Personal stories

Focus on Adoption and AFABC have always sought to centre adoptee voices and perspectives, but the #FlipTheScript campaign (launched during Adoption Awareness Month in 2014) inspired us to launch a regular column called "Adopted Voice." The series ran from 2015 to 2016.

In ongoing this series, we interview experts about your key questions about adoption.

Are you an expert wanting to lend your knowledge to our families? Email us at editor@bcadoption.com.

Here are some of the articles from our long-running Diary of an Adoptive Mom series. This adoptive mother shares her experiences and secret thoughts of raising three children. This series ran from 2006 to 2010.

Note: Diary entries #1 to #7 are unavailable 

In our Living Openness series, adoptive mother Charlotte Taylor shares her experience navigating the world of open adoption. This series originally ran from 2013 to 2015.

The Whiteheads adopted their son, Thomas, as a baby, and while he was born premature and with health complications, he has grown up into a healthy, sports-loving teen. The Whiteheads have an open relationship with the birth family, and that has helped them to keep their son close to his Indigenous roots. This is their adoption story. 

When the Forsyths decided to adopt, they were planning on a child who was around two years younger than their ten-year-old biological daughter. When the social worker called and said she had an 8-month-old for them, they were shocked. But their daughter wasn’t. She said she knew that the family would adopt a baby brother because that’s what she had prayed for. This is their adoption story. 

Vince and Eric’s journey to adoption was long. But when they finally met their son, J, for the first time, they knew their family was complete. This is their adoption story.

Jamie and Tyler Giesbrecht always wanted a big family, but for a while it didn’t seem to be happening naturally. They started fostering, which turned into adoption, and today they have the big family they always dreamed of! This is their adoption story.

Another adult adoptee shares here story of searching for her birth family, and finding roots that, while limited, help ground her. 

This is an article about the challenges and complexities of searching and reconnecting with a birth parent, and learning to cope when things don’t work out the way you’d hoped they would.