My Story

By Michelle

Hi. My name is Michelle. I am a birthmother. I placed my child for adoption 3 years ago. I started thinking about adoption about 3 or 4 months into the pregnancy. It was just the best decision for me, and even more for my child. I met the family about 6 months into the pregnancy, and they were great. They made the adoption process much easier because they were just very comforting, very nice, always smiling. I felt comfortable with them. I would go back and forth with the decision on what to do, whether to place him for adoption or just ‘tough it out and make things work’. But in the end, placing him for adoption was the best.

He’s with the family that he’s always meant to be with. He’s with the family God chose him to be with. I truly believe that.  It makes it a lot easier seeing how happy they are. We’re pretty close with the adoptive family -we’re on Facebook together. I actually just had my child, my first child, me and my husband, and they came to the baby shower. We get pictures of him and we just got to spend some time with them. That made it a lot easier to see how happy he really is growing up with them.

The adoptive parents also make it much easier because they are very open with Eli, that’s his name, they are very open with him about who we are. Michelle, the mom, always calls me his birthmother. And she calls my mom Grandma Beth. So, he knows who we all are. There are no secrets and no hiding it. Even at three-years-old, he already knows. So, it makes it’s easier that they are teaching him that, and I’m not going to be out of his life, and he’s going to know who I am.

If I could speak to a birthmother, I would tell her that the different feelings that she’s probably going through are completely understandable. Feel free to talk to someone about them. I know when I first started thinking about adoption, the hardest part for me was I was going back and forth thinking maybe God was trying to teach me a lesson. But finally, I turned it around, and I knew that the real reason that I was thinking about adoption is because it was the best choice for Eli. And he deserved so much more than I could have given him. And even though I would have been able to provide for him, that there was a different family out there for him. And he needed to be with them, and not with me. And that it wasn’t a punishment for me, but it was a gift for somebody else.

The hospital stay was very helpful. I invited the adoptive parents in the delivery room. That was a really awesome experience, just to see how happy they were ... to see the joy on their faces. The father got to cut the umbilical cord. I really wanted it to be that way. The first day after the delivery, Eli roomed in with me. The hospital was nice enough to give the adoptive family their own room.  Eli was with me in my room the first day and the first night, and then he was with them for the rest of the time. That was a really good experience for me. I got to bond with him and get to know him. It made me feel better that he knew who I was, that I was his birthmother and that I was doing this for him.

Emotionally, it was hard at first. There is the sad side, and then of course, of losing a child. But I look at it more as giving somebody else the greatest gift that anybody could have given. I gave the gift of a child to a mother and father. And I gave the gift of a brother to another brother. That’s just the greatest feeling in the world. And seeing how happy he is, it makes me very proud of myself. I know that I’m a stronger person for being able to do it. It also helps that those around me were supportive and told me how proud they were of me, and how strong I was, and how they knew it was a tough decision but I was still able to do it, and how I was so selfless to do be able to do the best for somebody else. That’s love.

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