I met my birth parents after 23 years of silence.

I never thought we'd be sitting here. No. That's her. I don't want to hurt my parents. There was really, to them, only one reasonable option. I can't do this. It's over. But the young mother that lost a child was right here. It was just horrible. It was really horrible. This is crazy. God, you're not there. And I have been no action of love in your life. As long as I live, I'll never forget that day. Once we signed the papers, I was it. Congratulations, Mama and Daddy. I would really like to find them. You know what I wondered if I'd ever see? What's up, you little? I feel like your message is going to give them a lot of peace. I'm literally not reading this to anyone, and I'm anxious about it. Delivered. Oh my gosh. Hello. Today is the day. 23 years to see that happen. Put it down. That's him. I'm feeling this love. Why on earth would you let me into this? I wouldn't change a thing. I don't know if I'm ready for this. I know. I woke up thinking this was just another overcast Tuesday. And I have a message from someone named Trip. Trip's not a common name. The only knowledge to this point that I've had of that name is supposedly that was the name of my birth father. But I didn't know. He was apologizing and reflecting on the decision that he and my birth mother made 23 years ago to give me up for adoption. Understand if you don't want to have anything to do with me. I get it. You can ask me any question or call me any name or silence is also understandable. Love is an action. And I have been no action of love in your life. I've never interacted with this person in any way. And so just reading his message, I'm just like overwhelmed. I have so many thoughts, but at the same time, I have no words. I knew this day would come. But at the same time, there's also an element of fear. I don't want to hurt my parents. I mean, here are these two people who have raised me for 23 years. I was adopted at birth by two loving parents. Who had prayed and hoped for a kid for 14 years. Well, I'm happy, mama. I'm happy. In a very happy world. With a precious gift from God. But I still want to learn more. If you have any interest in talking or anything else, I'm more than happy to. And you said, I know Donna feels the same. Do you think they talk? Do they talk about me? It's crazy. We don't know them. But I feel angry too. This is going to be a process and a story that's going to challenge me. Here we go. That guy had no idea what was ahead. It's taken me three years just to make this video. I'm adopted. And this is a story of how I met my birth parents after 23 years of silence. This is a story of how God took something that looked like a complete mess and brought something beautiful out of it. These past three years have honestly hit me like a train, but they've also blessed me in many ways. And I really believe this story can bring you hope too. I've spent the past two years reconciling the reality of my story with the story that I'd imagined in my head because it's two very different realities. We might be getting ahead of ourselves. This story really begins back in the 80s. That's my mom and my dad. What do you think of that young man? Of course, I didn't know who he was. And then she craned her neck around to look at me. And then I caught eyes with her as I was running out of our driveway. I still picture her doing this. I thought she was taken because let's just say she had been engaged before. Not once. Twice. And the third was soon to come. After four years of dating. Who's counting? She came to Lily when I preached by herself. After that conversation on that Easter Sunday morning, I thought I'd like to get to know him a little better. Let's just say she lingered a while and I saw her come out and I shook her hand and I said, how about lunch? The rest is history. After my parents got married, they really wanted to start building a family. But there was just one problem and that they couldn't physically have a baby. I can remember times walking out of the hospital and crying, you know, because there was that, you know, still a longing and desire to be a mother. Our sister-in-laws all were giving birth. And so they would call and we would celebrate with the family over the phone, you know, but then I remember us getting off the phone, you know, and having times where we cried. Years passed for my parents and it would have been really easy for them to lose hope. But then there was Aaron. A little girl was born. Her name is Aaron. We did everything. We'd go get her from home. Her parents were so open. We would let her come over in the daytime and we'd play together. And in nap time, we'd get her down for a nap. She would come into our bedroom and say, do I look beautiful? We were asked to be godparents on Mother's Day. We came to realize that through our love for you, that we could love someone other than our own flesh and blood. Aaron opened my parents up to the idea of adoption. They realized, hey, even if we didn't have this child biologically, we could still love them like our own. We actually started trying to talk with couples that had adopted. Even from the start, the attorney, you know, selected a social worker. She would meet with me and talk about my family background, my heritage and all. Then she met, came back another time, met with John. So it's a lot easier to biologically have a kid. And that was one thing I had to get over. I thought if we could have a biological, it'd be just, you know, a normal way of doing it. Well, there was nothing normal about this. But while this was going on with my parents, my birth parents were actually in high school just over 100 miles away. Okay, let's cue some like 90s high school vibes. That's right. Let's go. You remember I met Donna? Oh my gosh. Where? Sex ed class. I remember when I met her, she had like black friends and white friends. And I thought that was cool of her. She loves everybody. And that is Tripp, my birth father. And Donna might have been cool, but Donna's family wasn't exactly cool with Tripp. Yikes. But really, it wasn't Tripp. It was me. I just could pretend that I was this great girl, but I was just as bad. And that is my birth mother, Donna, and her husband, Adrian. I hid being pregnant from my parents until my water broke. Yeah. How did you do that? 16 year olds are supposed to be considering who to go to prom with, not whether to end their pregnancy or hold out. She was overwhelmed. She was confused. I was not her plan. And when Donna and my birth father Tripp found out about the pregnancy, there was really, to them, only one reasonable option. I don't know if now's the time to share this. Maybe I shouldn't. Oh, please do. You're not going to write me off. Oh, gosh. No, don't tell him. When we found out that I was pregnant, I said, Tripp and I got together and we're like, what are we going to do? And we kind of said, well, we're going to have an abortion. There was a certain place that would do it for a certain amount of money. Oh, my gosh, man, this is horrible. I'm going to tell you that. And so I was like, OK, well, we were scared. I sold my car. I mean, it was kind of like a cool car. But we still had to come up with the issue of I wasn't old enough. We would have to get a fake ID. I guess that next Sunday, after he had already sold the car, this girl comes and talks to our youth group and she had had an abortion and she talked about how she regretted it so much. And then I got the money, but then we didn't do it. I can't do this. Even talking to you about it now is making me feel horrible. That's heavy. Maybe we could cut to something, I don't know, a little lighter. This is a real emotional part because I really love that car. I'm just joking. He's pretty awesome. But picture this. It's a Camaro. It had flames and it had like these big, huge back tires like it was a drag race car. And on the inside, it had black leather seats with yellow pinstripe. Do I know more about the car than I know about you? Maybe. He's worth more than the car. Let's go back to my parents. They were not losing hope. They kept praying over and over for a child that they could adopt. The church has been praying this whole last year. But I said, would you feel led at any point like after a sermon or during a sermon asked if the whole church as a whole would pray about this? This is after a Sunday service. Yeah. We walked down those steps right there. And you could feel the emotion and the love in this place. And so as we started back, they started moving out of the pews and following us. I came down from the pulpit right here. People just started coming right through here. And it literally was like a floodgate. People just started pouring, pouring in. It felt like, and I know it couldn't have been hundreds, but there were tens of people just praying out loud. All the way down out here, all the way down. People just praying. But the young mother that lost the child was right here. She was right here. And she was, I remember her kneeling down and calling out, Lord, give them the child. Bring this child into their arms. All the way down the hallway and back in the here, we could hear people just calling out to God and praying. So I think as long as I live, I'll never forget that day. And hearing all these people calling out to God at the same time. This is where it began, right here. Your biological mother went into labor the next day. At the time, she was 12 weeks out. They said, well, when she goes into labor again, though, we will not stop labor again. One thing that was also going on during this year was my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. We knew dad didn't have very long to live. We really didn't know how long, but we knew it was very close. And so the very next week at my dad's birthday, we get the call that she had gone into labor after praying for 14 years. And I'm losing my dad. I'd love to tie a bow on that right there, but that's not the end. A twist was coming that my parents never could have expected. When we were at our highest, the birth parents were at their lowest. We had you, and then the emotion came after the birth. You know, it was like, I was in love with you. I wasn't even supposed to know if you were a boy or a girl. A lady slipped up and she was like... So then I said, well, you know, I'm going to meet him. And so I did. I would sneak over to the hospital. And then I would go visit with you and hold you. We received the call that here she's in labor. It'll be anytime within 24 hours. And then we weren't hearing anything then that next day. And then by the next day, then we were hearing that, yes, you were born. They told us the time and all. But then they said, but right now there's hesitation on the birth mother's part. We said, OK, we're going to put him up for adoption. Then I had you. And my dad, he's very emotional. So he was like, we're going to keep him. And I was like, yeah, we're keeping him. We still felt like Joshua was our son. But the word said it's over. So we came right here to this pulpit. And I said, we're grieving right now. We have great faith, but we're hurting. We need to be away. We were going to leave on Monday morning. We were confused. There were precious birth parents who were hurting. We could only fathom how much their parents were hurting. And we were hurting, too. How do you pray? They spent weeks preparing. And in a moment, it was off. They desperately needed to leave. But Pat, a lady on staff at the church, she told my parents that her marriage was on the rocks. And she needed them for counseling. They couldn't go. She needed them. Pretty clever, Pat. So we go to leave. Our secretary here, Pat Rudy, called and said, you can't go. That was her way of trying to keep us in town all day. Because Karen said, I hope by 5 o'clock, I have this signature. I knelt down right here when I came in that morning and said, Pat. I said, now, Pat, you know we need to go. You know we're hurting. She said, we need to leave town. I said, but I'm going to take you at your word. I really don't think I could have done what my parents did next. We just decided, OK, we were going to enjoy the day, make the most of it. And we bought a rocker. A baby rocker. Yes. Oh, baby rocker. As I put in the journal, in our hearts, we still felt like that was you. Our Joshua was down there. We still believed you were our son. My mom, I told you she was a prayer warrior. And she just said, no, you're not keeping him. We're not keeping him. They can't leave town. You've got to come up with something to keep them in town. And she didn't tell you why. No. She didn't want us to be hurting him. She wanted it to be that definitely the papers were signed. So when was the last time that you saw me? Oh, you're going to make me cry. This little picture right here. I'm going to cry now. Once we signed the papers, that was it. I was shopping with mom at the grocery store, and I picked up diapers. And I handed them to my mom, and I said that we need to get these for the baby. I had not been made aware that the adoption had been called off. And your dad writes in his journal, what does she know? And then we walked into the church office. This is where the call came. The phone was right here. Karen said, hello, are y'all there? We said, yes. She said, congratulations, mama and daddy. And that broke us all up. Even when I just first heard her even call out John's name, I started crying because I thought, this has to be good news. After 14 years of praying, of waiting, of closed door after closed door, they were going to be parents. This was before the internet. The phone line really lived on. Everybody knew we needed everything, you know, because we had time to purchase everything at that point. That night, that fellowship ball was just full of people. Men, women, children, I mean, everybody. And I tried to call the lawyer back to cancel, because they said, oh, you have a 24-hour window. And so I tried to call him just to get more information, just to talk to him, just to tell him to forget about it, rip it up, shred it. And he, I mean, you can't get in touch with the lawyer. I kept leaving messages, and he wouldn't call me. Then I think at the 24-hour mark or something, it's too late. I mean, I can't even explain how, the emptiness. It was just horrible. It was really horrible. The only concern was that they told him the birth father was mentally challenged. And then how'd you feel, though, when you thought you had all this expectation, and then you saw this thing? Those are jokes. We were circling the hospital, and we were there at midnight, and we were, like, circling it. It's officially the 24th. We really wonder, if we went in the hospital right now, would they let us in the NICU? Because we would have done it if we thought we could. And so, but the next morning, we were in there. He's smiling on that one. And I was looking at all the monitors to see, was your heart racing? You know, were you having difficulty breathing? What was it? And they're like, no, you missed it. Look, he is turning toward you. A baby recognizes the mother's scent and the parents. And you had already, in the short time, you were already recognizing us as your parents. Just a little over a month after I was born, my parents are preparing to bring me home. On the way home from the hospital, you were on a heart monitor. We had to keep that on you for a year. Yes. And I got pulled over. Well, I was nervous. You were in the back seat. I handed the policeman a credit card instead of my license. He said, this is your credit card. I said, sir, we're bringing our adopted son home from the hospital. We are nervous as can be. At this point in the video, I'm not trying to gloss over my upbringing, but if I went into detail, we'd be here for a while. So I'm just going to tell you, if I could dream it, my parents were determined to make it possible. I hadn't made it. And growing up, I think of so many moments that I was blessed with, from jumping around with mom in the living room celebrating an accomplishment, or she'd even sit by my bed and seeing God is so good as she touched my nose. Or I think of you, dad, and going to McDonald's to get the hot cakes breakfast on a Saturday. Think of bike rides, waking up to a hot omelet in high school. They were there when I got my one referral in sixth grade, and they were there when I got married to my wife, Alexa. Now it is our joy and tender privilege to declare you husband and wife. You may now kiss your bride, your wife. And I have my daddy. And his mommy. And I'll have a daddy in my life. All I want for Christmas is my teeth, front teeth. Let me see. That's great, Joshua. Say it loud and clear. The mother of all mothers. There you go. There's the teeth. It's out. All right, come on, Joshua. Look at Joshua and his dog, Flora. And a big chocolate bunny. Yeah. He's going to be one that you'll be able to love. You're perfect. Basketball two times, t-ball one time, but I'm a lot of fun. You're no fun. Are you happy? Yeah. How does it make you feel? Fantastic. If it's any indication, look at the painting my parents gave as a gift to each other. Our 20th anniversary gift to each other. To each other. You can't make that up. 80 books this year, and I'm very proud of you. Very good, sir. My parents have albums of pictures that my mom took documenting every single move I made growing up. I'm blessed. Year after year, occasion after occasion, we prayed for our birth parents. We wondered how they were doing, especially on his birthday, at Christmas, Mother's Day, Father's Day, his baptism, his graduation from high school and college, and his marriage to Alexa. If only they knew. Growing up, I only really knew the positive side of adoption. Adoption gave me my parents. I thought I had it made. Adoption was great. So when I was in college, I went to my parents and I said, I would really like to find them. My mom plopped down this folder, okay, she has a folder for everything, of the little bit of information that she had about my birth parents. And this changed a lot. I think I might have a name. She said at one point in the hospital, there was a name on some piece of equipment or something. We had a little bit to go with there. When I came back in there, that sticker was gone. I could give you that name and you could see if you could do any research. I was like, you know, okay. You said, oh, I've kept a file folder. Because you have files for everything. I had a friend's mother that passed away and tried to send a condolence. And at the time, it brought up pictures of everyone that was there. And all of a sudden on my computer screen. She saw the name of my birth mother. She hadn't seen that name since her and my dad were in the hospital room with me in 1998. That's crazy. Your boy went to work. Josh was an investigator. There was, I think, a video of you on a game show, maybe? Oh, my gosh. Scramble Squares. It's time to play Scramble Squares. How are you? Wonderful. Now, being a stay-at-home mom, I would imagine the pay is not all that good. But the rewards are terrific. That's what they say. I had pictures and then that. And that was it. I was like, wow, I see where I get the good looks from. She's so beautiful. My parents and Alexa and I, we were all there. And we were like, that's her. Like, it's got her. That's her. I'd always said I wanted to thank the birth parents. But I don't think I really thought a lot about what came after that. Like the relationship and all the next steps. And so I was really ambitious. And I remember I came to y'all and I was like, OK, I'm ready. Let's reach out. And Joshua said, wait a minute. If this hurts you in any way, I won't do it. You really did not want to hurt us in any way. And it was just such an overwhelming feeling for us. But we were excited that we could talk about it. Yes. That's where some of the emotion was coming from. Could Joshua be hurt in this? I wish you could see him put his hands around Donna and say, mama, I want you to get one thing straight. You're my mama. So I heard absolute radio silence. Nothing. From that day in college, watching Scrambled Squares until March 23rd, 2021, where we started this video. So I opened the message right here and it says Tripp and underneath it says parent. Like parent right there on the actual message. All the pieces are coming together now. We have the missing piece. Yeah. You found me on Ancestry and it said I'm either your dad or your son. And I really thought for a while that you were my dad. You know what I wondered if I'd ever see? What's up? You. Well, you're the very one. We didn't know if we'd ever meet and look what we're doing. Here I am about to move into your house and your extra bedroom. Let's do it. Got my stuff. Let's go back to baby face, Joshua. It's been over 12 hours since I got that first message from my birth father. How do I say thank you and that you made the right decision? I honestly don't know what I expect from this. I know I want to learn more. I really want to meet my birth mother and birth father, but I don't want to hurt my parents. I am sorry. It took me so long to do this. I feel like an idiot. I'm not sure what I was thinking. I thought about you a lot, but didn't really know how to approach the sensitive situation. Your parents seem like the best, most solid people. That really does bring me joy. Our decision was a rushed and painful one by two dumb teenagers. I can remember that morning, March 23rd, and I was thinking, wow, 23 years to the day. This is when we were circling the hospital, you know, 23 years earlier. And when you were little and would act up, I'd say, you little trip. You'd just giggle. The double meaning. Yeah, you'd have no idea. I said, you little trip. I read that back. Like, I was getting emotional. I still don't have words. He has a sense of humor. Yeah. Yeah, he does. On Facebook, we saw he has good hair. And that's very important. The craziest part to me about all this is that somehow the whole time my parents were on board. They were happy. They said, hey, if you want this, we want this. That blew my mind. I'm telling you, they're awesome. OK. But I mean, you felt excited, too. We did. It was a joy on both sides. It really was. We have always told you what a gift they gave us. Yes. And what a brave step they took. In many ways, we couldn't wait to tell them, thank you. We were more concerned about, would it hurt you? I love that he talked about my parents, the upbringing that I've had. That was cool. He talks about, he's sorry that it took so long. But. But I feel like there's never the right time. I don't think there's ever the perfect time. And I don't think I would have been ready. I've tried to do some research over the past few years. But I've actually had no idea who you were. I wanted to know more, but I did not want to rush anything. I know you made the right decision. And I hope that brings a smile to your face. I know it's a loaded question, but what have the last 23 years looked like for you? That's such like a, how you doing? You know, just checking in. How's the past two decades been? It's been a while. But it's, it's time. Okay, I'm. Come here, come here. This is it. You got this. I'm like shaking. Yeah. I have message pasted in the box. You just have to press the button. Is it weird to say thanks for reaching out? I don't know. I feel like your message is going to give him a lot of peace. Hold my finger. No, do it with it. Do it. Delivered. And we're going to do it together. So. I'm proud of you. Here we go. One down, one to go. I'm literally not reading this to anyone. And I'm like anxious about it. Two or three years ago, I started writing a letter. That I knew one day I wanted to send to Donna. When I saw Tripp's message Tuesday, I was speechless. I was honestly thrilled and overwhelmed. I've been thinking about and preparing for this day for my whole life. More than anything, I want to thank you. I want you to know that you made the right decision. My mom and dad are the most selfless and loving people I know. Growing up, they encouraged me to think big and to chase my dreams. The person I am today is because of them. When I think about adoption, I smile. Before I even understood what the word meant, my parents were telling me about the gift that was made possible by you. I would not change one thing. I will forever owe a huge debt of gratitude to you. So the subject of the email is one thing. I have like really kind of struggled with. Thanks for the DNA. I came out of you. How do you like hoping to catch up after, you know, a couple decades? I am your son. You know, what do you say? How do you put in the subject of an email? Like, how do I? I don't even know. You okay? Like that. Wow. I sent it. I'm somewhere between like cry, smile, and I don't even know. I just reached out to my birth mother. His parents are just beaming with joy. And every time they talk about it, they get emotional. Yeah. It's hard for me to fully capture my emotion in these early days. I was excited. My parents were excited. Alexa was excited. My friends were excited. My co-workers were excited. But at the same time, it was all that I could think about. And it quickly became just overwhelming. This weight that I could hardly stand up under. And that began this months-long battle with anxiety. And thank God for therapy. Am I right? But I remember that being the first time me really questioning, why am I even here? What's the purpose of all this? And I'll never forget that exact week, the same week that I'm hearing about an abortion that didn't work. How I'm not even supposed to be here. When I'm hearing about all the pain that my birth parents went through. I hear this song at church. A lyric in a song. Nothing is an accident. I'm alive because there's more. I wish I could say I latched onto that and it changed my life in the moment. It wasn't that black and white. But I kept coming back to that. An abortion failed. All this pain. All this struggle for my birth parents. And just a messy story. And I can't help but believe, God, there's some reason I'm here. I may not always see it or feel it. But I'm alive because there's more. The weight of it all really started to hit me. It started to get emotional. Like, wow, this is actually happening. It was a Saturday morning. I was in bed and I saw an email from Donna, my birth mother. I sat up. Couldn't say a single word. Woke Alexa up. We sat there in silence and read. Word after word. Wow. Here I am in my childhood bedroom where I grew up. I had an image in my head. And it's so easy to paint a pretty image in your head of a situation. What if Donna's not like what I think she is like? I could not be prouder of the man you have become. The beginning of your story is a messy one. But as I see how God wove it all together, I'm astounded. He had his hand on you from the very beginning. Signing those adoption papers was the hardest thing I've ever done. As with most things, time heals. Through the years, I have thought of you. I have wondered and I have prayed. I prayed you would find Jesus and a wife in your youth. Your parents are lovely. I just want to interrupt right here and say I think it's pretty lovely that Donna used the word lovely. Can we just spam the comments with the word lovely? It's just lovely. I love it. It's lovely. I love that I share a name with your adoptive mom. I also am an adoptive mom, so our bond goes much deeper. I would be honored to meet your parents and get to know them. I have no doubt you were their son and were created for them. I'm beyond thankful you reached out. I never knew where you went or who adopted you until this week. All I had were memories and your little photo in my bedside table. My whole upbringing, I was convinced they knew something. They at least knew that I was well off or that everything turned out okay. But they genuinely knew nothing. I wanted to meet Donna and Adrian first over a video call. Donna offered a time two days away. Okay, we're doing this. Let's go. I have this connection to these two people, yet I've never met them. Except for social media, I don't really know anything about them. What does everything after today look like? Do we communicate every year, every month, every so often? Do we visit each other every now and then? And I hope we're giving the birth mother and the birth father and their families some sort of closure and comfort knowing that the challenges that they went through 23 years ago were worth it. That's it, we're counting down. Less than 30 minutes now. Dear God, thank you for this day. We have just wondered if it would ever happen and how it would happen. I pray that Donna can feel our love. Thank you, God, for our precious family. And we celebrate, oh God, for what you are doing. Now, Lord, I can only imagine how it would be to be Joshua and to hear her voice for the first time, to see her in living color and to let Joshua know that mom and daddy are right behind you. Yes. Hold on. Smiling. So proud. Because we truly believe the best is yet to come because we serve an incredible God. Amen. Love you. Amen. Hello. Wow. That's what I say, wow. This is so surreal. Oh my goodness. It is surreal. Oh. I feel kind of like you look like me. We've been thinking that. I'm so thankful that you're in the place that you are because I had this friend in college, he was adopted and he just despised his birth mom. And so, you know, for kind of for giving him up. So I always prepared myself that that would be your heart. So I didn't have any expectations. My experience is like the complete opposite. I didn't even understand what adoption was when my parents were telling me about it. You made this incredible gift for them possible. And just seeing you, I want to say like, thank you. Because I can, I mean, I can only imagine carrying me and then giving me up and just wondering. But I always knew that I was going to be a foster mom and I always wanted to adopt. You have a one-year-old brother. Can you imagine that? I know. That's the youngest. Is that weird to say that? I mean, you have like a half brother. Is that weird? My two truths and a lie game has gotten a lot better. It has. I genuinely don't think you can guess which one is the lie. Let me know in the comments. We can play. Okay, I'll take you down, but you can try. At this point, there's only one left to talk to. My birth father, the one who started it all, Tripp. Or as his legal name goes, Hillis. Hillis. Who names their child Hillis? It's a family name. No judgment, Tripp. I think Hillis is a great name. I'm very thankful I'm not Hillis, but I'm happy that you're Hillis. And I think you should be proud of Hillis. I'm about to call Tripp and talk to him for the first time. Tripp! This is... Is this Josh Yuwa? Yes. I feel like I know you, but I don't. You know, at the same time. Yeah, I know. I've never been like nervous for a phone call. So that day that you messaged me or whenever that happened, was that the first time you found out? I honestly sat on that ancestry kit for like two years, man. Really? I saw a dude walk through my back property. I was like, is that him? I'm just wondering. Ancestry to emails, to emails, to text messages, to text messages, to phone calls and Zoom calls. And we progressively moved up and up until... If this was a dating relationship... Okay, it wasn't. But if it was, we moved fast. Like one month after that first message on AncestryDNA, Alexa and I are hours away from where we live to visit my birth mother. In like bachelor terms, that's like first impression rose to hometowns in a month. It was fast. But in this case, add 23 years of emotional baggage and wondering what happened and not seeing each other. Wow. It's exactly one month since we got that message from my birth father. So today we are... We're in the town where my birth mother and her family live. My birth mother and birth father have just affirmed my parents in so many ways. Just, I think it's given them a sense of closure and redemption to see how I had and have two incredible parents and give them the closure to know that, hey, you made a really tough decision, but it was the right decision. I know I'm crying, but it's really happy tears. This is a joyful day. At this moment, everything became so real. We were hours away from home, about to meet my birth mother and her family. I have half siblings I've never met. Just taking something so unplanned and difficult and blessing me with an incredible home and parents. How are you feeling, Lex? Excited. Nervous. All of the above. God is good. Such a crazy day. Just can't imagine not seeing someone for 23 months. Oh, I love that. Helps. Oh my gosh. Thank you. Need that little distraction. Should I go down? Now it's awkward because I know he's out there. I'm just going to go down, okay? I'm going down. Me too. Hello. Oh my gosh. Hello. Today is the day. Oh, you're so skinny. Oh my gosh. But what I vividly remember going into the house and the two Donnas embraced. Yes. I had waited. It's a precious moment. 20, what, three years? 23 years to see that happen. I watched the one who gave you birth, the one who gave you life, and I thought, this is a moment I will never, ever forget. Never will I either. When she opened the book. Mom plopped down this. And Donna, the birth mother, was sitting here and she started going, and she was doing this. Page by page. And I said, Donna, what are you seeing? What are you sensing? And she looked at us and said, it was meant for you. I was the vehicle. Yeah, that's just the first year. There's a lot more. I am an only child. Yes. And the last person to meet was Tripp. And in iconic Tripp fashion, it was unique. Wait, put it down. That's him. We just drove past Tripp in the parking lot. And this is before we've actually met. So that was, and we didn't even say, hey, we just drove past him and he looked at me and we looked at him and that was it. So it was good. It wasn't awkward. Pretty, pretty good first impression, right? Yeah. Two months after my birth father first reached out. Yep. And we're about to meet him in person. Say hello. We did it. We met. Hey, everybody. Well, he loved your picture. He loved your picture. He said, uh-uh, uh-uh. And I remember the pic you had standing underneath of you and Tripp and the pic. I just remember when we were talking with him at one point, he said, I'm feeling just love. So you were part of our life and you didn't realize it and we didn't realize it. Yeah. So I said, we're family now. If there was one place that like my inner child just feels at peace, it's at the piano. Growing up, I would sit there listening to my mom play. I would play for her and my dad. I'd play at church. I just loved it. And so to find out how much Tripp loves music and loves piano and then to sit down beside him at the piano was a surreal experience. Very good. I'm proud of you. I'll never forget seeing both of you on the piano duet stand by me. Rings in my ear, resounds in my heart. Sitting at the piano where I'd spent so many hours growing up beside my birth father, my mom and dad, Alexa, right there. Wow. Joshua, we have looked upon you as a gift from God. We're stewards of God's gift. We have room to love these people too. Absolutely. Without them, we wouldn't have you. Our family is larger, it's more messy, yet it's more beautiful. Yes, sir. Hey, y'all. What y'all doing? Are you coming? That is so awesome. That is so good. Y'all are awesome. Did you think we were like gonna judge you and hate you? I would say probably, yes. And we do. Hey, everybody. Put that on Instagram. I felt like a love, even when I saw his face on the email and when I looked him up. Wow. His dad told me one time, basically what I was trying to say in the first place. He said, it takes a village. It's like, it takes a village. And I was like, why on earth would you let me into this? Where I've tried to get rid of your son and you'd raised him and did everything and sacrificed everything for him to be who he is. But yet he's saying, you're a part of this and we love you. Wow. What a dude. So if there's a real dude out there and a real woman out there, it's his parents. What's it like? I feel like I'm looking at an older person. There's a lot happening in this frame. This is incredible. Dear fan group. Trip, my dad and me. Wow. Dad, first son, second son. My whole life, I've always said I wanted to thank my birth parents. And that sounds nice. But team Joshua had zero idea what would come after that. I just thought I'd say, okay, thanks. And then just go on with life. And I don't think that would have even been possible. To me, adoption was this beautiful thing because adoption gave me my parents. But I never really thought about that. One of the best days for my parents was also one of the worst days for my birth parents. That my parents answered prayer of 14 years was also my birth mother handing over the child that she felt this bond with, that she had just had. I always knew I was loved. Like, you know, we would pray by the bed at night. And, you know, you'd sing, God is so good. And dad and I would wrestle in the floor. And then, you know, we'd sit here and read scripture every morning, cook breakfast. You know, we had all these incredible memories. And now I was faced with the part that wasn't as pretty. Donna grieved giving up her child. And to see how Trip always wondered if he'd lost his only chance to be a father. To see all these little things. And that's just adoption. But it's also life. So much of life is in this gray area. It's not all good or bad, happy or sad, joy or depression. It's the combination. It's all in between. It's like, hey, adoption was hard. But there's also value. And there's also grace. And there's also redemption that comes from it. Meeting my birth parents was a struggle. But it was also a blessing and a gift and such a joy that I wouldn't trade. Walking through this with my parents has been a gift. But it's also been really hard. And that's okay. It doesn't have to be one or the other. But that's the gray area that I've been learning to live in. That's the reality of life. It could have happened years ago. Right. But you had Alexa now. I genuinely do not think I would be sitting here right now. Alive or sane if it weren't for Alexa. And Alexa, you have been wonderful. You have been. You have given feedback, care, how you would say, I want to feel what you're feeling. Yeah. I want to experience what you're experiencing. And she said, because I want to feel how you're feeling. Like, I want to be in this with you. If you're excited, let's be excited. If you're overwhelmed and we need to step back and pump the brakes, let's do that together. We can't ask for any more than that. Talk about wife of the year award. We're like human of the century. This whole week, she's been comforting me, asking me, are you okay? What are you thinking? Most of the time, I don't even know what I'm thinking. Like, so we've been talking about you. Every time your name comes up, I start crying. I had always prayed for him. Oh, yeah, yeah. To find a wife. It was Donna's prayer that he would grow up to be a man that is committed to his first love and meet his love early on. Yeah. It worked. Well, that's really encouraging because I'm like, maybe I need to send his parents my kids because it turned out pretty good. God is so good to me. Just like God is big with you. Joshua, that is beautiful. That is beautiful. I don't know how to explain this except through God. I believe you tell grace in retrospect. Oh, my. If I had have gotten my first dream, look what I would have missed on. If God would say, okay, if you give Joshua up, you can have as many biological children as you want, I'd say, oh, heck no. Because God gave us the greatest dream, the greatest gift that we've ever had in you. God, you are so good. You are so good. Because of what started when she was 16 with my birth, my birth mother and her husband have now had another biological son. They've fostered over 20 kids and now they've even adopted two of those as their own. We've been fostering, I guess, for just over 10 years. We've had probably over 20 kids. I think it's such a beautiful story of redemption, how God works through things and how he takes something that appears to be bad, but it turns into something exceptionally good. How on earth can this just be a happy accident, you know? I just can't believe that. If you look at any slice of time, you'll say, God, you're not there. How many times did we go and pray with families that wanted children, had children, never came about for us, and then you hear God say, I told you the best is yet to come. On the day that the birth parents signed the papers, look at the top of the journal page and it says, the light in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart. I go back and I can only do this in retrospect and say, I wouldn't change a thing. We have a God who can bring beauty out of ashes and I think that's the essence of this story. He got us this far. I can trust him to hold. The day after I got Tripp's message on Ancestry, I wrote this. Yesterday, for the first time in 23 years, I received a message from Hillis or Tripp. He was predicted through our shared DNA to be my biological father. I was excited yesterday and now the reality is setting in. At the top of the page, this is where I wrote, and nothing is an accident. I'm alive because there's more. I feel so blessed to be able to look back on this story and see both sides. We have this gift of perspective. We can look back and see how it all worked out. But there have been so many days where it's living in the mess of the in-between. There have been days, many hours, where I've wanted to cry and shout for joy in the same breath on the same day. And that's okay. And I think a lot of life is lived in that gray area. And maybe you're wondering, hey, Joshua, easy for you to say. Your story turned out so great. What about mine? I don't know how it's going to end, or I'm still living in the middle of the mess right now. There's one thing that gives me hope, and it's Romans 8, 28. This is the Apostle Paul writing, and he writes that all things work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Notice he doesn't say my good, your good, all things work together for what I think is best or what I want. He says the good. In the struggle, in the mess, I believe that God is working something good out of my story and out of your story, too. I hope that gives you hope. Keep hope alive. It's worth it. Sometimes disaster turns upside down Tears into laughter, laughter Pray you'll find somewhere I'm playing a whole crying bust. And then it's like a whole crying bust. Everything. This is us. And like and subscribe. Donna, my friend, the mother. Don't make me cry now. Kiddie pool, kiddie pool. Oh, kiddie pool. I thought we were doing serious. What do you think about the beach?