Adoption: Filled with Love

Champions Tour player Brad Bryant (left) says he and his wife have never been involved in anything more filled with love than the adoption of their son Jamieson.
Courtesy of the Bryant Family

April 16, 2012

By Brad Bryant, Special to Together, Anything's Possible

This is a very unusual situation I find myself in. I've talked about birdies and bogeys quite a bit in my career, but until this week I’ve never been able to talk about something my wife, Sue, and I feel really passionate about—something we feel can do to make a difference in this world.

One of the things that we've hoped to do for many years is to be able to give back and do something that we felt a strong commitment to. Lots of guys do things that are charitable in nature, and most of the guys on the Champions Tour are incredibly charitable guys or just how charitable the Champions Tour players are—the money they give away and the things that they do because most of them are very private about it.

We have now partnered with the Florida Baptist Children's Home to create the Uniting Hearts Fund. Uniting Hearts is a fund that will provide money for families to do adoptions. Adoptions can be very expensive, and what we want to do is create families because we believe that's what God instituted for the proper way for our society to function. The family is God's institution on America, his first institution on America and the greatest institution we have.

Originally Sue and I were going to be very private about the Uniting Hearts Fund, but we eventually decided that it was something that we needed to share with the world because we believe that we have come up with a formula that can help change America for the better.

There is nothing in this world I know of more filled with love than an adoption done the right way. Sue and I are living proof that if it's done right, adopting a child is just the most amazing thing I can imagine.

We decided to adopt a child, and we began the process after a personal crisis. In 1985 at Pleasant Valley Country Club, I was playing in the Bank of Boston Classic. As I came out of the locker room, I was met at the door by my friend and fellow professional David Ogrin. He told me my wife needed to go to the hospital. So I went to the hotel. Sue was on the bed after having spent the day with Loren Roberts’ wife, Kim. Sue was terribly pale, and we later found out she had lost two liters of blood due to internal bleeding because of an ectopic pregnancy, a condition caused by the embryo emplanting itself outside the uterine cavity.

We rushed Sue to the hospital, and the volunteer who drove us there took on the assignment of ambulance driver. The doctor who operated on Sue in the middle of the night and saved her life was the same doctor who was on call at the tournament that afternoon. As it turned out, he had the reputation of being one of the best obstetrician/gynecologists in the Northeast.

That began our decision to adopt. When our son Jamieson was born in South Dakota, we went and picked him up, and it was amazing. Just amazing. He's 21 years old now, and we're very proud of him. Jameison’s birth mother, a young lady, chose to give birth, to give life to my son, rather than aborting him.

My oldest son will never share my DNA, but I'm the guy who got up and changed his diapers in the middle of the night. He's the kid who brought me both great joy and great sadness. He's the kid that I had to spank. He's the kid who told me to go jump in the lake. He's my son.

Sue and I want to be able to build forever families through the Uniting Hearts Fund. We're raising money so people can afford to adopt children. I am giving 10 percent of my prize earnings this year to Uniting Hearts. Based on what I’ve done and how I’ve played on the Champions Tour this season, we are already up to more than $15,000 in the fund, and we’ve already provided enough money this year for one family to adopt a child.

This is what we're about because we're about creating families. That's the whole reason for Uniting Hearts. It’s something very, very special.

Editor’s Note: Last week at the Encompass Insurance Pro-Am, Champions Tour player Brad Bryant announced the Formation of the Uniting Hearts Fund, making adoptions possible for children and families in need.