Moldovan Adoptee Reunites with Biological Family

“After nearly two days of traveling, McKenna Christensen walked through the Chișinău International Airport in Moldova ready to change her life forever.

About six months before, Christensen, who was born in Moldova and adopted by an Idaho Falls couple, discovered shocking information about her adoption. She was never supposed to be adopted.

“There were a lot of illegal things going on (in Moldova) at the time with children. Children were very much a source of money,” Christensen told EastIdahoNews.com in December. “Pediatricians would tell parents, ‘Sorry, your child died, it was very sick.’ And then they would not release a body. This was a very common thing that happened over in the ’90s.”

For Christensen, she learned that her mother had been diagnosed with cancer while she was pregnant with her. She was very sick at the time of her birth, so the family was told that Christensen would be placed in a care facility while her mother regained her health.

But Christensen, who was originally named Marcela Ibrian, never saw her family again. Instead, she was apparently trafficked by the hospital, ending up at an orphanage and then adopted.

“I was targeted before I was even born. My mom checked into the hospital about a month before I was born, and the social services lady told her that she could leave me at the maternity ward to get some resources and to have some help while they navigated this diagnosis for her,” says Christensen. “At that moment, they actually put me into the system and said, ‘This baby is going to be available in February.’”

After discovering this life-changing information through her biological sister, whom she miraculously found through a Facebook group dedicated to reuniting separated Romanian families, Christensen traveled 5,750 miles across the world to find the people who had been looking for her for over 30 years.

“I was standing in the airport looking for a sign and my two sisters, literally out of nowhere, just clamored me,” says Christensen. “We stood there, and we were all, obviously, bawling. But then they walked me out, and there were probably like seven or eight other people waiting for me in the lobby. (They) had had balloons and flowers — all the guys had bouquets of flowers for me — and all of them were bawling … it was a lot, but it was so good.”

“Christensen says it was overwhelming in the best way to finally meet people who shared her DNA, even though they had met many times on video calls.

“It’s different when you meet in person, it’s so different,” says Christensen.

During her stay, Christensen said she was taken care of by her biological family as if they’d known her forever, going to family dinners, getting ready with her sisters, dancing with the neighbors, and even watching home videos of her biological parents, who have passed away.

“It’s just like, (they) want to do everything for you. There is this added level because they’ve wanted to do all of these things for me for 30-plus years,” Christensen says.

Christensen’s family all live on the same street in the same village, making it a very tight-knit community. When she first arrived, Christensen says she was getting ready for dinner when her sisters began giving her gifts and helping her with her hair and dress, something she was not accustomed to.

“I had picked out a dress, and I showered and got out, and my one sister hands me a completely different dress that she had bought me,” says Christensen. “Then one sister proceeds to blow dry my hair, and the other one is putting slippers on my feet, and the other is trying to feed me a sandwich. …It was so sweet, they just wanted to do all the things for me.”

The feeling of being pampered and fawned over was staggering for Christensen, though she knew much of it stemmed from her biological family not knowing what happened to her for so long and wanting to make up for lost time.”

““I feel like you could really tangibly tell — or like feel in the air, and grab it — how badly they wanted this, which I was so happy to let them do all of that,” says Christensen. “I feel like a lot of this trip was so much for them, like more so for them than me, honestly, in some way. I’m just so glad that they got to have that.”

During the trip, Christensen says she noticed many similarities and shared traits between herself and her siblings, traits she never knew might be hereditary.

“For the Easter feast, I went over to my sister’s house just to kind of get away from people, and she was kind of setting up her feast. I remember she hopped on the counter to grab a dish that was on top of her fridge, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, I do that!’” says Christensen. “We’re both really short, and we both get on the counter; it was little things like that. I was like, “Oh, I’m like these people.””

“Leaving Moldova was difficult, says Christensen, as she realized throughout her stay how different her life could’ve been if she had not been trafficked after birth.

“We all experienced our parents dying, and our outcomes were drastically different. My parents died, and I came to America and got an education, and I have a family,” says Christensen. “I never had to not know where my next meal was coming from. For them, their parents died, and their whole life fell apart for a while, and they really had to rebuild it.”

Though she says she deals with guilt over the differences in their situations, Christensen says she is focusing on returning to Moldova in the future, bringing her husband and children to meet her biological family.”

“As for now, Christensen says she feels a pull towards giving part of her life to helping trafficked adoptees connect with their families.

“I decided that the thing I want to do with the information that I have is dedicate a piece of my life to advocating for adoptees,” Christensen says. “These adoptees — whether their experience was good or bad, whether they’ve found their family or they haven’t — I always want to make sure that I’m a person who holds space for them in one way or another so they feel heard and understood. I don’t know what that will look like yet.””

Local woman reunites with biological family in Moldova after being kidnapped at birth

[EaSt Idaho News 7/2/26 by Kaitlyn Hart]

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