A Story of Love, Connection, and the Family We Built Together
I’m Jourdan Hathaway, and for fifteen years I have borne witness to a story with my husband Cam that began with a single promise. A promise to a young woman, Autumn Wright, who entrusted us with her daughter—and her one important request: to stay connected. This week, the NBC TODAY Show shared our open adoption journey with the world. It’s a story fifteen years in the making—one of courage, vulnerability, and the extraordinary power of love that transcends biology.
Two Babies, Five Months Apart
In 2010, our lives changed forever. Within five months, I became the mother of two beautiful children—one through adoption, one through birth. Madeline and Keller are just five months apart, bonded by laughter, sibling rivalry, the same milestones—and a deep connection that only love, not circumstance, can create. From the beginning our family defied convention. Not because we set out knowing what to expect with open adoption—but because our path was simply what felt right each step of the way. Our story has never been about how our children entered our lives, but how love wove us together into something bigger than we could have imagined (and not just for the children, but for everyone involved).
A Documentary of the Heart
Just two years into Madeline’s life, we felt compelled to tell our story publicly. We produced a short documentary—“Our Open Adoption Documentary” (see the full archive here) —because we wanted to show that open adoption can be built on trust, empathy, and shared humanity. I journaled every step of the way—every email, every phone call, every surge of hope, every moment of uncertainty—because I wanted Maddie, Keller, and the birth family to one day to read through the archives and understand not only the decisions that brought them into this world, but the love that carried them through it. That journaling, those first-emails and every communication exchange from the beginning, became a treasure throve when we revisited them for the NBC TODAY article as we got to relive our beginnings.
Life Imitating Art
I’ll never forget our very first meeting with Autumn and Jay. In that first hug and hello, Autumn handed us a DVD—a lifetime movie, 16 and Pregnant. She wanted us to watch it, to see her story reflected in someone else’s, to understand her desire to stay in Madeline’s life. This small gesture was profoundly human—it was her way of saying, “See me. See what this feels like.” We watched it. We saw her. And we made a promise that day, in the quiet of our hearts and the steady clasp of our hands: we would live this differently. We would stay connected. We would build a family bigger than biology alone.
Fifteen years later, that promise has become our shared legacy. The TODAY feature shows our story on national stage—a story of art imitating life, and life coming full circle to inspire art again. What began as an act of trust has blossomed into something far greater: a beautiful, blended family created through love. It has always been our dream to inspire others by living as an example of what’s possible when we lead with compassion and openness.
A Blended Family, Beautifully So
Our family spans many branches: Madeline’s brother Keller here with us; from Autumn’s side two brothers—Logan and Hudson—who adore her; from her birth father’s side another brother named Grayson. At the end of the day, we’re just a blended family—imperfect, resilient, bound by something deeper than DNA. We laugh together, argue over who gets the last cookie, celebrate milestones together—and we do it all knowing our “how” is not traditional, but it is intentional.
Inspiring What’s Possible
We share our story not because we’ve arrived. We share it because we’re still on the journey—and we believe in the power of our story to light the way for others. Through open adoption, through biological parenting, through blended families—we hope to show what’s possible when you lead with trust. When you document the journey. When you honour both grief and gratitude. When you say yes to a story that asks more of you than you thought you had to give.
I’ve often reflected in my journals, in scenes of tension and triumph alike, that story matters. The arts matter. Storytelling matters. Because for Autumn, that DVD she handed us—16 and Pregnant—was a threshold into being seen. And for us, sharing everything from that first email to this TODAY feature is our way of lighting a torch for others to contemplate.
Full Circle
Our journey reminds me that sometimes art imitates life. But the truest art (the kind that changes people) comes from real life unfolding in all its messy, magnificent beauty. Maybe someday someone will make a movie about us. But honestly, the best part of our story is the one we’re still writing: every laugh in the carpool, every sibling scuffle, every holiday we celebrate, every moment of connection we choose instead of defaulting to distance.
And if you’re reading this, if you’re considering adoption, open adoption, step-family, blended family, let our story be one of possibility. That in love’s economy, there is no scarcity. That in openness, there is freedom. And that in being seen, truly seen, there is the power to heal and to build.
Jourdan Marie Hathaway 