Adoption STAR’s Director of Adoption Kathy Crissey relies on her years of adoption experience to write a letter from the perspective of a Birth Parent.
I am going through a time in my life that is the probably the most difficult time I have ever gone through. I feel alone and I feel judged by everyone around me. I so desperately want to parent this baby I am carrying, but I know in my heart that I cannot give this baby everything I want to. I already feel the pain of having to say goodbye and can’t begin to imagine what it will be like when I really have to. I lay awake at night and wonder what this baby will look like. I feel this baby kicking inside of me and I feel like I will be losing a part of myself. I am sad and scared and I don’t think anyone can understand what I am going through. Will my baby hate me because I placed her? Will she ever know how much I love her and that this love will never go away?
I have already picked you out to be my baby’s adoptive parent(s). I am meeting you in a few weeks for the first time. I am nervous and worried that you won’t like me. I am scared that you will think I am a bad person. I don’t have my life together and how will you feel about that? I so desperately want you to know that every day I am pregnant is one more day that I get to have this baby with me. I want you to know that I need to be the one to make decisions about the baby for as long as I can. It is important for me to know what your hopes are and how you will take care of my baby. I want you at the hospital, but I also want you to know that I won’t know until I am there how much time I want to spend with you. I want you to know that I need to be the one to decide if the baby will be with you, or with me, or with all of us together. I need to decide when I want you to hold the baby or feed the baby. I will try to share this time with you but I need you to remember that these few days are the only days I will have with this baby and I need to be able to hug and kiss her and tell her over and over how much I love her. It might be really hard for me to tell you how I am feeling, so I might have a hard time asking for what I need. I might change my mind from hour to hour. I want to see you excited and to know that you will love this baby as much as I do, but that might be hard also. Mostly, I want you to tell this baby how much I love her and that I want to remain a part of her life.
I am scared that you will not send me the photos and letters I have asked for, and that you won’t follow through with my two visits a year. I will not be bothering you and I will not intrude on your life, but I need to know that you will do what you said you would. I need to make this decision based upon what has been promised to me and I will regret this decision if you do not follow through. I believe it is in my baby’s best interest to have all of us in her life, and that is why I want an open adoption. I could not place my baby if it were not for that. I am scared, I am lonely, and I am placing my trust in people I don’t really know. It is the hardest thing I have ever done….
I think this is a lot of generalization. I would prefer to see what birth mothers have to say, instead of just someone with years of experience. I can tell you that my birth mother would not agree with a lot of this. Not every birth mother feels this way, and I think it would have been great to see what birth mothers truly have to say and think.
I have been working with expectant and birth patents for over 11 years. I hear many of these concerns on a daily basis. I think Kathy hit the nail on the head. Thank you Kathy for writing this piece.