Well, I’ve never been diagnosed with a mental illness, although people close to me think it’s likely I’m clinically depressed. Since I don’t remember feeling any differently my whole life, I’ve not explored medication. I’m also supposed to be higher on the curve than average, but this place tends to make me feel dumb.
I did experience a teenaged pregnancy, and I did put my son up for adoption. I was extremely under the age of 18, and felt I had no options. I was a naive young girl who didn’t know anything about public assistance, my parent’s refused to help and I felt backed into a corner. Was it the best decision for my son? Well, I’ll never know, will I? My brain tells me yes, of course it was. I could not parent a child sucessfully while I still was one myself. However, not a single day of my life goes by when I don’t wonder what happened to him. Is he well, safe, loved? Were his parents people I would like and admire? He’ll be 30 next august. Old enough to be married and possibly raising a family of his own. Am I a grandmother? And yet every single time I hear anything about abuse of adopted or foster children I get an extra cold chill. The script goes something like this:
Logical Self “He’s a grown man”
Emotional Self “If he lived that long”
LS “Adoptive families are screened”
ES “by the same people who were supposed to be following that childs well-being”
LS “you were in no position to raise a child”
ES “but if I had fought harder for someone to help me?”
etc…
It never goes away. My oldest daughters birthday is just two days off from her brother’s. I can’t even celebrate her birthday without already feeling the sadness that comes from his, 2 days later. Does he think about me? Am I evil in his eyes? Did anyone ever think of me kindly, or was I always the enemy who might steal “their” child? For the record, I would never contact him. I made a deal. I hate it, but that’s the way it works. I signed away all my parental rights. He may not even know I exist, and I would never risk rattling his world that way.
I’ve never had an abortion, so I don’t know how I’d feel after that. But I assure you that adoption is never, ever over. I did feel him move, I did talk to him, and hold him in my arms just that once (which in those bad old days I had to blackmail the authorities into allowing by refusing to sign any paperwork until they brought him to me, and then the nurse never left the room, and I didn’t get a chance to count fingers & toes.) I did not name him, because I could not bear the thought of the one thing I could give him being taken away, and I now regret that decision because I don’t have a name for him, he is always only “my son”.
Adoption is a responsible thing to do. It is however, a much much harder thing to do than most people will ever have to do, at least in the western world. And you are asking it of a young woman who has not yet had the chance to develop much in the way of resources. I am pro-choice because I would never have the temerity to force someone down my road.
