Choices
Written by Kelly on November 14th, 2008When I was having the first of three miscarriages, sitting on the couch stuffing ice cream in my mouth, and sobbing at all the EPT commercials on television, a bloody maxi pad tucked between my legs, I got a phone call from someone close to me. She was pregnant, young, scared, and about to have an abortion. She wanted me to console her. She wanted me to wrap my arms around her and rock away the regret. I remember wanting to slap her. Instead, I spoke calmly through clenched teeth. I told her it was going to be okay, assured her that I loved her, even as I felt the soft spots of my heart, that once she had claimed, hardening against the impact. It was not fair of her, of me, of circumstance. But, this is how it was.
Two miscarriages, an oncologist office, and a handful of “experts” later, they told me I would never be a mother, not in the traditional sense that I had always imagined when I was young and reckless with the way I used my body. Instead, I pinned my hopes to adoption, on an 18 year-old girl. She wore a tiny bikini the weekend that we met, and swam beside me in the hotel pool. She just knew she could never have an abortion, not with all those couples eager and waiting. She wanted, instead, to give a gift. I thought about her capacity for bravery, and all I could do was hug her, go back to my hotel room, and cry.
When my son was born, and the nurses called me Mommy, the woman who carried him for nine months and pushed him out into this world, lay weary in her bed beside us. The beginnings of her loss were already creeping across the hospital room. I just could not see it. I did not think her choice was anything but noble, me being on the receiving end of it. We celebrated with popsicles sticks that left our fingers sticky and blue, and I tried not to see the way her mother had to hold her up, her unsure legs too shaky for the long walk to the parking lot, unassisted. In the months that went by, her grief only grew. It became something large and imposing, threatening the fragile bonds that we had established all those months that she had been convinced the choice would be an easy one, but turned out never to be. My son is a gift she gave me, but at what cost to herself? That is the question left unanswered between us.
I did not want to acknowledge the loss. I just wanted the simple celebration that I thought should be my right as a new mother. For a long time, I was so thankful for my son’s birthmother’s decision that every time I heard the word abortion I considered it a slight against the blonde-haired child that I held in my arms, and sang lullabies to against the backdrop of silence, in the nursery with the walls I had painted in blue. I felt abortion was a kick straight to the empty damaged uterus that I carried inside my body. How could a woman be selfish enough to have an abortion when adoption was an alternative, when couples waited years to fill their homes with the pitter patter of little feet, when my son was alive and growing strong because of his birthmother’s choice?
This answer is simple.
Those women are not me. They have their own paths, their own reasons, their own stories to tell. If I keep sitting here in judgment, expecting them to make determinations with their body based on the heartbreak of my own, than I have no right to call myself mother, sister, and friend. I dishonor the pain that my son’s birthmother suffered when she let Bug go, with nothing but the hope he might come back to thank her for it, when I expect every woman faced with this decision to choose as she did. Adoption is not an easy choice, and not the only one worth making.
The truth is that these decisions are never simple. I know that. And this is why I write these words down, and will my heart to listen. I want to be supportive when I learn that there are women who live both with or without regret for their abortions or for giving births or for placing their child for adoption. I have to remember that we are all differnt in our lifestyle choices and for some women the only choice is not to pursue motherhood at all. I need to support all women. If I do not reclaim the roots of my own pro-choice beliefs, even though my own life has made abortion a non-alternative, I will be the one stuck carrying around a regret that should not belong to any of us.
14
AM
::hugs:: I admire you so much for the depth of your emotions that you share across your writing. Bug is SO lucky to have such a wonderful Mommy, and he was blessed that Angel had the strength to give him that gift. Because while she certainly gave you the most precious gift, she also gave him an incredible gift. She gave him the chance for a better life than she could give him, for love and affection and family. ::hugs::
14
PM
Holy shit. Look at you putting it all out there. The honesty is brilliant. This is what growth is really about… challenging your own beliefs! You will undoubtedly raise a child in the same fashion… Good for you! You freakin’ rock!
14
PM
i’m so glad i found your blog. your writing is fascinating for it’s honesty and driving emotion…. nice to meet you
14
PM
you are an empath, k. this is so moving. i’m glad that you’re honoring her experience in this way.
14
PM
I like this…thank you for posting. I’m adding you to my blog listing if you mind not.
A
14
PM
We’ve talked about it a bit, I think when I posted about the Parenting magazine article on adoption.
You are so, so amazing. And that last paragraph summed up why you are completely. To be so aware and admitting of your ‘flaws’, and to will them away as best you can shows your character. And it’s beautiful.
14
PM
Oh, I wish I knew you then when you were on your couch. I wish I could have been there.
And for her too. I feel it in me, my anxious eyes.
You’re bright and brave to see beyond yourself and your children. That’s no easy task but there you go, up and over, those wings of yours like dragonfly’s.
14
PM
I love how fearlessly honest you are here, both with yourself and with us. The difficulty and doubt is matched also by so much love; I’m sure Bug will grow up knowing he is incredibly lucky to have you for his mother. (Would you consider submitting this for Blog Nosh’s family channel? If so, please email me.)
14
PM
Beautiful, heart-wrenching, honest, vulnerable, brave, necessary, generous, gorgeous writing. Thank you.
15
AM
oof, my heart
15
AM
And that is you, what I love. That you could have this thing about you, and then see, read, write it into dissolution. You grow on the screen.
15
AM
yes, yes, and yes. People alway ask me how I can be pro choice as an adoptive mom, but that is the point exactly….every woman should have a choice and not every choice is the right one for every woman, they are all individuals.
16
AM
i gave you a bloggy award and linked you on my recent blog
16
PM
Wow.
This: ” I did not think her choice was anything but noble,…and I tried not to see the way her mother had to hold her up, her unsure legs too shaky for the long walk to the parking lot, unassisted.”
is moving!
17
AM
As a man, I can only admire your courage and your willingness to learn and adapt as you grow as a person. An amazing woman? Yes. A great mother? Yes. More than those, though, you are an incredible human being – full of the warmth of kindness and understanding. And lessons hard learned, that you share with us with an incredible honesty that cannot help but touch the deepest recesses of ‘heart’. You are one – in a million.
20
AM
I bet your brain is stretching so big right now to fit all of this acceptance in.
No easy way to many of the choices any of us make at times….
21
AM
Those were both absolutely amazing posts. I love them because you are both qualified to write them. It is not an opinion, it was lived. I am such a firm believer in not spouting an opinion about something that has not been lived/experienced. I have thought about these issues many times throughout life. I was raised in a Catholic household. There is no one answer. There is no right or wrong with these issues. There are only people living their lives and making their choices.
22
PM
Wow.
The depth of your soul is a rare and beautiful thing.
30
PM
I’m only just finding this post now through Blog Nosh. Wow. Beautiful.
I can’t read this and not share my experience real quick:
I cannot have babies, even though it’s been my dream since I turned 18. I can’t imagine being able to afford to adopt or pay for assistance from modern science (hoping but trying to be OK if I can’t because that’s becoming likely). A few years ago, I sat across the table from a friend my age, 30-ish, not 15 or even 18 or even 21, but 30-ish and already a mom, while she nonchalantly tossed off her tongue that she’d be having an abortion later in the week. Every single molecule in my body wept oceans of salty tears until I almost threw up on her salad plate, but I knew it was none of my business, so I just nodded on the outside as nonchalantly as her while I lost it on the inside. What, really, could I have said to her? Even if it still stings, it’s as you to perfectly said, it wasn’t mine to regret.
Someday maybe I’ll share this on my blog. Thank you for putting this out there. It’s helped me somehow, another piece to me becoming OK with being childless.
26
AM
Did you guys know tha Twilight eclipse has leaked…
see here http://secretshack.info/twilight-eclipse/