For years, Mike Amor and his wife Tracy dreamed of becoming parents. They imagined building a family, welcoming a child into their lives and experiencing all the ordinary joys that come with raising someone they could call their own.
But their journey to parenthood was far from straightforward.
After years of trying to conceive naturally, the couple turned to adoption. Then another devastating obstacle emerged: Tracy was battling cancer, and their initial attempt to adopt in Australia was unsuccessful.
They could have allowed the repeated setbacks to end their dream. Instead, they kept searching for a way forward.
Eventually, while Mike was working in the United States as Seven’s foreign correspondent, the couple made a decision that would change their lives forever.
In 2007, they welcomed a baby boy named Addison into their family.
Yet even after finally becoming parents, their struggles were not over. Years later, another unexpected battle awaited them when they returned to Australia — one that prompted Mike to speak publicly about the difficulties facing families who adopt children overseas.
His words were simple, but deeply moving:
“He’s just our son.”
Behind that statement was a journey filled with years of hope, disappointment, determination and a love that never depended on biology.
The Dream That Took Years To Become Reality
Mike and Tracy had spent years hoping to have a child of their own.
They initially tried to conceive naturally, but despite their efforts, pregnancy did not happen. Eventually, they began exploring adoption in Australia, believing it might offer them the opportunity to become the parents they had long wanted to be.
But the process brought another heartbreaking complication.
According to an account published by Herald Sun and reported by Starts at 60 in February 2019, the couple were initially turned away from adopting in Australia because Tracy had cancer at the time.
It was an incredibly difficult period for the pair. They were already facing the disappointment of not being able to conceive naturally, and now the alternative they had hoped for was proving difficult too.
Thankfully, Tracy subsequently overcame the disease.
However, their adoption plans encountered further complications as international adoption rules changed. The couple eventually decided to pursue their dream of becoming parents in the United States.
For Mike, who was working there as Seven’s US correspondent, it meant looking for a new path towards the family life they had imagined for so long.
Their journey had not followed the route they expected, but neither of them had given up on becoming parents.
The Day Addison Finally Came Into Their Lives
In 2007, after years of uncertainty, Mike and Tracy’s dream finally became reality.
While living in the United States, the couple adopted a baby boy named Addison from birth.
For Mike, the experience of becoming a father was something he would never forget.
He was there during the earliest hours of his son’s life. In fact, he personally cut Addison’s umbilical cord and held him in his arms shortly after he was born.
It was a moment that made everything they had endured feel worthwhile.
After years of wondering whether they would ever have a child, Mike and Tracy finally had the family they had so desperately wanted.
There was no question about the love they felt for their little boy. Addison was their son, and they were his parents.
As Mike later explained to 3AW, he and Tracy were the only parents Addison had ever known.
The experience also gave Mike a deeply personal understanding of fatherhood — not simply as the arrival of a child, but as a commitment to love, protect and raise someone through every stage of life.
For the couple, the years of disappointment had finally given way to something they had dreamed about for so long: a little boy to call their own.
When Coming Home Brought Another Unexpected Challenge
For several years, the family built their life in America while Mike continued his demanding career as a foreign correspondent.
Eventually, however, the time came to return to Australia.
Mike and Tracy naturally expected that bringing their son home would be a straightforward part of that transition.
Instead, they encountered a complicated situation involving Addison’s immigration status and Australian citizenship.
Because Addison had been adopted in the United States, his adoption did not automatically give him Australian citizenship when the family returned.
By February 2019, when Addison was 11, Mike revealed that his son could only travel to Australia on a bridging visa while the family navigated the necessary immigration processes.
The situation left the journalist deeply frustrated.
After everything they had experienced to become parents, he could not understand why his son was facing additional hurdles simply because he had been adopted overseas.
Mike explained that the family had hoped to give Addison a happy and simple life, but the reality had turned out to be much more complicated.
He also expressed concern that Addison was being treated differently, including being classified as an international student.
The father was now facing another challenge — one that had nothing to do with becoming a parent, but everything to do with protecting his son’s future.
“He’s Just Our Son”
It was during this difficult period that Mike made a public appeal for a more straightforward approach to citizenship for children adopted overseas by Australian families.
Speaking to 3AW’s Neil Mitchell in 2019, he expressed his frustration with the complicated process.
“I was quite shocked, I thought naively, it would be easy,” he admitted.
He explained that he had approached the local consulate believing the necessary arrangements could be made without years of uncertainty.
But the process proved far more difficult than he had imagined.
One of his most emotional statements came when he spoke about the way his son was being described.
“I appreciate you have to say he’s our adopted son, but he’s just our son,” Mike said.
Those words captured the heart of his frustration.
To Mike and Tracy, Addison was never someone who needed to earn his place in their family. He had been their son from the moment they welcomed him into their lives.
They were the parents who had been there since the beginning, who had held him as a newborn and who had watched him grow.
The circumstances of his birth did not make their relationship any less real.
Mike also shared another heartfelt sentiment:
“Addison just wants to be an Aussie, and to make him an Aussie is all I have ever hoped for.”
He wanted his son to feel at home in the country his father loved, without facing additional barriers because of the way his family had been formed.
The Struggles Behind The Family They Had Fought So Hard To Build
Mike’s appeal revealed just how much the couple had already endured before they ever became parents.
In an interview with Herald Sun, he reflected on the repeated challenges they had encountered.
“We have been through enough struggles to start a family and continue to struggle,” he said.
It was a revealing statement from a man who had spent years reporting on the difficulties faced by other people, but who was now speaking from the perspective of a father confronting a deeply personal problem.
For Mike, the issue was never about special treatment or making an exception simply because he was a television personality.
He wanted the same thing any parent would want: the opportunity for his child to grow up feeling secure, included and accepted.
He and Tracy had spent years trying to create a family. They had faced the disappointment of unsuccessful attempts to conceive, the challenges of adoption, Tracy’s battle with cancer and the lengthy process of bringing their son home.
Now they were being asked to navigate another complicated system simply to secure the future they had imagined for Addison.
His public appeal was ultimately about something much bigger than paperwork.
It was about a father’s determination to ensure his child would never feel that he belonged any less than anyone else.
A Father’s Love That Was Never In Question
Looking back, Mike and Tracy’s journey to parenthood is a reminder that the path to building a family can take many different forms.
For them, it was not a straightforward story of marriage followed by pregnancy and the arrival of a baby.
It was a journey shaped by years of waiting, an unexpected health challenge, difficult adoption procedures and another battle that emerged once they returned home.
Yet through every setback, one thing remained constant: their determination to become parents.
Mike has never hidden how much Addison means to him. His decision to speak publicly in 2019 was not simply about changing a rule or resolving an administrative problem. It came from a very personal place — the desire to protect the little boy he and Tracy had waited so long to welcome into their lives.
And perhaps that is what makes his words so powerful.
“He’s just our son.”
Five words that say everything about the bond between a father and his child.
For Mike and Tracy, Addison was never defined by the challenges surrounding his adoption. He was the little boy they had dreamed of, the baby Mike held during the first hours of his life and the child they were determined to give a loving home.
Their journey was not easy, and not every chapter unfolded as they had hoped.
But after all those years of waiting, they had found what they had been looking for all along — a family.
And for Mike Amor, there was never any doubt about what being a father meant.