When things just click -- it can be validating

The most validating and supportive words I heard during my unplanned pregnancy with my daughter, came from her mother. I was in the last weeks of pregnancy, depressed about the way things were going in my life, fielding unwanted questions from strangers about my swollen belly and naked finger and having a horrible time with my parents, who were unsupportive of the pregnancy, the adoption plan and the openness that would follow her birth. She said to me, driving down the road taking me home after one of our pre-placement visits, that as a young adult, she was just one failed birth control method away from being exactly where I am now. She said that she’d done all the same things, took all the same risks and for whatever reason, she just got ‘lucky’. It was the first time during the entire adoption process that I didn’t feel ‘looked down upon’. Years later, sitting on my back porch in the arid southwest part of the United States, she repeated those thoughts. She wanted me to know that when it came to use being human beings, we were on a level playing field. She made me feel accepted and equal. I don’t know if she even remembers those two instances. They meant so much to me. She means so much to me, this woman that my daughter calls mom.