My name is Lindsay Rothrock and I am the Marketing and Media Manager at Hilliard Studio Method, a daughter, a sister, a friend, an adoptee and one of the lucky ones. When I was 34 days old, my parents came to Children’s Home Society in Greensboro, North Carolina to pick me up from a bassinet that held many children before me and still to this day, holds children right up until that moment when their life is changed forever. Since day one adoption was a very openly talked about subject in our house and I always knew that my home with them was where I was supposed to be.
In 2010 when I turned 21, I was legally able to begin talks with my case worker, Lee, at Children’s Home Society (who, side note, was there when I was adopted and still remembers me going home with my parents) to start the process of finding out more information about my birth parents. My parents, Lee and all of Children’s Home Society were by my side during the slightly terrifying, very emotional process of getting in touch with my birth mother. They were always there to answer my questions, facilitate conversation and guide me through this experience as if I was the only client they had.
A few months after I started working with Lee, she connected me with my birth mother, who luckily was open to talking with me too. During my senior year of college, I was able to get many of my lingering questions about my past answered, see pictures of her, as well as her two beautiful daughters and her husband (not my birth father), who was also adopted from Children’s Home Society. Small world, isn’t it? Maybe even more of a relief, I was able to tell her that she had made the right decision; I was able to tell her that I had a wonderful life, a loving and supportive family, that I was successful and that I held no hard feelings towards the decision she made as a young 16-year-old girl 21 years prior.
While I was incredibly blessed to go home that day in May of 1989 to my forever home, many children throughout North Carolina are without a place to call their home, without a family to love them and without the comfort of knowing who they might be living with the next week or the next year. I can barely imagine how traumatizing that would be for any child to go through, many of them moving around with few enough possessions to fit in a single trash bag.
My birth mother was very young when she had me and chose the route of adoption from before I was born. Many children’s cases aren’t nearly as cut and dry with them being removed from homes that aren’t safe, potentially having relatives that could take care of them out there and constantly praying for the chance to reunite with their birth family. Children’s Home Society is not only here to help families adopt babies; for over a century, they have been offering a variety of services to families and children in every situation you can imagine.
CHS’s services range from infant to older child adoption to their award-winning Wise Guys teen education program to Family Finding for children in foster care and post-adoption support for families. They are working tirelessly every day to transform the lives and futures of children and families throughout North Carolina.
Without Children’s Home Society I would not be where I am today. I would not have my amazing family and support system, I might not have gone to the fabulous schools I did and I wouldn’t be here today asking you to support this amazing cause with me!
To contribute to the Children’s Home Society, please click here.