What one would call a Black Market Baby, my outside-the-system “adoption,” meant my “adoptive” parents never received my birth certificate, an adoption never took place, and the name I used never existed on any legal paperwork.

I was handed over along a Texas hospital curb in 1970 – no judge, agency, or paperwork required.  Through my own journey of uncovering the truth about my Black Market adoption, I discovered that a shady attorney sold me to my would-be parents and later extorted them out of thousands of dollars with the threat of taking back the baby. I wouldn’t obtain my first legal birth certificate until I was 47 years old.

Now, I’m watching history repeat itself, as vulnerable mothers face an expanding for-profit adoption industry valued at $30 billion dollars. With abortion rights restricted, more desperate women will stand at the mercy of a system designed to coerce and exploit them.

As an adoption reform advocate, and a relinquishee who has lived with the consequences of an illegal adoption, I speak and keynote at adoption conferences, appear on podcasts, and have written a memoir about my experience. I have a journalism degree from the University of Texas, a decade of experience as a book publicist, and my reunion video has 280,000 YouTube views. Thank you for stopping by.