Two moms’ lives linked by rare open adoption
The lives of two Alberta mothers became intertwined nearly 25 years ago thanks to an open adoption they describe as kismet.
“She just felt loved,” said Donna Hackman of her adopted daughter, Haley Dawn Millender.
Millender’s birth mother, Karen Williams, from Vermillion, was 16 when she chose the Edmonton couple to parent her child.
“A lot of people maybe didn’t agree with what I was doing,” said Williams. “People didn’t understand I wasn’t giving her up, I was giving her a better life.”
The Edmonton Journal profiled the family in November 1993, and described open adoption as a relatively new phenomenon. At the time, Alberta Social Services tended to break contact between the birth family and the adopted child.
Hackman and Williams chose a different route, connecting through the Private Adoptions Society, which encouraged open adoptions. It meant Williams received photos and updates throughout Millender’s childhood and the families met sporadically to stay in touch.
“I had a vision when Haley was little that Karen was going to be at Haley’s wedding,” Hackman said.
That hope came true last July when Millender, 24, was married in a celebration that included both her extended birth and adoptive families.
“There’s no stone left unturned,” Hackman said. “She doesn’t have any baggage, she knows everything and is comfortable in her own skin.”
“It’s just a beautiful thing,” said Millender, speaking from Montgomery, Ala., where she works as an emergency room nurse.
“I knew that I had two different families always looking out for me.”
She hasn’t decided whether to pursue a relationship with her biological father, whom she hasn’t met.
“I’ve never really gone down that road,” she said. “I’m just content in where I am right now.”
Hackman was unable to have biological children after a battle with endometriosis resulted in a hysterectomy.
“You think, ‘These are the cards that are dealt to you,’” she said, adding that considering adoption felt like a light switch went on.
As a retired dialysis nurse, she compared the wait for a baby to being on an organ transplant list, jumping at every phone call.
Williams remembered perusing the files of potential families who wanted to adopt her child. The Hackmans — a nurse and pharmacist — felt like the perfect fit.
“It was definitely one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made in my life, but probably one of the best as well,” Williams said.
“It was meant to be,” she adds, explaining she wanted to help the couple start their family.
“The final straw was when we actually did meet them. I asked what they had for baby names ... (Donna) said if it’s a girl we want to name her Haley, and that’s the (name) I wanted to pick.”
Millender shares her middle name, Dawn, with her birth mother.
Every few months, the two mothers grab coffee to catch up. Meeting at a west Edmonton cafe in midDecember, the two reflected on their family over the last quarter century, which has grown to include Williams’s other daughter, now 18.
Hackman launched into the story about the day Millender was born, admiring Williams for her strength while undergoing a caesarean section as a teenager.
“I went into my nursing mode ... Rick and I decided to stay in the hospital until (Karen) left, so we all left together,” Hackman recalled.
Williams, visibly emotional, hadn’t heard that part of the story before.
“I never knew that,” she said.
There’s no stone left unturned. She doesn’t have any baggage, she knows everything and is comfortable in her own skin.