CHECK THIS OUT!!!!

Please meet Chris, a Korean adoptee commencing his journey to find his birth family. He posted on our agency's adoption forum, and my mom was really impressed and moved by the vblog he began to keep track of his progress. I, too, found the insight he revealed through his video eye-opening. I think the fact that he puts everything in such a postive light is uplifting. I often hear "horror" stories about adoptees resenting their adoption, and it's really refreshing to see someone who is not trying to find his roots out of spite or anger but curiosity. I talked to Chris through a private message and he was glad that I'm willing to answer any questions he has from the adoptive side, but I find that my window into his world is just as, if not more, valuable. I want to follow his journey not just for his sake (although I wish him the best of luck!) but also for Sasha's. As my mom said, this vblog is a lesson ALL adoptive families can learn from. I really want to understand how Sasha might feel about her adoption as she grows older, especially since there will probably be a time she'll be more inclined to turn to a sibling than a parent. Since I'm not adopted myself, Chris's journey will teach me a lot.

Without further ado, I introduce Chris. While his video journey is priceless to all adoptive partents/siblings as well as adoptees, I encourage everyone to watch and wish him luck on such a life-changing endeavor! I will contine to post Chris's vblogs as they are made.





For the record, I just want to add that the adoption situations that I'm personally connected to are nothing but positive. I have two friends who were adopted, one domestically and the other from the Phillipines. The one who was domestically adopted has had contact with her birth mother and talks to her quite frequently, and is pretty open about it and has nothing but good things to say both about her adoptive parents and birth family. My friend adopted from the Phillipines has not had contact, but her oldest brother was also adopted from that country (they're not biologically related.) The middle child of that family was biological to their parents. Her relationships with all her family members are very positive and, from what I can see, more or less the same. With both of my friends, I didn't know that they were adopted until almost a year after I met them.

All of this makes me feel, for lack of a better word, good about Sasha's future. I want her to feel connected to her home country yet completely comfortable in the one she was raised in, as well as with Norway, as the rest of us are. My whole family embraces many cultures- I want Sasha to be no different! (Speaking of cultures...we leave for Christmas in Norway on the 20th. She'll meet her paternal relatives for the first time and experience her third heritage. I smile at the fact that Sasha, born in Ethiopia, will soon be fluent in Norwegian and feel at home in a land used to snow and cooler climates. She'll certainly be an international girl!)