The Bottom Line
The bottom line is, when faced with an unexpected pregnancy, a choice has to be made. No choice is a good one if you are not in a position to parent.
Parenting him would have been difficult and I would have been as bad a mother as mine. Angry, frustrated, oppressed. This is something I have to remind myself now that I am parenting and I have found within me a patience I didn't know I had. While I wonder if I would have been a good parent at 19, I chalk my current parenting ability up to age, financial security, emotional support and 14 years of waiting to parent.
Abortion was out for me.
Adoption became my choice. There are regrets, of course. And I worry about how being an adoptee has affected my son. But it would have been hard explaining to him why I wasn't with his father or why his grandparents won't accept him (they are judgmental people who don't mind if holding a grudge hurts an innocent child). And who knows what other hardships there would have been. I wanted him surrounded by love.
All three options have a lot of emotional hurt for all involved. But the fact remained that I was pregnant. I am not wording this as well as a blog writer I found a few weeks ago. But basically, a choice had to be made and no choice was a bed of roses. A person who I dearly love was created and he deserved the best I could do for him.
I wanted my son to have both parents. That is really my bottom line. There were other important choices that came with getting to choose for him the parents that would raise him, the two people he would call Mom and Dad.
It comforted me to know that I was doing the best I could for him by picking where he would grow up, who would raise him, what those people were about, how financially secure they were, how important family was to them, what religion they were and how serious they took it, how much they had been through and still loved each other, how educated they were, how much extended family he would have. I chose for him the life, the childhood, I wanted for myself.
This is part of the loop that plays in my head, and it sounds about as disjointed. It sounds part justification, part coercion by society. But the bottom line is I take responsibility for my decision. It doesn't mean I don't miss my son, that I don't wish things had been different somehow. But he has a good, stable life, his parents are good people and I love him very much.
Parenting him would have been difficult and I would have been as bad a mother as mine. Angry, frustrated, oppressed. This is something I have to remind myself now that I am parenting and I have found within me a patience I didn't know I had. While I wonder if I would have been a good parent at 19, I chalk my current parenting ability up to age, financial security, emotional support and 14 years of waiting to parent.
Abortion was out for me.
Adoption became my choice. There are regrets, of course. And I worry about how being an adoptee has affected my son. But it would have been hard explaining to him why I wasn't with his father or why his grandparents won't accept him (they are judgmental people who don't mind if holding a grudge hurts an innocent child). And who knows what other hardships there would have been. I wanted him surrounded by love.
All three options have a lot of emotional hurt for all involved. But the fact remained that I was pregnant. I am not wording this as well as a blog writer I found a few weeks ago. But basically, a choice had to be made and no choice was a bed of roses. A person who I dearly love was created and he deserved the best I could do for him.
I wanted my son to have both parents. That is really my bottom line. There were other important choices that came with getting to choose for him the parents that would raise him, the two people he would call Mom and Dad.
It comforted me to know that I was doing the best I could for him by picking where he would grow up, who would raise him, what those people were about, how financially secure they were, how important family was to them, what religion they were and how serious they took it, how much they had been through and still loved each other, how educated they were, how much extended family he would have. I chose for him the life, the childhood, I wanted for myself.
This is part of the loop that plays in my head, and it sounds about as disjointed. It sounds part justification, part coercion by society. But the bottom line is I take responsibility for my decision. It doesn't mean I don't miss my son, that I don't wish things had been different somehow. But he has a good, stable life, his parents are good people and I love him very much.
posted by Jayne at 8:58 AM
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