Theodora Sullivan is jetlagged and emotional after a whirlwind trip to Greece where she met her biological sister, Maria, her birth mother, and another sister, a three-decade search. She was only nine years old when taunts from classmates about being adopted set her on a quest to find her roots.

“All my lifelong questions were answered,” Theodora told Neos Kosmos, only days after landing back home in Australia.

“The biggest question for me has always been, ‘Where did I come from?’ I knew the backstory, I found all that on my own, but what I always wanted was to know where I came from. It feels good that it’s done, and I can move on now. It’s so great!”

After a DNA match five years ago and daily contact since then, meeting Maria in person opened a floodgate of emotions.

“It was like I’d been there before. I felt really happy, and then I felt really sad because it took all these years. And at the same time, it was amazing. It was amazing to actually hug her, because I’d never met her in person before.”

Emotional reunion at in Athens

Naturally, there were tears at Athens Venizelos International Airport when the siblings first saw each other.

“I grew up as an only child, that’s all I knew, but since I met Maria, it’s been very different because we’re sisters, and we even have that sibling rivalry! And we fight, even though I’m in Australia,” she said, noting that this connection is amazing but also funnily strange since they haven’t lived with each other growing up.

Until 2019, they did not know of each other’s existence. Theodora got up the courage to do a DNA test which showed that she was Roma and revealed a full match with a sister who was also searching. Theodora was born prematurely in 1981, eight months after her sibling, Maria. After locating their third sister, Ioanna, the pieces in the jigsaw puzzle of their birth family began to fall into place.

For two weeks in Greece, Theodora hardly slept. Their story—the reunion of the sisters and the meeting with their birth mother, Foto, and sister, Ioanna—was recorded by a popular TV show in Greece uncovering remarkable human stories, *Alithies me ti Zina*.

Meeting her birth mum for the first time, Theodora anticipated some sort of feeling of connection, especially after searching for so long.

“It was hard for me,” she admits, realizing that nothing would compare to the bond she shares with the mother who raised her.

During the filming of the television program and the reunion, both adoptees were very emotional, as if torn by conflicting emotions.

“My [adoption] mum has always been my whole world. When I got back to Adelaide, I literally took a cab straight to the house and fell into her arms the minute she opened the door. I got that hug that I really needed.”

Strength in family bonds regardless of biology

Theodora explains the search for her birth mother and sisters was not a rejection of the parents who adopted her.

“The whole time I was on the TV show, it was my mum I was thinking about.”

Initially, Theodora’s adoptive mum was scared of losing her.

“It took me a while to understand that too.

“Even though she wasn’t in Greece with me, I still felt her there. I think that’s what got me through it, knowing I was coming home to her, ” she said.

Adoptees, she says, love and are bonded to the parents who raised them.

“Their kids need them in that time, their kids love them, no matter what.”

“Most adoptees, especially those that have been sold in the black market, don’t search for their biological parents until the ones that have raised them have passed away.

“It was different for me. I needed my mum through this because it was really challenging and because she’s always been there for me. I couldn’t have done this without her support.”

Theodora, Maria, and a newly discovered brother were among 12 children born to Foto.

“We couldn’t feed them all,” Foto, their biological mother, said during the recording of her reunion after 43 years. “We were always on the move, from one place to the next.”

Foto recalled the moment she met the woman who adopted one of her children, and how she told her that she couldn’t have children of her own. These are moments she is unable to forget.

“In all honesty, my parents saved my life, I don’t think I would have survived,” Theodora says. Even looking back now, at some of the challenges she faced growing up, she has gained a new perspective.

“I think the biggest realisation for me is that even though my life was difficult growing up, all the trials and tribulations I faced seem insignificant now. It’s strange to say that, but compared to what I’ve seen in Greece, I feel like things could have been much harder.”