I am proud to be adopted.

Ever since I was a kid, I knew I was different from other kids. When I look at pictures from school events and family pictures, every kid has the same hair, smile, eyes, and nose as their parents. You knew they were related. My parents have thick brown/black hair with freckles on their body. I had blonde thin hair and I was as pale as snow. As a kid, I wanted to look like my parents and my siblings. I wanted to share the same genes as them, like my friends do with their parents.

But that was then, and this is now. My eyes are clearer, and I know that just because I don't look like my parents or my brothers, doesn't mean I am less of their daughter and sister.

When I was almost two my mom and dad adopted me from St. Petersburg, Russia. I was underweight and had been living in an orphanage. My parents came to pick me up and brought me back to the states where I met the rest of my new family and began to grow into the woman I am today.

When I got older and understood more about what it was like to be adopted, I was proud to share it with others. I wasn’t ashamed. Sure, I don’t know anything about my birth parents and, of course, I wonder about them everyday of my life. But, it’s not a sin to question if you look exactly like your birth mother. To wonder if you share the same personality and if you have the same nose as your father, or the same eyes as your grandmother. But, I started to enjoyed having my own looks.

Then, in grade school I met my two best friends and it turned out that they were both adopted too!! When I met them and we became the best of friends it was so clear to me how amazing it is to be adopted. Without my adoption I wouldn't have the opportunity to be friends with them. If their birth parents had second guessed their choices I would have one less friend. If I hadn't been adopted I never would have gotten the chance to meet any of the people that are the closest to me because I never would have made it to the States from Russia.

My brothers are a big impact in my life, they are much older than me but they never treated me as different from anyone else-- and I never looked at myself different with them. Once I got older, my hair color changed because of the weather and my skin color got darker from the sun. When I went out, strangers thought I was my brothers' daughter and we would laugh and sometimes just go with it. They knew how to treat me like a person and not a girl from other country.

I am asked every time I tell someone I am adopted, and when I explain my story they look at me with their “oh I’m so sorry” look. But don’t feel sorry for me, I am SO proud to be adopted from a loving family. I would not be here with out them. If I hadn’t been adopted, I would be on the streets at age fourteen, I wouldn’t be alive. I am happy to have a family that loves me. I have also gotten the question, “Do you wish to go back and see your birth mother?” If I could I would-- but not to go back to her and call her my mother. I have a mother and a father that care more about me than anything. I felt abandoned for a long time because I didn’t understand why she didn’t want me. But I understand now that she wanted the best for me because she couldn’t take care of me. I will always think that and I thank her for wanting me to have a good life. She made the best choice she could have and I wouldn’t have this amazing family I have now.

Next time you meet someone who is adopted, do not feel sorry for them. Instead, remember how much different their life could have gone if they had never been adopted, and how many opportunities they got because someone took them in and raised them as their own. Adoption is beautiful. Adoption is important

Every adoption is different. Everyone has their own story about being adopted.