Korean adoptees in the US and Europe are finding their families. Reconnecting is much harder

Seoul
CNN
 — 

Marianne Ok Nielsen never wanted children, or a family of her own. She used to tell friends she didn’t feel worthy of that kind of life.

For most of her 52 years, she believed she’d been abandoned by her parents as a baby; found on the street in 1973 by police in Daejeon, South Korea, a city about 90 miles south of the capital Seoul.

“I was discarded like garbage. Nobody wanted me… That’s what I was,” said Nielsen, who grew up in Denmark, the home of her adoptive parents. “When your mom doesn’t even want you, who would want you? Can you then be loved by anyone?”

Her Danish mother, who passed away last year, once told…