Not personal experience, but I came across a Korean-American transracial blogger who completely turned what I thought I knew about international adoption on it's head. She's not very active online now, being a new mother. But her posts on the topic are here: http://peaceshannon.tumblr.com/tagged/adoption/ The TL;DR of it is that often adoption agencies falsify records, and (single) birth mothers in Asia often give up their children for adoption because of lack of safety nets, finances, and to 'save face'. I think a lot of people in the West have this sort of fantasy about adopting from overseas as a sort of philanthropic gesture, but very often it can amount to being glorified human trafficking. The problem is really bad in China right now: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/12/missing-kidnapped-trafficked-china-children . I've seen some projections that tens of thousands of children are trafficked every year. So if anyone here knows any transracial adoptees or people considering adoption I encourage you to spread this information.
I guess I will also share this even though it is slightly off topic. When my dad died I was in charge of the finances. I noticed that he was sending about 24 thousand a year to my Grandmother who, to put it lightly, did not need it. So I called her and asked about it. That is when I found out that I have a Japanese sister. My Dad was stationed in Japan when in the Army and knocked some local girl up. When he was dating my Mom. He left at the end of the deployment and never went back. But sent money every year and my Grandma sent 100 grand when he died. She was essentially laundering money to protect my Mom. Ugh
Thank you very much for that info. My sister was born in Hong Kong and she visited her orphanage. She asked what kind of information they had and apparently they had none. Not surprising they did not since she was apparently almost without language when she arrived in the States at the age of three. My parents did not do it out of any humanitarian instinct. They could not have kids and a priest knew that and knew of a girl that needed a home. That was also 50 years ago when international adoption wasn't trendy. They are international adoption hipsters apparently.