Heidi Russo will forever be indebted to Rick and Teresa Kaepernick.
"As a parent you never think anyone who could love your child as much as you do, but they have," Russo said told Yahoo Sports recently.
Russo was 19-years-old and living in Milwaukee in 1987 when she put her son, the future San Francisco 49ers and Nevada Wolf Pack quarterback Colin Kaepernick, up for adoption.
"I took care of him for six weeks," said Russo, who is now the mother of an 8-year-old son and is a registered nurse in Denver, Colo. "I certainly wasn't in position to give Colin the life I wanted him to have."
Russo doesn't regret putting Colin up for adoption.
"It was the toughest decision I have ever made but it, for him, it was the right decision," she told Yahoo.
Rick and Teresa Kaepernick, Russo said, gave Colin the life she always wanted for her son.
"I was fortunate and blessed with Rick and Teresa," Russo said.
Russo told a Denver television station that she wrote letters to Rick and Teresa Kaepernick up until Colin was 7-years-old. "That finally stopped because I couldn't move on with my life," she said.
Russo attended Wolf Pack games and a 49ers exhibition game this past summer in Denver but has yet to meet her son since the adoption. Kaepernick, who has always expressed his devotion to Rick and Teresa, has not made the decision to meet his birth mother yet.
"I have to respect his decision,' Russo said.
"I think he would view it as almost treasonous to them to meet with his biological mother or father," former Wolf Pack tight end Virgil Green (now with the Denver Broncos) told a Denver television station recently. "They did such a great job giving him everything he needed to be successful in life."
Russo said she is not trying to capitalize on Colin's fame now that he is in the Super Bowl.
"That's never been the case," she said.
The media has sought her out recently, especially since Kaepernick become the 49ers' starting quarterback this season.
"He will forever be close to my heart," Russo said.
Russo did meet with Rick and Teresa after the exhibition game in August in Denver
"It was like meeting old friends after 25 years," Russo told a Denver television station. "You couldn't ask for better people than Rick and Teresa, how they have loved him and taken care of him."
