Christopher Brune Horan
Benefitting Inspire
Christopher Brune-Horan shares his remarkable journey of fostering to adopt. Christopher and his husband, Jesse, decided to marry, start a family and adopt within months of falling in love. Their story starts with a phone call that a little boy has been born to a crystal meth addict and has nowhere to go.
The years that follow are filled with loss and love and, as Christopher shares, a “heart that was broke wide open.” He talks openly about the tragic loss of their infant son, Kaidon, and the courage to love again and foster two young boys they are now in the process of adopting. Christopher and Jesse bridge the gap of racial divisions and the realities of being two gay men on a quest to fatherhood.
He happens to be a Moth story-slam champion and tells his beautiful story in the most poetic of ways.
In Today’s Episode
Baby Kaidon is born to a crystal meth addict and has nowhere to go (14:00)
Learning his birth mom doesn’t want her son with two gay men (21:40)
Kaidon goes from healthy a baby mom to sick in a matter of days (29:11)
Kaidon passes from Kawasaki disease (33:19)
Christopher and Jesse support his birth mother as she plans his second funeral (38:33)
Finding the courage to love again and adopt Victor and Tony (47:20)
Wise Words
We stopped at a gas station two exits away from the hospital. Jesse installed the car seat underneath the fluorescence of the mobile station. The next thing I knew, we were meeting what would be our son. (22:03)
I remember they told us, “There’s a baby. He’s being released from the hospital. He has nowhere to go.” There was something so powerful about that, and I knew that Jesse and I were capable. I was like, “No matter what, this kid needs help.” (22:29)
I was holding him, and I remember this woman said to me, “He isn’t glass,” meaning, the way I was holding him was so fragile. I was like, “Okay.” That made me realize “Okay. He isn’t glass. Relax a little bit.? We were two men, and we hadn’t had this experience before, but we were in it together. It was beautiful. (24:42)
Right away, in that first meeting, I said to her, I said, “I know you don’t want your son with two gay guys. Let’s talk about that.” (32:04)
I think I said before what they don’t tell you about foster to adopt is if you really want to adopt, there’s this part of you that you need the parent to fail in order for you to be able to adopt. That didn’t feel good on our part. (33:15)
There were so many ways that we thought we might lose Kaidon, but that was never one of them. (42:06)
Afterwards, there’s something that happens when a baby dies in a hospital that doesn’t happen when you lose any other loved one, not your spouse or sibling or anyone, a friend. What happens is afterward, they present your baby to you to hold. I remember very clearly, they very careful, almost ceremoniously wrapped this baby, which was the light of our life, Kaidon, in a hospital blanket, and they presented him to us. (43:27)
They gave us two rooms for four hours. Loved ones came. Very close people came. We did our best to say goodbye to our son. (43:57)
I heard someone say, “We’re going to call it. It was just like they do on TV. I said to Jesse, “They’re going to call it.” I was horrified. They did. Suddenly, there was a time of death, and they were calling his time of death, and all the machines started to fade out. I was like, “Oh, my God!” I couldn’t believe it was happening. (47:30)