What to Expect When You Weren't Expecting to Be Expecting!

I think that should be the title of my next book.  Really, because it is the one, and maybe the only thing, we birthmothers all have in common..... we all faced what you might call a "crisis pregnancy" (at worst)  or a "surprise" (at best) but, for sure, we would all agree that our pregnancies were "unplanned."

How each of us dealt with our pregnancies may vary, but the end result is the same; we have three choices, pick the least bad one.  (And if you were pregnant pre Roe v. Wade, you may have only had two choices!).  For me, adoption was the least bad choice.  My first choice then would have to not have been pregnant.... my first choice now would have been to have the same baby ten years later when I was ready for him.

I hate it when birthmothers fight amongst each other.  To see the divisions among the troops pains me so.  The haves and the have-nots.... the open, semi-open (a/k/a semi-secretive), and the closed.  The opens who are now closed, the reunions who have gone on to successful relationships and the ones who didn't.  Some whose endings were as painful as the torturous beginnings.  

We all love our children - we all grieve - we all feel pain that no one but another birthmother can truly understand.  Yet, because I chose adoption without pressure or duress or regrets, and because I was given the opportunity to watch my son grow to adulthood when so many of my era did not, I am not accepted by such a large group of birthmothers.  Sometimes making the best of a bad situation means choosing the least bad choice.  I love my son and his adoptive family as my own.  I appreciate that adoption existed and I was fortunate to fall into a situation filled with so much love and so few secrets.  I hate that every birthmother can't say the same.

What we can all say is this: None of us were "expecting to be expecting" and from that moment on, though our paths may have diverged greatly, that one moment in time was enough to make us sisters forever.