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I'm in my 32s with my first pregnancy and considering adoption.
Here is my situation, I came from a very conservative middle class social background. My parents are divorced, my father was remarried recently, my mother was a single mom of four children and she also not looking forward in raising any more child and still couldn't take the disappointment of my unwed pregnancy well. ( She is a very high expectation and conservative kind of mother )
I m working in health care industry and used to be more financially stable 2 years ago when I was working full time. But I'm now doing full time post-grad study in this very competitive field ( got paid from study but very little comparing to time consumed and all the night shifts and calls ) and also paying for my home loan with my family support . So I'm actually depending on my family financially. Now I'm taking a year off from my study b/c so much stress I afraid that would ruined my career .
I really freaked out when found out I was pregnant cuz I never that motherly type and not ready to be one. Due to my family background I strongly against single parenting for a child, unlike some single friends my age who desperately want to have children so much before theirs biological clock ran off.
I know that in a few years I will be more financial stable but still not that great and not up to the standard I expect myself to provide for my daughter, like private school, extra curriculum study and most important quality time with her, etc.
Although I felt so miserable through out the pregnancy especially now at 8 th months and never excited to be mother, I know I love my child and wanted all the best for her.
I have been reading those post for a while and find many birth moms morning in agony but also find a lot of miserable single moms while google along ( some even resent their child )
Please all birth mother, please tell me if you felt you have make the right decision? And if you were able to achieve your career path and fulfilled life not just surviving it and still copping with the feeling of losing your child?
I do realize grief and sorrow are part of relinquishment from your child but do you feel you are making right decision anyway? Or regret it?
Please tell me if you finally healed emotionally and how did you manage to overcome the sorrow.
How long after adoption ?
I know these question may sound too hash but I really need to find out before making final decision.
I really can't discuss this issue with anyone around me.
No one I know was ever in this unwed and unplanned pregnancy situation. My mother keep screaming and upsetting herself every time I bring up this subject.
I only have my therapist to talk to without any prejudgement comment but he also admitted that he is not very familia with adoption cases.
P.S. I live in the country where adoption is not well spread and not well organized. If you want your child to be adopt you usually need to put them in orphanage home first and someone will pick up your child or just live there until the child grow up and be labeled as poor opportunity child. You will never be able to know who adopt your child.
But in my case I do private adoption and select this couple myself.
In my country women with unwanted pregnancy usually have only 2 choices, illegal abortion ( yes, I said illegal abortion because it still is but thanks to many organizations trying to make it legal now so women have more choices ) or single parenting but also poor law enforcement
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Please all birth mother, please tell me if you felt you have make the right decision? No, I am certain I did not make the right decision (I gave my child up in 1998).
And if you were able to achieve your career path and fulfilled life not just surviving it and still copping with the feeling of losing your child?
Adoption was a hinderance to my career path although for the most part I am a happy person, raising 3 children with my loving husband. I have moved forward with my life, but there is no moving on.
I do realize grief and sorrow are part of relinquishment from your child but do you feel you are making right decision anyway? Or regret it?
I deeply regret what some would call my decision. Knowing what I know now about adoption, I would never have given my child away.
Please tell me if you finally healed emotionally and how did you manage to overcome the sorrow.
How long after adoption ?
No, I have never healed. The sorrow comes in and goes out like the tide. It is ambiguous grief, meaning my child is not deceased. There is no closure. He is still alive out in the world. I have never overcome the sorrow, but I have learned to live with it
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I had my daughter as a teen and at the time I knew I could not give her a good stable, financially set life etc.
I wanted to give her more than I felt I could offer her. Had I known that in a few years I would have settled my life and find a great husband I would have done whatever it took to keep her.
Lots of things can be done to get through the first few rough years of adjusting but at least you will have eachother.
I have reunited with my girl but shes all grown and I missed so much even if she did have a semi happy life it was apart from us and she looks so much like me and my girls its hard to not have her fully in my life.
So ya adoption did help me as a young girl with not so many options but it really was a last resort I mean I knew I could not abort the baby but if I knew then what I know now I would have kept hard against all odds.
She's my baby girl and yet shes not mine anymore....:confused:
I placed my baby 11 years ago. I know I did the right thing. I get to see pics of him and it makes me glad, and proud to have made the right choice. It often hurts, especially around Mother's Day, and especially since I now cannot have children and would love one, but I know I did the right thing. In my heart I knew I couldn't give that baby the life he deserved and so I found someone who could. No shame in that.
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I have always believed and felt that I made the right decision for both of us. It doesn't mean I don't experience grief and sadness, because I do. Among the many considerations was not wanting to resent my son, because there was no way I could have lived with myself - as I see so many single parents do today.
Whatever you decide to do, trust your instincts. I know I did and I'm still happy I did 24 years later.
You do realize you can have a career and a child? It might be tough, but it happens every day. As an adoptee, I had a wonderful mother that divorced an abusive man when I was 2. I was adopted at 11 months, with the hope of "fixing" the marriage. Well, it didn't work. My mother worked the entire time I was growing up. Sometimes two jobs, but we made it. I was told I was adopted from a small age, and my mothers family reminded me I was not really family because I wasn't "blood". Awful for a small child. I know everyone has their reasons, but I just assume I was not wanted, maybe the same situation you are in, I don't know. Its lonely and empty for me, when I was growiing up and still to this day. Just understand what your doing when you give birth, then hand that precious gift over to someone else. You need to make your own decision, and don't listen to anyone, not even your mother. You will care the decision for the rest as your life, and your child will know that your career was more important than they were. Good Luck
Thirty years ago, when I was in my 20's, I gave a newborn boy up for adoption. Sadly two years later I found myself in the same position. Luckily the family who had adopted my first baby was looking to adopt a second and I gave them a little girl. I think of them often. Their mom sent me a letter when the little girl was six months old and it had a picture of her in it. She told me what they were like and how happy they were and she thanked me. It was very painful, but I just simply did not want babies at this time. I saved that letter and picture and now 30 years later, I just received a letter from an adoption counselor saying that they want to meet me. I am very nervous and totally freaked out, but I do want to meet them. I was given letters from them and I sobbed. they sound like they have had great lives. They have kids now too. It will take time before we can meet. Paperwork is involved. I am now married and have 2 daughters, ages 18 and 21. Selfishly I am worried of what my family is going to think of me when I tell them. I am going to wait until after I meet them first. I don't know if they want a future relationship and not sure if I do. But I owe it to them to meet them and answer their questions. They never would have had the life they had if I had raised them as a single mother. I will update on how this turns out. But to answer your question. I do not regret it one bit. I answered a couples prayer of wanting a healthy baby. I made my mistake into an answered prayer. If one of my daughters got pregnant and they were not in a stable relationship, I would absolutely support them going with adoption. Please don't think any of this was ever easy for me either. I cried many times and that first year was very hard. And putting up with co-workers disapproval was hard. But I would do it again.
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I have an update. I am now in contact with both my birth daughter and birth son. We have traded pictures and stories. They live in different states so we have not met in person. My birth daughter is pregnant with her second child and it is nice to be in contact to see this. I have not told my family. I may one day, but not yet. My birth kids are fine with it and we are on facebook together and so we "talk" every day. This slow pace is working for us. They have had wonderful lives and their birth parents are great parents. They got to travel a lot and had a big family and are very happy. If I had kept them and raised them, it would have been a totally different story. I did the right thing. It was a bonus to hear from them, but I regret nothing.
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AmyAmy,
You do what you believe is best for your child--no matter what that is. Honesty with yourself and making a choice out of love, not fear, is the choice that you will be able to live with.
Don't let anyone guilt or bully you one way or the other. I have noticed that there are many people in these forums that have a lot of unresolved resentments and harshly presume to tell others what to do. No one should talk down to anyone in here. This sight is about information and support--the sharing of stories/experience.
Hope you are well.
Birthmother33
AmyAmy,
You do what you believe is best for your child--no matter what that is. Honesty with yourself and making a choice out of love, not fear, is the choice that you will be able to live with.
Don't let anyone guilt or bully you one way or the other. I have noticed that there are many people in these forums that have a lot of unresolved resentments and harshly presume to tell others what to do. No one should talk down to anyone in here. This sight is about information and support--the sharing of stories/experience.
Hope you are well.