Saturday, September 29th at 10pm on VH-1 will be the Emmy Award winning documentary “My Adoption Journey” by DMC of the famous rap group Run-DMC. DMC finds out later in life that he is adopted and he is on an emotional-filled journey as he searches for his birth mother.
The reason I’m starting off my story like this is because I understand how he feels from a PARENTAL point of view. My oldest daughter who has been in my life since she was 2 is now feeling the same way. She is 15. She never knew her biological father (took off after getting my wife pregnant) and has been asking questions (WHY did he leave? Who is he? Am I an accident? If he’s bad, does that mean that I’m half bad? Do I look like him?, etc) . I am the only father she knows and adopted her as my own legally once my wife and I got married. His DNA is running through her veins though , and it’s almost natural for her to want to connect with her biological father. I felt it was time to help her although she didn’t know how to ask my wife the questions she needed answered due to her youth and out of her respect for me. We have 2 other children and I believe that she would feel like she was on the outside since they are my biological children, but I’ve NEVER called her STEP anything or treated her any different – I just called her my daughter and love her just the same.
I want my daughter to be happy, made whole, and find out the answers to all the questions she may have. I called him and let him know who I was. He was in TOTAL shock. I told him that I want my daughter to have some closure and she wants to eventually talk to you. He said that he’s NEVER met a man anything like me and he thanked me for doing this amazing act of selflessness. The problem: he’s always had my wife’s parents' number (never changed in over 35 years) but never called because he knew he was wrong and didn’t want to be reminded and rejected. We sent him AND his mother court documents to give up his parental rights and they didn’t contest it, so I officially adopted her. Now that he’s exposed, he’s excited, happy, and ready to have a relationship with her (after the hard-part, I might add) BUT I want to be the bigger person and look out for what’s best for my daughter. Before, she would “act out” due to this void, but now that she knows that we found him, she is starting off writing him and slowly building a relationship with him. He respects me and the situation, so pray for us as we go through this journey ourselves. He says he’s changed and can’t change the past. I don’t want to deny my daughter an opportunity to meet her biological father so she can ask the questions from the source. This is a very difficult time due to the “fear factor” for my daughter, but she will be delivered from this too.
The day they finally met was probably as emotional for me as it was for my daughter. This guy comes in and gets called “daddy” after 15 years and I’ve done all the work!!! I felt like I had POST PARTUM DEPRESSION. I was sick physically. I didn’t know how to feel, but I KNEW what I did was right – and it wasn’t about me, it was about HER. Now, everything has changed for the better: grades back up, attitude MUCH better, and CLOSURE for her mentally. She’s a happier child. They talk and text each other to this day. I decided to be the better man and do what is RIGHT for my daughter.
Signed,
Dad of an adoptee
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