BACK IN ACTION

Wow, first week of the new job, long weekend at the beach, and house hunting with my best friends...crazy week! I am so glad that my blog is generating so much talk about adoption! The more comments the better. I simply ask that you be respectful. I want to share a story with you that I've only told a few people. About two years ago, I received a message on facebook from a friend I graduated high school with. She and I had a few classes together, but we never really kept in touch after graduation. So she randomly sends me a message and tells me that her mom is a labor and delivery nurse in our hometown. Her mom was assigned to assist a 17-year-old girl from our high school (I'm not sure who this girl was) as she went into labor at the local hospital. The girl started talking to my friend's mom, and she confessed that since she knew she absolutely could not raise a baby on her own, she was planning on having an abortion. However, after witnessing my entire pregnancy through high school and hearing about my experience with adoption, she ultimately decided to place her baby in an adoption. She admitted that the only reason she did not have an abortion was because of me. I can't help but get teary eyed when I think about that. Can you imagine knowing that you saved a life? It's incomprehensible. There is a person alive today because somebody out there was impacted by seeing what I had gone through. When I hear people say that adoption should never be an option because it causes a lifetime of emotional turmoil for the adopted child, I must disagree. Just as not every single adoption works out perfectly, not every adoption ends horribly either. There are plenty of people who have been adopted that speak positively about their experiences. I absolutely agree that parenting is the best option and I would never encourage somebody to place their child in an adoption if they were ready and willing to provide emotional and financial stability to their child...but unfortunately, there are situations that arise when emotion and financial support cannot be provided by the birth parents. So if adoption is not an option, women are left with only left with only one other option--abortion. And that is not acceptable to me. The way I see it, adoption is a way to save lives. Sure, there will always be the risk that the adopted child will have resentment toward the birth parents...but as we see with the example above, adoption has the power to save lives. I cannot speak for those on the other side of adoption who have that resentment, and my heart truly goes out to them...but I will continue to share my open adoption experience because I know that it has saved lives. After serving as president of Real Choices, a pro-life student organization at NC State aimed to assist student moms, I saw firsthand how little support is available to women who have chosen to raise a child while completing their education. We need to provide these resources so that if a woman does want to raise her child and continue her education, she may. What usually happens is that a woman who unexpectedly becomes pregnant feels trapped and finds that she has no way to raise a child. Although she desperately wants to keep her baby, she knows that she cannot raise a child on her own, so she decides to keep the pregnancy a secret and have an abortion. If you truly believe that adoption should not be an option, I encourage you to get involved in helping young moms who do want to keep their babies. If you feel so strongly against adoption because you had a negative experience with it, I certainly hope that you find the strength to move past your experience and help others in the same situation. Because that's certainly what I've decided to do. So, are there days that I wish I was holding Deanna's hand? Absolutely. I wouldn't be human if I didn't miss her. But by helping student moms who struggle to make ends meet and by knowing that I saved lives, I have found closure and I speak from a place of self-acceptance. I don't think I made the right decision...I know that I made the right decision. I consider myself a woman of deep faith, and I have a close and personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The day Deanna was born I made a deal with God. We talked alot about my decision. I prayed, I listened, and I made my decision based on what God told me was right. The only thing I asked of Him was that He would not let me regret my decision. Every faithful, He has not broken His promise. Deanna will ultimately have the final say in whether our open adoption was a success. I won't put words into her mouth or speak for her. She is her own person. We can only put this in God's hands and pray that the love Deanna has been given by so many people in her life will be enough for her to accept the decision I made. God has a plan for each of us, and this is the path that He has chosen. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved" -Ephesians 1:5,6 It might not be the popular thing to do--to defend life or to promote adoption--but I'm okay with that. If I were to die tomorrow, I would die knowing that I have an incredible relationship with Jesus Christ, that I gave my daughter the gift of life and a wonderful family, and most importantly, that I spent the rest of my life defending what I truly believe is right. "Cowardice asks the question, Is it safe? Expedience asks the question, Is it politic? Vanity asks the question, Is it popular? But conscience asks the question Is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must make it because his conscience tells him that it is right..." -Martin Luther King