Questions to birthmothers.

Marimar, Difficult question. It was a different time, where society and the church (in particular) led me in one particular path (I was still in the closed adoption era). I would have kept my daughter if I had gotten any real support from any family member or the birth father in that way. The social services office I worked through told me there was one option, and I was counseled that way. I wish someone had talked to me about ALL my options, including the fact that I had 6 months to change my mind (a fact I was NOT aware of at the time). Soprano

I don't regret my decision. At the time the reasons I did were very valid and real in my mind (they still would be today, too). If I kept her, would things turned out okay, sure. If were faced with the same dicision today, as the person I am now, I would not relinquished. My decision then was all me. No one really influenced me either way. Once I decided, I had people who supported me, and others who didn't. I wish I would have known that the "openess" would close, I would have fought to keep it more open.

I agree with Soprano. I loved my baby girl with all of my heart and wanted desperately to keep her. She was born in the 1960's, a time of shame and secrecy. If my parents, or counselors or social workers or any "experts" had given me any support, I would have brought her home with me. As it was, I was told that to do so would be selfish and that if I really loved her I would let her go to a "good family" (which didn't turn out to be so good, by the way). We were shamed "unwed mothers' who were coerced to spare our children the shame of illegitmacy. I regret giving in to their pressure, but I was a teen-ager who had "sinned" and thought that the experts knew best. (I was also never told that I had 6 mos. to change my mind.) My heart was forever broken. Though my daughter and I have been reunited for 20 years and are very close....I regret that she lived the life of adoption and wondering from whence she came and if she had been loved. I cannot turn back the hands of time, but oh how I wish I could. I am so grateful for the miracle of having her in my life now, and I am grandmother to her 3 children. She & I both finally feel whole!

[FONT="Century Gothic"]Highly personnal and right now my therapist and I are the only ones who know.[/FONT]

B moms, I just wonder.. Do you regret your decision to relinquish your child. If yes , what could have stopped you from moving forward with your decision.

Looking back, do you find your oldself naive and in what ways?

Have your parents or friends directly or indirectly played any role in your decision?

is there anything that you know now that you wish you knew then?I am a birth mom and placed in 2007. To make things quick (there is too much detail but feel free to ask if you want) I NEVER regret my choice to place her. I have an open adoption, and I can see where she is happy, and where I am at in life. I think my responsibility as a parent should be to proivde for my child in every way to where they would be taken care of, in my case when I was 17 and that moment in time, adoption was right for me. I am very grateful the adoptive couple wanted open adoption and suggested it. I don't entirely find myself naieve in my past, I looked into every possible scenario and weighed the pros and cons, I try to make infromed and educated choices.My dad has been a big inspiration in my life. All my friends wanted me to have an abortion to "solve the problem" which I don't believe in. My dad gave me advice and encouragement, but in the end, it was my choice.While pregnant, I would suggest if possible for the birth mom to find a birth mom support group, that really helps. I wish I would have been more adminate in going after placement to deal with grief, but I go now, and its there for me as long as I need it. I would also advise birth mothers to get to know their adoptive couple and become close friends and build a relationship. Remember that honesty is the key, and boundaries along with bumps in any relationship.

As a birthmother who placed in 2006. I can honestly say that I have not regretted my decision. Nor do I expect to. I spent a lot of time on my knees when I was pregnant and talked to a counselor at a family services agency. I spoke with my mother and grandparents. I knew the pros and cons. My daughter is a happy (almost) 4 yr old with a loving family. She will never want for love or food or any number of things I couldn't have given her then. While I now could give her those things, I still have no regrets. It's a highly personal choice and I feel I have only grown in the story. I know this is kinda rambling, but remember there are options and I advise you to pray, seek counseling/advise, and pray some more, remember to listen and keep your heart open to the answer. God will not tell you your path if you've already made up your mind.

I have never felt that I regretted choosing adoption for my child, but I have regretted the circumstances that lead me to make that decision. I only started feeling that way recently, maybe in the last 5 years or so. I think these feelings coincided with my son being grown, and me hitting mid-life, and struggling with some other mid-life issues. I've also not had other children, so some of it has to do with being indecisive about whether or not to have other kids and not having the experience of raising a child. I often wonder what it would have been like if I had raised my son, and sometimes find myself thinking "what if," but when I really examine where I was at the time, and how unprepared I was to be a parent, I just cannot see how I could have done it in the way I wanted to. I also didn't have supportive family to help me. Not really. I've always been pretty street smart. The only thing that really threw me for a loop was how strongly I bonded with my son after having him. I thought I was so prepared for adoption since I made the decision to place my son very early in my pregnancy. I figured since I was getting so much counseling, and really thinking it through logically (and I knew all my options and such), I would just have the baby and while it might be sad, I thought I'd pretty much pick up my life where I left off before my pregnancy. I had NO idea how hard it would be, even though people tried to tell me I would bond with him and not want to leave him, but I "pooh-poohed" this as just overly-emotional blathering. I was very wrong in thinking that I could just apply logic and reason to my decision to place my child. I don't think the emotions that come about as a result of having a child can be fully understood until you actually have a baby. Certain options were off the table for me. For instance, my mom told me if I wanted to keep my baby, I would have to do it on my own. She said she would "help as much as she could" but I was not allowed to bring my child home if I wanted to keep him. I wasn't ready to be out on my own by myself, much less with a baby. Even if I could bring him home, however, I don't think I would have. I really didn't want my son raised in that environment. It was not healthy. I did have several friends who were single moms, but if anything, their experience steered me more toward adoption than parenting. The way adoption is practiced, even today, needs to be radically changed. I'll leave it at that.

(((( Peachy )))) You always make perfect sense on things. :-)

I'm not sure if regret is the right word for how I feel, because I try not to look at the "what if's". The simple truth for me is that I made the wrong decision...it's that plain and simple. I was 17 years old, and looking back, I know I put way too much trust in the adults around me. The price that both my son and I paid for that decision was way too costly. I would give anything in the world just to have that one day back. When I surrendered my baby son to adoption, I knew that it was going to be incredibly difficult on me...but I had absolutely no idea how hard it was going to be on him. I believed all the adults when they told me that he would be going to parents who would love and cherish him. Back in the early 1970's, the professionals thought that babies were "blank slates", something that we know is not true in today's world. Back then, they really thought one mother was completely exchangeable for another mother, that the baby would never know the difference. Adoptive parents were held up as "model families" here in the United States back in the '60s and '70s. I really did think my son was going to be much better off in his new home than he would be with me. Yes, I was incredibly naive...like most teenagers. I thought adults had all the answers, and I listened to them rather than to my gut instincts. I knew in my gut and my heart that my baby belonged with me...but I stopped listening to myself and listened to the adults and "professionals" instead. I planned on keeping my baby until I was about 7 months along in my pregnancy. My mother made it crystal clear that I was not welcome in her home if I kept him. She told me not to even ask to come up to the house to visit her with my baby, that I needed to wait for her to invite me. I was living in a foster home that had no heat and very little food. I panhandled every day down at the boardwalk at the beach. The money I begged from strangers went towards food and prenatal vitamins. So at least I was able to take care of my baby's physical needs while he was in the womb. I got very sick towards the end of my sixth month of pregnancy, and my mom let me come home for a week or so. It was such a relief to have a warm bed and hot food on the table...things I took for granted growing up. My mother had more than her share of problems, but at least she always fed her kids and made sure we were clothed properly and had a roof over our heads. When that week was coming to an end, I just caved in one day. I could not bring myself to go back to that foster home. I decided that morning to relinquish my baby after he was born...and my mother said I could come home if I surrendered him. If I regret anything, it was needing a safe, warm place to live...and needing my mother. I wish I had been stronger... I wish I had had more faith in myself... And I really wish I had trusted my instincts...because in the long run, I did my son no favors by surrendering him.

Like Peachy, what I regret is the circumstances that led to the decision to place. I still think it was the right choice for us at the time. My parents were willing to support any decision that I made. In fact, though, it took time for my mom to understand how much I truly loved him. It's not been easy, but I have lived with that decision for 37 years now. D and I have been reunited for 4 years now and he just attended my dad's funeral. I love him as much as I always have and I have loved getting to know D as an adult and watching his children grow.

Like so many have said, I have never regretted my decision. Even now that her parents stopped contact I don't regret either my chioce to place or my choice to place with them. My family wanted me to keep her. My decision is one of the many reasons that I am not close with my extended family. But still I know I did what was best for both of my girls. I have no idea what our lives would be like if I had chosen otherwise. I doubt they would be as good as they are now. I do regret not seeking out support earlier. I didn't get counceling before my decision. I didn't speak to anyone about it until I was certain. I didn't want anyone to know I had even thought about anything other than parenting if that had been my final decision. Her parents offered all sorts of things to me during the pregnancy and after including counceling. I think I only went two or three times after placing her. I felt guilty accepting anything from them. If they were giving to me they we're able to give as much to SE. If I had found a place like this site sooner it would have made the road a little smoother....I was nieve about all the option with adoption and about some of the "trend"/"realities". Knowing wouldn't have changed my course of action, just my ability to handle what came my way.

I placed my daughter for adoption this weekend. I'm currently at home and on the "mend" from the birth actually, so I can't say if my "older" self was naive... because I still am that older self.I can say though, that I am so happy with how everything worked out for myself, my fiancee, and our daughter. The family we chose was wonderful, and we were able to form a relationship through out the pregnancy. Our face to face visits were hampered because of swine flu (their children were exposed, and we didn't want to risk the baby) but I still had so much contact via e-mail and phone that I didn't feel like it mattered. I was actually very touched that the adoptive family was so concerned about possible complications!I chose to have the adoptive family present at the hospital, and to see the baby as soon as possible. Our situation was so amiable, with everyone sharing time with the baby. Myself and my fiancee were adamant that our daughter should bond with her real parents (as we choose to think of them, since we hand picked them for her) and we could see how she adjusted from knowing me as "normal" to thinking of her adoptive mom as normal as the days in the hospital went by. To me, it was a miraculous thing to watch my daughter bond with her adoptive parents and slowly prefer their touch to mine. I think that if I had been selfish, I would have resented it, but I had intentionally chosen to have that happen, in the best interest of my baby. I was pleased to be able to watch her start to bond.I never felt pressured to place my child for adoption, and infact, I often felt pressured to parent instead. I can't tell you how often I was made to feel miserable because I wanted my daughter to have things I wouldn't be able to give her at this time. When her adoptive parents casually remarked about her college fund (which they started before she was born!) it simply reinforced how much better her life would be.I chose her parents based on so many things, but one that stood out to me was the relationship they had with the birth family of one of their older children. 5 years after adoption, and they were still very open and talking on a regular basis. Their older children were so well adjusted, their family was so happy, and the parents we chose were exactly the type of people I had always invisioned as the "perfect parents". I did do a lot of research on all of my options before I made the decision, and I'm prepared for some emotional wrenching at some point, but it will all be of a selfish nature. I'm glad that so many topics were covered on this forum, as it really helped me a lot, but I do wish that more of the upside was discussed, as I was prepared for a horrible situation after reading all the stories. In my case, a lot of research resulted in a wonderful experience that I don't regret at all!

I relinquished my daughter through the LDS Family Services and I did not regret my decision at first. But when I had my son a couple of years later, the reality of what I had done really hit me. Looking into his big, blue, trusting eyes day after day only served as a reminder of what I had done to my daughter. This grief has been compounded by the further light and knowledge I have gained through my studies in the social sciences. When I found myself a newly divorced single mother with a 5-month old less than four years after relinquishing, I discovered what I had suspected all along: I was (and always had been) a strong, capable woman who could accomplish great things, even as a single mother with little familial or societal support. After my divorce, I went back to college, earned a BS (with honors) and went to graduate school where I earned a MS. All as a single parent. And guess what? The son I raised for the most part as a single mother is a well-adjusted, bright, loving, and generous-hearted teenager. I eventually married an incredible man/husband/father/partner. I am nearly done earning a PhD. All of the horror stories and statistics I had been told as a scared 19-year old woman turned out to be merely scare tactics. The truth. The truth about my options. The truth about the long-term impact of adoption on me, on my daughter, on my future marriage, on my future children. The truth about what God really thought about me. I trusted in others too much and didn't trust my gut and my intuition that was screaming that adoption was not the right choice for me or my daughter. While I believe that adoption can be right in some situations where there is abuse (drug, alcohol, physical, sexual), mental impairment of the parents or the mother is excessively young, or abandonment, this was not my reality nor has it ever been. I trusted what others told me: that adoption would make me a "good" mother and that parenting my daughter would permanently damage her AND me. Absolutely - my parents, my culture, and my chosen religion all worked together to convince me that if I chose to parent my daughter, I was never going to be a good enough parent, that my child would be raised in poverty forever, that she would grow up and be addicted to drugs/alcohol, that I would abuse her, that I would never find a loving husband, and that she deserved a "forever family", and all of the other "statistics" which are used to help convince a scared mother to relinquish her child to adoption. Like I said before, the truth. The truth about my options and not just the ones that the adoption agency/counselor presented to me. The truth about the long-term impact of adoption on me, on my daughter, on my future marriage, on my future children. The truth about what God really thought about me.