Anya Vizza

Anya Vizza and her mother at age 1 after Anya’s adoption.

November is a month of many celebrations, including one that is close to this writer’s heart: Adoption Awareness month. Adoption is when a birth parent might not be able to take care of their child, and so they make the choice to allow another person to become that child’s parent. Birth parents may put children up for adoption for a number of reasons, the main one being to give their child a better life that they likely cannot give them.

This was my own experience. I was born in Russia in 2008 to my birth mother. My birth mother couldn’t take care of me, so I had the opportunity of being adopted at one year old. This is my story.

On April 15, 2009, my mom met me for the first time. She fell in love with me the moment she saw me. You see, she had waited a year to meet me. When she flew home to the United States, she waited another 3 months until she received the call that my paperwork was ready and she could bring me home. It was loads and loads of cumbersome paperwork, but in the end, it was worth it.

In June of 2009, she flew out to Russia to see me again. When my mom came to pick me up, she went to the baby home where I lived, and we played outside for hours each day waiting for my passport to be completed.  I learned to walk in one of the gazebos there. Thankfully, many of these memories were filmed on camera so I could look back and see this experience forever. That visual of me taking my first steps is one of my favorite parts of the video.

What people should know first about adoption is what an amazing experience it is; I have a loving family and wouldn’t change anything about my life. There is also a strong sense of connection within the adoption community; for example,  I was adopted around the same time as a kid from the same baby home, and I am still friends with him to this day. 

There are many ways to show your support for adoption: you can wear a white ribbon to demonstrate your advocacy, you can donate to organizations like the National Adoption Foundation, and you can listen to and share stories just like mine–of people who were given another chance at an amazing life.