Help Me Reunite with my Family

My name is Julia Hostetter. In 2003, at the age of 10, I was taken away from my birth mother. Both of my parents were alcoholics, and my birth dad left my mother when i was younger.

Because of my mom's alcolism we had to move in with my Grandpa who was a drug dealer. I was living in one bedroom apartment with my mother, my grandpa and some other people who would come and go. I was skipping school and was forced to essentially become an adult at the age of 7.

My mom would go out and get drunk with the neigbors and I would be so scared that she would never come home. So I would walk to wherever she was and walk her home. It was not easy. She was constantly falling down and I would have to pick her up so we could keep going and get home safe. In other words I was taking care of my mother instead of her taking care of me.

Because of all of this I was put in the orphanage. It was there that i would meet my new family.  The orphanage had a program where American families would exchange gifts and letters with children in the orphanage. The family that i was paired with for 2 1/2 years eventually ended up adopting me at the age of 14 in 2005. Being adopted at that age is tremendously unusual. But I was the lucky one! And they endured the laborious process and made the trip to Siberia twice in order to adopt me.

Being adopted is a hard thing. Going from no family to to a family of 5 is a tremendous change. I just gained two sisters, a mom and a dad. Everything was new to me. If I wanted to do good in school, if I wanted to make friends and if I just wanted to feel normal I had to learn English. Through my great parents and going to summer school I finally got to a point where I could speak English. I still have a lot to learn but at least at this point I could feel normal. Everything was going great!

At this point you might think I forgot about my birth mom. But not one day went by when I did not think about her. I would always wonder if she knew I got adopted or if she ever came to the orphanage to find out if i was there. What if she is looking for me? That's when I would break down and cry. Even though she chose alcohol over me, I still wanted to see her someday. I wanted to tell her how much I love her and I wanted to tell her that I have forgiven her.

I started to tell my adopted parents that I wanted to find my mom. They were all for it. I got a Russian facebook, hoping I could find her on there. I typed in my Russian last name to see if she would come up but instead I found my cousin. I was so scared but excited that i found him. It has been over 11 years since I had last seen my blood family.

I asked if he remembered me. And he did! He had been one of my best friends so we skyped and he was so excited to have finally found me. He told me that they had been looking for me for a long time.

I asked if they knew where my mother was and that is when i found out that she had recently died. This was the hardest time of my life. I didn't know what to do. 

Trying to heal through all of this. I have always wanted to go back to Russia and see my family. I got married in 2013 to an amazing man. He has supported me through all the rough times. I am trying to raise money to go to Kemerovo, Russia to see my family, my childhood and to go see my mother's grave. I want to take my husband and my parents there as well. I want to share my childhood and let them meet my blood family. 

Traveling to the other side of the globe is not cheap, but for me, it is something that i need to do. Our goal is to go next August and any help we can get in meeting that goal is a huge blessing. If you got this far thank you for reading.