A reader shares his adoption story
AS A PERSON who was adopted as a baby, I so identify with what you have written, Rod, about birth moms.
I never had negative thoughts about being adopted, but did wonder what the circumstances were that led to my birth mother giving me up.
I am in my mid-seventies and it was only after I found my birth family (two sisters and a brother) that I appreciated what it must have meant to my birth mother to give me up.
I discovered that she got engaged, found she was pregnant, started making plans to get married, then lost her fiancé in an aircraft accident.
She carried me to term, gave birth and then gave me over to adoptive parents.
I strung all of that together and realised how incredibly difficult going through all of that must have been for her. But, she did it and how I wish that I had traced her before she passed away so I could tell her that I never felt bad or angry.
I would have commended her for realising that she would not have been able to care for me having gone through such a tumultuous experience. I would love to have been able to say to her, “You did a good thing and gave me a very good life with my adoptive parents.”