This September marked my 28th Gotcha Day. Normally it is a time for cake, family dinners, and retelling the story of how, when I was 18 months old, I joined my family through adoption. But this year felt different. My husband and I are living as digital nomads on the East Coast, far from my parents and the house I grew up in.

Pausing, I breathed deep until my chest tightened and then exhaled with this thought: I am here for a reason. God’s reason. And behind that, another reason: my birth mother’s choice to give me life.

She left me in a basket by a hospital in southern China. In a country governed by the One Child Policy, her decision was quiet, unseen, and uncelebrated—but it was everything. Without it, there would be no me, no story, no life to tell.

My “Good Story”

Before I ever had a “good story” (as an adoptee who heard my account once described it), I had an orphanage story. I spent my first year and a half in an orphanage in southern China where the ratio was one nanny for fifteen babies. The women did the best they could, but an orphan learns quickly in that setting that you are on your own. Attention is scarce. Comfort is rationed. If you want to be held, you fight for it and wait your turn. That shaped me more than I realized: My independence, my drive, and my dedication were born out of necessity. People think adoption is just about the moment you join a family, but the truth is, every country, every orphanage, every policy leaves its fingerprints on us long before that. My circumstances were neither purely good nor purely bad, they just were. And they continue to make me who I am, as I am, with my family.

After adoption, I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago with loving Catholic parents and a younger sister, also adopted from China. My parents gave me the kind of home I assumed everyone had: faithful, steady, openminded. They never treated me as different for not being biologically related.

We say often: Neither they nor I are lucky. We both won. God united us across the world and made us family.

One of my favorite quotes sums it up: “I loved you before I ever saw you, before I held you, before I knew your name. I loved you from the other side of the world, and I knew we were meant to be a family.” The words, from an unknown author, speak deeply to my experience.

My parents’ faith became mine. My dad had converted after meeting my mom. Together they showed me that faith was not just a tradition but a framework for life. Sunday Mass, lectoring, altar serving, choir, all gave me roots. And more importantly, they modeled that the ultimate goal is to get each other to heaven. That grounding shaped me far more than I realized.

So why do I feel like an outsider?

A few years ago, I was surprised to learn that in the adoptee culture, a “good story” can make you an outcast. Many adoptees expect the narrative of pain and abandonment. And to be fair, loss is real and valid. But because my story is one of gratitude, resilience, and faith, I was told in so many words, “You have a ‘good’ adoption story, Leanne, and not all of us have that.”

This hurt so deeply that I could not believe what I had just heard. Not because I dismissed the pain of those with darker stories, but because mine did not fit their mold. For me, adoption was not perfection or tragedy, it was a possibility to experience life. And sometimes the possibility itself is miraculous.

The Temporary Belonging

I often think of my life in four “buckets”: Chinese; adoptee; Catholic; and business owner. Each category gives me roots, but none of them feels like I can fully embrace it.

Chinese: I love honoring my heritage. For my wedding rehearsal dinner, I wore a traditional red qipao to honor my ancestors. Teachers once praised my “good English,” perhaps ignorant that I was raised in the Chicago suburbs. Yet when I visit Chicago Chinatown, I’m “too Western” to be seen as fully Chinese.

Adoptee: I embrace my identity without letting it define me entirely. In 2017, I founded and led an adoptee social group in the Chicagoland and Midwest area to foster belonging and connection. After three and a half years, I stepped away because members of the leadership team were unwilling to commit to the mission of serving adoptees without regard to politics, religion, or other viewpoints. The adoptee culture can be overdone, such as the time when a friend’s parents flaunted us like exotic animals to strangers in grocery store checkout lines, calling us “Chinese sisters.” I’ve lived my whole life balancing gratitude with the frustration of being objectified. Uber drivers pressing, “But where are you really from?”

Catholic: My faith grounds me and I do not know where I would be without it. In first grade, my classmates voted for me to carry the banner in the May Crowning procession for our Mother Mary, because they saw me as the “most Godlike.” That moment still guides me. But even in Catholic circles, cultural blind spots run deep. In Catholic circles I once met a Caucasian man and his Chinese wife who ran a nonprofit orphanage in China. Finally, people who are Catholic, Chinese, and adopteeconscious, I hoped. But then I noticed that his wife never spoke unless spoken to, while the man bragged about drinking with all the Chinese businessmen and making deals while his wife worked at the orphanage. Overall, meeting a traditional Catholic who appeared to have a “white knight” complex did not sit well with me.

Business Owner: I’m very thankful to have had the opportunity to become a founder at my age. I have joined Catholic professional groups and secular networking groups, led teams, and met with driven professionals all over the world. Yet too often I am first seen as different, intriguing people more than receiving their respect. I want to be seen as more than a cool story, a young woman, or the girl with great taste in fashion; I want to be seen as an equal. Who am I, then? All of these, and yet none of them fully embraces me. Each of these categories is a piece of me, and I am grateful that each has contributed to making me who I am, but it is hard not to feel “accepted” by each group. I learned I’m allowed to embrace my identities without letting them define me entirely.

The Mustard Seed

One of the sharpest divides I’ve felt is between prolife and prochoice adoptees.

Prochoice adoptees often frame the argument this way: If you don’t defend every other minority identity, then you’re against us. The minority identities we’re pressured to embrace are many: Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ Pride, antireligion, the list goes on. The demand for conformity is relentless. And along the way, there’s an assumption that we support a woman’s “right” to abortion to prevent more “bad” adoption stories.

I have noticed that some individuals want me to remove my personal values to amplify other voices—this is social justice in their eyes. I am all for everyone having their own opinion, but I have been forced out for not conforming to someone else’s beliefs. I believe there is an appropriate time and space to be heard and seen, but it does not require belittling others if they do not match your belief system.

And prolife adoptees? We are invisible. Our voices don’t trend on social media. We’re not “loud.” We’re not invited to panels. But our silence doesn’t mean we don’t exist.

After my husband and I graduated from university and got married, we began praying the rosary and other devotions outside Planned Parenthood each Lenten season, and then it started to become a habit, so it carried into the summer. Last summer, I mustered the courage to break my silence by crossing the invisible line to the women volunteers in pink vests at Planned Parenthood. I listened to their stories first and acknowledged their reasoning. Then, with tears forming beneath my sunglasses, I shared mine: “I’m adopted. I’m alive because my mother chose life in a country where that wasn’t guaranteed. That’s why I’m here.”

I knew I wouldn’t change their minds. But I wanted them to see me as an adoptee, prolife advocate, another woman, and more importantly a human being. I was not angry, not screaming, not holding vulgar signage, just my rosary beads clutched in one hand. I wanted to plant the seed.

“Community”

I was told the definition of community is a place to feel safe, welcome, open to learn, and free to explore new ideas. And then reality hit. It hit even harder in middle school and still challenges me as a business owner. That is the paradox of my life: My very existence is proof of a choice for life, which I am grateful for, yet I still feel alienated from these communities, some more than others.

• To adoptees, I do not have a story that is tragic enough. I am a traitor to minority solidarity, and I disenfranchise women from having a “safe abortion.”

• To Catholics, I am lucky to be “saved” from my circumstances, yet being treated as less than equal feels degrading.

• To Chinese people, I am too Western.

• To business owners, I am not taken seriously as a young, accomplished Catholic, Chinese woman.

I am exhausted. Running a creative firm for over six years has given me chances to share my story, but also constant reminders that God is the only one sustaining me when I feel unseen.

I’m not ashamed of my story, but I need to constantly remind myself that God is behind me, supporting me every step of the way.

“Belonging”

Not every story must be extreme to be true. My adoption is not a tragedy in my eyes; it’s a gift. My voice as a prolife adoptee matters, even if it doesn’t trend, even if it doesn’t fit others’ narratives.

Susan Cain, renowned author and lecturer on the power of quiet, has said that silence can sometimes be louder than constant noise. I’ve found that to be true. Being quiet, listening first, then speaking with conviction is stronger than you know. That’s how I live and continue to speak when the time is right.

As of August 28, 2024, China has now closed international adoption. For many adoptees, it’s bittersweet news. For me, it’s a reminder of how rare and unrepeatable my story is. I was given not just life, but the chance at a life with God pairing me with loving parents who also wished for a family.

I may never fully “belong” comfortably in one group, but I’m learning that belonging can be overrated. What matters to me now is bearing witness to the dignity of life, to the complexity of adoption, and to my Catholic faith that holds me steady when nothing else does.

I am learning to be at peace with not belonging anywhere fully. At the end of the day, everything on earth is temporary, and my eternal belonging lies ahead.

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Original Bio:

Leanne Hart writes from her laptop while traveling the United States as a digital nomad with her husband and their dog. She is currently working from the Eastern Seaboard, while she runs her business.