Upworthy · 7 days ago

20-year-old Woman Agreed to a Closed Adoption for Her baby, Then Got a Wonderful Surprise

When Schauna Austin surrendered her newborn son to a closed adoption after three sleepless days of holding him, she thought she was stepping out of his life forever. A week later, the adoptive parents made a choice that defied convention: they invited her in. "You can't have too many people loving you, right?" Chris Schoebinger asked, and with that simple question, they dissolved the boundaries that typically separate birth families from adoptive ones. For twenty-one years, they sent Austin detailed journals titled "The Life and Times of 'Riley'"-honoring the name she'd given him-until the day she taught seven-year-old Steven to fish, and a grandmother welcomed a grandson named Riley into the world. Their story quietly insists that the walls we build between ourselves and others often block everyone from the very thing we need most.