Thoughts from a Birthmother

At 15 years old, I didn't want to accept my pregnancy. I hid, lied, and hoped it would just go away. It didn't. When It was discovered by my Mother, we scheduled an appointment for an abortion.

Lying on an exam table, a tape measure stretched across my stomach, we were informed that I was too far along to have an abortion. On to the next plan of action.

I was to be sent out of town to Utah to live with my sister and her roommates. Stepping on the plane alone, stuffed dog in my arms, I was whisked off to a place where no one would know of my predicament.

Meetings with adoption agencies and doctors were a blur. I had no voice. I was so detached from my body and what was happening. As my due date came closer, my Mother arrived in town, and we rented an apartment in Salt Lake City closer to the hospital. One night in the frequented movie theater, I felt contractions. We hustled off to the hospital, where I was given a spinal block and sent to the delivery floor. In a fog, I remember the doctor removing the child from my teenage body and rushing to the next room.

I was asleep for the next 5 hours and woke in a room two floors down from the labor and delivery unit.

I have no memory after that until I came home to my small town to enter back into high school as if nothing had happened.

Throughout my life, I have been glad to have been given the most significant gift a woman can provide. A child to a family that couldn't have children of their own.

Today, she turns 40 years old. I have an ongoing search through an adoptee search agency which has yet to turn up anything. She does not show up on my DNA sites and has made no choice to contact me. This is up to her. It is not my decision, but by doing the search, I can reach out and see if she wants to meet someday.

She may not. She may be dead. She may have children of her own. I have no idea.

There is a hole left in my heart. The pain of making this choice has grown over time.

The question is…is adoption the right choice?

It may be, but I believe strongly in abortion as well. I have to remember that a soul chooses its path to incarnate into. Some souls come in for the experience of being in the womb, and some come in at the first breath. Some souls are here to experience life with an adoptive family. Adoption may have been the only way for that soul to be with their soul family.

Whichever it is, I know she is loved, and I hope she is happy. I also hope to meet her someday to heal that hole in my heart.