Hester was stolen as a baby: 'I never want to live without an identity again'

In this weekly column, people talk about something they 'never want to experience again', never want to do again or never want to do again. This week: Hester Bouwmeester (45) from Lebanon knew early on that something was not quite right with her adoption. Still, it came as a shock that she was stolen from the hospital as a baby. "They told my parents I was dead and already buried."

"I was ten days old when I arrived in the Netherlands. That date is about the only thing that is correct on my adoption papers, it turned out. My adoptive parents in the Netherlands received a phone call that I was born and they flew to Lebanon to pick me up. My mother had fertility problems but had a great desire to have children. The spirit of the times was very different then, she and my father really thought they would do well to 'save' a child from the war. They did this with the best intentions and went from there. that the adoption was completely legal.

At that time, adoption was romanticized: parents did something 'good' and the children should be especially grateful that they were lifted out of poverty. It ignored the fact that children were being torn from their natural environment and their families. In my case that was even more harsh, because I had a twin sister whom I would not see again until forty-five years later."

"I grew up in the Netherlands in a warm, loving family. Eighteen months after my arrival, my parents adopted another baby from Lebanon through a recognized foundation. I got along well with my sister, we could play around in the yard of our farm. "I wasn't unhappy, but I always felt 'different'. As if I was missing something. At school I found it difficult to connect with other children."

No blood ties with anyone

"As an adolescent I received more and more questions about my origins. It made me sad and restless that I did not know my story and had no blood ties with anyone. I often thought about my biological mother. Then I wondered whether I looked like her and why she didn't want me. This is how my adoption subconsciously felt to me: like a rejection. As if I wasn't worth loving and caring for.

I also carried this belief with me as an adult. I had relationships with bad types that were not always good for me, because I had little self-esteem. Looking back, it's such a shame, because I was wanted twice: by my adoptive parents and by my biological parents."

"I went to Lebanon for the first time with my sister and parents in 2004. It immediately felt like home, despite the crowds on the streets and the suffocating diesel smell. The people there look like me; they are hospitable, busy people who like to have a chat. Back then When I flew back to the Netherlands, it felt like my stomach was being torn open. I felt torn."

Parents 'unknown'

"I already knew that something was wrong with my adoption. I was in my early twenties when I spoke to a boy who had also been adopted from Lebanon. He told me that the man from the so-called recognized foundation that had arranged my adoption was completely corrupt. and worked for the government, and that my adoption was illegal.

Apparently children from Lebanon are not allowed to be adopted at all. This news was confrontational but also a confirmation of what I always felt: that something was not right. My adoption papers said 'unknown' next to my parents' names, so looking for them was very difficult for me."

“My cousin told me I had a twin sister, as well as three half-brothers, three half-sisters and three full sisters.”

"I got in touch with several adopted children from Lebanon, and we found out that many of us had the same doctors involved in our birth and that we would all have been born within an hour. So it was quite suspicious. We were a group for twelve years." ago the program Spoorloos, but unfortunately that came to nothing."

DNA match

"I'm religious and when I was talking to a Christian rapper last year he said to me, 'If you ask, you will receive.' Suddenly I realized that I never prayed for answers to where I come from, while that was a is one of my biggest questions in life. For the first time I prayed about this, and promptly the next day there was a match with a biological cousin of mine.

A few months earlier I had added my DNA to the family database 23 and Me. My niece was contacted by a DNA specialist, who said that her aunt had given birth to twins, but that she had been told that one of her daughters had died. The cousin told me that her aunt and uncle – my parents – were no longer alive, but that I did have a twin sister, in addition to three half-brothers, three half-sisters and three full sisters."

"When I heard that, so much fell into place. My restlessness, the loneliness, the nagging feeling that something was missing, it was all because I had been separated from my twin sister. The next day I was able to make a video call with my sister Mirvat. When I saw her it was like looking into my own eyes.

Mirvat was able to tell me more details. She was nine years old when our parents told her that she had a deceased twin sister, but she had always felt that I was still alive. I was born ten minutes after her. I really wanted to know if my mother was still holding me, and my eldest half-sister could confirm that. I broke down when I heard that, it meant so much to me."

Heart problems 

"The doctors told my parents that there was something wrong with my heart, and with that excuse I was taken away from my mother. The next day they told her that I was dead. My father rushed to the hospital, he demanded that he still take me. But he was told that I had already been buried. He then went to the cemetery, but I was not allowed to be exhumed.

My parents were angry and feeling defeated, and they chose to believe that I was really dead. I think they knew in their hearts that this wasn't true, but they had to move on for their other nine children. Besides, their country was at war, they had to survive."

"It was a bizarre story, almost like a movie. Who gets kidnapped as a baby? But strangely enough, I also found it reassuring. It was not my parents' choice to give me up, I was definitely through wanted and loved. Yet I also found it very intense to process. When I saw twins being born on TV, I thought: at that point I was already being taken away. I was inclined to put many things away, but this fact I really had to feel it."

Not abandoned, but blessed 

"Last March I met Mirvat for the first time. That was very special, as if we became one again. 'I found it!' I shouted with my hands in the air. I had found the piece that was missing. The morning after our meeting I felt that I had lived my whole life with half a heart. It is now whole again.

I wish this feeling for many more adopted children and mothers who still wrongly think that their child has died. That is why it is so important to put your DNA in a database. Mirvat and I have nice contact, we speak regularly.

Never again do I want to live without the truth and especially without identity. Because of the answers I now know who I am. There is no more sadness behind my smile now, my look is lighter. I am not abandoned, but blessed."