A regular customer at a Central Georgia gas station struck up a conversation with the cashier ringing up her purchase — and within months, she was bringing the woman’s newborn son home as her own. D’Amber Davis and Katelyn Sparks now describe what grew out of that encounter as a sisterhood, one built not on biology but on an agreement struck across a convenience store counter.
A Conversation at the Register Changes Everything
Davis had been stopping at the gas station nearly every day, and over time she got to know Sparks, who worked there as a cashier, according to ABC10. Sparks was about 33 weeks pregnant at the time and told Davis she could not take care of the baby, the outlet reports. Davis had considered adopting before and had even browsed Georgia’s adoption website, but she had planned to wait until she finished school and regained financial stability.
Instead, Davis decided to adopt Sparks’ baby right then, asking Sparks whether she would let her take in the child. Sparks agreed. The station’s report notes that Sparks had received no prenatal care before that point, a detail that reflects a broader pattern across the state: March of Dimes data from 2024 shows that roughly 11.4% of live births in Georgia involved mothers who received late or no prenatal care during pregnancy.
Finding Care and Preparing for Birth
Once the arrangement was set, Davis found a doctor for Sparks and took her to an OB assessment at Atrium, according to the same account. Davis says the assessment results came back normal. The unmonitored-pregnancy gap that Sparks had experienced sits against a difficult backdrop statewide — a 2025 report from the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition of Georgia found the state recorded a maternal mortality rate of 37.9 deaths per 100,000 live births between 2019 and 2023, with medical reviews determining 87% of those deaths were preventable.
Nolan was born healthy, weighing 7 pounds, 8 ounces, per the article. Davis brought him home soon after. Independent adoptions like this one are permitted under Georgia law, though O.C.G.A. § 19-8-5 requires that a home study evaluation recommending placement be completed before a child is placed with a third party, unless a court specifically authorizes or waives that step, according to FindLaw. The same statute grants a birth mother a mandatory four-day window after signing a voluntary surrender to withdraw her consent in writing, per Justia, a window that was shortened from ten days in prior statutory updates.
An Open Adoption Becomes a Sisterhood
Rather than stepping back after the adoption, Sparks has remained involved in Nolan’s life. Through her bond with Davis, Sparks reconnected with her own mother and gained more time with her other son, the outlet reports. The two women now describe their relationship simply as a sisterhood.
Their arrangement mirrors a national shift in how domestic infant adoptions work. Research synthesized by the Child Welfare Information Gateway indicates that about 95% of modern domestic infant adoptions in the U.S. now involve some degree of openness, with fully closed adoptions down to roughly 5%. Psychological studies cited by adoption advocacy organizations, including Creating a Family, show that birth mothers who maintain contact with adoptive families in open adoptions report lower levels of grief, worry, and regret after placement — a pattern that lines up with what Davis and Sparks describe experiencing together.
Davis started a TikTok page called Love Makes a Family to share their story. She says family is based on love and support, not shared DNA, and advises other adoptive and foster parents to stay positive and ignore negativity. Formal and informal placements like this one also ease pressure on a strained system — data published by WinShape Homes in February 2026 found about 10,350 children in Georgia’s foster care system, with infants and toddlers under age two making up 20.6% of that population.
Nolan’s Shot at the Baby of the Year Title
Nolan has now been entered in the Baby of the Year competition, which awards one winning baby $25,000, an appearance in a national ad campaign with The Honest Company, and a feature in Variety magazine. Organizers said the competition has helped deliver a $45 million grant to Baby2Baby, which the contest supports and which provides essentials annually to more than one million children in need.
The competition is run by professional fundraiser Colossal Management on behalf of the 501(c)(3) charity DTCare, which directs donation proceeds as grants to Baby2Baby, according to Colossal. Between 2024 and 2026, the digital fundraising campaign generated more than $45 million in cumulative grant funding for the nonprofit to distribute diapers, clothing, and basic necessities nationwide, per PR Newswire.
For now, Davis and Sparks continue to raise Nolan together in their own way, keeping their bond intact in the community where it began. Emergency medical care in Butts County, where Jackson is located, is anchored by Wellstar Sylvan Grove Hospital, a 13-bed emergency department that serves more than 17,000 patients annually, according to Wellstar Health System — a reminder of the thin margins rural Georgia families often navigate around pregnancy and birth.
