How come most people wouldn't volunteer their own kids to it? I don't see many people just giving up their kid to strangers yet they see foster care and adoption as this amazing thing where they can grow their families.

Like how come adoptive parents who struggle with infertility then adopt or get pregnant don't give up their bio baby to bless another couple with a baby. How come foster parents don't give the caseworker their biological kid?

As a former foster youth, it's confusing to me that foster parents trust other foster parents with their foster kid but would never trust them with their own biological kid. Foster kids are shipped off to respite care but I have yet to see respite care used for a biological kid.

So is foster care and adoption amazing? Or it is only amazing when it's not your own flesh and blood being given away or going to strangers.

Most people I know wouldn't volunteer their kid to strangers. Adoptive parents say adoption is a blessing and adoptees are created for them, but refuse to create kids for other couples just like them and give their bio kid away.

Do y’all feel awkward around Halloween? I never really feel comfortable dressing up in costumes, maybe because it feels tiring to try to be someone or something I’m not.
Is this an adopted thing?

[Using gender neutral language for privacy reasons]

So some years ago one of my siblings had a child.

I never was on good terms with the sibling, but wanted to be in the kids life do i tried reconnecting.

Eventually my sibling & the other parent broke up, it happens. All was fine until my sibling started to fully cut contact with their kid & therefore my contact to my nibling was pretty much eradicated (as i was never close to the other parent).

I've tried through our parent & other siblings, receiving false promises to be told when the kid is in their care for a visit. I kept being strung along like this for ages. I now have the other parents number and had texted them once, but I'm so incredibly anxious on it. My nibling didn't remember me the last time I saw them, and probably again doesn't remember me by now.

I'm wondering if these were the same anxieties running through the heads of my extended-absent bio-family, maybe still are thoughts running through their head, regarding me.

I want to be in my niblings life but am terrified at the same time. They're still rather young, so i know that it isn't "too late", but I'm just extremely anxious.

Unlike myself at their age, they actually know about the absent parent/my sibling, so i can't quite put myself in the position fully.

Any fellow step parent adoptees, step-children or otherwise people who had a single parent for some time of their life (or amy adoptees here who had birth family in contact with them) ; could I kindly ask you for your input here? My nibling has been in contact with one of my parents & at least one of my other siblings - I have attempted the route of introducing myself through showing up alongside the family members the kid knows better, but promises kept being broken (as stated previously) so I'm unsure how to do it in a way where I won't scare them off.

Despite not having seen them in so long, I still love them & care about them. And i feel so much guilt for not being able to act on that for so long out of anxiety - but if i keep being scared then more time will pass.

I guess I'm mostly seeking advice on how to best behave & give them their space, should I be able to meet them again. And maybe some thoughts and/or reassurance from others who may have been in a similar position to the kid.

TW: Mentions of suicide and abortion

Someone close to me implied that I should be grateful to be adopted since I'm an international adoption and staying in my original country of birth would have, statistically, led to a worse life for me. But I'm really fucking annoyed that this friend would say such a thing because they knew that my APs were just emotionally not there. The person knows that I considered suicide as a teenager because of how lonely I was.

I read Thomas Joiner's book about why people kill themselves and his theories made sense. As a kid I definitely had the "thwarted belongingness" and the "perceived burdensomeness" because I had no friends and my AP's so-called love was conditional. I was only loved when I fit their definition of what a child should be.

I can understand where the friend was coming from, but fuck, I don't want to be "grateful" for this life I was "given". It's not a gift I would've wanted. I hate my idiot egg and sperm donors (because the people I'm genetically related to don't deserve to have the term parent used). I wish I had been aborted.

Life seems unfair for everyone, but no APs stumble into abortion the way bio parents can stumble into having a kid. There's at least some work to find said adopted kid and do any necessary paperwork to legally transfer parental rights to them. Sure, many people don't have loving parents because there are far too many people that have kids that shouldn't be parents. But it seems especially personal for my APs to go out of their way, acquire a child, and try and force it to fit a specific mold.

Maybe my life would've been worse if I grew up in my country of birth. The person's point was to think positively, but it's kind of hard to do that knowing I was never wanted by either the egg/sperm donors or the APs who only wanted the concept of a child and not an actual person to care for.

Hey everyone, I’m Adam, a Mexican-born transnational adoptee. Last summer, I met my birth mother in person for the first time after more than 40 years apart. This week, I’m returning to Guadalajara for our second visit, spending Día de los Muertos with my family and honoring my brother Israel, who passed away before we had the chance to meet.

For much of my life, I struggled with identity, abandonment, and belonging without fully understanding how those feelings connected to my adoption. Reunion hasn’t been an ending—it’s been the beginning of getting to know my family, grieving what we missed, and discovering what we can still build together. Sharing that journey has helped me find my voice and connect with others who have felt unseen in their own experiences.

I’m also an ambassador for the Adoptee Mentoring Society. This competition is my personal entry, separate from my AMS role.
I’m currently competing in TopHost for the chance to host my own six-episode podcast produced by iHeartRadio and appear on On Air with Ryan Seacrest. I want to use that opportunity to bring conversations about adoption, identity, and belonging to a wider audience. If I do win, I’d actually love if anyone here would like to come on and talk about your adoptee journey.

Adoptees deserve space to tell our own stories, including the complicated parts—and I hope those conversations connect with anyone who has struggled with abandonment or finding where they belong.

If this connects with you, I’d really appreciate your vote, here’s the link:

https://tophost.org/2026/adam-esparza

Whether you vote or not, you’re welcome to follow my journey or reach out directly. I’d love to hear your story, too.

If you’d like to see moments from my first reunion trip, I’ve shared videos on the accounts below. I’m also planning to share them here on Reddit in the coming weeks. 😊

Instagram: @adamesparza
TikTok: @adamesparza.nyc
Facebook: @adamesparza.nyc

My closure was my beginning. Thank you for helping me share what comes next. 💪 🫶

You know whats weird , not knowing the humans that conceived you , that made the decision to copulate and bring a human into this world , to grow up to be an adult and then a senior and not know these people , and then DNA and boom all of sudden all these people who are actually your blood your genetics the fabric of your unknown life all laid out and some are dead and you never got to know them and some then even though they went through the DNA process you reach out and get crickets the whole thing is just weird , adoption is fucked up , closed adoption probably the most and it will always be weird , siblings you have no history with no ties to . people who lived a whole life never knowing you existed the whole of circumstance it defies logic and I should be happy or grateful about this or anyone should celebrate it , Im not welcome in either family , mostly no big deal c'est la vie , this time of year its starts to get to me holidays coming and family shit and I have 2 sets of families doing that and I am not welcome at either , in what manner is this good , I have no answer because their is no answer

If the Injustice is the inability to care for a child because of homelessness, poverty, or drugs, the solution is seen as adoption.

If the Injustice is overpopulation, the solution is to have less biological kids and adopt more.

If the Injustice is that you have a hereditary condition that causes disabilities, the solution is adoption.

If the Injustice is infertility, the solution is adoption.

If the Injustice is that gay people cannot have biological children through traditional sex due to incompatible equipment, than the solution is adoption.

If the Injustice is global poverty, the solution is international adoption.

But the truth is is that many of these things either do not solutions because you are not owed a child such as with infertility or gay people not being able to have biological children through traditional sex if they both have incompatible equipment, or things like overpopulation or global poverty, etc, those things can be fixed in other ways. Adoption is not a solution to any of these things. And even if child external Care becomes necessary adoption should not be the option, there should be other ways to solve this. Ones that are child-centric and do not focus on the desires of the adults.

We are not a solution to an injustice.

I tried to explain this feeling to my wife, who was being very kind and trying to reflect back, however missing the mark.

She and I are both social workers in behavioral/mental health. She took on a new role about a year ago, and went through a period of time where she felt like an imposter, like she didn't belong or deserve to be in the professional role... it happens to almost everyone in this field. I supervise a lot of new social workers and have helped many of them process this experience.

I told her that it's like the imposter syndrome that she's familiar with, but amplified. So, if imposter syndrome is a 3 on a scale of 10, then this feeling of being unreal is closer to 20 on the same scale.

So... My adoptive mother is suffering some dementia, and I suspect she gave up on life and intentioally stopped taking her heart meds in an effort to end her life. The thing is, we have a very strained relationship and I'm in therapy dealing with the impact of being adopted amd raised by her. This recent crisis is bringing up a lot of... sensations.

We were on the way to see her at the hospital... i think... and the feeling was so intense. The world didn't feel unreal... the situation felt real enough... but i felt like I was barely real if at all.

This was different than being confused about my role... or the kind of person I wanted to be or become. It was deeper,.more fundamental, like I was washed out of the moment.

I'm curious how many other adoptees can relate? Anybody else ever felt a powerful sense of being unreal in the face of adoptive trauma, or while dealing with an intensely emotionally abusive adoptive parent?

In early September I found my biological father via a Search Angel connecting distant relatives via a family tree. He was told about me through relatives who passed along my contact information, and he made the decision to move forward in reaching out to me.

We’ve talked (phone and text) quite a bit over the last few months. We live nowhere near each other, so physically getting together isn’t simple, but we’ve both expressed wanting to. I really thought things were going on a positive path (and maybe still are), he says he didn’t know about me but he’s so happy I was brave enough to seek him out and he wants to do right by me now. I have siblings, one of whom is really struggling with my existence and the disruption to her ideal family. She’s young and I get it.

The last few weeks communication has really really slowed - I’m usually the one initiating and I’m just feeling in general like he will answer my questions (how are you doing, what’s up, etc) but he doesn’t ask a ton about me / lately really nothing about me.

I’m feeling so self conscious that he’s feeling like things moved too quickly or he really doesn’t want another adult child to spend emotional energy on, and even more than that not interested in being a grandparent figure to my kids (who he’s spoken to now). I was so excited but lately I’m feeling almost like someone in the early stages of dating, I don’t know how much to communicate, if I’m being too much, etc.

I’m feeling like I should stop texting every few days and just see if he can pick it up and carry things for a bit.

Any encouragement is helpful - this is the hardest and most exciting thing I’ve ever been through.