduated from college. I have a pretty fun career. I lived in New York City for close to ten years. I have a sister who is my best friend. I have two psychotic dogs. Mom, I’m married. He makes me smile and laugh every day. When I annoy him he says my name three times in a row. And when he knows I’m thinking about you he just holds my hand and lets me get lost in thought.

Mom, if you ever think of me, you should know that I forgive you. Maybe you’re not looking for forgiveness, but still… I forgive you.

The adoption agency that suggested I write you a letter could only answer a few questions for me. For example, I know now that you and my father were 23 when I was born. I know now that you were students at the same university. I know now, after 28 years of wondering, that I was born in the morning. That I was born as K88-576, and that my social worker assigned me the name Kim Hee Yung, and that I liked to drink barley tea as a baby and I “smiled spontaneously” in my sleep.

Mom, if you ever think of me, you should know that I forgive you. Maybe you’re not looking for forgiveness, but still… I forgive you.

This is an excerpt of a longer post that appeared on Holt’s blog in June 2016, and originally appeared on  Krista’s blog, Adopted and Korean. 

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Do you have a video or a story that you think would be good for us to share? Send it to creative@holtinternational.org!

Daniel Hespen | Former Holt team member

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The most defining moment in Rob’s life was when he held his son, Stevie, for the very first time.

Rob loves his son. And he’s a part of his life. But four years ago, Rob made the difficult decision to place Stevie with a loving adoptive family.

Rob might be different from the image many people have of a birth father. It’s true that in many cases, the birth father is out of the picture — unknown, even. This is especially true in international adoption.

Because of this, too often the birth father is left out of the adoption conversation. But if the birth father is known and willing to be a part of his child’s life, he has a role to fill, and a story to tell.

Watch this beautiful video and hear Rob’s story in his own words.

The post A Birthfather’s Story appeared first on Holt International.

Fifteen years after placing her son for adoption, Gina Ledesma got in contact with Holt earlier this year.  When we asked her if she was open to sharing her story, her response was an enthusiastic “yes.” While the environment and circumstances are different from country to country and individual to individual, Gina’s domestic U.S. adoption story is one that may resonate with any birth mother. And understanding stories like hers is important for everyone who is touched by adoption.

Gina will never forget the three hard, precious days she had with her son.

“I just counted all the toes and fingers,” she says, remembering those days in a hospital bed in Eugene, Oregon. “I looked at every little piece and part — and said my goodbyes.”

Twenty-nine years ago, Gina chose adoption for her son.

—–

At Holt, we share adoption stories of all kinds. Stories about the children who wait, and about families working through the adoption process. Stories about the moment a child and family come together for the first time, and about the beautiful and complex transformation that occurs throughout the lives of adoptees and adoptive families. Whenever possible, we also strive to share a third, critical voice in the adoption story: the voice of the birth parents. Whether due to issues of confidentiality or lack of information about who the birth parents are — as is often the case in international adoption — birth parents’ stories are often unknown, and seldom heard.

But their voices deserve to be heard.

While Holt is most known for our pioneering legacy in international adoption, Holt has through the years also championed domestic adoption — both in countries overseas, and in the U.S. Today in the U.S., Holt has a foster adoption program in Oregon and an infant adoption program in Illinois. And for over two decades, from 1978 to 2001, Holt had a domestic infant adoption program in Oregon.

In 1990 in Oregon, Gina placed her baby for adoption through Holt.

—–

Nineteen years old and a mother to a 4-month-old son, Adryan, Gina was living in California when she found out she was pregnant for a second time. She and her child’s father had just broken up, she worked a minimum wage-paying job, and she lived in an apartment with her son. She didn’t know what to do. She wanted to remain independent and provide for her children — but this seemed impossible.

“I knew I wasn’t capable and didn’t have the tools,” Gina says. “And really, I just didn’t want that [difficult life] for either of my kids or myself. I knew that I couldn’t do it. So I kept talking about adoption.”

In 2018, women experiencing unplanned pregnancy can face many of the same hardships that Gina did nearly 30 years ago. They desire to raise their child, but don’t have the resources to do so.

Today, in 14 countries around the world, Holt partners with sponsors and donors to help families achieve stability and self-reliance— empowering them to stay together. Last year, Holt’s Illinois branch — Holt-Sunny Ridge — began doing the same work for families in the U.S. Through the Empowering Women, Strengthening Families program, experienced social workers come alongside women in Illinois who wish to parent, but feel they have no other option but to place their child for adoption. These women receive support to find stable housing, complete an education, acquire medical care and driver’s licenses, find permanent work or overcome other obstacles in their lives. Ultimately, this program empowers women in Chicago to grow self-reliant, and equipped to independently raise and provide for their children.

But in 1988, there were few services like these for women considering adoption. And sometimes, even if they have these resources, women still choose adoption as the best option for themselves and their child.

“I didn’t want to be a statistic,” Gina says. She was young and had no job skills, but didn’t want to become reliant on “the system.” So she moved to Oregon with her son, began living with her mom, and got in contact with Holt to begin the adoption process.

“We provided counseling and spent a lot of time looking at their options, at whether they could be a successful parent,” says Sunday Silver, Holt’s director of post adoption services and the former director of Holt’s Oregon infant adoption program. While not the social worker who counseled Gina about her options, Sunday has through the years walked many women through the same process.

“We tried to empower them to make an informed decision,” she says.

Through options counseling with her Holt social worker, Gina decided she wanted an open adoption. This meant she would choose her child’s adoptive family and receive regular updates about them throughout their lives. As the fist step, Gina began reading through a stack of letters, each written by a different family who was waiting to adopt.

“I really didn’t have an idea of what I was looking for,” Gina says, recalling this most-difficult process of deciding who the parents of her child — who she now knew was a son — would be. “I just felt I would know when I saw, or read [their letter].” And she did.

“It was just a comforting letter,” Gina recalls. In it, the couple introduced themselves and shared about the life they hoped to give a child. They also took the pressure off — saying it was OK if, in the end, Gina decided to parent instead.

This is who Gina chose — an older couple, steady, responsible, both of them teachers who even had college accounts set up for the two children they hoped to adopt. What impressed Gina most was their compassion and kindness. So she decided to meet them. Today, as Gina sits in the Holt office sharing this part of her story, she begins to cry.

“I was going down the hall and I had my son with me, and I had a big belly. I had all these fears and was nervous,” Gina says, saying she remembers this moment like it was yesterday. “I opened the door and this woman gets up and she had this smile… She just lit up the room. She got up and embraced me, scooped my son up. I just felt her energy and love. Right there, it just clicked.”

—–

A few short months later, Gina was in the hospital. She had just given birth to her son and was waiting the required 72 hours until she could sign the legal relinquishment documents. While sure of her decision, in that moment, she grieved.

“It’s tough,” Gina says. “It’s not something I’d want to experience again. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. It’s final. And you have to be prepared to live like that.”

Gina’s decision became all the more difficult once she held Alex in her arms.

“You carry this child. You feel the growth. You feel the movement. You give birth. And I had an automatic connection,” she says. “You bond. And that’s hard to get over — not ‘get over’ — but to kind of put that in one box and say, ‘OK. Now I’ve got to let go.’”

But she knew adoption was her choice, and the choice she felt she needed to make.

“It was hard not to be selfish because I wanted to keep him,” Gina says. “But I know [choosing adoption] was better. It was better for him, better for me, better for the son that I already had.”

At the end of those three days, she left the hospital after lovingly placing her son, Alex, into the arms of his adoptive parents. But since that day, he hasn’t left her mind or her heart.

“It’s one of the most painful things I’ve ever witnessed,” Sunday says of the difficult, loving choice that birth mothers make. “It can be a healthy process, [but] very unnatural. The best you can do is try to make it as smooth as possible. And the more open, the healthier it is — for the adoptee, adoptive parents and birth mom.”

In the years that followed, Gina received updates about Alex. The most difficult part, she said, was trust. When she decided to place Alex for adoption, she knew she was also giving up her right to make decisions concerning him or his future. She had to learn trust — to trust Alex’s adoptive parents and how they would raise him and care for him, and to trust herself and the decision she had made. She only dreamed that someday, maybe, they would be reunited.

In their semi-open adoption arrangement, Alex’s adoptive family maintained some confidentiality. While she had some guesses, Gina didn’t know exactly where Alex lived in Oregon, and she and his adoptive parents didn’t have each other’s direct contact information. To communicate, they utilized Holt as a metaphorical mailbox, where each would send letters and updates, which would then be passed onto them by the Holt social worker. In order for them to meet in person, Alex would have to reach out on his own. As she dreamed of this day, she thought that maybe in his late 20s or when he was 30 he would reach out — when he began to have children of his own and would perhaps be curious about his birth family.

But this moment Gina dreamed of came sooner, and differently, than she ever imagined.

—–

Sixteen years after she placed her son for adoption, Gina was again living in California. She had an 11-year-old daughter and her oldest son, Adryan, was 17 and living in Oregon with his father and step-mother.

“I got a phone call,” she says. “It was my son, [Adryan], and he was like, ‘Mom, I’ve got someone who wants to talk with you.’”

“Hello?” … It was as if Adryan had put down the phone and picked it back up again. But it was Alex.

Both living near Salem, Oregon at the time, Adryan and Alex met for the first time on the high school football field. The moment they looked at each other, they knew. They knew they were brothers. Adryan and Alex grabbed each other in a hug and cried. The next thing they did was call Gina.

This unexpected reconnection — the phone call Gina received — began what is today a close relationship between Alex and Gina. Alex lost his adoptive father at age 3, and his adoptive mother passed away just several years after he reconnected with Gina and Adryan. Through this loss and hardship, he found unexpected support from his birth family. Gina and Alex talk and text regularly, spend holidays together with extended family and are an active part of each other’s lives.

It’s a relationship that Gina never could have dreamed of. But one that is still confusing and complex at times.

“I do my best to try and respect the history that he has with his mother. And in my mind, she is his mother,” Gina says. “She’s the one who was there when he was sick and nurtured him, and all of that. I do my best to stay in my lane.”

But there are still moments, she says, when she needs to remind herself to be at peace with her role not as the mother who raised him, but as his birth mother. “But it’s still good,” she says. “It’s really good. I’m grateful for the time we get to spend [together]. It’s a good relationship.”

Reunions like Gina and Alex’s are rare in the world of adoption. While becoming more common in domestic adoptions, many searches concerning international adoptions reach a dead end. Other times, adoptees find their adoptive parents, but the parents do not wish to meet or have a relationship with the child they placed years ago — often due to stigma or shame. Or the adoptee, once located, is not interested in knowing the parent who placed them for adoption.

But when birth parents like Gina are willing to share their story, they help complete the story. So that adoptees and adoptive parents better understand what many birth parents go through, and why birth parents — whether known or unknown — deserve respect and compassion. We also share Gina’s story so that fellow birth parents know there are others who empathize with the complexities of choosing adoption.

“I love being able to share [my story],” Gina says. “I hope it will maybe give someone comfort, to let someone know that they’re not alone.

Megan Herriott | Staff Writer

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The post The Hardest Thing I’ve Ever Had To Do appeared first on Holt International.

The reasons parents can’t parent their child are often far more complex than they seem.

How could a parent ever abandon their child?

If you’ve had this thought, it’s okay. This response is out of a heart of compassion, justice and love. But the reasons parents cannot parent their children are far more complex than they seem. As an adoptive parent, it’s especially important to understand these complexities so you can give both your child and his or her birth parents the respect and dignity they deserve.

What is Abandonment?

When a child is found “abandoned,” it’s almost always in a very public place. This is not by accident or coincidence, and it’s important to know why. Leaving their child in a place where they will most certainly be found helps to ensure their child will be taken in, receive the care they need, and possibly be placed with a loving adoptive family. This occurs most often in countries such as China and Mongolia, where there is no legal way for parents to relinquish their child to someone else’s care.

What is Relinquishment?

Some countries have a formal relinquishment process, which allows parents to place their child for adoption without facing legal consequences. In some places, parents can meet with a social worker who provides guidance and support as they choose whether to parent or place their child for adoption. In several countries, such as Korea and Thailand, Holt has helped develop these kinds of birth parent support services — ensuring that if a parent chooses adoption for their child, they have made an informed decision to legally surrender their parental rights in a place of support and understanding.

Why Do Parents Abandon or Relinquish Their Children?

Although every parent has a unique story, and a different reason why they cannot parent their child, there are some common themes.

Stigma  

Many cultures are still unaccepting of single parent families. In countries like Korea and India, single parents face intense stigma and are often shunned by their families and communities. If they choose to parent, single moms and their children will likely face discrimination in every facet of their lives.

Legal Consequences  

If, out of desperation, a parent feels they cannot raise their child and they live in a country without legal relinquishment, they often feel their only option is to leave their child somewhere to be found. To identify themselves would mean severe legal consequences.

Poverty

If a parent is living in extreme poverty, they may part with their child in the hope that they will have a better life in someone else’s care. Holt empowers these parents with the tools they need to generate income and rise above poverty, but some parents separate from their child before they receive the help they need and deserve.

Special Needs

Parents of children who have special needs face even greater obstacles. In many impoverished communities, parents do not have the resources to provide needed medical care, therapies and special education, and their child may need urgent care that they cannot afford. Whether their child has a severe heart condition or a developmental need like Down syndrome, a parent may separate from their child in the hope that they receive the care they need to lead as healthy and full a life as possible.

What’s important is to not judge or assume to know a birth parent’s motives and to recognize that permanent separation is a loss for birth parents as well as adoptees — one that needs to be acknowledged in an open and accepting way.

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Every adoption begins when a birth mother makes that most difficult of decisions. And no matter what path you choose to adopt your child — whether through an open domestic infant adoption or through an international adoption with little to no information about where your child came from — birth parents will be a presence in your child’s life because they are part of your child’s story. 

Here are a few thoughts to start with:

In almost every case, birth parents choose adoption because they are unable to parent, not because they don’t love or care about their child. Choosing adoption is often the greatest act of sacrifice and love a person can make.

• Whether they are known or unknown, birth parents will be a part of your child’s life and who they are.
• Whether they share their feelings or not, adopted children do think of their birth parents and do have questions. It’s important to create space so kids feel safe to ask questions and for you to answer their questions as honestly as is age appropriate.
• It is okay to not have all the answers, and important to accept that you may never have answers to all of your child’s questions.
• As parents, we tend to try to fix things. But when your child is grieving, it’s important to let them experience sadness and to convey that these are very normal feelings to have. If you convey that your child should be happy now because they have wonderful adoptive parents, they will likely bottle up their feelings of sadness.
• The most important thing you can do is to support your child, to give them space and time to express their thoughts and emotions, and to let them grieve the loss of their birth parents.
• When your child reaches an age when they can begin a search for their birth family, you can initiate the conversation, but it’s important to let your child take the lead on how they want to move forward.
• Talking with your child about their birth parents may be uncomfortable. But to truly be present for your child, you will need to process and come to terms with the role your child’s birth parents played — and continue to play — in your child’s life. Embrace the discomfort, for the sake of yourself, your child and your child’s birth parents.

For more thoughts on birth parents, check out our five-part blog series, “The Forgotten Voice of Adoption.” 

The post Talking About Birth Parents appeared first on Holt International.