- Cristina Prisco, 45, knew she was adopted from Chile ever since she was a young girl
- Told her birth parents gave her up, she was shocked to learn she the product of a forced adoption
- her adoptive parents had no idea and believed they helping
- After years apart Cristina was reunited with her mother – and her eight siblings!
Here Cristina tells her story in her own words.
‘Breakfast is ready,’ I called to my son Joseph, then nine, carrying a plate of toast to the table and watching the morning news while my hubby George, 43, was at work.
One story caught my attention. It was about a man named Tyler Graf who’d been stolen from his mother at birth in Chile, and placed for adoption by an international child trafficking network.
Like Tyler, I was adopted from Chile too.
I was only three months old when my parents Benito and Ann Marie, who had struggled to conceive, adopted me. My father flew to Chile to bring me home in May 1980.
‘Your birth mother had been too poor to provide for you,’ Dad explained when I was four.
I was sad for my birth mother, but so grateful for the wonderful life my parents had given me.
‘You’re our greatest gift,’ Mum always told me.
Sadly, Dad passed away from complications from Parkinson’s disease in 2016, age 75.
Now, in April 2022, as Tyler spoke about never thinking to question the story that his parents had placed him for adoption due to financial instability, I got goosebumps.
Just like me, I thought.
Shockingly, however, when Tyler’s mother had woken in hospital, she was told her son died at birth, and that she was not allowed to see his body.
He eventually met his birth mum and three sisters.
It was estimated that up to 50,000 babies were stolen from their Chilean parents and placed for adoption outside the country.
After he learned the truth, Tyler started a non-profit organisation called Connecting Roots that reconnected adoptees from Chile with their birth families.
What if the story my parents were told about my birth mother was wrong? Could I be one of these stolen babies? I wondered.
Picking up the phone, I called Mum and then George to tell them what I’d learned. They were both horrified and encouraged me to reach out to Tyler. So I did.
‘I just watched you on TV,’ I told him on the phone. ‘I’m wondering if the same thing happened to me.’
At his request, I sent over all my paperwork that Mum had kept. Four days later, Tyler phoned back.
‘We found your birth mother, Laura,’ he said, confirming that I’d been stolen from her.
We found your birth mother
I was so shocked I almost dropped the phone.
But that wasn’t all.
Incredibly, I also had eight siblings.
My heart broke for my poor birth mum.
I couldn’t imagine the agony of having my Joseph, or my daughter Angelina, 19, taken from me.
But having always dreamed of a big family, I was elated to learn about my secret siblings.
With Tyler’s help we arranged a video call the following day.
My heart was pounding as Mum, George and Joseph joined me for the life-changing chat.
As the call connected, I was struck by the uncanny resemblance I shared with my long-lost family. We all had the same dark hair and brown eyes.
‘I’m so happy to meet you all,’ I beamed, as I peered at the faces of my siblings Monica, then 47, Elizabeth, 45, Andres, 43, Fernando, 41, Gladys, 40, Jaqueline, 38, Danilo, 36, and Manuel, 33, as well as my birth mother Laura,63.
‘I never believed we would find one another again,’ Laura cried.
I quickly learned my siblings had no clue that I had existed – my mother kept the pain of losing a child as her own burden to bear.
She explained that after I was born, she was told I had jaundice and needed to remain in hospital overnight. By the time she came back the next morning, I was gone.
The discharge papers she’d signed were actually adoption papers.
‘I had no resources to fight or try to find you, but I thought of you all the time,’ she said.
It filled me with anger. I was devastated I’d been robbed of their love for so many years.
After two hours of talking, we exchanged phone numbers and said goodbye.
‘I had no idea,’ my mum told me afterwards.
My biological family created a group chat, and we spoke every day, learning more about one another.
But my rage grew when I discovered I wasn’t the first child my mother had lost.
Her second-born child, Marcela, had been taken from her under similar circumstances a few years before I was born.
‘Finding you has given me hope we may find Marcela too,’ Laura told me.
We were sent a DNA test via MyHeritage which confirmed I was indeed her daughter.
Three months later I boarded a plane to Chile with Mum, then 73, to meet my family while George stayed home with Joseph.
My stomach was in knots as we disembarked from the plane. Then I spotted my family holding a sign. Welcome home sister, it read in Spanish.
Walking straight into Laura’s arms, I sobbed, overjoyed.
‘I get to hold you again,’ she cried.
It’d been 42 years since I was snatched from her.
After greeting each of my siblings, I turned to see both my mums hugging.
‘Thank you for taking care of her,’ Laura told Mum. It was such a special moment.
For the next week we explored the city of Talca, where I would have grown up. We shared dinners together as a family and talked for hours.
Having to go home was awful – it was like leaving a piece of my heart behind.
That year I joined Connecting Roots as a volunteer. Now I’m a board member and vice president of the US office.
We’re yet to locate Marcela, but I work to help other adoptees like me meet their biological families in Chile.
Seeing other people reunited is so rewarding.
Now I visit Chile annually, plus we text, chat and call regularly.
Family really is the most important thing in the world.
