I was already a single Mother when I found out I was pregnant again. I was in a place of constant survival mode. I’d come home from working two jobs and going to college just to be able to tuck my one year old son into bed. There were some nights we would come home to a dark house from not being able to afford to pay my electricity bill, but too proud to ask for help so I’d work hard and pray harder. I was a mess inside trying to navigate the best future for everyone involved.
I had the most amazing support system of close friends that came to doctors appointments with me and were with me when I found out I was expecting the little girl my heart always wanted. It was later that night something inside me knew that I wanted to give my daughter the best chance at life. At that time in my life, I felt, the only answer was finding a family that longed to love this sweet baby girl as much as I did. It didn’t take long to find the perfect fit for this precious baby. After months of connecting and learning to trust each other, she was born with her beautiful family there by my side through labor and delivery.
Now 23 years later, with many ups and downs through our journey, we have a relationship that I treasure so deeply and am so thankful for. I don’t want anyone to confuse the beauty of adoption by thinking it’s all rainbows and sunshine, because it’s not. It’s messy and heartbreaking and demands things from you that you need to face and even learn to grieve through to be able to heal from and move on forward to have a healthy life.
Having a good support system in place is critical in all phases of adoption, and I’m so thankful for my people for getting me through the before, during and after moments of my adoption journey.
I’ve sat with many women through their personal journey of adoption, some of them so close to my own that it seemed as if I was reliving my own experiences second by second. The more I sit with these women, the more I learn we are all here to help each other and no one ever needs to sit through adoption alone.
