Adoption Story

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What does Adoption mean for me?

Growing up in Metro Detroit in a small town called Washington Township, I always felt a bit out of place. Granted, I love my family, I love my community, but there was always something a bit odd for me growing up. I grew up knowing I was adopted and my parents would celebrate what we called Filipino Day where my sister, Rachel, and I would gather with the family once a year and open up our documents and talk about what does it mean to be adopted and to understand that we are loved and supported. I read the book We Are All Alike, We Are All Different as well as Bread! Bread! Bread! These two children's books inspired me to study the globe, cultures, religion and people. There was always something about myself that I felt a bit out of touch with what was around me.

Finding My Birth Family

I may change the name and title of the series, but this is episode one of my series where I get to meet my biological family for the first time in the Philippines!!! Bundle packing! Saves wrinkles when traveling. I tested this out a few times traveling and it really works wonders!

So more traveling! Manila was literally overnight, and then we packed up and left the Holiday Inn and took a flight to Dumaguete. Interesting fact, in the Philippines, there's not very many traffic lights, so everybody works together.

This was the first family reunion ever, and the timing of this was unbelievable! Meeting my whole family from around the world at once and also meeting my birth mother (later on). This is the second half of our family reunion. Karaoke and me singing in broken Tagalog haha!

(Part 2) My brother climbs a coconut tree! My dad and I try coconut water from the tree directly for the first time. Also we got to visit the farm land that the family owns as well.

This was my trip from Hong Kong to Manila. The Hong Kong airport is absolutely beautiful and there's a lot of shopping and a lot of food, so if one was to have a layover there for a couple hours you can get preoccupied for a good while. I was so nervous.

After we landed in Dumaguete, we took a van out and stopped at a few places before meeting up and reuniting with family! We got to also visit the governor's home! Turns out he's a family member of mine!

This was the moment waiting for for 29 years. I finally get to meet my biological mother in person. We shared many moments and ask all the big questions.

This was the very first night in Manila. We landed pretty late at night about 7:00 PM and met up with my older brother, Michael. I've known about Michael my entire life, because in my adoption documents they mentioned about an older sibling, named Michael.

The day has come for the family reunion! This was the first time the whole family came together, and the timing of finding my birth family was unearthly! Honestly, this is God's Blessing.

Today we got a chance to visit the beach that my family owns and even get a glimpse of the beach property that my brother and I own. It's so beautiful and I would love to invest into it to help benefit the family!