An 18-Year Adoption Reunion

Some choices feel impossible, even when you make them out of love. Damon sits down to tell a story he’s carried since 2006 and 2007 the moment he and the baby’s mother realized they weren’t in a place to raise a child the way she deserved, and chose open adoption instead. He talks straight about what people rarely hear from a birth father: the panic, the shame, the fear of being a “failure,” and the ache of signing papers that change your life in seconds.

Then the story takes a turn eighteen years in the making. Damon finally connects with the adoptive parents and hears the words he’s prayed for: she’s been raised in a loving home, grounded in faith, full of life, and thriving. She’s in college. She travels. She’s a go-getter. And in a detail that somehow makes everything feel even more real, he finds out she loves roller skating too.

The wildest part is the faith-based connection that ties it all together: Damon worked at a church for years and never knew the adoptive family was there. That realization reframes the wait, the silence, and the timing, turning an old wound into a new kind of purpose. We close with what comes next the hope of a first face-to-face meeting, the nerves, the curiosity, and the gratitude for everyone who helped raise “our child.”

If adoption, open adoption, birth parent grief, or adoption reunion stories matter to you, listen closely, then subscribe, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review. What would you want to say at that first meeting?

Transcript

Welcome And A Personal Story

D.K 0:11

All right, what's up? What's up, everybody? How's everybody doing? Hope everybody is having a great day. I hope your weekend was great, especially with this Eastern Resurrection weekend. It's your boy Damon. I'm here with the DK and Tree Podcast. Man, I ain't been on here in a minute, but I said I wanted to jump on because uh wanted to talk about a little story. And you know, I usually jump on, talk about our sports. You know, we love our football teams, and you see who I always rep them ravens right behind me. You know, me and Treedy, we jumped on, we talked about a couple of things with relationships and like just dating in general, and then you know, any other tomfoolery I may have seen or whatever. I came on here and trying to keep you aggressive, stuff like that. This one's actually a little bit more personable to me. So I'm gonna share a story about this, and this one's like I said, it's more personable to me, you know, because I felt as though I wanted to share the story, especially after having the conversation that I did today. And um, that's why I call it a true happy story. So um, back some back now, let's go about 2006, 2007, for me in my lifetime. Um, you know, when you go through things in your life, you know, sometimes you're just not at a point in your life where you can't manage, you can't do things, and you would hate to see or put someone in a bad situation. And back then, um a friend of mine was pregnant with my child, and we sat down and we had a long talk and we talked about it. So we said, we don't want to bring the baby into a bad situation. So what we'll do is we'll look into adoption, and that's what we did, and we looked to adoption. Um, open it was open adoption, so you know, communication would go back and forth, and you know, you just wanted to make the best decision when it came time for me to actually sign those papers. That was the hardest thing I had to do in my life because I felt as though that I was failing my unborn child, that I was gonna be a failure, that I was doing something wrong. And I just had every emotion in the world going through me about signing these papers, and I almost did not sign the papers, and um I finally did, you know, the guy was calling me, I didn't want to take his phone calls, it was just a very, very, very hard decision for me, but it just wasn't for me, it was for the mom also, and I'm not gonna say her name, I just say Mrs. T. And that was just one of the hardest things that I ever had to do in my life was to give our child away. And it was tough. You know, I just many times that I felt as though I made a mistake. You know, I was hurt, upset. And it's just a feeling and an emotion that I really can't explain. But um we did, um and the child was born, and after talking to the family today, they're actually um I will call them, they're her parents, um, talking to them, you know, we got to talk. It was a very good pleasure to talk to them. That um the child was raised in a loving family, God-fearing family, um, raised in church. And they told me uh you know a lot about her. She's very vibrant, she's full of life. You know, she's she she she's a go-getter, and that was one of the things that I really, really enjoyed. Um this was 18 years in the making. 18 years in making. She's 18, and I finally was able to get in touch with parents. Uh the special part about this with me is that uh I worked for a church, and the funny thing is that they were a part of this church also, and I never knew. I worked that church for years and years and years and years, and never knew that they were there, and they ended up branching off, opening their own church, still under the original church of where I worked. And what was the funny thing is that God sent me there to protect them, and that's where it really hit home for me, is because sitting there listening to us talk today, and I was like, I was sent there to protect y'all. So, you know, talking to dad, he was saying, you know, your child is something. I said, No, not my child, it's our child. Ours, y'all raised her, y'all, y'all know what she's like, she's full of life. And he says, Hey, you know, we talked about y'all all the time. You know, she knew it was an open adoption. She said, you know, we sent letters, pictures, and everything. And I didn't know anything about the agency because I had lost paperwork when I signed it. So I didn't have any information on the agency. And me and mom, you know, we did talk, but you know, it was just very, very hard for her. I completely understand that you're handing your child over or whatever. But when we talked, we said that was the best decision that we could have ever done. Where she has had a great, great life. And of her having this great, great life, it made me very happy. It made me more happy than anyone that she went to a loving home, that she went to someone that was caring for her, showed her the ropes, and now she's in college. And it was just it's just a somber, somber thing that the story has led to where it is now. And with her being in college, you know, I told her, I said, this is the only picture that I have of her. And he said they would share pictures with me, you know, she's this. And one of the big things I love to do is roller skate. I love to roller skate, and I was telling them that. And they said, She roller skates too. I was like, Yes! Thank you, Jesus. She took a tray after me. So um, I haven't physically met her yet, and um, they're gonna talk to her, and there's gonna be plenty of parts to this story, and I just hope that when we meet, that she's receptive, open to us, and I'm just very, very happy. I was happy the conversation I had with the parents, they were so down to earth, they wasn't judgmental, they were buying. We were all crying on the phone day. Yeah, I was crying. We were all crying on the phone day, and like I said, it's just I'm looking forward to this next journey in this next chapter of meeting her, you know, getting to know her likes, dislikes, and you know, just to see how she operates, you know, what she's what she likes to do, what's her favorite foods. There's she likes ice cream, she's been to Disney World, anything. You know, they did tell me she likes to travel, told me um she went to Paris, and I said, Wow! I said, Man, I haven't been there since my military days. But the simple fact that she's a go-getter and she gets up and she goes, and it was just it made me very, very happy as a father to hear that. And like I said, she has two parents. Well, four, she has four parents, but it just made me very, very happy just to talk to him. It was very, very comforting for me. And I told him, I said, even though we're just talking today, I said I love you. I said, because for the simple fact that I was at a church, that you were all at, and I didn't even know who you were. I said I was sent there to protect you, and that was very, very great for me to know that I'm doing God's work and didn't even know that I was doing his work. He sent me there for a reason, and now I found out the reason 18 years later. So, like I said, there's there's gonna be plenty of parts to the story. Um, I did ask mom if she wanted to come on, like share her part, but she didn't feel comfortable with doing that right now. But um, hopefully she'll come share her part, and we can just keep this story going. But um this day, I'm very, very happy. I'm very, very happy because this is a day I've been waiting for. This is a day that I have prayed for. This is a day that I just wanted to remember and just be happy. And when we finally get to meet in person, I know I'm gonna be happy. So I'm gonna go ahead and end this. But I appreciate each and every last one of you for coming on here and listening to me, taking the time to listen to me, and I'm gonna sign off. But again, stay tuned. There's gonna be many parts of this story.