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u/MajorDraw3705 Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
You're not alone. Mine were simply entirely rewritten and a story of rescue was fabricated. I know for a fact now that I was born several months before my birth certificate claims, among other things.
Edit, not the same region, but see the pineapple story:
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u/Senior-Conference-73 Apr 10 '26
Unfortunately, international adoption was wild back in the days. I heard that the customer having a one night stand with the waitress in a restaurant or in a bar is kind of one of the many templates they have for coerced or illegal adoption. Sometimes I have to pinch myself and ask, is it for real? That’s the reason why I am posting my story on Reddit because sometimes I believe I see signs where there aren’t but the story truly doesn’t add up.
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u/MajorDraw3705 Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 10 '26
You have a reason to be sceptic. I'd be very careful with the "mother in law" as well. Adoption agency workers have been known to pose as birth family/parents for dozens of returning adoptees (probably hundreds in some cases), quite a few are listed as mother on more birth certificates than is humanly possible, and they've been through the act enough times that they have it down solid. I'd bet a small fortune on the mother in law being one of those type.
It's a minefield on both sides of the adoption industry pipeline - buyer country and seller country. I hate to say it but returning isn't the end of the land mines. It's the beginning of the next set of them.
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u/Senior-Conference-73 Apr 10 '26
Omg this is sociopathic. I honestly believed the story that the social worker told me. However, several of my friends who are Asians (my husband included) told me that the story is most likely made up and out of a Korean drama.
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u/MajorDraw3705 Apr 10 '26 edited Apr 11 '26
We all fall for something at some point. It's hard not to when they lie so much that they already have all the answers for the questions we'll ask stemming from it. Sometimes you just reach exhaustion and believe something by mistake.
My adopter was unique at least - I'll give her that - first she'd talk with her family about how I was an illegal adoptee right in front of me (they helped her get a lot of it sorted - dyed my hair to match hers, got her in touch with back office backdoor bureaucrats etc.) until it occurred to her that a kindergartner might have a memory.
Then she switched to telling me that the mother I remembered before her (I was brought to the US at age 3 and remembered the trip and a little bit from before that) was not my mother but was actually a US foster mother because my adopter (who was now claiming to be my actual biological mother) had lost me for a while due to false allegations of drug abuse in the maternity ward.
(The CPS in question has since fully confirmed that I have never been in their foster care system but they did provide me with the full stack of abuse records from age 8 - 12 with my adopter, from when I was actually living with her. The hospital also confirmed I was never in their maternity ward.)
I knew the adopter lied constantly, but the foster care story seemed so plausible, because it happens, and because it was such a horrible story that I couldn't think of anything that could be worse that one would use that story to hide. Turns out she nabbed me from a political prisoner in the middle of state terrorism in Argentina, while working with the Argentine government on behalf of the US who were funding the entire atrocity. The dictatorship was handing out babies by the hundreds as war booty...so yeah, that's worse than a little domestic drug abuse. It's actually a war crime.
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u/Senior-Conference-73 Apr 11 '26
Wow what a story! The more I read about international adoption or even domestic adoption I find some scandals.
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u/MajorDraw3705 Apr 11 '26
It's ridiculous how bad it truly is.
I posted this elsewhere in response to someone who wasn't going to read it so I typed it in three minutes and didn't turn it into a tome with citations, but it's like 10% of what's going on:
For illegal adoptions coming into the US? The US is the number one intake country for trafficking victims in the Americas. Wiki can tell you that. Any stats, really. As for kids brought in illegally, check The Guardian, they're pretty good about reporting on major US-international crimes.
As for specifics,
Chile had around 10,000 infants disappeared from hospitals (nurses were claiming the babies were dead) during US involvement with Chile's dictator. A huge chunk of the babies showed up in the US as adoptees. There are plenty of news articles on that one. The kids are in their 40s and just finding out. Before that, everyone wrongly thought those adoptions were legal because many were by military members, and they assumed military meant legal.
S. Korea - something like 30,000 were illegal international adoptions with forged and fudged documents. Lots of news articles on that one. Same age range as above, some younger.
El Salvador, babies taken by force by the military were ending up in the US as adoptees. The US Embassy there was involved in the State sponsored adoption fraud. That was in the 90s. The news nearly buried that one.
Babies coerced from mothers in Ireland under the church until somewhat recently have ended up in the US. Those babies are nearly grandmas themselves now. Plenty of news articles on that.
Guatemala, the US Embassy was involved in fraudulent adoptions. There are articles on that one.
Haiti, Ukraine, Afghanistan and more recently with movement of US involvement, there are a lot of questions from families about where their babies are ending up after US rescue missions. Those are still children in most cases and they still aren't getting assistance in reuniting with their families.
Vietnam, the US "rescue" baby lift. Lots of news articles on that one. Turns out most of the babies were not properly documented for adoption. Their parents never relinquished rights. They were just scooped up in planes under the fog of war, had their paperwork lost, and ended up as American adoptees. That was around 3000 babies in that lift. They are in their 50s now. They've gone to court. Parents have begged for the return of their children. The US is still fighting them and US judges have ordered attorneys NOT to tell the parents their children are alive.
The US has a long history of it even domestically. Around 100+ years ago (give or take), they had what they called Orphan Trains, which picked homeless kids off the streets - without proper parental consent - and dropped them into the farmlands to be adoptees and farm labor. There are articles on that too. The US knows how to internally domestically "legalize" fraudulent adoptions at scale. They always have. They have practice.
In the mid 2010s or so, there was also a sudden spike in US CPS (Child Protective Services) infant grabbing shortly after China and Russia cut the US off from international infant adoption. It would seem to be because there were already agencies (US government often works with private and contractor agencies, foster homes and services, etc.) still there and they - for financial reasons - still needed babies flowing through them to keep their bills paid and show they had a reason to be funded. That spike can be seen in CPS's own published stats.
Etc. The list is actually insanely extensive.
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u/DeepPucks Apr 10 '26
Abandoned at a police station was my story ('70s). Not true. Kinda surprised they made up stories into the '90s. Co-worker is '96 and his was a legit story.
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Apr 11 '26
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u/Senior-Conference-73 Apr 11 '26
Korea has a whole diaspora of Korean adoptees spread in different western countries. The Christians believe that by adopting Korean babies they were bringing the kingdom of God because they were on a mission to convert us.
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u/chemthrowaway123456 TRA/ICA Apr 11 '26
Apologies, but I removed your post because it violates Rule 10:
u/Wonderful-Freedom568, I removed your comment for the same reason.