There are countless stories of celebrities adopting children, but far less of celebrities who were adopted reuniting with their birth parents.
Country singer, Rodney Atkins, became the spokesman for the National Council for Adoption in 2008, and according to an article in the USA Today, Atkins soon found himself inundated with messages from across country telling him they were his birth family. This led him to decide that he was ready to find his actual birth family and was reunited with his birth mother in late 2008.
The article said that Atkins’ birth mother became pregnant at 19 and did not tell her family about the pregnancy, even after she placed Rodney for adoption.
“I just wanted to tell her thank you, because she had some other alternatives to end that situation,” Atkins said in the article. “I might not be here. So you don’t want to take it for granted…She kept saying, ‘I’m sorry.’ I kept saying, ‘Thank you.'”
Along with meeting his birth mother, Rodney was able to meet his brother and grandmother, both of whom did not know he existed. His grandmother recently passed away but Atkins was thankful his birth mother gave him the opportunity to meet her.
“She had to tell her after all these years, ‘you have another grandson that I never told you about.’ I can’t imagine what she’s been carrying,” Atkins said in the article.