Photo: Alicia Mae Holloway / Instagram
So heartwarming!
By Nia Tipton
Last updated on Feb 01, 2024
Ballerina and former "Bachelor" contestant Alicia Mae Holloway has used social media to explain her adoption story. As part of her series, she has revealed the kind gesture her adopted mom showed her birth mom, and it is quite heartwarming!
Holloway shared the 'sweetest' thing her adopted mom did to keep her birth mom involved in her life.
Holloway revealed that her adopted mom would routinely send updates of her to her birth mom.
"My mom saw how hard it was for my birth mom to give me up for adoption, so she was like, 'okay, I'll make you a deal,'" Holloway explained.
The deal in question was this: every six months, Holloway's adopted mother would send a photo of Holloway along with an update written in a note of how she was doing to her birth mother.
"Since my birth mom was planning on telling her whole family and all of her friends that I was stillborn, she didn't want the cards coming to her house," Holloway added. She continued, saying that since her birth mom had three children of her own, she didn't want them finding the cards in the mail and subsequently finding out about Holloway. "My birth mom actually told my mom, 'Hey, I would love the updates, but just send it to my best friend's house."
Holloway added that the updates to her birth mother happened every six months of her whole life, in June and December. Her adopted mother would send her birth mother "a picture of me, like a school picture, and then a dance picture, with an update on how I'm doing, just in life, which I think is just so beautiful."
Holloway admitted that she didn't know about this until she was "almost 18 years old."
"I didn't realize that my birth mom was actually watching me grow up my whole life," she said.
In a follow-up video, Holloway revealed the story of her birth mother receiving the first photo of her.
In another TikTok video, Holloway shared the moment that her birth mother received the first photo and update of her, which fell on "one of the worst days of her life."
"The first time my birth mom received a photo and card of me was actually on one of the toughest days of her life," Holloway described.
She explained that her birth mom told her this story during the first time they met each other face-to-face, which happened right before Holloway turned 18.
"It was June 1997, and I wasn't even a year old yet, but [my birth mom] picked up the phone and received a phone call that her mother, who she was very close with, had passed away."
Holloway continued, saying that her birth mom was "absolutely hysterical" after getting the news of her mother passing, but as soon she put the phone down, she received another call, from her best friend. It was the same friend whose house she had told Holloway's adopted mother to send the photos and cards to. When Holloway's birth mother picked up the phone, her best friend told her that he had gotten the first update sent from Holloway's adopted mom.
"She said she broke down even then because she hadn't had any form of contact since the day that I was born when my parents adopted me," Holloway said. "Although it was sad that her mother had passed, the fact that as soon as she got off that phone call and heard that she had a picture of me [she felt] that God was just working in a mysterious way."
Holloway's mom's decision to send her birth mom photos was a gracious way of keeping her involved in Holloway's life.
Choosing to put a child up for adoption is never an easy decision for birth parents, and can bring up several emotions such as sadness, grief and even anger. Those feelings can be compounded when not knowing what happens to your child after the adoption process is complete.
While adoptive parents may not always want birth parents in their adopted child's life, Holloway's adoptive mom's beautiful compromise allowed her daughter to thrive while also keeping her daughter's birth mom in the loop.
Holloway eventually met her birth mother just before she turned 18.
"I thought I was going to have this huge emotional connection, but honestly it was just like looking at another woman," Holloway admitted in a video, noting that her adoptive mother and birth mother seemed to have more of an emotional connection, perhaps in part due to the exchange of photos over the years.
"My most important message for her was to say thank you for giving me up to the two people that I know," Holloway wrote in the caption.
Nia Tipton is a Chicago-based entertainment, news, and lifestyle writer whose work delves into modern-day issues and experiences.