Spoiled with love from every side...

She was 19 years old and pregnant for the second time. Her oldest was only 2. The father was in a complicated on again off again relationship with another woman. Having been raised in a strict Catholic family, one where her mother protested at the local abortion clinic, she knew she shouldnt be contemplating abortion- but she was. She knew it wouldnҒt be easy to go through with one, but having another baby, out of wedlock, in a small town wouldnt be easy either. Raising two small children alone, wouldnҒt be easy. She made an appointment at the clinic, the very one that her own mother had protested at so many times. And went. Alone. Stretch out on the cold, hard table, having signed all the consent papers, she was ready to go through with the procedure- to abort the baby inside her. To abort me. The doctor came in to the room to begin In those moments- she heard it. Call it a moment of conscience. Call it maternal instinct. But she calls it the whisper of the voice of God. You can call it whatever you wantŅ but she heard it. Lying there on the table, with that sterile paper beneath her, she heard it. It spoke her name and commanded her gently. Get up and run. I have appointed this child to life. Run.Ӕ And run she did. Stocking feet and hospital gown on- she ran. Scooping up her clothes and her purse she ran. Out to her car. Alone with me still alive within her. She ran. She worked 40 hours a week at a factoryŅ Standing 8 hours a day on the line with swollen ankles and a sore back. Waking up in the middle of the night because my growing body was squeezing her bladder. Chasing her toddler around the house, trying to make things work. I knew,Ӕ she told me years later, that I loving you would never be enough. I had to more for you and for your brother.Ӕ She chose adoption. She relinquished me a healthy baby girl The life she gave me was a beautiful one. The parents I was placed withŅ the brothers who were added to our family through adoption and natural birth. I was treasured as the only daughter in my new family. I was spoiled with love from every side. As an adoptee in a semi-open adoption, I was given a letter from her, in her own handwriting that I must have read a thousand times, my fingers tracing every word. And when the time was right, we reunited. The woman whose voice was the first I ever heard speak, whose voice awakens a part of my soul somewhere deepŅ