Brett Leeman was the very first baby adopted out of Adoption Options on February 25, 1985.
“The original founder of Adoption Options, and she’s since long retired, but she remembers my mother speaking in these types of situations and in groups and kind of trying to show (people) the embracing part of it, that it’s something that’s very rewarding and very loving,” said Leeman.
At the age of eight he was questioned by children at school about why he didn’t look like his parents, and when he got home and asked his mom about it she explained he was adopted.
“I may not look like them, but at the end of the day, they’re my family and they’re the ones that love me very much,” he learned to share these words confidently over time.
“I did have hair at one point, dirty blonde and with big curls and my brother is a redhead, full-on redhead, so, yes, we did not look alike, but I was proud to call him my brother.”
He appreciated open conversations with his parents over the years, where they let him absorb what it meant to be adopted. He explains closed adoption is something that was necessary, and helped a lot of children be placed, but he has also witnessed the benefit of open adoption.
“My mother decided to stay in contact with my biological family,” he says.
“(Her and) my biological grandmother, agreed to write letters once a year, with some pictures of me.”
To this day he hasn’t had direct contact with his biological family, but because of open adoption its something he can do when, or if he chooses to.
“If it wasn’t for my biological mother I wouldn’t be where I am today, so thank you to her,” he says.
His brother was also adopted, along with a couple of his colleagues and a bunch of his friends, including his best friend. So it was a clear option for he and his wife who had a biological daughter, but ran into hiccups when they tried for a second child.
“There are several kids and newborns that are looking for families, and there are birth parents that maybe it’s not their time, or they can’t give the life to a child right now that they’d love to,” he says.
“So there’s an opportunity of another family out there that’s willing to love and care as much as their biological mother.”
Despite how daunting it seemed, he and his wife decided to pursue open adoption, through Adoption Options, and now they have extended their family to include their adoptive son’s grandparents and uncle.
“The rewarding part is when you get that phone call, and there’ll be ups and downs,” he says.
“Enjoy it, embrace it, and love it because it’s, as you grow with it, it’s like they’re one of your own.”
He says there’s still a stigma attached to adoption, and wants anyone reading this to know, it’s not that you were not wanted, and in fact you have even more love from both your biological and adoptive families.