Adam Fountain '24 Recruiting Profile

Everyone has a past. Everyone has a background, a story to tell. My name is Adam James An Fountain and this is my story of the struggles of being adopted. 

For many years, I wasn’t in a place to want to know why I was adopted because I was in so much pain and anguish. I thought that my parents gave me up because I wasn’t good enough to be their child. I thought that I was abandoned by my family and put into a foster home. The anger swallowed me whole until I realized the truth. 

I was born in Vinh Long, Vietnam in April of 2006. My mother, as well as the rest of my birth family went through many trials. With 4 children, one with a disability, and a newborn, my parents were trying to make ends meet but sadly that didn’t go as planned. They did not own any land.  My father has a heart condition and was unable to work full-time.  Our house was flooded, nearly destroyed and they didn’t have much money to buy food. I would see the photos they sent and it was very hard to see them living in such terrible conditions. It was at that time where my mom and dad decided to put me up for adoption so I would not have to live in poverty, like they did, but there were a couple of times where being adopted had its troubles.

Whenever my mom would bring me to baseball games, I would see fathers and sons playing catch, and something that I have always dreamed of. I would have loved to play catch with my father in the fall just before dinner and my mom to come to the backyard and yell “dinner time” and my father and I would race to see who would get there first. I saw a family sitting down at the dinner table looking so happy and thankful for each other. Witnessing these families made me feel different from other families. I did not have a father or siblings. While my extended adoptive family accepted me completely as one of their own, there was chaos and dysfunction from my grandmother and one of my uncles and his family. I dreamt of this sort of “nuclear family” where every family member was always happy. I wondered what things would have been like if I stayed with my birth family back in Vietnam. 

Now that I look back, I realize I have been lucky to have many men in my life who helped to fill the absence of a father. I did get to play ball with my other uncle and he is always there for me. I am grateful to live in a country where I have so much more opportunity than I would have had in Vietnam.  I am so grateful to have my adoptive mom because she taught me how to be a gentleman with good manners, a kind heart, a positive attitude, curiosity and a desire to help others. She kept in touch with my birth family over the years and exchanged letters so that I would have a connection to them. We also did a fundraiser to help them rebuild their home.  She introduced me to baseball and I’m glad she did–it is now my favorite sport, thanks to her. My mom is always there for me when I need help. She is a wonderful mother who had a passion for parenting and her being my mother is the greatest gift one could receive. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have a role model to look up to and I wouldn’t have had this much success in school. I love and cherish her.