Colin Kaepernick’s mother will be in the stands Sunday, watching Colin Kaepernick in her matching Colin Kaepernick jersey, alongside her other son, Colin Kaepernick’s 10-year-old half brother.

And Colin Kaepernick will have no idea.

On Nov. 3, 1987, Heidi Russo gave birth to Colin. Five weeks later, she gave him to the Kaepernicks. Russo is now an established mother and nurse in Thornton, but back then, she was 19, scared and knew the best life for her son was one in a different family.

She’s not after his money. She’s not suddenly caring about him because he’s the star quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers. In fact, she asked the Kaepernicks when Colin was 7 to stop sending her photos and updates, because they were just too painful. She cared too much.

Today, she just wants to reconnect with her baby boy.

“Colin has made his wishes very clear, and I’m just respecting his wishes,” Russo said over coffee Friday, two days before her town’s Broncos played her son’s team. “… There’s never a day you don’t think about the child you placed or worry about them or think about them. And that’s not a bad thing. You grow as a person, and in my journey through this. … For 26 years, it’s a journey of pain. Of loss. And that doesn’t change. It might lighten, but it doesn’t change. My family had never talked about that time in my life. My dad finally did a couple of years ago.”

Kaepernick, over the years, has been extremely private about this issue. Broncos tight end Virgil Green was Kaepernick’s teammate and roommate at Nevada, and in the Denver locker room Friday, Green explained, “He just feels like that’s who his family is, that’s who he’s committed to. Maybe one day he will want to meet her. But right now all his loyalty is to the Kaepernicks.”

So what does Heidi Russo do? She helps Heidi Russos.

She and two other women started Three Strands, a beautiful organization that aids and guides birth moms — moms who gave birth but then put their babies up for adoption.

“Our initiative is to help raise birth moms up from a place of shame to a place of honor,” said Russo, whose website is www.threestrandsinc.org. “If they’re in a bad situation or environment, there’s nothing to help change their trajectory in life. A lot of these birth moms don’t have support of their families and friends, especially if they’re young.”

Three Strands is a nonprofit that first launched in Atlanta last November and will have an official launch in Denver this November. The three strands are birth moms, adoptive moms and adoptees, and Three Strands offers everything from vocational guidance to just someone to talk to. Already, they’ve met a woman who had kept quiet about being a birth mom for 60 years. She and her two co-founders have already helped hundreds of women, Russo said. They deliver bags of high-end gifts and products to these mothers in the hospital. They support. They let them know they’re not alone.

Three Strands hopes to set up an actual home in Denver, where birth mothers can stay for a few months and receive help on getting their lives on track. There will be love.

You’d have to think that if he heard of Three Stands, Kaepernick would be proud.

His half brother, Michael, is 10 years old and already 5-foot-3 and almost 140 pounds. He plays football, just like his brother. Michael knows that he’s related to Kaepernick and, Russo said, “thinks it’s awesome. … His dream is to play in the NFL too.”

Kaepernick is his own man. The Broncos’ Green gave us some insight into his mind-set. But it’s hard to think that anything bad could happen if he reconnected with Russo. He knows she’s his birth mom, but that Teresa Kaepernick is his mother. Acknowledging Russo wouldn’t change any relationship with his adopted parents, who Green said, “are some of the nicest people you’ll ever meet in the world.”

Now, who knows if Kaepernick fears he’ll insult his family by meeting Russo. Or if he holds eternal ill will toward the woman who gave birth to him but didn’t want to be his mother.

But Russo will forever care for Colin in Colorado — and root for Kaepernick in Broncos Country.

I had one more question. It lingered as I wrote this piece. I texted Russo.

“Do you regret placing your son in the Kaepernick family?”

Those three devilish gray dots appeared on my iPhone, which meant she was typing and pondering her answer. Then, they went away.

Should I have sent that? Was it too much?

“Hi Benjamin,” finally popped on my screen, a text reply from Russo. “I feel we’ve all been very blessed in the adoption process and ended up right where we’re supposed to be. I’d never be a part of Three Strands and serving, honoring, supporting and loving on birth moms had my circumstances been different or had I made a different choice.”

Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or twitter.com/hochman