I became pregnant at the age of 16. I was in love and just knew we would be together forever. You know what they say about that right?! A month after our relationship ended I was certain I was pregnant. Too scared to tell my parents I waited. In February of 1993 I was 3 months pregnant when I took a pregnancy test in the bathroom stall at my high school, my counselor waiting outside the stall. I was sent home early so I could tell my parents and surprisingly I actually was able to get the words out. Funny thing was that my mother had already suspected that I was expecting so it was just confirmation for her. Thus began 6 months of agonizing embarassment, constant arguing and name calling (I was on the receiving end) and what I equate to harrassment by our church.
The one place I felt I should have been able to go for solace, our church, was the last place I wanted to be. The ugly looks, nasty comments whispered between “brother’s” and “sister’s” at the LDS church were constant. On top of this, I was no longer allowed to attend Youth Group meeting or functions because of my pregnancy (which made sense but hurt nonetheless). I was even told that I needed to stand before the Youth Group and explain why what I had done was wrong…hmm, I think they could figure that one out on their own. My parents held positions in the church and eventually stepped down as the bishopric increasingly pressured us to place the baby for adoption through the church. My parents were more than embarassed and made that clear, over and over again, but they were not going to not support me.
JE was born on a hot summer day, in our living room, on a stretcher…we never made it to the hospital. My mother said I had one hell of a high pain threshhold! All 9 lbs 8 oz and 21.5″ of her delivered before 8 EMT’s, my parents, my sister and our 2 dogs. She was gorgeous and healthy and our family had new life breathed into it.
When I graduated high school JE was 9 months old. I began to attend a local Community College but only made it 3 semesters before I decided I did not want to be a nurse like my mother and quit school. A few months later my parents decided we should move out and the best place to go was Indiana. And thus a new set of problems…
At 19 I was ill-equipped to act as an adult even with a child – at home I had a support system and though I was now surrounded by family it didn’t help me because I had not been around them for over 10 years so there was no real connection there. I had money but blew through it like wildfire. I made horrible life decisions and there were times that I made absolute certain JE ate, even if I didn’t. I eventually met a man that I thought was wonderful and for a while he was. Then something strange began to happen, JE would want him to go away when he was there and then cry when he wasn’t there. I was so confused. He proposed and I accepted. I was quickly pregnant again. This person ended up being a very BAD person and there I was, single mother of one with another on the way.
My parents moved me back down to Alabama with them on my 21st birthday. Once settled I sought out an adoption agency and selected Catholic Family Services. There was no way I could take care of 2 children, I could hardly handle myself and JE as it was. Over the course of the next 3 months my parents would ask me if they could adopt the child I was carrying no less than 5 times and each time would come back and say they changed their mind and couldn’t do it. The day came when my water broke, I had just packed my bag for the hospital an hour before. A friend drove my sister and I to the hospital as JE and my parents were on vacation in Tennessee.
I had called my parents and they were headed back but advised JE would be staying with friends. I had the doctor give me the epidural early to slow down my labor and luckily it held off long enough for my parents to get to the hospital. A healthy baby girl, DC, was born at 7:52 on a beautiful November morning in 1997. She was 8 lbs 8 oz and 21″ and just as gorgeous as JE! That night my parents called me from home and my mother asked me yet again if they could adopt her. I was furious! As many times as we had gone through this and I had come to terms with the adoption agency and here they are again. I let her have it. She began to cry and gave the phone to my father. He said the words that sealed the deal for me…”I cannot imagine a better way to spend the last part of my life than doing it again.” The nurses were ecstatic and explained that they hated the agency I was going through. The night we went home I was sitting on the porch crying and my father asked what was wrong. I told him it was nothing and that at least I knew where she was. This sounds like it might have been good but I was not allowed to touch her, hold her, feed her, change her, nothing. I understood they wanted to make sure she bonded with them but I was dying inside.
Not long after I moved out and JE and I stayed with a friend. Things were improving but I was so far from work that another friend allowed me to stay with her family. Shortly after I became involved with her brother and before long was pregnant again. This situation ended up even worse that I could have ever imagined. I moved into a home that my parents bought, old and ugly but it would do. I located a local adoption agency and began the steps of “choosing” parents for my child. The father was too young and in and out of trouble constantly so he could not help raise the baby. His mother was sick an illness that ended her life a few short years ago so that was never an option. My parents had DC so they were not an option. I was still just making do with JE and I. In short I felt I had no other option.
I was made to feel comfortable by the facilitator and given so many “catalogs” (for a lack of a better words) to go through. I was parent shopping essentially. I finally found one that seemed good. They seemed the most solid and together. A meeting was set up and JE and I were very comfortable with them. They began to attend all doctors appointments with me. They would call to check on me. I felt like family with them and felt certain I was making the right decision, the “loving choice”. The agreement was that after VG was born they would send letters and photos regularly, a sort of open adoption. Towards the end of my pregnancy I became apprehensive and advised the doctor that I needed to be induced because I needed for this to be over. One morning in March 1999 I was induced and at 2:20 that afternoon VG was born with her new parents present. She too was gorgeous at 7 lbs 14 oz and 22″. My parents, sister, JE and DC as well as VG’s parents family came to greet her. I had my tubes tied the next morning and once cleared made a speedy exit as I could no longer handle the situation.
That night, alone at home I recalled my words after DC’s birth, at least I knew where DC was. Nine months later I had to have a hysterectomy and once home it dawned on me that I would never know what it was to have all of my children with me nor would I ever know what it was to have a child with a man that I love in the bonds of marriage. There is a bright spot…10 years later I met a wonderful man. A man with a child. That child was a daughter. He has full custody of her and she is with us full time. I have been blessed with them in our lives. He takes care of us and loves JE and DC as if they were his own, and he considers them his. We see DC regularly and JE now lives out on her own (but is just a few short miles away from mom).
So, I AM a mother, every which way but loose and my girls are 11, 15, 16 and 20 and that is the first time I have ever typed that out for anyone. My heart is full but it aches for the pain that my girls have experienced at my hands. My choices, never theirs and that is NOT fair and it is NOT right. So now, I reap the consequences. The heaviest of those at this time is whether VG will want to know us or not and I cannot spare JE, DC, or BM the outcome…
andyoumakethree 