In 2010, Sandra Bullock received a phone call that would change her life forever. “Your placement is here,” said the voice on the other end.

Just a few weeks later, Bullock stood on stage, accepting her first Oscar for her performance in The Blind Side. Yet, her thoughts were far from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood. “All I wanted was to go home and feed Lou,” she confessed, referring to her newborn son, whom she had waited years to meet.

Read on to discover more about this incredible actor and the journey that led her to adopt two children!

Bullock’s decision to adopt was profoundly influenced by the events of 2005, when Hurricane Katrina ravaged Louisiana, flooding the state and displacing thousands. Deeply moved, Bullock felt an inexplicable connection. “Katrina happened in New Orleans, and something told me, ‘My child is there.’ It was weird,” she recalled in an interview with Today’s Hoda Kotb.

Years later, in January 2010, Sandra Bullock received the call she had been waiting for years to hear.

“He was unexpected, he was not planned. I got a call one day, ‘Your placement is here,’ and that’s after years of waiting,” the 59-year-old Speed star shared with CBS News.

Gushing over Louis Bardo Bullock, the three-month-old boy from New Orleans she secretly adopted in 2010, Bullock recalled, “I looked at him like, ‘Oh, there you are.’ It was like he had always been there.” She added, “He fit in the crook of my arm. He looked me in the eyes. He was wise. My child was wise.”

The Miss Congeniality star shared, “The beautiful thing that I was constantly told was, ‘The perfect child will find you. You will find your child.’ But you don’t believe that when it’s not happening. When you’re going, ‘Where is my family?’ When it does happen, you know exactly what they’re talking about.”

Just weeks after Lou arrived, Bullock found herself on stage at the Kodak Theatre, accepting her first Oscar for her role in The Blind Side. Despite the monumental achievement, her heart was elsewhere. “All I kept thinking about was, ‘He’s at home.’ I didn’t care that I was there; I just wanted to go home. I was sewn into the dress, and I had to get myself out of it, but all I wanted to do was just go home and feed Lou.”

Shortly after this joyous moment, her marriage to reality star Jesse James fell apart, leaving Bullock to navigate the challenges of single motherhood with her infant son.

Bullock reflected, “I mean, so much had happened. How do you process grief and not hurt your child in the process? It’s a newborn; they take on everything that you’re feeling. So, my obligation was to [Lou] and not taint the first year of his life with my grief.”

‘LOUIS GOT THE STAGE’

“No one understands the shift in priorities about having a child in your life… until you have a child in your life,” Bullock explained, discussing how her focus moved from career to motherhood. “It naturally shifts… he showed up and now, Louis has the stage.”

As Lou grew up in a healthy, happy environment, he once looked up at his mom and predicted, “I’m going to have a baby soon.”

Though Bullock hadn’t been planning to expand her family, her son’s words planted a seed. “I realized at that time, maybe he knew something. And when I think about it, it would have been around the time that Laila was born,” Bullock said. “It’s Louis’ way. Louis has a very strong way. He’s a fine leader, and he led me to Lai.”

Laila, who was living in foster care in Louisiana, joined the family in 2015 when she was three years old.

Recalling Laila’s trauma from her time in childcare, the Ocean’s 8 star said, “She’d be in the closet with all her clothes on, she’d be on a bookshelf, she’d be hiding, she’d always be ready to leave,” Bullock remembered. She emphasized that she always reassured Laila she wasn’t “going anywhere.”

Bullock also shared a poignant conversation she had about Laila with Bryan Randall, the father figure to her children and her partner from 2015 until his passing in 2023 due to ALS. “My partner said to me, ‘When she’s been with us longer than she hasn’t been, I have a feeling we’re going to see a change,’” she recalled.

He was right. Recently, Bullock described Laila as “unafraid.”

“She’s a fighter, and that’s the reason she’s here today. She fought to keep her spirit intact. Oh my God, what she is going to accomplish. She’s going to bring some real change,” Bullock marveled.

Lou, now 13, “is super sensitive… He’s wise and kind,” the Bird Box star shared with People. “I saw that when they handed him to me. There was a spiritual bigness to him.”

Although fans may be disappointed, the versatile actor is scaling back her work schedule to once again focus on being a single mother.

Bullock’s most recent appearances were in 2022’s The Lost City with Channing Tatum and Bullet Train with Brad Pitt.

“I can be creative, I can be part of a community, but right now, work in front of the camera needs to take a pause,” she said.