Kristina Toth never considered herself the kind of person who cries at weddings.
So she was surprised when she felt her eyes start to sting while watching her sister walk down the aisle last December. “I felt so privileged to be there; I was the only family [in attendance],” says Toth. “I didn’t really think it would hit me like that – when I started crying, I just could not stop.”
This sentiment would be understandable coming from any loving sibling. But in Toth’s case, emotions were running particularly high: she had just met her biological sister in person for the first time a few days before the wedding. She had, in fact, only become aware of her existence a few months prior.
Toth, now a 31-year-old marketing director, was less than a year old when a nun brought her from the Philippines to the US. She was delivered her into the eager arms of her adoptive parents, a couple living in New Milford, Connecticut. Toth would spend the next two decades living in the suburban enclaves of the northeastern US – a chasm away, both physically and culturally, from the crowded streets of Manila, where she was born.
Growing up in Connecticut, Toth never felt as though she fit into any one peer group – neither the Asian community nor the white kids. Though her adoptive parents, whom she describes as “incredibly supportive”, encouraged her to engage with other adoptees, she was too shy to seek out friends with similar stories.
“When I was a teenager, all I wanted was to look like Christina Aguilera,” she recalls. “I had this huge, massive mop of thick, coarse hair. My poor mother had to go through this whole workout blow-drying it… spending hundreds of dollars [on products] because I wanted it to be straight.”
Though age rewarded Toth with more confidence, she says she struggled with intermittent, resurfacing feelings of being “out of place”. For her 30th birthday, her parents gave her a subscription to 23andMe so she could learn more about her roots. Around this same milestone birthday, she found herself at a career crossroads and decided to move from Miami where she’d spent the past seven years, back up north. Temporarily living under her parents’ roof, she felt the timing was right to start researching her birth family – an idea she’d toyed with for years. “I wanted to make sure they were part of the journey, and I also wanted them there for emotional support,” says Toth on the decision to involve her adoptive parents.
The search – and the findings
Toth steeled herself for the process, aware that it could be a long, drawn-out journey. She started a blog, and prepared to spend months or even years updating the story of her search.
She also knew there was a chance she’d stumble upon upsetting news or hit complete dead-ends. “I mentally prepared myself for whatever I found. I was okay with not having a relationship [with my birth family],” she says. “I just wanted to give my birth mom the message: thank you for keeping me … and I’ve lived an amazing life.”
Armed with a few names – her given birth name, the sanctuary where she’d lived in Manila and the nun who had brought her to the US – she plugged the terms into Google. She was surprised at the instantaneous results: the sanctuary appeared to have a Facebook page. Toth reached out on Messenger, dubious. Within 24 hours, though, she’d received a message back: yes, we have your records, and your birth family has been looking for you. Would you like to connect?
What happened next, says Toth, was a whirlwind. Within a week, she was FaceTiming with her birth mother in the Philippines. “We didn’t really know what to say to each other, to be honest … Her question to me was, ‘Are you okay? Are you good, are you healthy?’ That’s what she really wanted to know.”
During the call, Toth learned about her half-sister, Francine, who is three years younger. Francine was also living in the US – in Miami, no less, where Toth had moved from just weeks earlier. “I couldn’t believe it,” says Toth. “We were 20 minutes away from each other; I’m sure we had crossed [paths] in the street.”
The first FaceTime session with Francine, says Toth, was perhaps even more emotional than the one with her birth mom. “There was a less of a language barrier, and just that irony of her living in Miami … we had a lot in common.” Both sisters, who were raised as only children, discussed how they’d yearned for siblings while growing up.
Toth learned that Francine had been raised in the Philippines but had moved to the US to pursue a career in physical therapy. Their birth mom had given Kristina up for adoption because she’d been unprepared to raise a baby at the time, but later – when she’d established more stable circumstances – she’d had another child and decided to raise her in Manila. Toth also learned that her sister was engaged; the wedding was in just a couple of months. Five minutes after the pair had gotten off the phone, Francine called back and asked if Kristina would be a bridesmaid. She agreed immediately.
The takeaways
Photo: Courtesy of Kristina Toth; Composition: The Guardian Labs US
In a way, Toth feels she’s lived two lives, and that her sister represents a part of her identity she’s always sensed but never been able to fully conceptualize. She considers her name – Kristina Camille – emblematic of this dichotomy. “My parents wanted to keep the ‘Camille’ part of my identity with me as a token of continuity. Since my mother had picked out the name Kristina many years before, they kept my original name as my middle name,” she explains.
The process of learning about her family has made Toth more aware of the “nature versus nurture” argument. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that,” she says. “When I connected with my sister, it was so bizarre because we look alike … both of us have a lot of energy and the same smile.” Even though the sisters have only known each other for a short time, they’ve noticed personality quirks – even tastes in music – they inexplicably share.
Still, Toth feels strongly that “who she is” is less about genetics and more about the environment in which she was raised. “So much of who I am is [shaped by] my adoptive parents,” she says.
She does, however, feel more grounded – and more comfortable with her Asian identity – than that shy teenager who spent hours struggling with her appearance. “Now, I appreciate my hair so much,” she says.
Toth feels as if she’s just hit “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to the entangled branches of her family tree, noting that she still hasn’t met her birth mother. (Her birth mom had hoped to attend the wedding, too, but visa restrictions made it impossible.) Toth hopes that reunion will happen in the Philippines in the next few months, and she eventually wants her biological and adoptive relatives to meet one another. Francine and her husband are planning to move up north to be closer in the next few months.
As for the experience as a whole, Toth recognizes that her story makes her one of the lucky ones. “I don’t believe in fate or even serendipity; I don’t know what I believe,” she says. “I just look at myself as an example of how things can work out in amazing ways. I’ve heard or read many stories that have not worked out like this.”
While some elements of the future are still up in the air, Toth knows one thing for certain: she’ll adopt kids herself when she’s ready for motherhood. “After this experience, I couldn’t be more sure – I’m 1,000 percent going to adopt children, or maybe even become a foster parent,” she says.
She hopes to name her future daughter Camille.