I'm adopted

My whole life I have known I was adopted, even though for the first part I was unsure what this even meant. I was adopted from Romania into a loving New Zealand family at age 9 months, with another Romanian boy who was less than a month old.

Fast forward a decade, and my brother, my parents and I travelled back to Romania to trace our birth families. We took over nine massive bags of donations for the villages and orphanages which were donated by local churches, schools, and strangers from my local town/city. When we first arrived, we had traced my brother’s family, but not mine. It was a scary thought – we’d come all this way and I wasn’t even sure I’d meet my family.

However, a day later the interpreter had traced my birth mother and I found out I had three brothers, but only one of these had the same Mom and Dad as me. I only met my birth grandmother, mother and three brothers. I was told my birth father was out of the country. We spent three weeks in Romania, visiting family, hospitals, my orphanage, my brother’s orphanages, countryside, villages, as well as the Mountains of Sinaia and the seaside in Constanta. It was very overwhelming for two ten year olds, but we were glad we were able to find our families. After leaving Romania I didn’t have much contact with my family, however my NZ brother’s two Romanian siblings came to NZ for two years and left in 2003.

Fast forward a few more years and my birth brother managed to track me down on Facebook, along with my other two brothers. This excited me, and I was also welcomed with the news of a new biological nephew. However, my biological father also contacted me, randomly and this mixed with my emotions highly. It was only then I realised I was stuck in the intimacy vs identity crisis of life and struggled immensely. I was also advised that my birth father was in fact in Romania at my time of visit. We had been lied too. I have slowly gotten through those struggles, but to this day, I find it really hard to speak to either of my birth parents, however i happily speak to my brothers.

It excites me that I have a little nephew, and I one day hope and pray that I can bring my birth brother and his family to visit my new home, New Zealand one day.

I am Rachel Michelle Vickery.

I am Raluca Nicoletta Serban.

I am adopted.

And this is my story.