Interview With A Birth Mother

Adoption is a topic that’s often glossed over, talked around, or swept under the rug. In recent years, there has been a significant movement for more openness surrounding the topic, particularly when it comes to the people who gave birth and chose adoption. I sat down with a birth mother who gave me permission to ask anything I was curious about, and we talked about her experience.

SK: Okay, so let’s start at the beginning. When did you first find out you were pregnant, and how did you react?

Oh god. [laughs] It’s the craziest story, and I wouldn’t believe it if it hadn’t happened to me. I figured out that I was pregnant because I woke up in the middle of the night and felt kicking. Swear to god, before then, I’d had no idea. My first reaction was denial: there was simply no way I could be pregnant. I was on birth control! I bought a pregnancy test because I was determined to prove to myself that pregnancy was a ridiculous conclusion, and that I was just being crazy. Then I got the plus sign. I think I sat perfectly still with that pregnancy test for over an hour. I can’t remember my mind ever being so blank. No thoughts at all. Like a ringing, slow-motion silence. I guess numbness? Shock? I don’t know how to describe it. I was stunned into silence. Almost detached, like it was happening to someone else, or I was dreaming.

SK: That sounds really overwhelming. Did you tell anyone?

Once I accepted that I was pregnant, I called both an OBGYN to make an appointment -- I mostly just wanted to make sure the baby was healthy -- and an adoption counselor. I just wanted to talk through what was happening to me, and I didn’t feel like I could go to my family or friends. I was still in so much shock that I knew I wasn’t calm enough to deal with someone else’s emotions. I think hearing someone else panic would have made me panic. I remember the first phone call with the adoption counselor, and that it made me feel calmer. I remember her telling me that no matter what my decision was, they would help me work it out. Feeling like I had someone on your side, and wasn’t judging me, is everything.

SK: So from there, when or how did you know that adoption was the right choice for you?

I guess when I had the realization that none of it was about me anymore. You start thinking, “My emotions aside, what’s actually best for my child?” and you do the best you can from there. That’s parenting, right? The thought process that tipped the scales for me was imagining the different lives my child could have. At the time, I was between jobs, had just barely gotten an apartment, and I was pretty broke. The idea of trying to take care of a baby, and all the stuff that baby would need, terrified me. I thought about it, and I know I could have made that life work, but I decided it wasn’t good enough. That life didn’t live up to the hopes and dreams I had for my child. I wanted my kid to have everything -- a big family, a happy home, every opportunity they could possibly wish for. So although it was a sacrifice to choose adoption, I felt that it offered my kid the best possible life.

I felt like I had done the right thing when I met my kid’s parents for the first time. They were so happy and excited and prepared. They were everything I wasn’t, and yet they had a lot in common with me when it came to values, interests, and hobbies. They were better than I would have thought to ask for. Meeting them made me feel like I had made the right choice.

SK: How much did you know about adoption before this experience?

My only real exposure to adoption was knowing kids who were adopted. But in all of those cases, as far as I’m aware, the adoptions were closed. The further back you go in history, the more closed adoptions are. If you go back even a couple generations, it wasn’t unusual for people to adopt babies without any paperwork at all. I thought adoption was going to be so painful that I’d never want to think about it or talk about it again, so at the time, open adoption seemed really intimidating. [laughs] I guess the short answer is, not enough! I had a pretty steep learning curve.

SK: Can you explain what open and closed adoptions are?

Oh, right, sorry. [laughs] See what I mean about the learning curve? There’s a lot of terminology in the adoption community that I had to get used to. A closed adoption is what you’d think of in a more traditional sense, I guess: the birth parents choose adoption, and agency finds parents, and there is little or no contact between the birth parents and the child ever again. Sometimes adoptive parents get a medical history and background, sometimes they know nothing at all.

An open adoption can mean a broad range of things, but the common factor is that there’s some level of contact. What I didn’t really know is that you kind of….customize it, I guess, according to what you and the adoptive parents are comfortable with. So “Open” can really mean anything. I know birth mothers who get a letter once a year, nothing else. I know birth moms who get together for holidays and have actually ended up babysitting their child for the adoptive parents! It can be anything you want it to be; it all depends on what kind of relationship you build with your child’s parents.

SK: Can I ask which kind of adoption you have?

Oh, sure! I have an open adoption. Which for us, means we keep in touch using a photo-sharing site, they send me letters on birthdays, and we get together a couple times a year. I adore my child’s parents; they’re incredibly generous and I feel very lucky.

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