Adoptee Story: Yi Woo Ae
November 12, 2020
Adoptee Story:
Yi, born in South Korea, adopted to the United States.
INTRO: Fellow adoptee Yi Woo Ae shares her adoptee story with us, in her own words. Within her story, she speaks of the role of DNA-testing for her to puzzle together her own history as best as she can, a reality many adoptees can relate to…
“My Adoption Story
I was born in Seongnam Hospital near Seoul, South Korea in 1983. I was adopted because I was the product of one-night stand affair. It took my parents six months to adopt me and to go through the home study. I was adopted when I was 4 months old, so based on adoption customs, I’m pretty sure that my birthmom was not allowed to see me. I am a product of the primal wound.
I have a ton of information about the time before my adoption. It seems that I learn something new every time I conduct a birth search. I have an older half-sister who was 5 years old when I was born. Obviously, she knows about me. I have a younger half-brother who knows about me and an 11-year old sister who doesn’t know about me. I have about 5 aunts and an uncle. Even though I was shuttled from orphanage to orphanage, I ended up with a foster family that took good care of me before my American adoption.
My mom was a poor woman with only an elementary school education who married up. She was married to an engineer but had a one-night stand affair with a stranger (possibly a marriage of convenience?). They divorced after my birth. When she was looking for a new husband, she specifically wanted to marry someone to whom she could disclose my birth and was initially looking forward to keeping the lines of communication open with me. However, when I conducted my birth search, she was pregnant with my sister, unbeknownst to me, and did not have the emotional bandwidth. I also suspect that someone from the family (an elder or sibling?) encouraged her to cut off ties with me. Her letter to me was my first and last letter from her, and she gave me advice on who to marry.
I imagine that I got my wavy hair from my mom, based on her picture (though her hair could have been permed) and that I got leg body hair from my dad (which is uncommon among Korean women). I’ve learned about my medical history from DNA tests. A surprise to me is that I’m a carrier for a hereditary blood condition common to Koreans, thalassemia, that could have resulted in a few miscarriages along my family’s tree or even daily blood transfusions. In addition, my lactose intolerance kicked in this year.
I have additional information about my birthparents, but it’s speculative, as it was from Western/Chinese astrology or psychics. The spiritual information that I have about them is that this is my third lifetime being my birthmom’s birthdaughter, and who knows if we’ll ever break this pattern. In addition, I may have a relative that died from a chemical addiction. Astrologically, I suspect that, were I to meet my birthfamily, which will still be alive when my adoptive family has passed, I’d probably get along best with my half-brother.
However, I did not give up. Ten years later I searched for her again, but she had blocked the number of the adoption agency in her phone. I do not know my father’s name because my birthmom doesn’t know my father’s name. My next step is to find my father either through Korean newspapers or through DNA.
It was interesting to be a minority (a “queerean”) within a minority (Korean adoptees) within a minority (Korean-Americans) raised by a Trumper. Even though I am thankful to be adopted, it took me decades to get there. My husband is thankful that I was adopted because otherwise he would not have been able to meet me, but he is aware of what I have shared with him regarding the industry aspect of adoption. I may be the only Korean adoptee who enjoys genealogy. I have a small living family and a huge amount of ancestors on my adoptive side going back to the 16th century and, I suspect, my biological side since my Korean surname is Yi (Lee), making me a part of the Yi Dynasty. The only people still left among my living family are mostly related by marriage.”
To read more from me, buy Profiles of KAD Relations with the Black Community by Yi Woo Ae (coming soon).
This link will be updated, so please, do check back!
Yi Woo Ae is also on the copywriting team for Adoptee Hub.
End of Article
Amanda Medina
I was adopted from Medellin, Colombia to Sweden in 1985. I was about a year and a half when I started my life as an adoptee, and it would take 32 years until I was ready to face what that means, what that has always meant, and what that will always mean.
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