One of the most difficult things about my own experience of being adopted is the ‘not knowing’. There’s a huge pot of things I don’t know about myself and my origins that most people take for granted…

• Who my parents are.
• Who my siblings are.
• Who my grandparents and all other families members are.
• The historical lineage of my family.
• Genetic and inherited traits, characteristics, illnesses and more.
• What my birth family home is like, and much, much more.

Here is what I do/don’t know…

• I was born in HK at Matilda Hospital.
• I was adopted from birth by my British parents; the circumstances were apparently a little unusual and they only had 7 days to prepare for my arrival.
• They took me ‘home’ when I was 7 days old on 7/7/77.
• My birth mother is Filipino; she was an amah (maid) who, I believe, already had a husband and possibly a young child back in the Philippines. I have always known her name as it’s on my original birth certificate.
• I have no idea who my birth father is; I don’t believe he’s the (now late) husband of my birth mother.
• She named me Jovy. My birth name was Jovy Uson.
• My British parents re-named me Lea Nicole.
• I found my birth mother on Facebook a few years ago; I’ve reached out numerous times. She refuses to acknowledge who she is to me or who I am to her. 
• I have 8 half siblings in the Philippines.

And that’s it – the sum total of my knowledge about my origins and how I came to be on this planet. It’s not much really, if you consider how much most folks know about their origins and how they came to be here.

I believe the adoption process today – especially for ethnically displaced adoptees – is significantly different; with a lot more care and effort taken to gather information and maintain cultural connections with a child’s ethnic origins.