Time

If there is anything in this life I've learned so far it's that time is a miraculous thing. As an adult I think it becomes easier and easier to complain about it. With time our bodies change and not always for the better! With time our children grow older. With time the world around us changes causing an inevitable change in us, our attitudes, thoughts and feelings. But while there are some things that may happen in this life to cause trauma to our soul making it impossible for our mind to ever forget, time, sweet time can heal the shattered pieces of our souls.

Simply put I have felt the healing power of time on more than one occasion in my life and have grown to love time and cherish every moment of it.

The After Math

Let me start this post by saying that adoption is a wonderful and beautiful thing. But there is also another side to adoption. A side that not many people, myself included, like to think about. That is the sad, scared, worried, insecure side. In all reality I think it takes a great deal of time on both sides, birth mother/adoptive parents, to get to the happy, wonderful, beautiful side of adoption.

The family who adopted my baby girl was/is a fantastic family. The mother is the best I could have hoped for for my baby hand down. But the day I gave my baby to her was not any more an easy day for her than it was for me. She was terrified. She didn't want me to be sad and she especially didn't want to take my baby from me. On that day tears of both joy and sadness were shed. To think that people who adopt children take those babies home and don't give a second thought to the people who brought that child into the world is to be gravely mistaken. As much as they love that baby they're hearts ache for the women who made it possible for them to have that baby. And as much as a birth mother's heart aches to hold that baby they couldn't be happier knowing that that baby is safe and loved and being given all the things that they knew they could not give that baby. There are two sides to every coin and in the case of adoption I think they are probably the most extreme in both directions of joy and sadness.

I knew placing my baby for adoption would not be an easy thing but I had no clue how long it would take me to recover from it. I had arranged with my work to have two weeks after the birth of my baby off. After a week I was going crazy sitting in my room doing nothing but thinking about that baby and crying. So I went back to work. I think for me staying busy during the months that followed the adoption was critical. After two weeks back at work I took a second job at a billing center working nights. I think some people around me were nervous that I was burying my emotions and not working through them. But let me tell you right now those kinds of emotions are not easily dismissed or buried. I had to work through them or I probably would have taken my own life. I saw my counselor like I was suppose to and worked through a lot of it with him. But I think my saving grace was finding a friend who could just listen and be there for me. This friend came in the form of a man who is now my husband and the father of our three kids.

Just as I thought I was starting to feel better and move on that's when I got the first update with pictures. As I read the letter and looked at the pictures my whole being was flooded with every emotion I felt the day I placed my baby in her mother's arms. I laid on the floor of my bedroom and just cried. If you ever think you've run out of tears I can assure you you're will find more. A lot more! I don't know how long I laid there but it was a while. I was scheduled to work that night but I called in sick.

Again adoption has two faces and while I read that letter and was completely over joyed that my baby was well and happy and loved my heart was broken into a bazillion pieces knowing I couldn't be the one to give her those things she needed most.

Time can heal all most any heart ache but the mind will never forget.

My Story

To say that the summer of 2003 was a crazy one for me would be an understatement. Even as I write this I have mixed feelings about that year. I was definitely at a cross roads in my life. I had been graduated from high school for over a year and still had not really done anything with myself. My parents, obviously frustrated with a wayward child, we're not to excited about me wasting another year under their roof. I wasn't any more sure, at that point, what to do or where to go then I had been a year earlier. Looking back I can easily say I was scared of what the future held. I was angry at my past and my home life. I was definitely overwhelmed with big choices that really, really needed to be made. But rather then just sitting down and laying out my options and weighing the pro's and con's, like a normal, well adjusted person might, I decided to do nothing. Well, not nothing, but definitely not anything of any real importance.

At the start of summer I took a job as a receptionist at the salon in JC Penny at a local mall. It was good job in that it paid better than any job I had before and it was full time. I met a lot of people there and had a lot of fun. When the weekend came I actually had a bit of money that I could spend. It was nice.

I had a group of friends who were not LDS. All my LDS friends were busy getting married. Which looking back I might have been too had I consistently gone to church every Sunday and consistently gone to institute, and consistently gone to all the "singles" activities. But unfortunately I wasn't in a place where I felt I could do those things. So my non-LDS friends became my good friends. They made me feel like the way I was choosing to live my life was a perfectly acceptable and normal way to live a life. Some of them couldn't understand why I wasn't going to school for something but they really didn't even question that too much. They were fun people who always had something going on. And I liked that. I liked it because with them I was "cool", "popular" even. They wanted me to hang out with them all the time. And me being a person who has never really had great self esteem or a lot of confidence was very easily attracted to that group of people.

After spending so much time thinking you're invincible and that nothing bad will ever happen to you, in my case, I have found that that is when Lord will strike you down (so to speak). For me this came in the form of a positive home pregnancy test that was confirmed by the nice folks at Planned Parenthood. I struggle to find word to describe how I felt at the very moment I found out I was pregnant. I can say for certainty, having been on both sides of the "planned"/"unplanned" pregnancy fence that emotions are extreme in both directions of good and bad.

It's been all most 7 years since that day and I can replay it and all the things I felt, in my mind, like it were yesterday. It seems so cliche to say that hind sight is 20/20. But I can see so clearly now all the things that seem to elude me during that time. It's like watching my life in "play back" mode and really seeing the whole picture. The couple of years leading up to the pregnancy and the year following it were really very sad years for me and for my family. We went through a lot together and there were not nearly as many highs as there were lows for us. Even today I don't think I could really rank where this pregnancy landed on list of lows for us. But it was definitely a big one.

The months following the day I got the positive pregnancy test were some of the hardest I would have to face up to that point in my life. The decision to place the baby for adoption was a fairly easy one for me. The birth father and I barely knew each other, we certainly didn't love each other, and we were both very different religions. Which really you wouldn't think that religion would play a part in this whole situation considering neither of us was really doing the things that our religions taught in the first place. But when big things like unplanned pregnancy happen religion find it's place and settles in for the long haul.

For time line purposes it was the start of August 2003 when I found out I was pregnant. By mid August I had lost my job at JC Pennies. By the end of August I had made my decision about the baby and was on the hunt for a job that was more flexible with time. I hadn't wasted any time in telling my family what was going on. I knew I couldn't hide it so there didn't seem any point in trying. My family was very supportive of me beginning to end. By September I found a job working the register at a local Quiznos sandwich shop. It was good job to have during that time.

For the next three or four months I went to all my doctors appointments, took all my vitamins, went to church, saw my counselor from LDS Family Services, and did everything everyone asked me to do without question or complaint. I spent those moths doing a lot of thinking. It was kind of like being in "time out" but in a good way. My bishop was a great support to me as was my counselor. I was able to work through a lot of my emotions during that time with them. Which helped tremendously!

Christmas 2003 was not an easy one. The baby was growing inside me and moving all the time. Right around this time my sadness and anger started to creep up on me. I was frustrated with the fact that this baby's birth father didn't seem to be affected in the least by this situation (or so I thought). I felt myself bonding with this unborn child and I didn't want that because that would mean giving her to someone else would be just that much more painful, and that made me sad and angry.

Right about this time is also when I started looking at potential families to adopt this baby. I'm not sure how many I looked at exactly, but it seems like I looked at a lot because it wasn't until about the end of January that I finally picked a family. When I saw this particular family's picture.... It made me smile. They looked so happy and like they just had so much love for each other. That's what I wanted my baby to have.

Wednesday, February 25th, 2004. This is the day I met the family who would be adopting my baby. The birth father met me at the church building and we walked in together. I was nervous, a little excited, and a little sad. I brought a little toy monster truck for their son (who at the time was only five). His little face just lit up when he saw the truck. He was so good through the whole meeting. He just sat their quietly playing while we all talked. All I could think was, "what a sweet boy"! I knew he would make an awesome big brother.

Getting to know the parents was a little awkward. I wasn't sure how much I should say about my situation or how I got there. I wasn't really even sure how much they would want to know about me. I did feel, however, like it was necessary to make it crystal clear in our meeting though that this baby was theirs and that I would not change my mind at any point. Over all I think it was good meeting. I remember leaving the church that day feeling like everything was okay and everything to come would be okay. They were good people and any worries I may have had completely disappeared after that meeting.

I had one final meeting with my counselor before I had the baby. I requested that the family adopting the baby not be at the hospital at any point. I knew before I had the baby that, that time in the hospital would be my only time with her and I wanted to protect it. I had the choice to take her home and be with her for as long as I needed before placing her but I knew I couldn't do that so that made my time in the hospital all that much more special. I had all ready picked a name for her and let my counselor know that as well. He went over how and when all the legal stuff would take place and informed me of all the adopting parent's rights and my rights. I definitely think this one of the harder meetings I had with my counselor. Everything was really starting to feel real.

It was early in the morning on March 17th, 2004 when my water broke. I, having never been in labor, didn't know that's what had happened. I got up, took a shower, got dressed, put on my make up, and about the time I got to the kitchen for breakfast I was starting to have some intense contractions. I told my dad, who happen to be home with me, what was going on. Then I went and ate my breakfast. By the time I was done with that the contractions were getting closer. I wasn't really sure if I was in labor for real or not so I called a family friend who was a nurse and she told me to go to the hospital. So I waddled ever so slowly up to my room, grabbed my hospital bag, waddled back down the stair and out the garage door and told my dad, who had been working in the yard, that it was time to go. At this point it was about 10:30am. We got in the car and I called my counselor to let him know I was in labor. The contractions were getting a lot worse and a lot closer together and I was getting more and more scared. At 11:00am we arrive at the hospital and they quickly get me a room and call my doctor.

It seemed like an eternity waiting for the anesthesiologist to get there with the drugs. Ever nurse that came in my room would look at me and say, "BREATHE"! Finally at 2pm I got the epidural. Shortly after that the birth father showed up. He was lucky he hadn't been there earlier or he might not have stuck around for the birth!

7:22pm a beautiful, healthy baby girl was born. She was perfect. My body immediately went into shock and I started shaking like a leaf in a wind storm! Everything was kind of a blur for about the first twenty minutes after she was born but I remember the nurse placing the baby in my arms and I just started crying. Crying because I amazed at how this person came out of me, because of how perfect and sweet she was, and because I knew I had to let her go.



There was a lot of people there and I think if I had known then what I know now I wouldn't have allowed so many people there. All my family was there (including my grandparents), all of the birth father's family was there, my bishop and one of his counselors was there, as well as my Relief Society president, and adoption counselor. Add to that all the hospital staff and it makes for a pretty crowded room. The next day wasn't any better. We had all kinds of visitors all day long. The next morning was show time.

The Morning we were all supposed to go to the church to sign the legal papers and give the baby to the family my counselor came to the hospital to visit with me. He asked me how I was feeling. I started to cry and told him I knew this would be hard but I was absolutely sure about my decision. So he left and called the adoptive family and let them know that everything was still a go. When he left I took a very tear filled bath and got ready to go. Then I gave the baby a bath and put her in the little dress I had bought for her to go home in.

The meeting at the church was a very emotional meeting for everyone. The feelings on both sides are very difficult to articulate. I think I actually held it together very well. It wasn't until I put my baby in the adoptive parent's arms and walked away that I really started to fall apart. The drive home was a very quiet one. When I got home I went to my room, fell on my bed, and just cried. I cried until there weren't even tears coming out. I knew that my baby was exactly where she was supposed to be but my heart was aching in a way that I cannot begin to describe.

The next day was better. I was still hurting no doubt but I didn't cry nearly as much as I had the day before. And the same was true for the next day and the next.

Getting Started

After much consideration I've decided to start this blog. I'm not sure how this will all go but I really want to have a place to write down my journey through placing my first born for adoption.