I almost feel like I’m in some kind of AA meeting and did something wrong when saying that. I have been made to feel ashamed of the decision that I have made by some people.
Why is it like this with today’s generation is something that I will never understand. In a world that is so advanced working towards a future where we could have flying cars and people that live forever…. Why must we look down upon a selfless act that a woman makes for what ever reason… she knows… she won’t be able to take care of her baby… so the woman makes a sacrifice for the child to be placed with a family that can… where she knows that her baby will have everything that she could not give to him/her…
It has taken me a little over a year to feel comfortable with placing my child for adoption.
I was heart broken at first. I wanted to be a mommy. My husband and I, we love this child and would do whatever we could for this child. We want him. We need him…. But what we want and what we needed at the time were two different things. We were living in a room built for a child that could barely hold the two of us comfortably. I was not working and my husband was working a low-end job. We had no place to call our own at the time. We were living with a friend and had no one to turn to for help. How could we take care of our child. How could we get any kind of help from anyone. We weren’t close to anyone in either of our families. We had no one to go to and be like, “Hey I’m pregnant. I’m not working. He just got a job. We have no food, no home, no money to pay you, but will you keep our child until we are on our feet….” Up and on our feet… lord we still aren’t up and on our feet. We’re still living paycheck to paycheck and wondering how in the heck we are going to put food on the table…
Now this is the sad part… Ready for a tear jerker…. I’m not sure you are…
My husband and I kept pushing forward and working on getting our crap together. On August 24th, I went into the hospital… I knew it was time. The nurse was so kind. She took me back and checked me. My water had not broken yet but I was dilated and in labor. She got me all hooked up to the monitor and we heard the baby’s heartbeat. I looked over and saw my husband crying. He just simply shook his head no… I knew that there was nothing we could do for this baby.
It had come down to the day before our child was born for us to finally decide that we were not fit to be parents at that point in time. There was no way we could take care of this child. We couldn’t even take care of ourselves. I had told my nurse that I needed to talk to someone about adoption. That my husband and I had decided upon this and that we needed to make sure everything was taken care of before the child got here.
My nurse asked if this was something that we had really wanted to do. When I looked at her, she didn’t have to ask again. She told me she would get social services to come speak with me and the process would start there. I was broken. My husband was broken. Did this make us bad people? Would this child grow up to hate us because we didn’t keep him, or would he ever think that we didn’t love him? So many emotions, I was a wreck.
When it came time to push my husband was standing next to me as well as the nurses and the doctor. Twenty minutes of pushing and our baby was born. My husband and I were so broken and had decided upon a closed adoption that when the baby came out… we had no idea if our baby was a boy or a girl. All I remember is that I heard a cry while my husband and I were weeping in sorrow looking right at each other because we had agreed that if this little baby was going to have its best chance, we needed to not be in the picture at all. And if I was really going to be able to place this baby for adoption, we knew we would change our minds if we saw him/her. So, when I say that neither myself or my husband saw this child on the day it was born. I mean it. All I had to remember from that day is his/her first breath and first cry at birth. No baby to see, didn’t even know what he/she looked like, or if it was a boy or a girl…
I was at the lowest point I had ever been in my entire life…
The very next day my husband unfortunately had to go back to work because he had just started his job. I was at the hospital by myself with no one, just my phone and the TV that was in the room and just waiting for the next day to get here so that I could go home. Then, what do you know, my brain started running a million miles an hour.
I started wondering what in the hell did I just do, would this child ever get to know that I loved him, what in the *^$%#^#$%@$%^^&$^&*&*$^%&#$%%@$#$#!$#^$#^%&$^*(&*^*&#$%$%@#$!%$^&%%&*%&*(^&%#$%$@$#%@$^$%*&%&*(^(&*(*$%^&#^@%~@#$!@#^%&%&()(@#$%@$$%&*&*(%&#$%^#$! Did I just do????
I nervously called the social services lady from the hospital phone not knowing what the answer was going to be to my next question. Now mind you, my husband and I did not see our baby at birth since we requested him/her to be immediately taken away into another room.
I called the number and waited for someone to pick up. “Hello, this is such and such with social services….” Then it just came out like word vomit… “Hello, my name is Jaycie and I just had a baby and I placed the baby up for adoption, and I did not see the baby after it got here, and I regret it and I just really want to know if there is any way that I can see my baby… I’m in room…”
Whatever the room number was… It felt like forever before I got a response but that was just me in my head being dramatic but the lady over the phone knew exactly who I was and all she told me was, “Hunny you haven’t signed anything yet. The baby is still yours. If you want to see the baby, I can bring the baby up to you.” I told her, “yes”, and it wasn’t even ten minutes later that I saw my child for the first time.
A very nice nurse rolled the baby in and the very first question I had was, “is the baby a boy or a girl”, The nurse then told me that I had a baby boy. And he was the best baby boy I had ever seen. So little and just so precious. He looked just like his daddy. And was perfect all the way around. This was my child. My baby. I needed to spend some kind of time with my child before I just let him go for forever.
I called my husband crying tears of joy over the phone. “It’s a boy he’s so beautiful. I wish you could see him. I’m so sorry. I just couldn’t, I had to see our child. I couldn’t just let him go without knowing who he was or if he was a boy or a girl. There were so many questions. Is he healthy, is he not healthy? Was he too little or was he too big? Husband, I am so sorry I hope I didn’t make you upset.”
All my husband said was, “I can’t bring myself to meet him but if you want to take pictures and send them to me, I can do that. I love you baby.” So, I did. I took pictures and sent them to my husband.
After that, we talked a little bit about our baby and how beautiful he was and how we would miss him and how this was going to be really hard for us and so on.
I spent more time with Baby Boy (his name at the time because we didn’t name him). Took a lot more pictures and then I wrote a letter to his new parents and to him while he was sleeping in my arms. I don’t remember what I wrote but I know that I was very sad. I was very torn and all I wanted for these new parents of his was to know that I loved him so much and that I would never stop loving him. That his dad and I were married and that he was a part of my life and that we chose a closed adoption just because we didn’t feel good enough for him. We weren’t stable, we were very young and we couldn’t take care of ourselves. Just explaining to whoever these people were that we were human, and we had these feelings and that we just wanted them to know that we did want him. We just could not keep him.
After that, I called for him to be taken away from the room because I needed to get some sleep because in the morning my husband and I would be signing paperwork with a lawyer to finalize the adoption.
Of course, Amanda was there as well, and this is mainly where she comes into the story.
When we decided upon adoption, the hospital put us in contact with the Adoption Support Center. Amanda called me and asked me a bunch of questions. We talked for a little while and basically from my standpoint at that time I made it clear that I did not care which family my child got placed in. All I wanted to know is that the family he was going to would love him and would be great for him and that they be the best family that she could pick for him to go to. I left everything up to her. I couldn’t make any more decisions. I had already made the choice that I was placing my child for adoption and there were really no more decisions that my husband or I could make.
Amanda came in the next day with the lawyer. We signed paperwork and everything. Our lawyer told us at any point in time that if the parties involved decided to make the adoption open that we could and a whole bunch of other stuff but I can’t remember what else said, I was having a really hard day. But I remembered the part where we could make it open and that I could see my son again one day.
Well, it wasn’t even a week later and I was texting with Amanda about how I couldn’t do the closed adoption like I had thought. I told her that I would like to speak to the parents and if they wanted to email or text or meet or whatever… that I just wanted them to know me and who I was and what their new child’s background was.
Well Amanda being Amanda she got everything rolling. First, we started emailing anonymously as we didn’t know each other’s names. Well, they knew ours, but we didn’t know Anderson’s name and we didn’t know their names so we just started sharing info back and forth. Very quickly that emailing turned into texting and then before any of us could catch our breath myself, my husband, Amanda, and our sons new family were all meeting at a local restaurant to sit down for the very first time. We literally did everything backwards. It really was the most stressed I had ever been in my life. But we clicked. We had similar views, similar interest and even similar parenting styles. Everything just went better than expected.
All of this happened over a year ago.
My son is now a little over one. I got to feed my son his first birthday cup cake. I have been involved in almost a weekly basis getting updates. I was involved in almost every aspect of my son’s life. I mean his mom and I just sat down together this past January and decided when we should get his hair cut for the very first time.
I still feel like Anderson’s mom and Jenelle, his Mommy, has never made me feel like I’m not. She knows that this was hard for me and she’s never kept me from him. We always talk out our differences. We always keep in constant communication and we just make sure that whatever we do is for the betterment of Anderson.
What started as one of the worst days of my life actually saved me. I LOVE my son’s family. I love them all to pieces. I couldn’t have asked for a better family. I don’t have to act like he isn’t my son. I don’t get slammed for saying, “OHHHH, look at MY baby”. I don’t get shamed for giving him up. Jenelle and her husband just love me and my family and I couldn’t ask for anything better.
The moral of this story is that each birth parent(s) has a story.
Always remind yourself that whether you are in a closed adoption or an open adoption that the woman who gave birth to your new baby went through some kind of hell to have to make this decision. No one just decides one day oh… hmmm… I don’t think I want this child…. That is never the case. We all have our reasons. We all have some kind of story…. And even if your child’s birth parent doesn’t show it. Our children will always have a place in our hearts, and we love them very very much.
Your decision to adopt is saving not only the mother’s life (father’s life) but you’re saving that child’s life and from me as a birth mom I just want to say thank you. Even though you will never meet me. What you are doing for this child in deciding you and your family want to adopt will change the child’s life forever. I could not wish for a better life for my son. He will always know just how much I love him. And all I ask is that you do the same for your child when you get to hold them for the first time. Make sure you let them know how much their parents loved them and still love them.
After writing this I just want to say one more time. “Hello, my name is Jaycie. I had my child on August 25th, 2017, and I love him more and more every day. I am BIRTHMOM STRONG.”