My family is from a small town, rural area in Ohio. In 2001 after already having three biological children they decided to adopt. After being approved for international adoption my parents were given lists of codes and birth dates representing children. Since they were older they were looking for a child over the age of four. Each day they would look through hundreds of codes and faces. One day my mom saw her birth date come up with a code for a child but the child was twenty months old. She just had to see the face of this child with the same birthday as her. When she saw me (the child was me) s

he was compelled to show my dad and the rest of the family. I was twenty months old but only weighed twelve pounds (very malnourished). The whole family decided that I was "the one" and moved heaven and earth to adopt me from a small city in Siberia, Russia. My mom (a high school teacher at the time) traveled to meet me by herself and then both my parents returned to officially adopt me. At the time I was twenty months old and now I am twenty years old. Over the past eighteen years my mom has always told me that I was "born to her the moment she saw me" and (just like Hoda tells her girls) that I was "born from her heart". They have been very open and honest about my adoption, my history and even the culture I came from. They made a special "memory box" with all kinds of items from my city and country and our experience that I could look through over the years. I honestly feel that I was born across the world and destined to be in my family. It is not a coincidence that my mom and I share the same birthday...God had a beautiful plan. It just took a mom and dad who had a willing heart and the courage to act.

I made this video for my mom for Mother's Day 2020. It was taken on the first trip she took to meet me and now. My parents also repeated the whole process three years later and adopted a seven year old boy from the same city as me.