Am I a hero?

This post got me thinking.... am I a hero?

What does a hero look like? Does it look like a woman who is pregnant, young and not at all sure about what comes next? Does it look like someone who surrendered to pressure because she didn't have the finances or the strength to back her up? Does it look like someone who surrendered to the pressure of family and church because those people believed that having a child outside of "wedlock" was morally wrong and the child is then illegitimate and doesn't deserve to be included in the family? Does it look like someone who didn't have anywhere else to turn? Does that make me a hero?

According to the woman who wrote that post, we- meaning the mothers who bore children and were unable to keep those children-, we are heroes. What's wrong with that picture?

Not having choices does not make anyone a hero. It makes them simply choiceless. It makes them people who are doing what they have to do to survive. It makes them people who have to carry on in the face of grief that they're expected to live with regardless of how other people view the situation or how horrendous that grief is. It makes them people who carry on even though they want to just curl up in a ball and die.

Like the woman who wrote that post, the woman who adopted my daughter thanked me one day for giving her the gift of my daughter. I replied with- "she wasn't a gift, I didn't give her willingly. I was forced" There was silence on the other end of the phone. The subject was quickly changed.

Adopters are saviors and first mothers are heroes. This is what the adoption industry would have us believe. This is what they bank on. This is what keeps the bottom line healthy.