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I've always known I was adopted my father used to tell me we walked into a room full of a hundred babies and picked
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out the cutest fattest kid we could find I loved that story of course it was nowhere near the truth but that adoption
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Story made me feel wanted chosen by my parents the story of an orphan's abandonment particularly one from a
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foreign country can also play a significant role in shaping their life it may be the only connection that child
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will ever have to a birth mother they will never meet or a country they will never visit but getting to the truth of
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how and why a child was given up is challenging especially if they have been dumped in a public Marketplace or worse
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yet stolen while covering this story we met Betsy Emanuel she became obsessed with finding the truth about this little
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Guatemalan girl named Maria Fernanda whom she had tried to adopt when Betsy learned Maria had been abducted she
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became instrumental and reuniting birth mother and daughter so we are with Betsy
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Emanuel and the band goinging from uh the hotel in Guatemala City to meet uh Maria Fernanda she has been waiting 5
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years to meet with Maria Fernanda and Maria's mother mild for me um I've been to a handful of uh adoption reunions
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including my own with birth parents between birth parents and adoptees and uh sometimes adopted parents are there
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but this is the first time I've been to a reunion where it's adoptive mother and
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birth parent and that the child is still with the birth parent it's an incredible
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um moment in Betsy's life and you feel the anticipation and that level of anxiety and excitement in your stomach I
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felt it when I met my birth family and I can feel it again today because these women are so deeply connected uh I feel
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really grateful to be here for this opportunity but this is going to be a long and emotional night for
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everybody and it was next we flew to Congo following the Owen family as they searched for the
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truth about two sisters from Congo they were trying to adopt the entire adoption
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had begun to unravel when they asked a simple question where did these girls come from so yesterday or it was the day
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before we flew 13 hours from uh Washington Dallas into Ethiopia and then another 3 or 4 hours into the Congos
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quite a journey already as you can see behind me there are these walls and what struck me when we were coming out of the
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airport wasn't just the uh tremendous tremendous poverty here was that there are walls buil build right up to the
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roadway and you have no idea what's behind anyone of it could be a mansion it could be a Convent it could be a slum
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and I think it's almost indicative of what you find when you're here in the Congo there are walls in front of
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people's emotions and walls up around the stories that they tell you and you don't know what's behind it layers and
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layers of stories layers and layers of Truth and lies maybe not lies but certainly not the whole truth truth and
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perhaps that's the problem when you're dealing with a deeply emotional issue like the love and Welfare of a child
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things can get pretty explosive like this raid we witnessed at a congales orphanage this battle was over the
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custody of seven children so this is day four in the Congo hry all right day four
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uh we're here with the Owens family now this is the day this is the moment we are waiting for them to come out and let
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us know if they get to get on a plane and go home with their girls the problem is there have been serious issues with
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the story of Ava and Zoe's abandonment and there is no one from their birth family to confirm details but even when
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there are birth family members around it can still be challenging this is some of
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the maternal side of my birth family their are obscured not only to protect their identity but because the details
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of my abandonment story remain very painful for some of them 28 years after I started my search there was still
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conflicting information this is one of two half Brothers I've been privileged to meet and now have a lovely
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relationship with as adults none of us really care so much about those details from so long ago maybe someday Ava and
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Zoe will feel the same way Congo was then this is now but first they have to get
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home really great