17 Stories About Adoptive Parents and Children That Seem Straight Out of a Movie

Sometimes, life surprises us with events that seem to have come out of a movie or novel. They can happen even within our own family. Digging through old photos or albums from the past can bring secrets to light. Some people have discovered that their parents, who raised them in warm and loving homes, adopted them at birth or at an early age. And many of them have embarked on years-long quests to learn more about their blood relatives, without knowing if they’ll have a happy ending.

We at Now I’ve Seen Everything want to share with you stories about adoptions posted by users on social media that have really moved us.

• I found this old photograph today of me and my father when I was 3/4. His smile at whatever I was babbling about makes me so happy! My parents wanted children for so long and couldn’t, finally adopting me when they were in their 40s. This picture really shows how much they appreciated me. © Michelle_ma_belle16 / Reddit
• My aunt and uncle had a child, then my aunt had many health problems and could no longer get pregnant. So they decided to adopt a boy and a girl from an orphanage. A year later, the boy developed an allergy to gluten. And my aunt has celiac disease (gluten intolerance). Strange coincidence? But that’s not all. Shortly after the girl was taken in, they received a call from the orphanage. It was reported that the girl’s mother had lupus and had abandoned the daughter for that reason. Well, my aunt’s other disease is lupus. © DevoutandHeretical / Reddit
• My friend has a daughter. She was adopted at the age of four months. She is now 16 years old. They lived well, but one day, my friend’s great-aunt, crossing paths with the child, asked her to help her with a bag and then, in gratitude, revealed the family secret. When she was called out for it, she claimed to be old and confused, and to not know it was a secret. It later turned out that the grandmother was simply full of envy: her son and grandson had gone down a bad path, and here was a girl who had turned out to be very good, but wasn’t related by blood. “You can’t see life through rose-colored glasses! Secrets will always be revealed. And you’ll have to answer for your actions,” said the spiteful old woman. They decided not to go to court, and the girl was told that the great-aunt was a liar. © irina.che / Pikabu

• This past weekend was one of the best days of my life — I met my biological father for the first time. I grew up in foster care and never knew my father. My mother was adopted, and 2 years ago, I took a DNA test to find out my ethnicity. Someone who was related to me reached out, thinking she may be a cousin or an aunt. She had been adopted and was searching for her family. I took another DNA test and confirmed that she was my aunt, which meant that if we were related on my father’s side, then we were that much closer to finding my father!
  
  Fast forward to Jan 2nd, 2021, my biological aunt had found her father and suspected her biological brother was my father. My mom had always told me that my father had abandoned us and didn’t want me, so I was always hesitant to search for him. I found out that day that the man who was my father was NOT the man my mom had thought. My biological father didn’t know I existed!!
  
  The best part? He is AMAZING. He didn’t abandon me. His wife cried with joy as we spoke for the first time. I have 3 biological siblings around my age (I am the oldest), and they are so wonderful. I’ve wondered a few times this past week if I’m dreaming, but thankfully, I have this photo to remind myself this is real. © ThePeterpot / Reddit

• A photo of my beautiful Russian birthmother in the late 1980s. I was adopted from Russia to New Zealand, so I never knew what she looked like until I was 21, when I met her for the first time in Russia. It changed my life completely. She’s beautiful. © alexgilbertnz / Reddit
• I now have two fathers. My father that raised me is still in my life. I found out about my biological dad when I was 18. I didn’t actually do a DNA test until I was 26. Once it came back no probability, I reached out to my biological dad. © CamDiggz / twitter
• I was born in Cambodia but was adopted when I was about 8 months old. I’ve lived basically my whole life in the USA. I still find it sort of funny that, whenever I’m in line with my parents, everybody thinks I’m just a separate kid. Occasionally, I would walk next to my parents and people would ask me if I was lost. © ItsTrueChaos / Reddit
• My mom told me the story of a classmate. They adopted a girl and told her that she had been born to another woman. Ten years later, this woman found the girl (they lived in neighboring towns), approached her on the street, and told her she was her mother. The girl got scared and ran through the gardens to hide in her friend’s house so that this woman would not know where she lived (the girl didn’t know that she already knew). © RA3YMKA / Pikabu

• I was adopted at birth, and I’ve been reunited with my half-sisters. We have the same father and have been searching for each other for 20 years! © katymac25 / Reddit
• The following story happened to my friend’s sister. For a long time, she couldn’t get pregnant. The doctors said it was possible for her to have children, but unlikely. They told her that there were mothers who rejected their children in the hospital immediately after giving birth, and advised her to sign up to adopt one. But six months later, a miracle happened: she became pregnant. Everything was going well, and then it was time to give birth. She went to the hospital and shared a room with a woman who rejected her child a couple of hours after giving birth and simply disappeared. Long story short: my friend’s sister was discharged from the hospital with two children. © Ksenya Myagi / Facebook
• This is something I struggled with enormously before we adopted. I don’t especially like babies. I like kids, especially teenagers who entertain me enormously, but babies I’ve never connected with. I sort of assumed that all men were like that, but that there was some biological “switch” when you first saw your own baby that helped you overcome that. How would that leave me when I saw my adopted baby? I knew I’d grow to love him, but would I feel a connection when I first saw him. I worried about this for months. Finally, when my son was born, we were so fortunate that we were present in the hospital, and his birth mother was gracious enough to let us in the delivery room ten minutes after he arrived. How did I feel when I saw him? Like a switch had been thrown. I can’t describe it, but from the first moment I saw him, he was my son. © Paul Johnson / Quora
• I have an aunt and uncle who adopted a girl (3 years old). It has been 8 years since then. Everything was fine: our whole family loves the little girl, but she didn’t know she was adopted. Recently, we started to notice some oddities in her: she started talking about things that she had no way of knowing. For example, she told her friend about a brother she supposedly had. The friend told her mom and she told my aunt. My aunt and uncle talked to their daughter and found out that an old lady had approached her on the street and told her that her parents were not her biological parents, that she was her grandmother, and that the girl had a brother. They even secretly talked on the phone and in person; the old lady even invited her to visit them, but the little girl didn’t go. When they found out, my aunt and uncle contacted the old lady and reminded her that it was a crime to reveal a secret adoption. The old lady understood and now communicates with her granddaughter strictly under the supervision of my aunt and uncle. Everything seems to have turned out well, more or less. But how could the old lady have been so reckless and inconsiderate? © Albertino1989 / Pikabu

• Here’s the first picture I’ve ever seen of my biological grandmother. I was adopted and never knew where I came from. Apparently, that would be Ireland. © Fiveholefrisky / Reddit
• A friend of mine decided to adopt a child. She collected thousands of documents. I was one of her references, as she took in a “problem child.” Everyone said it would be difficult for her: the child was small for his age (1 year old), weak, and was obviously going to have mental development issues. He’s now 14 years old, lives with his mother in Montenegro, wins prizes in sports competitions and diplomas for the best school performance. She says: “I just saw that he lacked love!” © Timoféy Kryukov / Facebook
• My partner and I adopted 2 children. We couldn’t have children of our own and we had undergone one course of IVF to try to conceive. After a lot of thought, research, and discussions with professionals, we decided to adopt two brothers who were aged 5 and 6 at the time and had been in foster care for 3 years. We were well aware that they would probably have behavioral/developmental difficulties. Our boys are now 20 and 21. In my heart, I feel as though we were always meant to be their parents and they were always meant to be our kids. When we had IVF, we produced 2 viable embryos, even though the pregnancy didn’t last, and they gave us a “photo” of the two embryos they were implanting. I kept the photo as a reminder, but from that moment on, I had in my mind that there were two kids already out there just waiting for us to find them. And we did. © Ruth Alborough / Quora
• We had a friend who was married and divorced 3 times because she couldn’t have children. At 42, she got married again. A young neighbor of hers gave birth to a child and gave it to my friend, for fear of embarrassment. The child was adopted and a miracle happened: My friend gave birth to three children, one after the other, and the adopted one is the family’s favorite. © Nazilya Ulubekova / Facebook
• My youngest daughter came to live with us when she was 10, when my middle daughter brought her home for a sleepover that has lasted for 13 years. She went through a lot and knew she was an unplanned child. I realized for the first time in my life that I had to love someone without any expectation of return. I love my bio children with every fiber of my being and I would give my life for them, but I love her maybe a bit harder. She didn’t have the luxury of knowing that she was safe her whole life. She changed our lives. Today, my four kids are as tight as thieves. She’s thriving in school as a nursing major. We are her people, and she is ours. © Renee LaCoste Long / Quora

Do you know stories of people who were adopted or discovered that they were adopted later in life? We want to read about them, feel free to share them in the comments.