It's Sunday morning and I'm relaxing, eating breakfast and listening to the quiet in the house. I got on line and read Robin's blog about the night she last saw her daughter. She wrote about signing the surrender papers and it was like I was transported back to 1980. There I was again, sitting in a room with a large desk, the woman behind the desk with her bobbed grey hair, looking at me with no expression. As I sobbed my way through the signing she said nothing to me, just pushed a box of tissues across the desk. Now here I am, 30 years later and reunited with my daughter, and this scene in my head can still reduce me to the sobbing girl I was then. The pain comes rushing to the surface screaming. It stops at my throat choking me until I let it out and have a meltdown.
A couple of days ago I wrote a message to a young pregnant woman who wrote on a public page that she just decided to give her baby up for adoption. I felt odd writing to her, a complete stranger. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing by saying anything to her. I don't know her situation. I don't know if she's being pressured (after her reply to me I think she is). Now after re-living that moment in the adoption agency, remembering once again what it was like to leave the hospital without my daughter, I know I did the right thing by contacting this girl. She's still pregnant. She has no idea what's in store for her if she follows through with this. She needs to know what this will do to her and her child and you know the agencies aren't going to share that info with her. It's up to the moms who have been there before to tell her what she's going to face. It's also up to us to share with her any knowledge we have of resources that can help her if she decides to keep her baby. My guess is that the agencies aren't that forthcoming with that info either. I'm starting to compile a list of websites that might be a help to her. If any of you know of some good sites I can add to the list please let me know.
www.keepyourbaby.com
www.singlepregnancy.com
www.singlemothers.org
www.singlemothersoutreach.org
www.singlemom.com
www.whattoexpect.com
Girls/women in this situation need to know that there is help out there. It such an overwhelming feeling to be in the position of being pregnant and alone. What an easy target for the agencies and their greed. Every time I hear of another infant adoption all I can think about is that mother sitting in an office or even her hospital room still recovering from the birth, signing that paper and what it's doing to her. I think about that baby crying for his/her mother. I see the posts from the happy, smiling couples who are advertising that they want a baby. I want them to leave that mother alone. I want her to know that there's other options besides the so-called "loving option".
The girl I contacted may never write to me again. I may never know what she decided but I had to at least give her the information I never got. I had to tell her what I wish someone had told me. I couldn't dodge that bullet but maybe there's a way to keep other moms from getting hit.
You already know that you cannot talk someone out of something that they are set to do, especialy when they have not yet felt the consequences. However, to me, it would seem most important to let her know that the pain alone is enough to make her deeply regret this decision. And this has so much more impact coming from you first mothers. So thanks for doing that, it's really important work, and how fabulous to know that you may save someone from a lifetime of pain and regret.
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