I just want to say but I just want to say a big thank you to those people
around the world who have been reading my story "I'm Adopted" in English and in
Russian. Thank you very much I really appreciate it. The Russian version is here,
it's available now on my website as a free download. All sorts of crazy formats,
you name it it's there and "I'm Adopted" as well. So that's also on my website too.
That's available and it's free to read. I want to get it out there as to as many
people as possible and just try and help as many people as I can. It's been
awesome and everything has been incredible and the feedback and the
stories and comments, everything has been amazing and overwhelming at the same
time. So thank you very much and this is just the beginning with everything and I
know that it's going to continue on. So one thing I really want to talk about
was how I actually did the search for my birth parents. Now a lot of people ask me
this, how did everything begin, what steps did you take. So everything really
happened quite a while ago now, over six years ago and a lot has changed with
technology and the way things work in the world. Now as you may know or may not
know I do have a project called "I'm Adopted" which I still run and it shares
stories of adoptive people around the ward so you can see the link below to
see it on screen now. And that project I established to set up, a few years
ago and it's helped a lot of people around the world share their stories. It's
in English, it's in Russian and it's in Spanish, so it's helped a lot of adoptive
people share their stories and a lot of people actually have connected with their
birth families or parents through this. Now before I begin and get into how I
searched out for my birth parents, I know there is a lot of stories around the
world that are not entirely positive and I get a lot of messages all the time
about people talking about how everything went well well it exactly 'no'
it didn't. It didn't happen like that. There's also a lot of sites
where you have to be you have to be prepared for anything that would happen
meeting your birth parents, now it's not entirely a big positive story my story
in fact it's not. It's just that I was able to search and find them yes but I
always had the fear of not being able to meet my birth
parents because they might not want to meet me, so it's always something that I've
always thought about and something that... It's always on my mind for a lot of
people that want to search for their birth families or birth parents. With my
search for my birth parents, over six years ago, I actually used social media.
I used Russian social media. I did a search for my birth mother first and then
I did search from birth father. Now my birth father didn't know anything about
me and I was only able to find information about my birth mother.
So there's websites like ok.ru or vk.com and these websites are based
in Russia and there a social network site in Russia and a lot
of information is there. A lot of people that may know some relatives
or may know some connections to your birth families or birth siblings
or birth parents. And so that's been very useful for a lot of people around the
world. Now I do have a blog post I wrote up about people adopted from Russia,
around the world who are trying to find birth families or find any type of
connection at all. I do have a blog post about where you could search or what
you could do to start those steps. So I searched through ok.ru and I also
searched through vk.com. And I managed to get through to my birth
mother's friend in her town. I looked up for a community group and I found a
community group named after my birth mother's last name. Now it's quite
complicating but I managed to track down my birth mother through this community
group on ok.ru. I got in touch with some person that knew my
birth mother in the same town. She actually went to the same school as my
birth mother but had not heard from her since then, so she then referred me
to another friend who may know my birth mother and that's how I eventually
tracked down my birth mother Tatiana. So there's all sorts of different stories,
every story is different for everybody. Some people may not be able to find some
information and that has been the case for a lot of people who are trying to
search for birth families or birth parents. But there's always light at the
end of the tunnel, I believe that and nothing's impossible and it just takes
time for everybody who want to go and search for their birth parents. I know some...
I know a few stories last year I actually sat down. I helped a few people
here in Auckland, New Zealand and I managed to find their birth families
within a few days actually and all it was was the relatives or sisters
or brothers were on these websites and I just contacted them and I said 'Hello
there. There's a person that is interested to meeting you or contacting
you. I believe they're related to you.' and it's not entirely going to always be a
big positive ballgame. It's never gonna be really exciting for everybody. Some
people are in shock. Some people were really quite upset and it happens all
the time. So say for example, my birth father, I messaged him almost six
years ago and he got quite upset and shocked when I contacted him, because he
had no idea what was going on, he thought it was all of a big joke, he thought this was
kind of like a scam of me reaching out to him saying 'Hey I believe I am your
son in New Zealand. Do you know Tatiana?' and then things kind of went on from
there. So you need to take some more steps if you're gonna go and find your birth
parents. Take your time, don't rush into it and do it when you feel like it
you're ready to do it. Do it when you feel like you're comfortable. Talk
with your mum and dad, talk with your parents, talk with your family about
you may be wanting to search for your birth family or birth parents and
with yourself, always hope for the best and never get upset about anything like
not getting a reply, just waiting and waiting. Maybe it's been a year, maybe you're
still trying to search for your birth parents. It is different for everybody
and I know someone that's also trying to get in touch with their birth family as
well and it's taken a very long time to actually get each step at a time. It
takes months at a time to find something new. Find some new information and then
find the next part of information. You know, you want to try and do what you can
and take your time and I believe that an age to find your birth parents, I believe
myself searched my birth parents when I was 21 and that was six years ago I'm
getting quite old now. But searching for your birth parents
after high school I believe was right. I didn't want to search for them
throughout high school. I always wondered about them but I didn't know anything, I had a
lot to learn and I was always quite nervous about searching or what I may
find being a teenager compared to when I was 21. And I felt like I was
prepared to find my birth parents and I felt like that was the right age. So each
to yourself. Keep doing what you want to do and just when you feel like
it's right age, you can try and search for your birth
parents. Now to those people who do not want to search for their birth parents or
may have gone through some sort of negative experience or some sort of
trauma or something really bad growing up as a child, or anything like that, even
in your adopted country or with your adoptive parents or anything like that,
just remember that there is a family out there that love you so much
and if your mum and dad did adopt you and they did raise you and you still
feel like they didn't do a good job, or you feel like they let you down or you
feel upset or you feel like they're not giving you any information. Just give it
time, because things will happen and things will fall into place. And as an
adopted person I believe that everything happens for a reason and then
one day it will happen, don't rush into it. Things will happen for you and
eventually you'll find some good news. I guarantee that and even if something is...
something bad has happened with your birth parents or your birth families,
just know that you have made that sort of connection you know what's going on
later on in life. You actually know about your birth family and you've actually
understood what's happened to them and that is closure for a lot of
people. And it may not be the most greatest outcome, my brother for
example, we don't believe that his birth mother was alive anymore but he's told
me he's very happy that he actually knows what's happened to her.
Well as and we think, we have an idea that we can't get in touch with her
or we think something bad's happened to her. So take as you go
as an adoptee. Take your time, and don't rush into it. I hope this video has
helped many of you, if you want to learn about my experience more about being an
adopted person around the world, please you can check out my book on my website.
It's free to download, you can read it. You can also get it on Amazon as a
paperback. Unfortunately that's not free, I couldn't make that free or the
Russian version as well. So please go and check it out. I really appreciate the
feedback. I appreciate the support. Everything. I'm back into work now, it's
back into 2019 and I'll be doing more videos. In the meantime please check out
me on Instagram, I am there. I do have facebook as well and I do share a lot of
posts on both of those platforms so please check me out on there.
Thank you very much and I hope that this is kind of give you guys an insight
about my story, about my experience with searching for my birth parents as well
as helping as many of you as I can around the world who are adopted, please,
thank you very much and please keep watching my videos, I really appreciate it.
Watching my channel, thank you so much and until next time,
Dasvidaniya (Goodbye), Spasibo bolshoe (Thank you very much), Paka (Bye)
Dasvidaniya (Goodbye), thank you very much. Thank you.