In this story, the birth mother was told that her child had died at birth. Instead, shortly after her birth in 1955, the child was sold in a gray market adoption for $250. Needless to say, the birth mother was stunned to find that the child she believed had died was alive and had been stolen from her.

She was 33 when her daughter was born and then evidently stolen and sold by the midwife and doctor. "I guess they wanted the money," she says

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Even for some birth parents in closed adoptions who know that their children are probably alive, in a sense at reunion it can be as though they are back from the dead. Can you even imagine what it would be like to have been told that your child died so that someone could sell your child? It boggles the mind. It would be extremely difficult not to be angry at discovering such a lie.

Black market or gray market adoptions thrived for many years, and seemingly were going unnoticed for many years. My blogging partner Karen is currently doing a series of posts about notorious black market rings which were known to have occurred in many states.

This article about Lauryn Galindo is one of the few instances that I have heard of in years of sometone being prosecuted for falsifying records. Like the stories of many of the market black "queens" in adoption,Galindo claimed pure motives for her actions.

Galindo declined to comment after the hearing but handed a reporter a statement that began: "My intention was to save children from desperate circumstances. I felt that I was always acting with the highest integrity in the most difficult conditions."

However, many of her actions sounded very questionable and showed an incredible lack of integrity. She was accused of literally wrenching babies from their mother's arms. In this Seattle newspaper article about Galindo, a young girl recounts being taken off the street of Cambodia when she was 9 years old. She was adopted by an American couple.

The article also mentions that one of the adoptions that Ms. Galindo brokered was one of Angelina Jolie's adoptions. I recall when this story first broke and Angelina Jolie's comment when her adoption was questioned. Her comment indicated that her son belonged to her and she was not "giving him back."