Travel Visa

I have spent the better part of the summer trying to get all of my required documentation together to be able to apply for a tourist travel Visa to India in anticipation of returning to India in December of 2016. Back in 2011 or 2012 I began looking into applying for a Person of Indian […]

Driven by Guilt

I’ve been planing on going to India this winter for at least a few months now. It has been a stressful process and I’ve done a pretty good job of procrastinating about the important things like determining what I’m going to be doing while there. The idea really solidified itself after a few weeks of […]

4 years

Its been 4 year since I started writing and within the last two months I have done more to help myself process than in the previous 27 years. I started out writing, reading and trying to expose myself to others’ stories. When I began I just needed to know I wasn’t along asn an adoptee. […]

“Calcutta is my Mother”

I sometimes stumble across stories of other Indian Transracial Adoptees who have gotten some press, usually because they are in some stage of searching. This most recent story is being made into the movie “Calcutta is my Mother” which from the short trailer: https://vimeo.com/168535931 seems less about the act of searching for birth/first family than an […]

I wonder…

I wonder if my parents ever think of me. I wonder if they love each other. I wonder if they ever loved each other. I wonder if my dad has patchy facial hair. I wonder if my mom’s eyelashes are dark and beautiful. I wonder if they are my parents. I wonder if they walk […]

Dear Anna Belle Illien

This is a letter to Anna Belle Illien who was one of the people, or at least her agency, Illien Adoption International Inc., responsible for my adoption about a quarter of a century ago. I have never reached out to Illien the person or the agency but it is one of the connections that I […]

Do You Remember Me?

One of the adoption agencies that worked with my parents to help them identify a child was called Illien Adoption International. I’ll admit I have not done a lot of research about the organization and thus have not really formulated an opinion about whether or not I feel they are helping or hurting the cause, […]

Adoption Therapy: Here I Come!

I have decided that in my searching process I would like to have some support as I move along, thus I have begun looking for a suitable therapist/social worker/mental health professional to help me along the way. I had at one point wanted to wait until I had a significant other who I felt would […]

What I Know or The “Facts”

It turns out I have kind of a lot of information about the process surrounding my adoption. There are lots of pieces of papers, many from the Indian Government or court system and many from the two adoption agencies that my parents utilized in their quest to find the perfect child, me! They utilized Illien Adoption […]

Step 1

I like to plan things, create routines, prioritize and then move forward. Given this proclivity I like to layout a plan for how things will go and determine the best and most efficient way to get from point Here to point Over There Somewhere. In this mindset it is always good to determine both the starting […]