Dad Says He Has ‘No Regrets’ About Putting One Of His Twins Up For Adoption & Raising The Other One
When faced with an impossible decision, this father stands by the fact that he did the right thing even 20 years later.
kckate16 | Shutterstock A mother and father have no regrets about giving up one of their twins for adoption — and keeping the other.
The couple admitted that when they learned they were pregnant in 2000, they were unsure how they would be able to afford one baby, let alone two. Eventually, they made the agonizing, and controversial, decision to keep just one of their newborns and place the other up for adoption.
Over two decades later, the father stands by their decision.
The biological dad of the twins said that he has ‘no regrets’ about putting one of them up for adoption and raising the other.
In June 2000, 37-year-old Dawn Voris and her husband Clint discovered that they were pregnant.
While the couple was excited, they were also terrified since they were not in the best financial position to have children.
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Their fears transformed into doubts after they learned that they were having twins. After weighing their options, the couple decided that they would place the second baby born up for adoption while keeping the other baby.
“I wanted each of them to have every chance in life. That’s when I knew we couldn’t keep them both,” Dawn told The Sun.
In February 2001, Mickayla and Becky were born. Later that week, Becky’s adoptive parents came to collect her while Dawn and Clint brought Mikayla home.
Dawn and Clint did not tell anyone that they had twins.
The couple didn't tell their families that they were expecting twins, nor did they disclose the truth after the birth.
Dawn feared that her mother would attempt to “control” her life by urging her to get a better job or sell some of her personal items to afford both girls. “We would’ve had to have a lot more money to raise twins when we did,” she clarified.
It wasn't until late 2020 — when the girls were 19 — that Dawn and Clint told Mikayla that she had a twin sister.
"I said, 'Do you remember how you wished that you had a sibling? Well, you do,'" Dawn recalled her conversation with Mikayla.
This discussion came after Dawn received a message from BirthParentFinder, an agency that connects people with their biological relatives. Dawn and Clint agreed to meet Becky, who was renamed Reagan, at a cafe.
“I had to stop myself hugging her, even though I longed to. Instead, we just sat and talked,” Dawn said. “We answered the list of questions that Becky had prepared, all about us, our family health, and why we had put her up for adoption.”
The biological sisters later met for the first time since being separated at birth at a pizza parlor.
“You don’t usually walk into a room and see a carbon copy of yourself,” Mickayla said of the first meeting with her sister. “It was mind-blowing.”
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Mickayla also told The Sun that she holds no contempt toward her parents for placing her sister up for adoption and keeping her existence a secret for 20 years. “I didn’t feel any anger towards Mom and Dad for keeping this from me. In fact, listening to Mom talk about it through the tears, I only felt sorry that she’d been through it,” she said.
Despite the heartbreak of separating their daughters, Clint believes that it was the right decision and has no regrets to this day.
In a 2021 interview with Jay Rosenzweig, the CEO of BirthParentFinder, Clint said that he stands by the decision made by himself and his wife over 20 years ago. He revealed that he had no regrets and had no fears about telling Mickayla that she had a twin.
“I was not worried in the least. I wanted to approach this subject years and years ago,” he said.
When asked if he would have kept both girls under different circumstances, Clint is unsure.
According to Dawn, giving up one of her twins for adoption while keeping the other was “the greatest gift” she could’ve ever given the adoptive parents. “What else could we have given them that would’ve been any greater than that child?” she asked.
However, she claimed that she and her husband were “torn to shreds” about their difficult decision. “We spent hours reading about different couples, families who were desperate to give a loving home to a baby,” she said. “Finally, we made our choice, my heart breaking all the while.”
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She struggled with depression for a year after the birth of the twins. “I wanted so much to keep her, to have both of my babies,” she said.
Dawn and Clint are no longer in contact with Becky, per her decision.
Soon after their meeting, Becky became distant for reasons unknown to Dawn, Clint, and Mikayla.
“I really thought that Becky and I would be friends forever, that we had this amazing connection as twins,” Mikayla said. “To learn that she didn’t want to know us at all felt like such a betrayal.”
In a 2022 interview with BirthParentFinder, Dawn admitted that she has attempted to reach out, but Becky has made it clear that she has no interest in maintaining a relationship.
Many commenters found Dawn and Mikayla to be "cold" and lacking empathy in the interview, as they seemed to downplay the trauma Becky likely felt.
"I wish everyone healing; there’s a lot of pain in adoption and reunion," one commenter wrote. "Please give your daughter and sister some time to heal."
Many may ask how parents — even if they were struggling financially — could even bear to give one of their children while keeping the other. The truth is that we will never understand Dawn and Clint’s choice until we ever face it ourselves (and hopefully we never will).
It is easy for us to say, “I could never,” or “I can’t even imagine,” on a topic we have never experienced personally.
According to a study on adoption conducted by Adoption By Shephard Care, financial instability is one of the main reasons birth parents choose to place their children up for adoption, despite how much they love them.
Instead of judging two parents who were obviously broken over having to make such a decision, we should all try to sympathize more and recognize that they did the very best they could for their girls. We should also hold empathy for Becky, who doesn't owe her birth family a relationship.
Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.