Thank you so much for your story. We adoptees were treated like commodities without much concern for our well-being or that of our birth mothers. I was put into county care three days after birth. The county social worker proudly noted that she was able to persuade my mother –– who'd given birth "out of wedlock" –– to give me up for adoption. I was adopted five months later. I have written three stories on Medium about growing up as an adoptee in an abusive home. I'm just now, at 77, exploring my history. Spent my life feeling afraid of what I'd discover in my birth family.