Why I Think You Should Choose Adoption in Your Unplanned Pregnancy

When faced with an unplanned pregnancy, you do have options. You could parent the child, abort the pregnancy, or place the child for adoption. I want to tell you a story that sums up why I think adoption is such a positive, powerful choice for an unplanned pregnancy.

I am the mother to two seriously beautiful girls who came to me through adoption. My oldest is Carley and one day, when she was about 10-months-old, we went to visit my grandmother. I told my grandma how excited I was that Carley’s birth mother, Natalie, and her parents would be attending Carley’s first birthday party and everyone could meet them. My grandma nodded and I could tell she was not completely sold on this idea; being born in 1923, the concept of open adoption has not been an easy one for her to wrap her head around. Carley was sitting on the carpet playing loudly with her baby doll, making us laugh as she was caught up in her imagination which is clearly just as fierce and bold as she is.

My grandma then said slowly to me, as if she were piecing together a puzzle, “Maura, Carley’s birth mom could have had an abortion.” The thought had clearly never crossed my grandma’s mind before.

“Yes, Grandma, she could have” I responded.

My grandma’s startled expression moved from me to Carley feeding her baby doll. Her eyes welled with tears seeing the immovable force that was, at the time, her only great-granddaughter and her voice cracked as she said, “Well, I don’t know what I am going to say when I meet Natalie but I am going to tell her, ‘thank you.’”

I told her that would be the perfect thing to say. 

At that moment I wondered as I often do if there would ever be a way for me to convey to Natalie how much good she brought into the world by birthing Carley and how much gratitude our families have for her choice. When faced with an unplanned pregnancy Natalie knew that abortion wasn’t an option for her, she knew she needed to give this child life. Parenting also wasn’t a good choice for her because she was young and had goals she wanted to accomplish before she would feel ready to parent a child. She wanted her baby raised in a healthy, happy, two-parent home and at the time of her pregnancy, she could not provide that life. Adoption was the best choice for Natalie and to have an open adoption where she still has a relationship with Carley, is even better than she had imagined. You have choices when faced with an unplanned pregnancy but when you consider the dreams you have for your child and how you can give your child the life filled with opportunity, openness, and love, I think there is no better choice than the option of adoption.