My Story - An Overview

My son was born January 19, 1990. His placement was one of the first “Open Adoptions” in the state of Minnesota. “Open adoption” had a much different meaning then than it does today. I was able to choose his family from a pool of “applicants,” meet with them once and receive updates and pictures once a year throughout his childhood. This was all facilitated by and through the agency; we did not exchange last names or phone numbers.

 

I don’t really remember when I realized I was pregnant, but I know I wasn’t necessarily surprised. I was on birth control pills but wasn’t confident I remembered to take them every day, so thought the pregnancy was my own “fault.” And although I considered getting an abortion, I am adamantly pro-choice, I just didn’t feel that was a suitable choice for me.

 

At my boyfriend’s urging, we started unplanned pregnancy counseling with a local social service agency (Catholic Charities). I wasn’t very religious, but they offered free individual and group counseling, and I figured if he wanted to go, I was game too – maybe it would help ensure he would stick around.

 

I journaled and completed exercises designed to help me think in depth about parenting, and after accepting I was not ready or capable of being a parent, I began to look at another option: adoption.

 

There were so many reasons I decided to place my son for adoption. I wrote them all down in a journal. I almost wish I still had that journal. Almost, but the journal went with him when he was placed.

 

By the eight month of pregnancy, I had made my decision to place and chosen the parents, which actually made that last month the most wonderful of the whole experience. My mind was at ease – I knew what I was going to do. So, I tried to enjoy this amazing thing that was happening inside me. I sang to my baby, wrote, and read him poetry, and loved him all the more, knowing my time was short.

 

Labor was so hard and painful. I pushed and pushed but nothing was happening, and eventually had a C-section. When I woke, they brought me this beautiful, flush, warm fuzzy headed baby boy! He was marvelous! The C-section enabled me to spend extra time in the hospital with him. I held him, and changed him, and, yes, I even had him suckle - just once. I still think our time together was amazing and healing for me, and I wouldn’t change anything about it.

 

After 4 1/2 days, I left the hospital. I left first. This was very important: I needed to be the one walking away. During a mandatory 21-day waiting period he stayed at a foster home, and when the waiting period was up, both the birth father and I signed the papers, separately. Despite feeling confident in the choice I had made, the grief which followed was devastating.

 

 

I was able to meet the adoptive family: dad, mom and his soon to be new brother. His brother, also adopted, was four years old. The most memorable moment during our meeting was when he told me, after seeing adad in tears, that his dad cried a lot, but that they were often tears of joy!

 

They sent me an update at six months, and each year after until he was 10, when communications ceased.

 

As he approached age eighteen, he told his adad he wanted to get in touch with me, and I received a fat letter in the mail, just before his birthday, postmarked from the adoption agency. It contained so much, but most importantly, a phone number! 

 

So, for the next five years, I started the process of learning who my son had grown up to be. We talked on the phone just a couple of times, texted and emailed more frequently. We finally met in person right after he turned twenty—it was marvelous and wonderful! It ended up being a six-hour marathon visit including my son, adad, my husband and me.

 

It ended up being the only time we ever met face to face.

 

He asked to friend me on Facebook when he was twenty-two, which provided insight into who he was and what his life was like. I am so proud of the man he grew into!

 

Then, July 1, 2013, he died, suddenly and unexpectedly, of natural causes. I feel like I’ve lost him all over again. Because even though I chose adoption and was ultimately at ease with my decision, I grieved and grieved for the loss of my son. And now I am doing it all over again. 

 

The creation of this blog is a step in the healing process for me; a way to process through my grief and to document my story.  To recognize and honor the relationship I was developing with my son and talk about the relationship I now have with his adoptive family. 

 

I am grateful for the time we did have together. So grateful I had the opportunity to get to know who he was. And that he wanted to know who I was.