Real life: Sam discovered that her adoption has been cheated

After her adoption at the age of 2.5, Sam (40, but according to the law 41 years old) ended up in an unsafe family situation in the Netherlands. She was abused by her adoptive father and felt little warmth with her adoptive mother. She also found out that her adoption papers had been tampered with. 'I was just sold.'

Second choice

“I don't remember much of my first two years of life. I was born in Sri Lanka in 1981 and was adopted in 1984 by my Dutch adoptive parents. According to them, my biological mother had given me up because she could no longer take care of me. My adoptive parents also told me that they would actually adopt another girl from Indonesia,” says Sam in Grazia's Winterboek . “They had everything ready for her and suddenly that adoption was cancelled. Finally they came to me. To me, that always felt like I was second choice. And to be honest, I've never really felt comfortable at home.”

“Even at school I didn't feel at home. Because I got all the clothes from my adoptive brothers and my adoptive mother cut my hair short, I looked like a boy. I was bullied a lot about that. Meanwhile, I was abused by my adoptive father from the age of six. This developed very gradually.”

biological family

“All these years I wanted to meet my biological family. I had no idea where they lived and in 2006 I went to work as a volunteer in an orphanage in Sri Lanka for half a year. Since I wanted to meet my biological family, I went there a little earlier with my friend's mother. With the help of Siri , my Sri Lankan contact I met online, I found my biological family within the first week. This thanks to a piece of paper with an address on it that my biological mother had given to my adoptive mother. I had gotten it from her when I was young and kept it neat ever since. Unfortunately, my biological mother had already passed away. There turned out to be an older brother and a grandmother and if I wanted to, I could meet them.”

“Contrary to what I had often seen on TV, the introduction was not a nice Spoorloos moment. In fact, I met my brother first and he was quite skeptical when I stood in front of him. Then he took me to my grandmother's. She beamed with happiness when she saw me and said all kinds of things I didn't understand. The moment she hugged me, I knew: she really is my family.”

Different birth dates

“With the help of Siri, my grandmother told me that my birth mother had taken me somewhere one day. I was only two and a half years old and according to my biological mother I was sick. A few days later she came back alone. My grandmother also told me that I was born on December 17, 1981, so not on July 4, 1981 as it said in my passport. When I looked at my adoption papers, I also saw another date of birth, April 7, 1981. I couldn't understand it. Why so many different dates of birth? Later I remembered that my adoptive parents had sometimes expressed doubts about my date of birth. But why had they never figured it out? Weren't me and my identity important enough?"

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