The Birth Mother Myth
A teenage pregnancy led to an adoption I regretted years later
There were many things I was unprepared for when I relinquished my son for adoption. A naive 17-year-old, I believed the secret I carried would grow lighter, not heavier. I believed the pain of separation would fade. I believed the poster I saw in the adoption agency’s office, proclaiming, “Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life” was a harbinger for my new beginning. I would be a college girl, respectable, confident, and happy that my traumatic past was behind me. All of this turned out to be miles from the truth. Still, I plowed through life sometimes doing well, other times not so well, unaware that my biggest post-relinquishment challenge would begin more than a decade later.
When I fell in love with my college boyfriend, he seemed a perfect person to incorporate into my new life. He was undeterred by my confession of my scarlet past. He seemed almost relieved when I told him I didn’t want to have any more children. We were the perfect couple, mostly skipping through life, only occasionally plodding a bit. A dozen years into our marriage, when the ticking of my biological clock synched up with an uptick in our income, we reconsidered our childlessness and had a baby. I was 34 years old when our daughter was born. It had been 16 years since I’d placed my son in the…
