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For the first seven months of my pregnancy, I was dead set on parenting. Several acquaintances had brought up the idea of adoption, but I was not having it. I was not about to listen to anyone who implied that I wouldn't be a good mom. I would show them- I spent hours reading about labor and delivery, sleep training, forming healthy attachments, you name it. I put down a deposit on an apartment with my brother and sister in law, so I could continue attending college and get some help with childcare. I gathered baby supplies. I applied for grants. I did everything I possibly could to be a good mom.
To this day, I stand by my belief that I would be a great single parent. I love children, I am patient, kind, and responsible. I love my baby. There is nothing about me that would make me incapable of parenting.
Just because I could be a good mom didn't make me any less alone. It didn't take away my 50 hour work weeks just to pay the bills with no help from her father. It didn't change the lifestyle he lived. It didn't change the fact that he would have fought me for custody, and my poor baby would have been raised torn between two homes with very different values. It didn't change the sick feeling in my gut every time I thought about the kind of life she would have. I wanted her to have the same opportunities I had growing up, and there was no way I could do that for her at the time.
But adoption? No. No way. I loved my baby too much. I wasn't going to shirk my responsibility. I wasn't going to just hand my child over to a stranger because I didn't want to deal with her. The idea disgusted me. But the feeling of panic I felt when I was scrambling to make plans for parenting disappeared when I thought about adoption.
Would this be the right thing for my baby?
CP
It's sad that people who don't understand adoption think birth mothers would be bad parents... It's not good to generalize people like that..