Supporting Adult Adoptees

My name is Yann and I was born in Hong Kong. I spent the first three months of my life at Mother’s Choice before being adopted by my French dad and my Malaysian mother. I have an older sister who is biological to my parents.

Growing up, it was obvious to people that I was adopted if they knew my parents.  My parents had always shared with me that I was adopted, but it wasn’t something I brought up or talked about, even to my best friends whom I’d known since I was ten. I never had a community of adoptees that I belonged to, and I only knew one other person – my neighbor – who had been adopted. There was a community and support for parents who chose to adopt, like the AFHK (Adoptive Families of Hong Kong) that my mum was  a very active member of, but no resources or groups existed for adoptees.

Phyllis, Gretchen, Doreen and I founded an Adult Adoptee Group in 2019. It’s a community of people that focuses on and supports adult adoptees, and provides a safe space to share our stories. This group has been one of the most fulfilling things for me. It’s been really important over the last few years, being able to express myself for the first time with people who understand fully and exactly what I’m talking about. We all have something in common.

The group has about 30 members now, aged from 18 to over 70 years old, wide-ranging with lots of different perspectives. We meet every month, either in person or on Zoom, and we have around 15-20 people attending each time. During our first sessions in 2019, we all shared our individual stories and where we were in our respective adoption journeys. There were 10 or so new members at around my age who had started their root tracing process, and I remember their sharing made me start to think about my own adoption journey; what should I be doing, and what should I be thinking about? I met a member called William and heard his story, and after that, I decided to start my own root tracing process the very next day.