Oceans 8 is out this weekend! I’m so excited to see it but I’m going to wait and see what the critics say, fingers crossed. Sandra Bullock was interviewed by Hoda Kotb on the Today Show yesterday. She’s getting a lot of coverage for how open and vulnerable she was while talking about her two children, Louis, 8, and Laila, 6. Sandra got teary when she discussed adopting Louis after Hurricane Katrina. She described it like it was meant to be, and said she just knew that her child was in New Orleans. When she saw Louis she knew he was her son. Then, before she adopted Laila it all felt fated again and like Louis already knew he was going to get a little sister. This really touched me.
When you were [in your 40s] did you think to yourself, ‘maybe not’ [for having kids]?
I did think maybe not and then Katrina happened. I’m going to cry. Katrina happened in New Orleans and I knew. Just something told me that ‘My child is there.’ It was weirdIt was the process of filling out forms, being judged, being in the spotlight about who you are as a human being. It was four years later. Then I looked at him and I said ‘Oh there you are.’ It was like he had always been there. He fit in the crook of my arm. He looked me in the eyes. He was wise. My child was wise.
The beautiful thing that I was constantly told was ‘the perfect child will find you. You will find your child.’ You don’t believe that when it’s not happening. When it does happen you know exactly what they’re talking about.
There’s no end game. There are hundreds of thousands of children who are ready to be your child. You’re a forever parent the minute you accept that child.
On making the decision to adopt a daughter
I was having dinner with some girlfriends of mine and Louis wanted to sit with them and came out of his bath in his towel. [My friend] was talking about her daughters and he goes ‘yeah, I don’t have daughters.’[He said] ‘I’m going to have a baby soon.’ And I realized at that time maybe he knew something. When I think about it, it would have been around the time that Laila was born. Is it coincidence? It’s Louis’s way, Louis has a very strong way. He’s a strong leader and he led me to [Laila].
[From The Today Show video via People]
Hoda started crying too because she’s an empathic person and she could relate, having adopted a baby girl early last year. I’m a skeptic and I tell myself that there’s no such thing as destiny but then I hear stories like this and I believe that they believe. It’s true for them, you know? It’s interesting to me that it took four years for Sandra’s adoption of Louis to happen. Sandra went quiet for a few weeks in early 2010 before she adopted Louis because that’s when the press learned that her then-husband, motorcycle customizer and reality star Jesse James, was a serial cheater. That news came out right after she won the Oscar for The Blind Side. Then she emerged with Louis and completely changed the narrative. It wasn’t some grand plan she had, it all just came together for her at that moment. It sounds like that’s how she sees her life and family too, as coming together just as it should.
Here’s Sandra’s interview:
Photos credit: Pacific Coast News, WENN, Backgrid
Beautiful story
I adopted a child after seeing him once. I literally saw him lying on a blanket in the hospital and said “that’s supposed to be my baby” and so it was…it was just lucky that he was abandoned and ready for placement. We already had 4 babies….it was crazy! He’s 17 now 🙂
Love your story.
Aw, that’s beautiful.
That is a beautiful story!
Hard to imagine adoption taking so long, such a shame. Great heart warming post
Angelia Jolie said the same thing ablut adopting Maddox, I think it’s so incredibly sweet.
Can’t wait for Ocean’s 8.
I’m so happy for Sandra and her children.
I’m so happy for Sandra and her children. And I agree with her, they are her children not her adopted children. I hate it when people add adopted when talking about her children.
It’s lovely that both Angelina and Sandra were in a rough place in their lives (for vastly different reasons) and the moment they got their babies, their lives changed for the best and they’ve never looked back since. As a woman who doesn’t want children, I think that’s wonderful and happy.
You should watch AJ on Inside the Actor’s Studio. She talks about adopting . It’s so sweet.
Love is the most natural thing in the world. Good for Sandy.
I don’t get this bit:
“I was having dinner with some girlfriends of mine and Louis wanted to sit with them and came out of his bath in his towel. [My friend] was talking about her daughters and he goes ‘yeah, I don’t have daughters.’
[He said] ‘I’m going to have a baby soon.’ ”
A 5 year old comes out of the bath in a towel and says, Yeah I don’t have daughters and then goes on to say I’ll have a baby soon.
I know there is a “daughter” and “baby” where there should be “sister” but all I can imagine is Boss Baby.
Really?? OMG I think it’s the cutest! It’s like, the stuff that makes sense in a kid brain, and so they say it out loud, and it’s just a little window into all the stuff we take for granted. You’re a little kid and you hear people talking about little girls as daughter/sister, and they probably just seem like interchangeable words. He sounds like a character 🙂 <3
This was such a sweet read. I’m happy to see the positive responses, too. I’ve seen some snarky comments about her adopting children of color as some sort of accessory which made me angry. I have a son of a different color and one of the same color, both adopted. People who haven’t been personally affected by adoption don’t have a clue sometimes. Children of color are more difficult to place because many times people are unwilling to adopt a child that doesn’t look like them. They may be unwilling partly because of the same judgment that some have passed on Sandra. It certainly didn’t keep me from my son, but it was a concern. At the time, anyway. I no longer have the fuks I had then.
I think the thing that made people go *raised eyebrow* with Bullock adopting black children is because she was seriously involved with someone who was a Nazi, no? Then she went out and adopted shortly after, I think that’s why people were all, “What’s going on here, then?” But it’s nice for children to have forever homes, tbh.
My son is adopted. I understand why people have a problem with saying ‘adopted kids’, but honestly it doesn’t bother me at all. I tell everybody. The adoption process is really hard. I had a lot of heartbreak before we found each other and even then DHR made the process so difficult and expensive. I had to hire lawyers and I AM A LAWYER! I tell people I fought for him, and it’s true. I wish adoptive parents could take back the power of that word.
Bullock seems like a great mom. I hope that as he gets older she gets more vocal about the fear and anxiety of raising a black son in America. It’s palpable. People stop me on the street now to tell me how beautiful he is now. But he’s 2 years old. His birth father is 6’4″ so he’s going to be huge and I know that sentiment will change. People forget that Tamir and Trayvon and Eric and all the others were the light of some mother’s life. It shouldn’t matter, but I think it does matter for white people to hear it from someone that looks like them.
What a powerful comment. Thank you for sharing. Your concern about your son’s future well-being as a physically large black man in America is, unfortunately, not misplaced. Sending encouragement as you raise your beautiful son and remind others of his inherent value through your example.
Thank you❤️
I have the same experience that people stop us on the street to compliment my beautiful POC son who joined our family through adoption. He just turned one (squee), but looks like a 2-year-old and also has quite a tall African-American man as his birth father. I worry about that turning point when his beauty is lost to strangers and this perfect, sensitive, loving, funny boy somehow becomes “scary”.
I imagine her son helped her get through that terrible divorce. The light at the end of the tunnel!