Emotional journey begins to connect past, present and future

REUNITED: Sama Dean, 31, and her adopted mother Annette Woods, 63, hope to go on the adventure of a lifetime next month and meet Sama's biological mother. PHOTO/SUPPLIED

Papamoa's Annette Woods hopes to join her adopted daughter in Hong Kong next month for them both to meet her biological mother.

Sama Dean was 2 years old when Mrs Woods flew to Hong Kong and adopted her from an orphanage.

Twenty-nine years later her daughter is making the journey to meet her family for the first time.

Mrs Woods always knew she wanted to adopt children even though she could have her own.

"We already had a half-Chinese boy. We decided to go further afield and look at the orphanages through Outreach Asia."

Mrs Woods said she was thankful every day she took the flight over to Hong Kong in the 1980s to adopt her daughter.

"Just to see her grow up into this mature, beautiful woman that she had become.

"She did go through an identity crisis in her teen years, which took a lot of coaching and encouraging but just to see her now, she would not have had that chance if we had not taken her out."

Mrs Dean was initially orphaned because her birth mother was only 16 when she had her. Her biological grandmother already had seven children so it was decided the family couldn't feed an extra mouth.

Mrs Woods was extremely excited about the possibility of heading to Hong Hong to meet her daughter's birth mother.

"It will be very emotional, I'll just step back and just watch what the other family does, more to be supportive. I am longing to meet the birth mother - she gave us this beautiful daughter.

"It will also be nerve-wracking, what to expect. She will meet them and might see a grandmother that might look like her, and be able to see she also looks like such-and-such, where she hasn't had that. This will fill a hole that was in her."

After the birth of her own daughter Mrs Dean was compelled to look for her birth mother last year. In July they made contact.

"She said she missed me. I think I have always wanted to find her, but I have never felt ready. I grew up with a mother and five siblings already so I didn't really want to.

"I think I decided too when I had my own daughter, and she's the first real connection I have had physically, it kind of broke my heart to know she could grow up with no other family which looks like her.

"Going to school, people saw me and that I was Asian and thought I must know things about the Hong Kong culture and I don't. I didn't want that for her - no cultural identity."

Mrs Dean has been corresponding with her birth mother through her biological cousin who lives in Australia as her Hong Kong-based family only spoke Cantonese.

"My New Zealand mouth can't get around the vowels, the tonal differences, it's quite hard."

She said it was important to get her adopted mother to Hong Kong.

"Because she is my mum. Genetically I am my birth mother's, but to me it has always been the person who raises you, the person who instills the values in you, the person who tucks you in at night and makes you laugh. That is your mother. She is a piece of me and also my best friend. We started this journey together obviously, she came and got me, but also the decision to look for my birth mother has always been together, it's a symbolic thing as well. I need my mum."

The duo are fundraising to help Mrs Woods get to Hong Kong. To donate click here.