I have a great friend who is also a birth mom. This is her story...
My grandmother was adopted as a newborn in 1942. She was raised by a wonderful and loving couple, and never really considered seeking out her own mother. When she was 16, she became one of "the girls who went away". She gave birth to a baby boy placed in a closed adoption. At 19 she was married and had my mom, the first of three girls. Grandpa split not long after baby girl #3 was born. Baby girl #2 was 16 when she had her first kid. And my other grandma was 17 when she had my dad. Mom was 20 when she had me, and had also decided on adoption. She had decided on a closed adoption, and was working with her church which was pretty normal for 1982. The church had placed me with a foster family while waiting for the paperwork. My dad was being difficult, and mom started worrying about whether or not the courts would actually terminate his rights, and about how long it would take, and whether or not I would bond with the foster family only to be taken and placed in a permanent home and have to bond all over again. It was too much for her, the agency harassing her almost every day and all her worries about my welfare were not letting her make a clean break and move on, so she took me back and kept me. She figured out later that the foster family would most likely have been my permanent family and also realized no court, not even in California, would grant custody to an unemployed, drugged out, 20-year-old boy who was living with his grandmother. My mom and I have talked a lot about this, and I believe that she made the right decision for us. I can't even imagine not having my sisters and my brother and all my cousins everyone else. I know it was a struggle for her, raising me, and then dealing with my dad when they were married, and now raising my little brother and sister on her own. She has had to make a lot of sacrifices. So when I found out that I was pregnant at 22, the first thing she suggested was adoption. I was actually insulted, like she didn't think I was capable of raising a child. But, I'm getting ahead of myself.
This story actually starts with the guy...
I was working 2 jobs, one at a Victoria's Secret and one at a restaurant on Pier39 (yuck). I met G at VS and totally fell. He was older, he was charming and funny, and seemed so cool, plus very good looking and seemed to be into me. What does anyone really know at 22? So when he came to me after we had been going out for a couple weeks and told me he was on the verge of being homeless I opened my "home" to him (my "home" being the teeny little residential hotel room I was living in). Turns out those little rooms really aren't designed for 2. Tempers flared and he moved out, and into a flat in the mission with my best friends. We finally came to the realization that he was an alcoholic, and incapable of telling the truth, etc. So, he moved back in with me. Partly because he had royally screwed them over and they all wanted to beat him half to death. And because I thought we were in love and I was going to stand by my man and help him get better and everything would work out. Yeah, right. We took no precautions in bed because I figured I wouldn't get pregnant because I hadn't yet and I didn't like to use birth control. I remember the time I took the first test, one of those hard to read ones with the pink lines. I wasn't even late, I was maybe 2 weeks pregnant, but something didn't feel right. None of the usual PMS stuff was coming on. I looked at the test and thought, "it's early, that pink line is a lot fainter than the other one, we'll give it another week." But I knew... A week later, I got one of those digital tests. I cried when that little readout popped up. "Pregnant" That's all it said. I called his cell and left him a message telling him we needed to "talk". Everyone knows when you get that call it's nothing good. He came home looking all serious. The tears came again, and I remember a weird ringing in my ears when I told him. He held me while I cried. Then he asked me what I wanted to do. I told him that I wasn't sure, that I would leave it up to him because it was his kid too, but that I wasn't sure if I could deal with abortion (emotionally). At this time I was again working 2 jobs. I was doing on call shifts at a catering company, almost an hour bus ride away, and still working on the pier at least 5 shifts a week. He told me that I didn't have to have an abortion, that he would stay with me and we would make it work. This was November, before Thanksgiving. He started introducing me to people as his fiancee, something I had never agreed to, but he wanted to save face. I called my friends, they were uncertain, they still hated him. So I called mom, and she suggested adoption, and I was all insulted for a while. Anyways, I get my medi-cal card (thank god for medi-cal!) and get my first appointment in January. Meanwhile, things with G get really... intense. I started looking around at us and him and me and our situation and start thinking "My god, Mom was right, I can't handle this! No way the alcoholic who can't hold down a job (and is using his issues to gain sympathy and as an excuse for his behavior) is going to be able to help me take care of my baby, and I can't do it on my own, I'm working 2 jobs, one of which I'll have to quit soon, and still not making ends meet while I'm living on mac'n'cheese and tuna sandwiches! I cannot raise a child this way. Not like this." It all clicked, so I called Mom (or she may have called me to nag a bit, whatever). She suggested I use an agency, said that it would be safer that way. By this time everyone at work knew, as I had been excited when G seemed on board, and thought that I was gonna be a mommy. When I went to my first checkup, the doctor asked me to speak to a social worker, standard procedure, he said, for young, single, pregnant women on medi-cal. I told her I was thinking about adoption, and she went right to her rolodex and told me that she knew of an agency in the city that was very hands-on with birth-moms and very supportive and caring. She called them up and made arrangements for me to call. The phrase "no pressure" was used a lot. A few weeks later I called the agency and they asked me to come down to the office. I needed the few weeks to really decide and to basically bully G into seeing things my way. When he had started introducing me as his "fiancee" I got a little miffed. I finally put my foot down after about the tenth time. I made it clear that there was no way I was getting married before I was ready, and certainly not just because I was pregnant. It's the 21st century, I don't need anyone to make an "honest woman" out of me. Once I had brought myself out of the delusion of marriage and happily ever after, I started to see everything else so much more clearly. I started talking to him about adoption. He seemed resistant at first, but I kinda pressured him, finally playing the "I can just leave you off the birth certificate and then you won't have to deal with it at all" ie "Do it my way else get lost". Not the best, but I was not about to go through the same crap my mom went through. So when we went to see L we already had an idea of what we were looking for in parents (some religious background, at least one child already, preferably adopted as well, not local, strong long standing relationship, and hopefully some family nearby). We told her this and she sent over some booklets for us to look at, and also talked to us a little about the process, and really put me at ease, assuring me that my son would not be placed in a foster situation, that I wouldn't be signing anything until after he was born, that I always had the option to change my mind and keep him, etc. We looked through the books, finally settling on 2 couples, one in Nor Cal who had a 5 year old girl and one near Denver who had a 4 year old boy... by this time we had found out that we were having a boy so we went with Denver. I called L and told her we had made a decision, and I asked her to call them. I just didn't know how to start that conversation. "Hi I'm B, I live in SF and I'm all knocked up, want my baby?" Just didn't seem right. I had decided that I absolutely had to meet them before I decided that they were the ones. So they flew out to see me and I went to meet with them in their hotel lobby. They had brought their other son (also adopted) and a grandma to occupy him while we were talking. We went to breakfast and, as 4 year olds do, he had a minor meltdown. I was already liking them, I was like 98% sure, but when she pulled the screaming thrashing pre-schooler onto her lap and simply talked him out of his tantrum, I was amazed. That for me sealed the deal. G met up with us later and we had dinner. They explained how much their 4-year-old already knew about his family, and again I was amazed, and comforted. We decided on them that night. They were the only family we ever met, the only one we ever really considered. I told my mom and word spread to the rest of my family. Most were very supportive. My dad decided not to say anything to me, instead he told my mother and anyone else who would listen that "I was doing a disservice to my son by not ALLOWING him to be raised within his own family". I tried to talk to him about it, and he gave me the "let's agree to disagree". So time went on and I got bigger and puffier. Then one day, I went in for a check up, I was at 34 weeks and feeling fine. I was only working one job, but lots of hours. I was still dealing with the bf and trying to come to terms with the decision I was making, trying to tell myself that I wasn't getting attached when I knew I was. I was standing at a bus stop, waiting for the bus to go home, talking to a friend about going to visit another friend of ours who had just had her baby, when my water broke. I remember being very glad that I had worn dark pants. So I waddled the 2 blocks back to the doctors office and told them my water had broken. They checked me out and sure enough. Then I was off to the hospital. 13 hours later, there he was, beautiful and small and just a smidge too early. He was whisked off to NICU. When I had gotten to the hospital they told me that would happen. I had a little meltdown, I had hoped to deliver closer to term and to have him stay in my room with me while I was in the hospital, but his little lungs just weren't quite ready. The family flew out the next morning, thankfully after I had had a second meltdown over seeing him in the warming bed in the NICU all full of tubes. I had asked the nurse if I could hold him and she said that it wasn't a good idea, they had just transfered him and he had only just settled down. I put my hand out to stroke his back, and he shuddered (my hand was probably cold), and I lost it, just started sobbing. G stood there staring at me like I was totally nuts. I calmed down after a while. Then the adoptive family came and we spent a little time together with the baby. He stayed in the hospital for a week. We traded off, mostly me and the mom, but sometimes the dad and 4-year-old would drop by. (You can't really expect a 4-year-old to sit with a baby in a hospital for long.) After I left the hospital I would come and sit with him for hours. She seemed to understand that I needed this time with him. This is where I would have been tempted to change my mind. If G had ever told me that he couldn't go through with it, that he wanted to try to make it work, I would have seriously considered it. I'm glad that he didn't. With just me working against myself, I was able to keep that temptation at bay. The day he was discharged I held him right up until we walked out of the hospital, then I gave him to her, and got into my friend's waiting car. We got together a few days later for an early dinner, all of us, including G. I held the baby through most of the dinner. Most of my memories of the few weeks after he was born are of going to see him and trying to keep myself occupied before I went back to work. G and I fought constantly. He kept telling me I was spending too much time with the baby, I wasn't going to make a clean break. I didn't want to miss anything. He finally came out and told me that I should have just had an abortion and not gone through the whole mess. This was the last straw for me as I had given him that option in the first place. We finally split and I moved out. We stopped talking, but kept contact info just in case. I spent a whole year after trying to put myself back together. I went on benders and had blackouts thinking it would make me normal. It was normal behavior for the people I worked with but not for me. I finally got it out of my system, not all at once but gradually until his 1st birthday, when I had a few minor meltdowns, but made it through, and started looking forward again. I'm very open about it, with anyone who cares to ask. The worst thing anyone ever said to me after explaining my situation was, "That story was like 'happy...happy...really sad' you really shouldn't talk about things like that, it's like talking about abortion or something." So I don't exactly advertise it anymore, but it's no secret. It was the most difficult decision I've ever made, and the most traumatic experience I've ever had, but more than that it was the best decision I've ever made and I see it as the best thing I've ever done. I know that he's going to grow up in a loving and stable home environment, and have all kinds of opportunities I would not have been able to give him.
Love you, B!!! You are Awesome for letting me post your story!!!
Ms. Birthmom
