This Romanian Adoptee Felt Secure Enough To Contact His Birth Parent
They traded Christmas presents for a trip to Romania. They did not come home with a baby that year. It took a nonprofit, a foster family, and years of paperwork before Joshua Lundberg became their son.
On this episode of Voices of Adoption, host Donna Pope, Executive Director of Heart to Heart Adoptions, sits down with Joshua Lundberg, a Romanian-born adoptee and board member of Bridge of Love. This conversation begins long before the adoption is final, with a funding problem and a nonprofit his parents created to solve it. Joshua also describes his relationship with his birth parent and shares what he wants adoptive parents to hear.
A Christmas trip, a funding gap, and a nonprofit built to close it. In December 1999, Joshua's parents spent the holiday in Romania with their six children instead of exchanging gifts. Joshua explains that Romania's adoption process at the time required funding the country could not provide, so his parents started the Bridge of Love. A local family fostered Joshua for a few years while the adoption moved ahead, and it was finalized in 2003.
A secure sense of identity and a relationship with his birth parent. Joshua says he has long felt secure in his adoption and understood early that his adoptive parents were his parents. His adoptive mother stayed in contact with his birth parent, and Joshua reached out himself once he was older. He says he is comfortable with who he is and with his story.
What he wants adoptive parents to hear. Joshua is studying psychology and hopes to become a marriage and family therapist. He says children who seem to be tuning out are often listening closely, and he talks about rejection sensitivity and how a parent's words and expressions can land. His message centers on validation, which he describes as letting a child know they are seen, heard, and loved without saying the child is right.
Each story on this show adds a different piece to the adoption triad. Joshua's piece is what it takes for a family, a foster home, and a nonprofit to build one adoption together, along with what one adoptee hopes parents will remember.
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