Sutton Foster Says Relationship with Daughter's Birth Mom Is a 'Beautiful Addition to My Life'
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Sutton Foster is grateful for the "beautiful" relationship she has fostered with her daughter's birth mom.
While speaking to PEOPLE about her collaboration with Help Us Adopt, the Younger star opened up about her own experience with adoption — she welcomed daughter Emily Dale in 2017 via adoption after years of fertility struggles — and shared how she navigates her relationship with Emily's birth mom.
"It's been an unbelievably beautiful experience," she says. "You go into life and you think, 'How am I going to have a family?' Not only do I have a daughter, but I have a whole other family that is part of her story."
"It's overwhelmingly beautiful," Foster continues. "It's overwhelming love for this little human. And I'm so excited that her story is now my story, and it's really been a beautiful addition to my life."
The Broadway star, 47, who shares her 5-year-old daughter with husband Ted Griffin, also explains the importance of being "open and honest" with Emily about adoption, as she says it's all "part of her story."
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"Everyone has a different experience, and so you just have to listen to your kid," she says of navigating conversations about adoption with Emily. "There's nothing that's off the table."
"I'm listening to her and I will answer every single question she has to the best of my ability, and just keep it as open and honest and truthful and loving as I possibly can," adds Foster, who has previously emphasized the value of talking about adoption early with Emily.
As November is National Adoption Month, The Music Man star is hosting an online auction featuring 10 baby blankets she personally crocheted with all proceeds going to Help Us Adopt, a national non-profit adoption grant program aiming to make adoption more feasible for all families.
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Foster, a longtime lover of crochet and crafting, tells PEOPLE she first started to make the blankets when she went back to work shortly after welcoming Emily as she "didn't know where to pour all [her] love."
"My goal was to auction them off for adoption, to raise money," she says. "It's taken me a couple of years. But I am so excited to finally be able to have these blankets out in the world and to be able to raise money and just raise awareness."
"All of those blankets were made with so much of my own new mom love," the actress adds. "And so it's like they all are filled with all of that hope and promise and nervous energy. They all have a lot of love packed into them."
The Hooked: How Crafting Saved My Life author says she was "thrilled" to have the opportunity to partner with Help Us Adopt to help auction her one-of-a-kind blankets.
She adds, "Hopefully it's just the beginning because it was just such a great way for me to combine two things that are really important to me."
