How Far Would You Go to Know Who You Are?

In America today, approximately 120 million people are connected in some way to Adoption. This is of little surprise to the 4 million of us who were trafficked as infants during what is known as the Baby Scoop Era; a post-war period between 1945 and 1973. What is less known, is that many of those relinquished babies were never legally adopted, but rather sold on the black market. In 1970 alone, 9000 of us were bartered. I was one of them.

At 12 I learned my birth certificate did not exist, at 13 I used fake papers, and by 18, a single mom myself, I discovered I’d never actually been adopted. My new parents spent their lives looking over their shoulders, all because they bought a baby along a Texas hospital curb in 1970, no judge or paperwork involved. First denied by adoption agencies, then extorted by the attorney they hired to skirt the system, the bi-racial couple had to choose; go to the police or cough up more money. They paid 30K, and hid in plain sight with me, their paperless child. Fear, abuse, and addiction followed.

At 38, still in need of a birth certificate, and spurred by my mother’s death, I journey to unearth the lifelong threat that drove her alcoholism and ballooned my crippled father to 650 pounds — at any moment someone could have come back for the baby.

Racing to untangle decades of deception before the secret keepers pass away, I find my birth mother. But to regain my true identity, I must convince her to divulge the name of my birth father, the man she says raped her decades ago. Yet, who should I believe? And what will it cost me?

In light of the Dobb’s decision, and the positioning of adoption as the solution to unexpected pregnancy, my 89,000-word memoir shines a light on the cracks in the still-broken 30-billion-dollar for-profit adoption industry. It is also a healing testimony to the resilience of one bartered baby who refused to be erased. With themes of identity, family dysfunction, addiction, abuse, and resilience, this memoir will appeal to fans of Gretchen Sisson’s RELINQUISHED, Jeanette Wall’s THE GLASS CASTLE, Tara Westover’s EDUCATED, and the play/movie THE WHALE by Samuel D. Hunter.

My manuscript has been professionally edited and beta-read by adoptees, adoptive parents, and first mothers. A book proposal is available upon request.  I live in New Orleans, LA, where I am currently working on a reportive memoir about birth father rights, genetic attraction, and my ten treasured years in reunion with my birth father, who at 69 learned I existed.