Rosie O’Donnell recently opened up about raising her soon-to-be 10-year-old daughter, Dakota.
In an essay she wrote for People, the comedian recalled how her youngest daughter requested to speak to her birth mother, and the emotions that brought up for everyone involved.
“I was in tears as was her birth mom,” she wrote.
Adoption can be complicated and messy, but it can also be the start of a new, beautiful life.
O’Donnell, who is also a mom to Parker, 27, Chelsea, 25, Blake, 22, and Vivienne, 19, shared with People that she thinks about her children’s birth mothers every day.
But it was Dakota’s interaction with her birth mom when Dakota, who was diagnosed with autism at two and a half years old, was just five years old that made O’Donnell emotional.
The TV personality said her daughter asked to speak to the “the lady whose tummy I was in” when she was five, and since O’Donnell and Dakota’s birth mom were in contact they arranged to FaceTime with each other.
“We’re in contact, so Dakota gets on FaceTime and says, ‘Are you the lady whose tummy I was in? I just wanted you to know I’m the kid that was in there, and when I got born, my mommy held me and I squeezed her pinkie, and I am with her. So I just want to let you know that’s what happened to me. Bye,'” O’Donnell wrote.
It was an extremely emotional moment for both O’Donnell and Dakota’s birth mom.
“That’s a pretty intense, complex, emotional thing for a little girl to put together.”
In her emotional essay, which she also reflected on Dakota’s autism diagnosis, O’Donnell recognized the amount of courage and strength it takes for someone “to place that child in the loving arms of a stranger.”
“It’s the biggest act of generosity I think that humans can do. And I’ve been the benefactor of their selflessness and it made my life worth everything,” she wrote. “Nothing in my life ever compares to the five kids and nothing, no reward you ever win, no amount of money you ever get, can replace the love of family, and of a parent and a child.”
I think it is absolutely beautiful when reunions like this happen.
Please share this wonderful moment between a child and their birth mom.
