Adoption stories like other narratives seek to establish a child’s linear life course. As such they attempt to encapsulate a biological beginning, a birth point. This birth point allows certain attributes which are assumed to be fixed and static such as sex and ethnicity, to be ascribed to the child and these are often taken to be fundamental to the unfolding narrative. Using qualitative research with families who live in England and have adopted daughters from China, this paper explores the narratives of belonging with the girls themselves and their parents. These belonging stories are shaped by reification of biological parentage, birth heritage reflective of the social and political context in which adoption stories are told.