Rosie O’Donnell has opened up about the first time her nine-year-old daughter, Dakota, requested to speak to her birth mother.
The comedian, who is also the mother of Parker, 27, Chelsea, 25, Blake, 22, and Vivienne, 19, adopted Dakota when she was a baby in 2013.
Dakota first requested to speak her birth mother when she was aged five, after seeing her mother on FaceTime with her.
“We’re in contact, so Dakota gets on FaceTime and says, ‘Are you the lady whose tummy I was in?’,” O’Donell recalled of the conversation in a new essay for People.
Dakota recalled her daughter saying: “‘I just wanted you to know I’m the kid that was in there, and when I got born, my mommy held me and I squeezed her pinkie, and I am with her. So, I just want to let you know that’s what happened to me. Bye.’”
O’Donnell said she was overcome with emotion watching the interaction take place.
“I was in tears as was her birth mom,” O’Donnell explained. “That’s a pretty intense, complex, emotional thing for a little girl to put together.”
The American Gigolo star, who has adopted all of her children, said she thinks about their birth mothers “every day”.
“I think about the generosity of human spirit that allows someone who knows they’re not able at the moment to be a mom to this baby, give that baby all [they] deserve. To place that child in the loving arms of a stranger,” O’Donnell said.
She described this as “the biggest act of generosity” humans can take, adding: “I’ve been the benefactor of their selflessness and it made my life worth everything.
“Nothing in my life ever compares to the five kids and nothing, no reward you ever win, no amount of money you ever get, can replace the love of family, and of a parent and a child.”
