Giving children up for adoption is never easy, but it doesn’t always work out the way you planned. Kim Harris just wanted her rather large, unconventional family to be happy, healthy, and well taken care of. But after several divorces and already eight children to take care of, she had to make a really difficult decision. So when her newborn twins Dakota and Daniel were 8 months old, she gave them up for adoption. The mother wanted her children to live as well as possible.

Rejecting them broke her heart, but she knew that opting for open adoption would create a family for them that could provide for twins in a way she never could. Updates about Dakota and Danielle came regularly at first, but eventually didn’t work, and she was heavily dependent on these updates. Just then, one of Kim’s older children, Stephanie, walked in. She searched Facebook for her siblings, eventually finding them and connecting.

Then, a day after the twins were due to turn 18, Stephanie got word from her little sister that they had a surprise for them, they just didn’t know where to send it… One trip later, Kim’s front door received an unexpected call – Dakota and Danielle were right outside to reunite with their biological mother after an 18-year separation. It was one of the happiest moments in Kim’s life.