Given Up: The Ultimate Gift From My Mother

In light of my recent birthday, and a year and a half into motherhood, I am reflecting on the day of my birth. Now that I know what it means to be a mother, I know the excitement of feeling the first pains of contractions, the excitement of knowing that it’s almost time to meet my child whom I carried for the last 9 months, felt every hiccup, kick, punch, growth spurt inside my belly. As a friend and family member to women who have given birth, I know the excitement of waiting anxiously to hear the news that the baby was born and looking forward to seeing pictures of the new family.

I’m thinking of what my mother felt and experienced that day of my birth. How bittersweet it must have been. What could it have been like for my mother, who carried me for 9 months, endured labor and delivery, and that’s it. That’s the end of our relationship. All that she went through to hand me over to a stranger. What was it like for her family to anticipate the news that a bouncing baby girl had been born, only to know she would be raised in another family, never to know her own flesh and blood.

But if my mother anticipated the heartache of giving up her baby and instead chose her own comfort and convenience over my life, how differently things would have turned out. Not just for me. My adopted family would have never gotten the chance to know me as a daughter, sister, cousin, niece. My friends would never have had the chance to create all the memories that we share. My husband never would have gotten to know me and fall in love

and create a life with me. My daughter never would have been born and my parents would never have had the grandchild they live for. The many patients I have worked with would never have experienced the bit of joy and hope that I brought into their lives.

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what my mother sacrificed, not only to carry me for nine months, but to have faith to trust the strangers to whom she gave her daughter. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel grateful for the choice my mother made for me. I will never forget how not just my life, but the lives of all who know me, would be so different, had my mother not been brave, compassionate, and strong enough to choose to give me life.

#motherhood #adoption